Conventional wisdom is not always wise.
This is a simple fact of life. Humans have been improving their understanding of the world since the beginning. Humans learn and we’ve learned some pretty great stuff in recent centuries. So much so that I can't complain about the grueling 36 hours it took to get from my house to my hotel in New Zealand for vacation this summer. Little more than a century ago, I’d be lucky to get out of what is today my county in 36 hours.
One of the habits of excellent financial planners is a devotion to lifelong learning. As the profession becomes more professional, there is a greater emphasis on relying upon science to make decisions rather than anecdotes, assumptions or “best practices”.
My column last month “New Research for Financial Planners” touches on a sampling of the growing body of knowledge fueled by real research by trained researchers. This is a terrific trend for planners and their clients.
Financial planning covers a diverse array of technical and non-technical subjects. It is a rich source of research topics.
If we planners are going to maximize the benefits of this trend, we don’t just need good research from good researchers, we need to be good consumers of research. How does one read research? I recommend taking a good class from a good teacher.
Dave Yeske is well-known in the financial planning community as a planner and a leader of the planning profession. He also earned his Ph.D. from and teaches at Golden Gate University. I took Dr. Yeske’s distance learning class, “Evaluating Research: Understanding and Using Applied Research in Your Practice” and I highly recommend the experience. The course carries 15 hours of CFP continuing education credit.
I anticipated that after taking the course I would be more thorough and able to appreciate good research more. This proved true. However, one unintended outcome of taking the course is that I find myself reading fewer papers in full which is saving me a lot of time.
Over a five-week period, Yeske fed us a digestible diet of lectures, quick assignments and discussions about examples of what to look for when reviewing research-based literature so we could improve our ability to critically evaluate what we were reading. As important, he provided a framework for incorporating research into our policies within our practices. For a brief description of the course, student comments, registration link and to receive updates about the next offering, see this LinkedIn page.
In the meantime, I will share some of the basics with you.