Want to accelerate firm growth? Take some cues from the employees you find hardest to understand, advises David Wolf, chief executive of BSW Wealth Partners.

They’re the ones who likely see ways that the firm can improve, especially with clients and vendors who don’t intuitively get on board with your firm’s culture. Therein lies the key to welcoming a greater range of people to your staff, and that’s where incremental growth occurs.

“When it becomes energizing to be with people who used to be draining, then you’re making progress,” Wolf said. “You make the numbers because of that.”

The firm’s focus on holistic development for all its staff sparks employees’ expectations for custom-designed opportunities. That, in turn, often upends routine career progression, forcing firm leaders to design new paths forward. That’s what it takes to retain employees, so that’s what BSW leaders do.

They crafted a new position — financial planning director — to “rethink the organizational structure of the advisory group and its intersection with the investment group,” Wolf explained. Though the partners could see the benefits for clients, getting there forced them to embrace a new mode of client service. “We’re not going to create a fictitious title. We have to make sure it adds real tangible value,” Wolf said. Now, retooled staff “pods” center around each client’s financial planning needs, served by remote planners — an arrangement that also expanded the firm’s opportunities for far-flung talent.

— Joanne Cleaver