How do you know when it's time to change? How do you start the process? How do you bring others along? How do you optimize your chances for success?
by John Ashenhurst
On a golden October day this fall, we drove up to Durham, NH, to visit our niece, who is finishing her senior year at UNH and majoring in Ancient History. We picked her up and headed for Portsmouth, a nearby classic New England port town, to have lunch and loiter in the autumn sunshine.
After indulging at a Boulder-type eatery and wandering in and out of too-cute shops, we sauntered over to the harbor to see what we could see. And what we saw, leaning on the rail out over the water, took my breath away. We saw three boats, bows to the ocean and under full power, being swept backward by the incoming tide toward a lift bridge low enough that it would easily clip the masts from the two good-sized sailboats.
On and on they powered against the flood tide. And back and back they went toward the bridge and the inner harbor. I didn't like the look of things. What was wrong with these people?
Finally, we saw traffic stop entering the bridge and the center span start to lift. Once it was high enough, the three boats came about and moved quickly into the inner harbor to safe anchorage, postponing their ocean trips for another time.
My 15-year-old sailor son and I dissected the scene. Hadn't these yachtsmen consulted their tide and current tables? Didn't they know they would be running against what looked to me like a five or six knot current? Why didn't they plan ahead? All they needed to do was leave earlier in the day. Then when caught in the tidal flow, why didn't they move out of midstream? Why did they persist in trying to go forward for more than 30 minutes when they were really going backward and in danger of destroying their boats and maybe their lives by colliding with the lift bridge?
Maybe it was hubris. Surely their diesels could overcome the tide. Maybe it was ignorance. They didn't notice they were drifting slowly backwards. Maybe it was forgetfulness. Once the bridge was astern, its presence left their minds. Is there a lesson here? Surely, and it's not just about good seamanship.
So what are we talking about, anyway?
Let's call that tidal current change. Got the picture?
Sometimes you don't notice it. Sometimes you deny it. Sometimes you think that it doesn't apply to you or that you can overcome it. Sometimes you're mistaken about the direction or strength of change. Sometimes you think you've passed a danger that change is returning to you.
It can wreck your boat. It can wreck your agency. And if you're the captain of the agency, all hands depend on you for their safety and success.
Let's get the big, obvious metaphor out of the way and then look at some practical details. The tide is the Internet and in spite of the failure of the foolish dotcoms, it is changing the nature of marketing, sales, and service of insurance. We're seeing just the beginnings of the flood tide, but it's irreversible. Customer self-service, Web-based information, Internet selling, ASPs, remote Web services, wireless computing, and on and on aren't going to go away. They may change and evolve. Some trends may become more important, others less so. The details may shift but the direction of the current is clear. To ignore it, to try to overpower it, to be too busy or too tired to see it is to court disaster.
Do you think your agency is moving forward when it's really moving backward? Think about it. It's your watch, are you watching?
Enough with the metaphors already!
OK, forget about Portsmouth and the curious scene of backward drifting boats. How do you know when change is needed? How do you figure out what to do? How do you find enough energy in yourself and others to make the needed change? How do you optimize the effort?
Change or die? Change and die?
Change for change's sake doesn't make sense. Don't fix what isn't broken. All change has unforeseen and unintended consequences. Stay the course. We better be careful here. Change is more dangerous than just keeping on, keeping on. We need some compelling rationale, some greater purpose to change course and do a one-eighty - like the yachtsmen in Portsmouth and the concrete threat of imminent demise.
Conservatism, wariness of ill-considered change, often makes sense, especially when the supposed reason for change is an unverifiable abstraction, like "The Internet changes everything."
On the other hand, Al Meyers used to say, "Make change your friend." We know that, ultimately, everything changes no matter how secure it looks today. Even mighty and apparently permanent business institutions have a need to evolve in unexpected ways or become footnotes to history. Paradigm shifts (remember them?) do happen and aren't predictable. Emerson tells us "Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Change or die, right?
An openness to change, in these times at least, is a survival instinct. Rigidity can hold change at bay for a while but must ultimately crack and shatter.
When does change make sense?
How do you know when to change? It's more art than science. There's some point at which the scale tips from the risk of change to the risk of stasis. We each have more or less enthusiasm for change or maintaining the status quo. By now you should know whether you tend to be more interested in the new than makes business sense. Or in staying put beyond the bounds of the practical.
If you love change too much, make certain you've got people around you who can act as a sea anchor. If you're the anchor, pepper your staff with a few wild-eyed visionaries. Too much sail and you'll broach. Too much ballast and you're dead in the water - or worse, sunk.
Stay informed or have others be your "telltails" and then check with them regularly. Pay attention to social trends as well as insurance and technical trends - for instance the Age Wave, the values of Generation Y, and the breakdown of the mass market.
Experiment with small steps so you don't end up having to bet the farm on a massive, rapid change in your agency. Think of change as a permanent part of the experience and culture of your agency. Make consideration of it part of every management meeting. Create a process for encouraging the presentation of proposals for change and a platform for vetting them.
Business (and our culture in general) believes in the reality of progress, that is improvement through change. If your competitor has stolen a march, he may be a fool, but you better keep an eye on him.
Everyone is different
Everyone responds to change a bit differently. I may have a high tolerance for changing work roles but not what I eat for breakfast. You may like to experiment with cooking but want to watch Dan Rather every night. Habits, daily rituals, let us run partly on autopilot, while we use our thinking and deciding for what we consider important.
Do you remember Alvin Toffler's The Third Wave? One thing (I think) he said was that change requires the brain to do some reprogramming and that reprogramming has a physical cost. Some brains can do more reprogramming and do it faster than others. So the way each person reacts to change is in part the result of his/her physiology. We can say the slow changer is stubborn but maybe he just can't get it done as fast as someone else.
Have you watched a cinema classic recently, say one made more than 20 years ago? One of the first things you'll notice is how slowly it moves. One shot may last for half a minute or longer. You look at your watch during extended dialog. Why isn't something happening? Now look at a recent film or a TV. drama. The camera changes at least every three seconds or even more often. It's not just film. Every-thing has speeded up. Change is accelerating. For better or worse, it's the background noise of our lives.
Getting your staff to change
Sometimes it's the owner of the agency who is intent on change. Not infrequently staff is resistant or at least skeptical. What do you do?
Change or the threat of change causes stress. People are uncomfortable with stress and try to avoid or minimize it. When people have or feel they have some control over their situation, they experience less stress than when they have no control. So the first thing to pay attention to is to bring the staff into the change planning process. Even small changes can be stressful, for instance changing the orientation of a desk. Making the staff part of the change process doesn't mean having them decide the direction of the agency but it can mean asking for and taking into account their thoughts about how the change should proceed.
Change usually means giving something up. Some-times what's to be given up is painful or tedious. When word processing replaced typing the advantages were so clear one expected everyone to migrate as quickly as possible. But it took years. Better the pain I know and can deal with than the pain I don't know and worry about dealing with. Maybe clinging to what's inferior, but familiar, in the face of what's superior, but strange, is irrational but it's human and it's common. As a manager, ignore it at your peril.
People are motivated by rewards, something to look forward to after a sustained effort - some good, old-fashion delayed gratification. If you want to make a change in your agency, with technology or whatever, what's in it for the staff? If you want them to be able to accomplish all their work without having to leave their desks, how good are the chairs they sit in? Would it be appropriate to let each choose a really high-quality, comfortable, back-saving chair? Absolutely.
Getting the owner to change
If you own the agency, one way or another, people need to do what you ask them to do, or they might have to look elsewhere for employment. But what if you're not the boss and you know the agency needs to change but the owner seems oblivious? What do you do? It isn't so simple. Rubbed the wrong way, the boss could make your life miserable.
Some agency owners are risk averse. If things are working moderately well, it doesn't make sense to upset the applecart. Leave well-enough alone. As I suggested above, it can make sense to be conservative about change. One way to appeal to agency owners who fear that change will ruin the agency is to find ways to change that are non-threatening and incremental. Find something that is useful, inexpensive, and that can be accomplished without much trauma. Write up the suggestion and review it with the owner. If she's a good businessperson, she'll be pleased at your initiative, it's promise, and lack of downside. One successful change can lead to more.
Some agency owners aren't well informed about technology and its possibilities. It's not that they resist all change; they're just not paying attention. They need education. They need to be brought up to date regularly. Put yourself in the place of the agency owner. She's concerned about markets, retention, new sales, efficiency and cost-cutting, E&O exposure, finding and keeping great staff, and on and on. How does the change you have in mind connect to one of these core issues? Will it help producers make more sales? Will it make customers happier? How can the change you have in mind address a problem that keeps the agency owner up at night?
And finally...
What do you think about that?
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