Tamara Morey
Somewhere between onboarding your last hire and rewriting your third process doc, your People Plan lost steam. Or maybe it never really had any.
It’s not that your team isn’t good – they are. It’s just that right now, everything feels a bit too reactive. Advice is still going out the door, but not without a few too many speed bumps.
There’s a sense that your people could be doing more, contributing more, owning more – but no one has the headspace to work out how. So you keep going, holding it all together, but with a quiet frustration and a heavy, invisible lid on any real growth.
Sound familiar? Well, it’s your lucky day: that’s exactly what a 90-day People Plan is built to fix.
In a previous piece, we explored why every advice firm needs a smart, intentional People Plan – not just to hire well, but to build a team that fits your strategy, culture and future growth. This article is about what happens next: turning that plan into momentum, clarity and flow.
Now, a People Plan doesn’t involve a drawn-out restructure or a set-and-forget org chart. It’s just a short, sharp reset that gets everyone refocused on who’s doing what, what’s working (and what’s not) and how you can reclaim capacity without blowing everything up. It’s practical, fast and designed for advice firms with no time to waste.
At Zestt, we’ve been helping advice teams use this 90-day window to get out of overwhelm and into flow – without the stress, inefficiencies or time-sucking meetings.
It reminds me of something I often notice in my downtime.
I’m a bit of a foodie, and there’s something I love about sitting in a well-run café or restaurant and just watching the people work. In the best places, the team moves like dancers: smooth, purposeful, and in sync. Everyone knows where their colleagues are without needing to ask.
It’s graceful, almost hypnotic. In a less-coordinated venue, though, it’s more like a game of bumper cars – noisy, reactive and exhausting for everyone involved. I often find myself quietly watching the “dance” and noticing where and how the choreography could be sharper.
Think of your advice team like a restaurant in the middle of a dinner rush. You’ve got capable people working hard, but they’re working without clear roles, direction or communication; orders get missed, meals go cold and chaos builds. The head chef ends up doing the dishes.
The solution isn’t more chefs , though; it’s simply getting your team to work better – together. That’s what a People Plan is really about: tightening the steps so the whole team moves smoothly. You need better flow. That’s exactly what a 90-day People Plan delivers.
Here’s how it works.
Month 1: get clear
Start by stepping back. What are the top three things slowing down your advice process right now? Where is your team leaning too heavily on advisers? Where is the rework happening? Use this stage to spot your biggest roadblocks.
Then take stock of your current roles and responsibilities. Who owns what? Are they the right person for that task? If too much is sitting with the adviser or the practice manager, that’s your first clue that the team structure is out of balance.
Just have honest conversations with your team about what’s on their plate and what’s getting in their way.
Month 2: make moves
Once you’ve clarified what’s not working, start making small, practical changes. Shift responsibilities. Define roles. Set clearer expectations. Move that task that no one really owns (but everyone touches) onto one person’s plate – and back it with trust and support.
This is also the time to cut down the noise. Streamline approvals. Tighten handovers. Reduce double handling. Make sure the right people are in the right conversations (and, more importantly, not in the wrong ones).
One Zestt client dramatically cut down their pre-SOA prep time by shifting responsibility for strategy creation and working papers from the adviser to their paraplanner. It was a small adjustment, but it gave the adviser back four hours a week – time they now spend building deeper client relationships.
That’s the kind of move we’re talking about.
Month 3: embed and reflect
Change fatigue is real, so don’t go too hard too fast. Use the third month to support the new structure and help the team settle into it. Give them space to test new ways of working. Ask what’s helping and what still feels clunky.
This is also your opportunity to reconnect with your original goals. Have you freed up the advisers? Are documents moving through the workflow faster? Is ownership clearer across the team?
If you said at the start that you wanted to reduce adviser time per plan from six hours to 3.5, check if you’re on track. If not, adjust. The beauty of a 90-day plan is that you can adapt without abandoning the whole thing.
Why it works
Advice practices don’t need more long-range strategic planning that collects digital dust like an old training manual no one reads. They need short, practical sprints that reconnect people to purpose and smooth out the chaos of daily workflow. A 90-day People Plan achieves that.
You’re not trying to overhaul your entire structure; you’re just re-aligning it. Clearing the clutter. Shifting energy back to where it matters. And giving your team the clarity and confidence to do their best work.
Turns out, clarity might be the most underrated “capacity hack” in your practice. When everyone knows their role, the kitchen runs smoothly, the punters are happy, the head chef isn’t drowning – and the service? Smooth as butter.
May 21st, 2025
Published on Advisely