Have you ever looked up from your desk and realized you’ve been left behind? Perhaps other agencies are playing in new coverage sandboxes that you’ve never explored or the latest agency benchmarks reveal the revenue per employee numbers you were celebrating three years ago now rank you at the bottom of the heap. Have you noticed that kids at the mall are coordinating and communicating in a way that makes your office look like a flashback to 1979? I’m a technology zealot who has staked my career on understanding both the internal underpinnings and the practical use of gadgets, gizmos and widgets and even I’m amazed at how many times I’ve found myself in this situation.
I experienced a revelation just a few years back. In the course of 2 years my oldest daughter morphed through several primary forms of communication with her friends. She started out with a Gmail account but within a month was really only using the application for real-time chat. “Why email and wait for a response when you can communicate instantly?” she told me. A couple months later she received her first texting phone and left Gmail by the wayside. “Why sit at home when I can communicate instantly from anywhere?”, she remarked, “Besides now we can coordinate our plans on the go.” “Why don’t you just call your friends?” I quipped. “Because they don’t always answer the phone but they always answer a text message”. Then came Facebook and the concept of passive communication. “Why would I ask my friends how they’re doing when I can see it on their status?”. Facebook was quickly abandoned for Tumblr and Pinterest. “Now I don’t have to post how I’m feeling, my friends know by seeing the imagery I’m pinning.” My teenage daughter is a Master of Change. Without fear she dives headfirst into technologies that change her views and behaviors. She’s efficient, effective and brilliant.
How do we learn from this unintentional Zen practitioner and become Masters of Change? One might read this example and assume that my daughter is a Master of Change because she chases new technologies with nothing to lose; certainly this would be a perilous and expensive path for an insurance agency. This line of thinking misses the key factor to her success. To move this concept into the world of the insurance broker consider the following:
The world of business is constantly changing, especially in available technologies. As insurance brokers we know there’s value to be found in new technologies but only a seemingly fortunate few are really able to capitalize on this value.
Every agency is putting iPads and smartphones into the hands of their key employees (in the agencies that aren’t the employees are bringing them on their own). Some agencies are working to define and execute an enterprise strategy around their use. A few are working to create apps that allow their customers to better utilize their own mobile devices. Most are not seeing a direct benefit from these devices. Why is this?
In my fifteen years working with retail and wholesale agencies 100% of the agencies I’ve visited have initiated a formal paperless initiative. These initiatives include expensive software, hardware, committees and meetings. 100% of these agencies still utilize paper in some fashion in the majority of their workflows. Why is this?
The answer is simple but don’t underestimate it; it’s not easy. Whenever technology drives positive change (growth, efficiency, connection) we tend to think that the change is the technology. But it’s not. The change is the change. Put more simply the technology drives us to change the way we think, interact and interpret the world. This change is what directly drives value. The technology is simply the tool that enables us to create the change.
Organizations who believe that technology is the driver of value consistently find themselves spending money on noble causes like paperless and mobile device initiatives often at great expense but never quite get to the nirvana imagined at the outset. This makes sense given that in this model the technology is at the center. We put the technology in place, we bring the people to it and we ask them to change what they know about servicing their customers in order to create the value we expect from the technology investment.
What would happen if we put the people at the center of the model? Rather than a message of “We are installing new systems that will allow us to work without paper” the message should be “We are going to change the way we work so that paper is no longer required”. Think about these seemingly similar statements. They represent two approaches to the same project that would likely see very different results.
The first step to fully capitalizing on new technologies, emerging coverage lines and other business innovations is to openly embrace the change they will create for your customers, your employees and your company. This embracing of change must represent more than an uptick to the bottom-line. It must be woven into your culture. The most effective organizations are the ones that react fluidly to the changing world.
Sound like a tall order? It is. It takes discipline and practice to let go of what you know about the world in order to become a more effective participant in it. As a leader you’ll have to not only become a Master of Change but also a champion of it, extending this fluidity across your organization.