MANAGE & LEAD
WHEN IT ’ S TIME TO SAY GOOD-BYE
How to create a culture with a perpetuation focus
Being among entreprenuers and innovators from all types and sizes of independent agencies can be a powerful development tool that breaks through some common barriers to skill-building — and it taps into the expertise that already exists in the industry . Yet a common thread of despair runs through almost every agency owner or manager and that despair involves the " DRONE ZONE ."
Agency owners lament their personnel whom they are pulling , pushing , and dragging into the 21st century . They claim that the limitations of their people are the primary reason the agency is not performing to its potential . Still , innovation requires commitment from the top , not the bottom . We have encountered hundreds of innovative agency employees whose ideas are squashed by owners whose egos require that all ideas spring from their own ( primarily male ) minds . Then , when the owners create , adopt , or adapt innovations , they expect the staff to take direction and make the changes succeed without understanding why and without buying into the changes . Innovation does not work that way .
Innovation is much like birthing a baby . I believe that most children have greatness built-in , in one form or another . If their skill and talents are identified and nurtured , they have the opportunity to develop that greatness . On the other hand , if a child is told to do as directed , to conform and not to challenge traditional thinking , the greatness is sublimated – sometimes for decades , sometimes forever — and another drone is developed .
These children develop into adults , and these adults become employees of companies like yours and mine . We can recognize that parenting and education in the
United States are more conducive to creating intelligent drones than innovators . Still , we cannot use our cultural inadequacies as an excuse for not providing the forum and stage to permit our employees ' creative sides to emerge .
HIRE INNOVATORS – GET RID OF THE DRONES
1 . HIRE INNOVATORS Hiring is , by far , the hardest part of the process . Agency owners are notorious for their inability to hire right or fire right . Yet without these skills , the rest of the innovation trail is wasted – do not bother to pursue your great ideas if all of your employees are drones .
Hiring is not dependent on the " informal " interview at which the agency owner gets a " feel " for the applicant . Hiring is a process that includes
a . Testing – ask the testing service to concentrate on the skills necessary for the job – including a strong bent toward innovation ,
b . Insurance Skills Testing – take real-time examples of situations encountered by the applicant and ask them to work through the problem . Judge their insurance skills and their people skills by this method .
c . Culture Testing – have every applicant interviewed by at least one prospective co-worker , the supervisor , and the agency owner with questions designed to judge values and work ethic . EEOC guidelines can still be followed in this format .
Innovators are risk-takers . They can be wooed by rewards tied to successful achievements that are under their
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