Another View of Micro Management
For as long as I can remember, insurance agents have been given advice from other agents, so-called experts who have been agents, and other experts, who are just self proclaimed experts. Most of them deal with aspects of management.
How many Seminars have you seen advertised about time management? 100 200.? it is the same as the trend during the 70s and 80s of presenting seminars for women on how to “dress for success”.
How many of those did you see?
In fact, there is an entire class of professionals who teach and coach agency management. There are vulnerable insurance vehicles, and companies that have done well in finding ways to consolidate agencies so that they are manage better, go on the premises of agencies to review their systems and offer personal counselto leaders to improve their sales time by cutting back on day-to-day office chores.
Most agencies start small, with an owner or two who managed to do everything: sales, service, marketing, company, interface, accounting, and bookkeeping, community, promotion, legal relations, and on and on down the list of administrative and management tasks. History has shown that agents are reluctant to give up the reins since it is their money that is directly at stake and since the customers whom they fought hard to get in the first place are the subject matter of good service and meticulous care. Every time I’ve heard an expert critique an agent or an agency leader for micromanagement I have always felt that they were wrong. The instinct to micromanage is tied to the origin of the business itself in the person of the founder.
The real lift off comes as an agency grows, and the handoff begins to happen to whomever an agent can find to do one job or another faithfully. Usually agents find partners with an equal, vested, interest, and comparable skills. The matter of pride glues together what looks like micromanagement, but is also a kind of image management, whose excellence lies in details and in careful communication.
Our feature article on micromanagement is really designed I think for agents and agencies that are large enough to have work competently delegated. We note here that the agency force is served by individuals who are rarely ever trained specifically to work in agencies. We have found that many agencies are staffed by individuals who start at one job and wind up at something more important and then another job that’s more important, gradually becoming true professionals in the business. It is a problem faced by recruiters, as well as agency managers – finding the right hires, keeping them while training them and motivating them when they are ready to ascend the earnings letter and earn the prestige of a titled role.
The level of personal engagement, parallel to the level of community, involvement and personal presence in the lives of the businesses served by agents calls upon you owners to be many things to many people on many occasions.
So we have a sympathetic ear, ourselves, small business owners for many years, to both the instinct, and in many cases, the absolute need for micromanagement.
While it is not a commendable practice, it may be a necessary one at certain junctures.
After all, who’s future and who’s livelihood are at stake? No set of rules or arbitrary corporate dictates should stand in the way of a conscientious, dedicated entrepreneur.
The hope is that the business will succeed so handsomely that a capable staff two or three levels deep will enable the owners to enjoy their good fortune and spur It’s gross with enough time during the week to visit clients, learn more and more about their businesses, lunch with them, and even lose gracefully on the links.
SA
