A leader joined AIG when the government owned 92% of it after the financial crisis. They discovered the real problem wasn't that people didn't understand what needed fixing, but that the business needs and operational reality were completely misaligned. This taught them to seek out messy situations where actual change is possible, not just maintenance work.
to join AIG when it was 92% owned by the US government. In the public conversation at the time, it was widely seen as a symbol of everything that had gone wrong during the crisis. I think I said to someone, I'm going to have an opportunity to make an impact in an organization. And when the stories are told at the end of the day about the success— and I believed it would be successful— I can say I was part of that. And sort of despite all the noise around the company, there were truly incredibly talented people there. When I got there, one of the first things I tried to focus on besides getting to know people and whatnot was really trying to understand what were the disconnects between what the business needed and how the company was operating. Because we all know that in situations like this, the issue isn't usually that people don't know there's a problem. It's that the organization isn't necessarily aligned around how to solve it. And that experience really shaped how I think about leadership and organizational work today. I'm usually drawn to situations that are a little messy— some would say a lot messy— or unclear. I always say I'm not a maintenance HR guy. If that's what you need, don't call me. Because I— I believe in the messy and in the unclear. That's where the opportunity for real impact exists.
