Should paraplanners be pragmatists or perfectionists? Or both? Dan Atkinson, head of Technical, Paradigm Norton Financial Planning, considers the ‘painful pursuit of pragmatic perfectionism’
Can you be both a perfectionist and pragmatic or are these polar opposites? If you take a pragmatic approach does this mean that you throw out accuracy? I’d argue that to best serve our clients and the businesses we work in we should pursue a pragmatic perfectionism – even if it is a painful journey.
Paraplanners = perfectionists?
If I had to give two characteristics of a typical paraplanner it would be (1) an inquisitive mind, and (2) attention to detail. I suspect that’s why you are reading Professional Paraplanner. You want to understand the detail and learn more. This is a great thing to pursue.
When we prepare reports and work on recommendations, we want them to be our best work. We want to make sure that everything is explained and all planning opportunities are explored. A proper, thorough job. We want it to be perfect and will often keep iterating to get closer and closer.
Many paraplanners are indeed perfectionists, but does that make us right?
Perfectionism = being right?
You might be involved in the preparation (and often presentation) of cash flow models. The principle of Garbage In Garbage Out applies strongly here. If the inputs are wrong the output will be wrong. If the assumptions and handling of taxes are wrong the output will be wrong. It is vital that you have assumptions which are reasoned, reasonable and realistic. Researching them and documenting is an important part of that process. The tool could then calculate an expected net worth 20+ years into the future.
We can drill down to the nth degree to come out with a precise answer, but we must recognise that it is not necessarily going to be the right answer. Your assumptions about investment growth (and pretty much everything else) will almost certainly be wrong in practice.
Your precisely perfect answer is not incorrect, but it is not necessarily the ‘right’ answer.
Pragmatism = lazy guesswork?
So, if precise isn’t necessarily ‘right’ (and we might well have taken a while to get to that answer) what should we do? Do we just put a finger in the air and guess? Absolutely not!
Our examination of perfectionism in practice shows that even our carefully modelled systems are just an approximation of reality. The world we inhabit and engage with includes the unexpected, changes, and humanity. This tells me that in our pursuit of the ‘right’ answer we need to combine our hunger for accuracy with a recognition that it is an approximation. We need to recognise the value in quickly coming to a practical workable answer rather than an elongated process of iteration leading to false precision.
This is being pragmatic in the current sense of the word. The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary describes it as “solving problems in a practical and sensible way rather than by having fixed ideas or theories”. The word origins include the Greek word pragmatikos ‘relating to fact’, pragma ‘deed’, and prattein ‘do’. Being pragmatic as a paraplanner means knowing the facts and relating them to action.
In the case of our cashflow example, this means knowing that a figure 20 years out is at best a guide to the direction of travel. So rather than fine tuning a retirement income strategy down to the pound that far out, we use broader (but still technically correct) brush strokes.
We need to recognise that there will be a range of outcomes and so come to a ‘right’ answer which best helps clients. This requires work and is far from lazy.
A painful pursuit
In the late 16th century the word pragmatic had a very different meaning and I think we sometimes jump to it when we are told to be pragmatic. That meaning was “busy, interfering, conceited”. Our desire for detail interprets it as a suggestion to be lazy and rallies against it. Perhaps we feel that the person suggesting we take a more pragmatic approach is interfering with our process.
As we’ve seen above, we need to pursue pragmatic perfectionism. A desire for being right means that our pragmatism is rooted in correct facts. The tension between them means the pursuit of pragmatic perfectionism is painful but it is also worthwhile.
Serving the client
Financial planning is not just about solving a client’s pension problem, or saving tax, or arranging protection. These are all elements of the financial planning process, but they are not the goal. Financial planning is about identifying what clients want to get out of life and finding solutions for that rather than any of those separate elements.
Life is messy. Circumstances change. Goals change. We experience both pain and pleasure. The unexpected happens.
With this clear in my mind the pain of pursuing pragmatic perfectionism is absolutely worth it. With this lens it becomes the only sensible way to work and the only way we can truly serve our clients. Paraplanners need to become pragmatic perfectionists.
[Main image: milad-fakurian-0ODr49sXVkA-unsplash]
