DIALOGUE DISTILLED

Judging by the number of adverts for dinners with groups of strangers that have started appearing in middle-aged people’s Facebook feeds, well, on one middle-aged person’s Facebook feed, there seems to be a thirst for the quaint idea of sitting around a table and having a conversation you wouldn’t normally have over some nice grub.

This has certainly proved to be the case with our Dialogue Circle gatherings. We are extremely grateful for our guests’ enthusiasm and openness in discussing challenging ideas over an early supper, although the amazing restaurants, great service and free-flowing grape juice have definitely helped.

After previous discussions about the implications of AI for family offices and the challenges of advising “Fast Wealth”, in September we turned our attention to a more abstract question, in appropriately artistic surroundings, fuelled by beef Wellington and lobster pie.

At our latest Dialogue Circle, we brought together a group of professionals to discuss a simple question: how do we advise clients when we don’t know what happens next?

The period before a Budget invariably brings speculation about what might change and increasingly confident predictions about what clients should do about it. But we wanted to look beyond the Budget to a more fundamental question about the nature of professional advice.

The conversation began in an unexpected place, with hyperscalers grappling with uncertainty over potential regulation of AI, alongside recent pronouncements by AI entrepreneurs about the potential dangers of their own industry. What is their motivation, and do they mean what they are saying?

It was pointed out that when faced with uncertainty, professionals often feel they need to know the answer. Clients, for their part, may expect certainty where there is none. Sometimes they actively want someone to tell them what to do. These are two sides of the same coin: a demand for certainty and a professional incentive to provide it.

An observation that resonated was that we like to be told stories. Narrative is reassuring. Stories make sense of complexity and give us something to hang on to.

A coherent story is enormously persuasive. The media, governments, advisers and clients tell stories. Increasingly, machines tell stories too. Together, those stories influence our worldview and our perception of our place within it.

One role of an adviser is to bring a critical perspective to the stories being told. To interrogate them. What do we actually know? What is interpretation? What is prediction? And what happens if the story is wrong?

Our information environment gives us a peculiar view of the world. News, by definition, tells us about things that depart from normality. All the things that continue to work broadly as expected are unremarkable.

The stories that attract our attention are often those involving disruption, danger and dramatic change. It is possible to consume an enormous amount of entirely accurate information and nevertheless form a distorted impression of how unstable the world around us really is.

Perhaps there is also a danger that, collectively, we turn the possibility of change into a permanent atmosphere of uncertainty. The result can be oppressive. Every possible future becomes something to anticipate, model and prepare for, but paradoxically this can lead either to paralysis or to rash and unnecessary decisions.

Part of the adviser’s role is to help clients judge what deserves a response and what does not. We can prepare sensibly for adverse outcomes without allowing them to dominate our decisions. We can avoid arrangements that depend too heavily upon a single prediction being right. We can preserve enough flexibility to change direction when circumstances change.

Professional advice places enormous emphasis on plans. But some of the most valuable advice we provide comes not from making a plan, but when circumstances change. We place a great deal of emphasis on helping clients plan for the future, but we may provide greatest value when helping them respond to it.

The purpose of good advice cannot be to eliminate uncertainty. It is to help clients remain resilient, flexible and engaged with what is actually happening, so they can respond intelligently as the story unfolds.