First Command CEO Mark Steffe on Connecting the Company Mission to Recruiting

This is great to be here with Mark Steff, the CEO of First Command. Wow, Mark, it's great to meet you.

It's good to be here. Thank you.

One thing that really struck me is the way that your employees describe you being caring, understanding, really connecting with clients and customers, and being from a non-military background and gaining the respect of everybody at First Command. Tell me how you did it.

It's a great question. I think, for me, I went through a leadership development program years back. And like any of these programs people go through, I think there's certain things that stick with you. And something that has stuck with me ever since I went through this program, which was probably more than 15 years ago, is this concept of if you want to lead change or you want to ingrain yourself into a culture, you've got to be respectful of the past, realistic about the present, and optimistic about the future. And I think when you come into a new environment like I did, coming from the wealth management world and coming to First Command that isn't dealing with ultra-high net worth clients and has more of an insurance focus than maybe I'd had in my past, to, to take the time to really, um, understand and, and be respectful of that past. And what is this company all about? And what is it they're trying to achieve? And, and what's led us from where we started back in, in 1958 to, to where we are today? And I think too often when people come into a new environment, there's this tendency to just come in with great new ideas or to, to not spend that time really ingraining yourself in the culture that exists and realizing that, that you're the new person there, right? And it's your job to, to learn about the company you've gotten or you've arrived at, not try to change the company you just got to, to some, something like where you came from. And so I like to think, and I see this with a lot of people that come into First Command from other organizations, Anyone that has taken the time to truly understand, respect, appreciate what this company is all about has been really successful. And those that have tried to morph it into something that looks like something else, maybe from where they, you know, a company where they came from, I think those folks have struggled more.

First Command obviously is a Most Loved Workplace, one of America's top Most Loved Workplaces in Newsweek now. Congratulations on that. What you had mentioned about respect and how important that is to your culture, and connecting into that, respect is a big part of the Most Loved Workplace, Love of Workplace Index. So tell me more about, you know, the role of respect inside of your culture, both for employees and for customers.

Yeah, I think there's, Two words I'd almost use interchangeably, and it fits right in here, obviously, is respect and love are almost synonymous at First Command. And we define love as putting others' good ahead of your own. And so I think you can see that connection between those two words. And there's this love for the work we do. There's a love for who we do the work for. And there's a love for who we work with. And I think if you want to understand that at a deeper level, you really have to go back to the founding of First Command. We were founded back in 1958 by retired Lieutenant Colonel from the Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel Carroll Payne. And there were two major life experiences that drove him to founding First Command. The first one is he saw too many airmen killed in combat. And when he had to communicate back with the families stateside, he quickly realized that too many of those families, almost all those families, didn't have enough insurance, investments, or savings to live off of once the service member died. And so that changed the entire family dynamic. And then the other thing he saw after he came home and, and got back stateside, he saw too many service members who hadn't adequately planned or prepared for their retirement. So if they'd survived through the war, they hadn't put enough aside to kind of carry their family forward and, and have a comfortable retirement, uh, the type of retirement that he felt they, uh, definitely deserved after all the sacrifices they had made for the country. So his vow was to, to change that, is, is to create a company that could, would better prepare service members either in the event of a tragedy or in the event of, of a long successful retirement. So So he vowed, he vowed to change all that. He wanted to make sure that the service members and their families, in the event of a tragedy, had the insurance and the investments aside so that the family could continue to live in a way that they were accustomed to. And in the event of the retirement, he wanted those military families to have a long, successful retirement. As I said, because of all the sacrifices they'd made to our country, he wanted to ensure that they had that. So, we're a company that's founded by a service member for the benefit of service members and their families. And then, what that creates is when you bring that mentality or that idea, that concept forward, that commitment that he had then creates this huge commitment to our current mission. And the mission statement of First Command is coaching those who serve in their pursuit of financial security. And in, in that mission statement, those who serve specifically refers to the military families. And I think the employees and, and the advisors and the, and the teams that work at First Command find that mission— they, they find it compelling, they find it inspiring, they find it unifying. And then what that does, that creates the culture of First Command, and that culture is very much one of selfless service. It very much pulls from the military culture of selfless service, and then that permeates the organization, and that's perpetuated by the people that come to First Command, either as our advisors out in the field or our home office employees. Many of our— of the people at First Command come from military families, and/or they've served themselves, and/or they're spouses of military family, or they're a spouse of a military service member. So we have this kind of ingrained belief throughout the organization that military service members— no one gets into the military to be rich, but we have this belief that they shouldn't have to be poor either. And it's our job to help get military families on a path of financial security and to continue to coach and guide and counsel them to stay on a path of financial security. And really, that's, that's what the company is all about.

And when, when you were mentioning that about who is a big part of your culture, the people who are a big part of your culture, I thought, well, that is probably a big part of your talent acquisition process is knowing that the people who apply, the people who will become part of your company truly have that love and respect for those who, who have served, number one, and number two, knowing that they want to support their financial freedom and their financial independence.

Very much so. We're big recruiters of military spouses. We're big recruiters of veterans. We've been recognized year in and year out for those exact things. And so not only do you attract these incredibly hardworking, educated, committed people that are coming from the military or a military spouse, but if you look at someone like me, for instance, that didn't serve, once you understand what that, that mission is all about and who you're serving, that kind of impact, the positive financial impact you can have on a military family. I think as I look at my own experience, it brings people to First Command, even if you didn't serve. It's very easy to get aligned with and behind that mission. And as long as you're willing to, to learn about and understand and respect the military, it actually becomes pretty easy to fit right in, even if you haven't served, because the underlying sort of common denominator is this willingness and drive and commitment to take great care of military families.

Now, I have a good feeling that Marc is about that too. And I like to learn about the leader behind the man, the man here, leader behind the person, man, Marc. Tell me more about Marc, who you are and what brought you to where you are today, the success that you've achieved and worked so hard to get to.

Yeah, thanks. I grew up in the Midwest on the western side of Illinois in a very, very middle-class blue-collar family. My father was a mechanic, still is. He's 79 years old. I think he's retired 2 or 3 different times and keeps finding his way back to work because that's what he likes to do. My mom was a secretary for John Deere. Where I grew up was the world headquarters of John Deere was right there in our hometown. And that's the experience. And I think what I've carried forward from that experience, there was a very, this sort of blue-collar, very ingrained work ethic. Honesty was a big part of growing up. Humbleness, humility, those sorts of things. So, okay to celebrate your successes, but keep it short, keep it a little bit quiet. And then move on to the next thing. And I think I've carried that forward through my entire career. And you realize early on that you're never going to be able to accomplish as much on your own as you are going to be able to accomplish with a team. And I've always tried to carry that sort of team mentality wherever we went, whether that was simply playing sports, you know, as I was growing up or through high school, or as I got into the workforce, kind of continuing with that team mentality and really trying to to understand what the mission was and what the best approach to solving those issues were or was and to bring in the right people to partner with you to kind of attack those issues and solve those problems and then move on to the next one.

I can really sense the humility and how down to earth you are and how important that is to relate to people in that way. And how what you describe in the teamwork itself, people need to feel comfortable, right? Making mistakes, getting to the right solutions. And it sounds like that's a big part of how you've become successful is enabling not just the right people on the team and bringing them on the team, also giving them an atmosphere where they can thrive.

We really try. So to me, two big things come to mind as we get into this topic. One is communication, and the other one, again, is this teamwork. And communication is, as strange as this might sound, I always try to think back to when I first got in the business and, and, and try when I'm communicating as a CEO to talk to that person, someone that's maybe several steps away from, from a C-suite role. And, you know, maybe several steps down the corporate ladder, but, but someone who isn't involved in all the decision-making, doesn't have all the information and, and doesn't necessarily have an opportunity to get the full perspective. And if we can talk to those people that might be the furthest away, so even the person that feels the furthest away from the CEO office understands what our decisions are and why we're making those decisions. And as we're making those decisions, what I always try to communicate is, look, I know with 600 home office employees, people aren't going to love every decision we make. Right? You're just not going to make everyone happy with every decision you make. And so what we try to communicate as a leadership team when we're making these decisions is, you may or may not love or even like the decision. But hopefully, when you sit back and look at the decision, you can say, "Hey, I wish it would have come out differently. I wish it would have been a, you know, different outcome for myself. But I understand the decision." The decision makes sense. I understand why they went that direction. And I can respect that decision. And if we can have everybody respect the decisions we're making, then I think we go a long way. And that, that creates this sense of consistency and logic. And I think consistency and logic turn into predictability. And if you're predictable as a leader, I think the trust goes way up. If you're swinging kind of from one end of the spectrum, from one end to the other and sort of whipsawing your employees or your teams, and they can't track with you and they can't, they can never really align and they don't know if they can fully trust the decisions or the outcome. And I think when I look at our leadership team and what we've done, especially over these last couple years with COVID I think that's gone a long way. And then in terms of the team itself and this teamwork, I learned a long time ago, and with some painful leadership lessons along the way, that you really got to trust and empower your employees. If you're going to micromanage someone, if you're going to try to do their job for them, if you're not going to trust them, you're not going to get the team you want. You're not going to get the success that you want. And, you know, most of us don't want to be micromanaged. I know I don't want to be micromanaged. So I just try to lead in a way that, you know, not only do I think the people want to be led, but lead in a way that I would also want to be led. And that leads to a lot of attracting the right people, really talented people. And for a small firm, you know, 600 home office employees in Fort Worth, the talent we have at First Command is incredible. And I think it has a lot to do with that culture, with that empowerment, with the teamwork that we try to foster throughout the company.

That's awesome. The predictability component is essential. When following and how you lay things out in a logical fashion and people know what to expect. That's where true followership comes in and great leadership begins. And that's exactly what, what you've done, Mark. I can tell already that kind of measured approach and the kind of emotional regulation that you've developed is essential for leading First Command.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

This is, this has been terrific, Marc. And, you know, any, any other things that you would like to kind of share with employees about, you know, I know there, you've made some hard decisions. And you've also, you've also, you've had transformation as a leader. I could tell just in what you said, in terms of, from your learnings, right, and where you've come to today. That, that was a Huge share. I appreciate that. What else would you like to say to your employees or anyone out there about, you know, being a Most Loved Workplace and that which, where you're going right now? What do you want them all to know?

You know, I think the thing we tell them all the time is that we just couldn't do it without them. We've got— I look back at the evolution of First Command. So I got here in March of 2010. So it's been almost 12 years I've been First Command. At First Command, I had the benefit of following a really successful CEO. Scott Spiker was our prior CEO and our current chairman, and he was our CEO for about 13 years. And through his own leadership, he built the succession plan to move from the CEO and transfer that role over to me. And it was about a 4-year development plan. So completely, uh, Scott went out on his own terms and his own decision and had the full support of the board, and it gave me an opportunity to slide right in. And we We spent 4 years working side by side so that I was as prepared as I could possibly be rolling into the CEO role in January of 2020. Unfortunately, in January of 2020, about 70 days later, you know, the COVID outbreak hit. And we already knew that in Scott's 13 years, he had kind of built and rebuilt this incredibly solid foundation for the rest of us to build upon for the next 5, 10, 15 years. And so, we already had these. Aspirations of, in a sense, moving from linear growth to exponential growth. We really felt that we were in a position to sort of catapult our growth as we move forward and put ourselves in a position to serve even more military families year in and year out. So we had these growth aspirations and then, and kind of this 5-year vision. And then we had to manage that against the backdrop of all this stuff that was happening because of COVID And what we've done for the last 2 years collectively, home office, field, you know, leadership, employees, we've really worked hard to balance both of those things, is to not take our eye off of the ball on these growth aspirations and the 5-year strategy that we have, but to also effectively lead and manage through this COVID environment. So you have to deal with the here and now, but you don't want to do it so much that you lose sight of where you're trying to get 3, 5, 10 years from now. And I couldn't be prouder of the team that we have. Our field force who normally works face-to-face, knee-to-knee with our clients, when COVID hit, that business model kind of went out the window, right? We had to find a way of interacting and serving, not only serving our existing clients, but getting more military families in the fold. And doing that in an electronic and virtual environment. Our home office employees overnight went to work from home, right? And we had to figure out how to operate in that environment. And these last 2 years under COVID, just as an example, last year, our fiscal year ended at the end of September of 2021. We had a record year in terms of revenue growth and profitability growth. I like to think that leadership had a part of that, but I know for sure that the hard work, dedication, and commitment of our employees and this field force full of advisors and support staff that just never let COVID get in their way or become an excuse for us to not be able to continue to do this great work, it's just phenomenal. And our, we cannot thank our employees and our field force enough for their attitude and their approach in never allowing COVID to get in the way, but to stay focused on, you know, working our way through COVID, but continuing to, you know, progress on this 5-year plan that we had.

Thanks, Mark. I mean, all this has been great. And it's clear now why you're a most loved leader and leading a most loved workplace. You embody all of the values and competencies and behaviors that it takes to create this kind of environment. Thanks for joining us today, Mark.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.