Defining Greatness

The salesman held out his business card to Bob Davies and flashed him a winning smile. “I really don’t have to sell this car, sir,” he said smoothly, waving his other arm at the sleek silver car behind him. “It sells itself.”

My boss, Fred Wilson, who ran my insurance company’s downtown branch office, stood on one side of me in the brightly-lit showroom. On the other side of me was the stocky figure of Al, who ran a very efficient mid-size brokerage in a small town 160 kilometres outside the city. As my company’s senior marketing representative, I regularly called on Bob Davies, who was co-partner in a prosperous mid-town brokerage that insured this large automobile dealership. Bob had invited us to come down to the unveiling of the latest model in the dealership’s top luxury line.

We helped ourselves to coffee and snacks and sat down at one of the tables set up around the showroom. “You know,” Bob Davies said, jerking his thumb at the gleaming new car at which we had just looked. “He has a point. That car has a great reputation before you even put it to the test on a highway.”

Bob looked over his glasses and grinned at us. “The same as some insurance companies are better than others.”

Fred Wilson dropped a hand over his chest. “I can’t believe this,” he laughed. “Are you tossing Dave and me a compliment?”

Bob nodded. “I guess I am, because we’ve had our differences from time to time but we always managed to work them out.” He paused and scratched his chin. “I guess I wouldn’t have represented your company all these years unless it was pretty damn good — maybe even great at times. All of which begs the question: What do you think separates the great companies from the not-so-good and the downright godawful?”

My boss made a little tent of his fingers in front of his face. He took a second before he answered. “I really think you have to break this question into two parts,” Fred said. “First part is, what makes a company great to the people who work in it? The second part is, what makes an insurance company great to brokers? Two different perspectives wouldn’t you say?”

“You’re right!” Al cut in quickly. “What makes a company great for an underwriter might not make it great for the broker who has to live with his or her decisions. The underwriter turns down a piece of business and feels he’s just saved his company from an ugly loss down the line. The broker is steamed because he feels the underwriter is splitting hairs on a pretty good chunk of business. Different perspectives all right. So why don’t you start with the first part?”

Fred nodded and began to talk. “All right, first off: customer satisfaction. Everyone has to be aware that this goal is uppermost. Next is picking good people, matching their talents to the right position and then creating the right environment for them. That involves a lot of things, but includes giving them the best possible training, offering a competitive salary and benefits, good supervision and…” — here Bob held up a cautionary finger up in the air — “…backing them up when they need support.” He looked over at me. “Add to this list, Dave?”

I pushed aside my coffee mug. “I know it may be corny nowadays to suggest that staff need to feel a common sense of purpose, but I believe it’s what turns ordinary companies into great ones. They need to feel that their efforts are valued; that they and the company are partners in a common purpose. And if they do think that, and perform well, then good things happen for the company.”

I could see Fred Wilson’s head nodding gently as I finished speaking. “Nicely said, Dave. Strong morale breeds confidence. Great or even just good companies don’t want robots sitting at their desks, people who just get their heads down and follow steps that will see jobs completed. They want people co-operating and using their own initiative. I think that’s the difference between a corporate assembly line and a creative workplace.”

Al spoke next. “You guys are lucky in that you have a great CEO,” he said. “That’s a huge advantage your competitors don’t have.”

“Of course it is, Al,” I replied. “But remember, our CEO moved up through the ranks in our company. He worked under a hands-on president, the sort of president who would show up to play for the management team in the annual staff baseball game. So when Victor rose to the presidency, he took that involvement a step farther.

“Every Friday, Victor leaves his corner office and goes walking through head office. He picks a different department every Friday. He just strolls in, walks up to a desk and says: ‘Hello, I’m Victor, your president. How are you?’

“He spends an hour chatting to staff, asking them for their views and opinions, and then off he goes. It may not sound like much, but believe me, it’s pure dynamite to the people in the ranks. ‘The president spoke to me! The president came by my desk and asked me what I thought about the new Performance Reports–‘”

“And every other month, he’ll drop in unannounced at one of our regional offices to do the same thing,” I added. “It makes a huge impression. This sort of personal, one-on-one contact is priceless. People feel he has a genuine interest in what they do and what they think. Staff feel connected.”

Beside me, Fred Wilson leaned forward and raised one finger to make a point. “Our president has avoided the trap a lot of CEOs fall into nowadays. I call it ‘Bunker Mentality Management.’ When they take over the company’s reins, freshly-minted presidents tend to be a bit overwhelmed by the enormity of the challenges they face. The tendency is to retreat to the corner office, surround themselves with a ring of senior vice presidents and vice presidents and handle the corporate war from this bunker. Result? They completely disappear from the company staffers’ radar. Their president becomes a distant figure that staff members see only during industry conferences or smiling grimly from the company’s annual report.”

Bob Davies took a mouthful of coffee and then turned to Fred and I.

“You know, that flashy new car reminds me of a couple of the newer companies in our business,” Bob said. “They look terrific: spanking new offices, all the electronic bells and whistles, a big advertizing campaign…

“But underneath all that, I hear nothing but bad stuff: shouting matches, managers being suddenly fired, new people parachuted in from outside, no team spirit and zero morale.”

Bob pointed to the luxury car on the showroom floor. “It’s as if that great-looking new car had a lousy engine under all that shiny metal. No pep. A lousy ride. Bits falling off. Unreliable.”

Fred Wilson shrugged his shoulders. “Two companies can offer identical salary levels and benefits,” he said. “One is a great spot to earn a living. The other one is a hateful place to work. Employee retention tells you a lot about the atmosphere a company creates.”

I pointed at the two brokers. “Okay you two, I’m going to put you on the spot,” I said. “Tell me what makes an insurance company great in a broker’s eyes.”

Bob Davies chuckled. “Thought you’d never ask, Dave.” He leaned forward, flipping up fingers one by one as he spoke. “Financially sound. Profitable. Modern. Well-financed and stable. Forward looking. One with a strong and capable CEO who’s pro-active and involved in our business–“

“Fair and reasonable commission levels,” Al interjected. “Flexible underwriting. Good systems with fast turnaround. A company with a conscience. And one that’s committed to high standards of training.”

Al paused for a second, thinking, then tapped his finger on the table as he made his point. “You know, we hear a lot about the need to be price-competitive. But in my experience, most of my customers don’t want the cheapest product — be it insurance, carpeting or a holiday in the sun. What they really want is the best value.”

Bob Davies jumped in again. “I think we can all agree our business has moved away from being a sales-and-product driven one to a service-a
nd-knowledge driven industry,” he said. “That’s a big reason why I feel the great companies communicate well to their brokers, to the industry, to all levels of government, to consumers who pay for all of this and — of course, the most important of all — to their own staffs.”

We all chuckled. Then Al spoke: “I think what sets some companies apart is how they empower their key staff — those senior underwriters and department heads who make decisions that affect brokers’ daily business,” he said. “With some companies, I just know the man or woman I’m speaking to can’t make the final decision. ‘I’ll have to get back to you on that’ they will say. Good companies and great companies don’t toss people in at the deep end and let them sink or swim. They empower their front-line staff to make those decisions because they’ve given them the proper training and they’ve supervised their progress along the way.”

Bob Davies nodded, once again taking up the theme. “The great companies have good two-way communication with brokers,” he said. “In other words, they not only listen to us, but they ask us how we feel about company programs and policies — especially those new ventures the company is so keen about. A new commercial package for example. The idea may be great, the concept may be sound, there may indeed be a good niche market there, but please don’t launch the whole program without ever consulting the people who’re going to have to sell it to hard-headed and demanding clients. It’s just begging for big trouble!” Bob drew a picture in the air with his hands. “The great companies have an effective medium for broker feedback: broker liaison meetings and continuous broker link groups. They stage regular broker training sessions. They initiate company-broker staff exchanges so that the staff on both sides get a good idea of what the other faces on a daily basis.”

At this point, Fred Wilson rose to his feet. “We could probably carry on this conversation for a full day and still have things to tell each other,” he said with a quick smile. “But if we’re ever going to afford one of those fancy cars over there, we’d better get rolling ourselves.”