Stop Complaining About What You Allow: Raising Standards in Your Agency

Foreign. Welcome to the Agent Leader podcast. This is the podcast for independent insurance agency leaders to think bigger, to challenge the status quo, and to ultimately become the best leader possible. In fact, to become a best version possible leader and run a best version possible agency. Hi, my name is Brent Kelly. I'm your host, and I'm super excited to be with you on this episode. And today. Today we're going to be talking about what you tolerate as a leader. One of the things as a leader that you allow to happen in your agency, that you don't really want to happen in your agency. So what you tolerate, in fact, we did an agency leadership program this week, and a phrase that I often share that gets people's attention, so I'll share it here on the podcast, is this phrase, do not complain about that which you tolerate. Do not complain about that which you tolerate. And oftentimes, and I get it, I'm raising my hand here, everybody, if you can watch me on video, is that we tolerate things and then we complain about them. Why does he still do that? Why is she doing this? Why is this thing still happening? And we go on a month and then two months and then half a year and then a year and two years later, and at some point, as a coach, you go, I feel like we've talked about this person or this situation before. Maybe we should do something different. So once you get your thinking caps on today, and again, this is you and I having a conversation. But I want you to think as an agency leader, what are areas that you are tolerating or have been tolerating based on standards, which I talked about in a previous podcast, and what impact is that potentially having on your agency? So a few things that I want to dive into here. The core idea is this culture, ultimately, which we define at Sitkins as the language and behaviors that are normal. That is culture. Culture is not simply what you say. That's why we say culture is the language that is part of what you say and what your people say and the behaviors, what people do, what's normal. So culture is not just about what you say. It's how you live, how you act, what you do. And culture is also what you allow, right? Here's the things that we do, here's the things that we don't do. And so if we don't get clear on those kind of things, culture is also what we allow. And here's the thing about toleration, or we tolerate things. Toleration always teaches. I want to write that down somewhere. Toleration always teaches. Let me give you an example, a couple examples here. To think about what happens in your agency when you tolerate or allow a poor performer. And I don't mean one mistake, one situation. I'm talking over a period of time that you continue to tolerate an underachieving or a poor performer. What does that do? Well, it does a number of things, but here's just a couple things that jump out to me. You probably already know these answers. Number one, it set a standard of average is okay. It sets a standard that, hey, you know what? Like, well, you know, not everybody can achieve what they're doing. And so for them, people can't. That's okay too, right? So it sets a standard of average. Now, I don't think this is done maliciously or intentionally, and I certainly don't think agencies want that. But that's what it's really saying and we have to be honest with that. And here's another big one I mentioned what the better people are doing. Your best people, I guarantee your best people are frustrated that that's going on. Your best people are frustrated that they hold themselves to a higher standard than that. You probably hold other people in the agency. By the way, it's really easy to hold people accountable that are already very accountable. Like it's easier because they're, they seek and they desire that. But what about those that run from accountability or structure and then you tolerate it right now you just kind of get what you get. Now let me say this. I know that finding good people is not easy. I realize that leadership would be easy if it weren't for the people. I get all that. But I want you to think about the impact of when you allow people to do things they shouldn't do over a period of time, the impact that it has on your agency. I had my amazing sister in law, Jill Wagner Kelly on this podcast probably about a year or so ago. I have to find where it was. You can go back and find that episode. And she was talking about in her growth as a leader and C suite leader that at one point she was challenged to say, what if I was judged or we were judged by the performance of our lowest performer. But as a leader, my performance was based or judged on my lowest performing person that I lead. That changes things quite a bit, right? Like it changes your floor, your standard, and of course what you're going to tolerate. Now that doesn't mean you don't need to pour into your good people and help maximize who they are and give them kudos when Needed. But again, you've got to have standards that include what are you going to tolerate and what are you not. So let's talk about getting the impact some real world things that happen. All right? Now, again, there could be a number of things that happen, but typically we find in agencies, in working with hundreds of agencies over the last several years, we find that the biggest issue of toleration is not keeping promises that were made. Now, when I say that they may not be documented promises, but they certainly could be spoken promises or, or promises that just over a period of time we would come to expect that people would do certain things at certain times. Right. All those kind of things. And to get specific on this, one of the things we believe in is building high performance teams that we have sales and service that are communicating on a weekly proactive basis. And what we find is, is that if there aren't standards around that agencies will allow those meetings to get missed. They'll allow producers to walk over service team members, for example. Those things become tolerated. What does that create? Animosity, lack of trust, lack of appreciation. Right. Resentment built. All those things happen because an agency leader. And again, I did a previous episode about standards. If we didn't have a standard, again, this is an example. Our standard is that sales and service meet proactively every week. Why? Well, I could give a number of reasons why, but this is who we are, what we do, because we respect each other, we communicate effectively, and certainly we want to make sure our clients get the best experience. But if we tolerate that not happening, the negative things begin to snowball. Same thing is true for a client renewal, client experience. What are we tolerating around those areas? Well, I know we're supposed to do this within 90 days or 120 days, but it was close enough. Now again, life happens. But the standard that begins to set is, oh, it's not that big of a deal. Right. And again, I could give a number of different areas for this. What else happens when we tolerate average or poor performance? Well, inconsistent preparation is something that we see all the time. One of the first thing that goes when we tolerate is I don't really need to prepare or practice the level that I probably should. Good is good enough. And we often see the best example of this is we have producers who go on appointments or go into meetings and they're doing high risk practice. What does high risk practice means? It means they are doing their thing in front of a high value client or high level future ideal client or high level COIN without preparation or Practice the first time they've really gone through it and what happens is they screw it up or they certainly don't perform at the level they could. And it harms credibility and it certainly harms cash flow. Right. So why. Well, we tolerate it. It's okay. You don't really have to practice. I mean, I talk about practice and preparation all the time. It's a pet peeve of mine. But it just, it just blows me away that in agencies and we have people that played sports or did music or did something before where practice was just non optional. It's what you do. I mean, and here I go in professional sports and like my podcast. But these are professional athletes that have been playing a game for years and years and years and years and they are world class and they practice every week. Yet high level insurance people, average insurance people in particular, which really drives me crazy. Below average. Yeah. You don't really need to practice. Not a big deal. Just show up and see what happens. It's crazy, right? It's crazy. So inconsistent preparation is an area. We see that when we allow that to be tolerated, it certainly causes chaos and effectiveness. Poor production across the board. What are some other things? We excuse behaviors. We excuse behaviors. Listen, and again, I know I go to producers a lot. It's the easiest example. But producers have an abundance of excuses in many cases. Yeah, I guess, you know, I guess you were tired. I guess this did happen, right? And again things do happen. But the best producers say this happened, but this is what I'm going to do, right? And, and it's, it's not just who people are. Again, it comes back to our standards and we don't tolerate that. We just don't tolerate those things. Doesn't mean we don't have conversations, doesn't mean people don't get sick. All those kind of things happen. And here's what happens. Often it turns into leadership silence, right? That if I just close my eyes and I'm being sort of funny here, but if I just close my eyes and cover my ears, if all go away, this person will eventually figure it out. This thing will change on its own. May, maybe something will happen and it doesn't. A phrase that we use again and again and again is that a problem left unattended will eventually become a crisis. A problem left unattended will eventually become a crisis. Oh, this will get better. This will be fixed. This person will improve. This process will change. This conversation will get better. That's leadership silence. And although it might feel good in the moment, it's easier in the moment. And again, you're busy with things long term, it causes chaos. All right, so why, why does that happen? I'm always a person. Why? So because again, I don't think in my experience, for the most of the growth minded leaders, this is not malicious, this is not intentional, right? They're not out to tolerate bad behavior. They're not out to cause negative impact in their agency. But here's some things that typically happen. What I've noticed is that there is a desire to be liked versus a desire to have respect and earn results. Now I think it's okay to be liked. I always think of if you're an office fan, I won't get this right. But the Michael Scott, you know, do I need to be liked? No, I don't like to be liked. I want to be liked. I hope to be liked. I forgot the whole quote. But it's okay to want to be liked. And I get it. I do too. I'm a natural people pleaser in my natural state. I want people to be happy and get results and do good things. But I also know one of the best ways to be liked is to be respected by getting the things done. You need to get done by showing up, by delivering on what you said, by having those conversations, not because you're trying to get on somebody, because you see the most in people. And again, there's a lot of different areas there. But one of the biggest things I see is that, you know, well, I just don't want to rock the boat. I don't want them to think negative me. I don't want to think I'm a bad guy or bad gal. Like, yeah, but that's what happens is you become to be taken advantage. And again, I said this earlier, what happens is when you tolerate that your best performers go, well, I guess it doesn't really matter for me either. And of course it's the last thing that you want. I think it happens because it's a short term convenience, right? Like why do we tolerate things? Well, short term it's easier. And I want you to think about this. When you do things that are easy now, it becomes really hard later. It's easy not to have this conversation, easy not to have this standard. It's easy not to ask someone to finish this thing, whatever it is. I'm just throwing that out there. But that's easy. What's hard is again, culture. A client experiences damage. A promise wasn't kept, right? There's credibility issues versus having that Hard conversation or that discussion earlier, which make things so much easier long term, right? And speaking of hard conversations, this is going to blow your mind. Are you ready? Hard conversations are hard. There you go. That's why you tune into this podcast, right? Hard conversations are hard. But some things that if you begin to set. This goes back to my previous episode. If you look at standards, identify standards and some non optional things, you begin to develop tools or things where there's agreements and again we've got something called a two way promise agreement for our members. But you're able to not just chase people for stuff, but there's agreed upon areas of performance that are two sided, right? Two sides had that conversation and we agreed upon it, that we both know that if we do these things, everyone wins. So now let's do them and have accountability because we aren't perfect, things are going to happen. But let's make sure that if we get off the tracks, we don't stay off the tracks the entire year or forever. Right? So when you've got some things in place and again thinking about this, but we've identified key areas, we've had a conversations. What do you need from me, what I need from you? How do we both win? How do we work together? I mean there's so much depth in all this. Here's a couple things you could say if you want to have a hard conversation. You've set this up, this makes it so much easier. Let's say that, you know, I'm working with Joe Smith and Joe and I, you know, we got together at the end of the year. We, we talked about some of the goals, we talked about some of the standards, how we can define excellence, how we win together, the things that he needs from the agency and the resources that we agree to provide and keep our commitments. And then he talks about key behaviors for him to hit his goals and for success. We have all those conversations and then we get into February and Joe's not doing it. You know, I could go into Joe and say, hey Joe, I want to have an important conversation with you. Remember we talked about these things, by the way, they're in writing. Remember we talked about these things. I thought we agreed. I thought we agreed. And here's the key word. Help me understand what's going on, Help me understand what's going on, what's happening. And this gives that person an opportunity to have a conversation. Maybe there are some really significant things going on in somebody's life that happens. When do you want to know that? Now it's good. Or maybe they're like, you know what? I just lost my way. I just got distracted. I've been caught up and stuff. Great. You know what? I'm so glad we had this conversation. Let's get back at it. Because you're worth it, right? Again, I'm spitballing that conversation. But that's the importance of these conversations that I don't want you to tolerate average or below performance, because you're not an average or below performance kind of person. I'd be selling myself short. So keep that in mind. All right, so some leadership shifts, some things you can think about as a leader. Number one, address issues early. Address the issues early. Don't wait. And I'm sure if you've ever spent time. I had this conversation with the producer yesterday. So you've ever had that phone call, that phone that weighed like 90 pounds because you had to make a phone call that day, and maybe you didn't want to have it, it was an unhappy client or there was a situation going on, a claim thing, who knows? I've been there. And I said, and you wait and you wait and you wait and you wait and you finally get to the end of the day and you're like, okay, I've got to make this call. And you make the call and you realize it wasn't nearly as bad as you thought it was going to be. Or this image, this picture you played in your mind. Now, maybe it doesn't go well, but bottom line is this. Not only did you spend all this emotional energy on something that was worse than what you thought or that wasn't as bad as you thought, excuse me, but you also probably lost time and energy and other important things that day. So here's a shift. If there's a problem, like I said, a problem with unattended will eventually become a crisis. Just address it. And by the way, the problem's easier to address early on. Here's another thing to think about. Make your standards, which goes into what you allow to tolerate, make it visible. The more you can make things visible, the more that it becomes real. I know that sounds obvious, but too often, like, we've got, you know, behaviors or standards or things about our culture that are buried in some drawer and never seen or talked about, well, they don't really exist. One of the best examples of this, and again, there's so many I could share. But, you know, we had an agency that really wanted to have standards and behaviors based around future ideal client development, pipeline growth, and of course, leading to more sales. Right. That was like the overall focus. And they create a top 100 board. These the top 100 clients that we want to write in the next year. And each producer had a list of those clients and they had four stars they could put on there initial conversation, you know, next conversation that they, that they closed. I'm sorry, that they did the presentation of solutions and they closed the sale, but they actually had like little kindergarten stars. I've shared this story before and it sounds so simple and so obvious and it is, but that's an example of making something visible that become very, very powerful. Not to mention they wrote almost over what, three quarters of a million dollars of revenue on that board. Right? So very, very successful. And that wasn't all that agency wrote. So again, think about how you can make some standards or things visible. Make it big deal. Remember Roger Sitkins always saying this to me, and it's so true. If something's a big deal, make it a big deal. I don't know if you ever had this, but like, hey, this is really, really important to us in the agency. And then we just kind of go, oh, and by the way, you know, we're also kind of doing this. Like, no, like, again, you can't do that for everything. But the things that are truly important to your agency make them a big deal. And of course, be consistent in how you communicate them. Here's another way that you can have a shift when you're having hard conversations or thinking through things like this. You've got to separate people from the behavior. I know many times where I've talked to people and I've dealt with this where it's like, gosh, he or she's a really good person, like, really good, but they stink at their job. Like, okay, like. And again, I, I'll go back to producers. One of the easiest things we could talk about because there are a lot of producers that come in that don't make it. And there's this fear of like, gosh, you know, I mean, he's been at this for two and a half years and it's just not working. And we're not. I don't see any future and I don't see any progress. And I don't think this is going to work. But man, he's a, he's a good guy. So I think we're just going to keep, you know, keep giving it a shot. Listen, when you do that. And again, there's a lot of layers to this. Okay? And I know that every situation is unique. But in this type of example, when you do this and you know that person really isn't right for that role, that you could push and you could pull and you could push and you could pull and you could, you know, whatever. You could put every strategy you want out there, and it's just not a good fit for that human being. You are delaying their opportunity to go do something great in another area. And it's not that. And we have had many conversations with people that have said, you know what, the day you let me go, like, I kind of fought it because it's embarrassing, right? No one wants to fail. No one wants to not make it. But they come back and say, you know what? Thank you, because it wasn't what I really wanted to do. It really wasn't who I was. And now. And I'm doing so much better for me and my family. Right? So separate people from the behavior. So I want to give you a couple reflection questions for you as an agency leader. And hopefully you've already taken some notes and thought about some of these things today. But two questions I want you to think about. All right? And these are pretty wide open. Number one, what am I currently tolerating in my agency that I should no longer tolerate? Maybe you've already asked yourself that question over the last 20 minutes, but what am I currently tolerating in my agency that I should no longer tolerate? So that's question number one. Question two is, what message does that send to my team by you tolerating that certain thing? What message are you sending to your team, by the way? Communication occurs not only when you say things, but also when you say nothing. You're still communicating. It's just in a different form. You're communicating that. I guess this isn't that important. I guess this isn't a big deal. I guess it doesn't really matter. So I know those are some challenging questions, but what are you tolerating, and what impact or what message does that send to the team? All right, so again, we believe so much that clarity starts around perspective, standards, understanding what your agency is all about. If you're ever looking for an outside perspective. As a firm, we are only working with 50 private clients. As we move forward, we're very exclusive. We're going to go very deep with agencies. We want the right type of agencies that have the right mindset, that are coachable, that want to be accountable, that. That want to stand for more, that want to achieve things that maybe they haven't on their own. Again, this is not a sales pitch. It's about perspective and a conversation. Go to sitkins.com bookacall go to sitkins.com bookAcall we'll have initial conversation. Just get to know, like, what's your big agency frustration? Where are you stuck at? You can learn about us and we can figure out, hey, does this make sense for us to have future conversations? But again, we're only going to be working with 50 agencies as we move forward and we only have a few spots available. So here's my final call to you. All right, A couple things to think about. What you tolerate shapes who you become. What you tolerate shapes who you become. And I've said this on other podcasts. I'm going to say it again. Great agencies, best version possible agencies. They don't happen by accident. They're extremely intentional. In fact, just because it's very fresh in my mind, as we were talking to close to 100 producers this week on our Producer Fit program and we had a lot of new agencies that are starting with us, I just talked about this idea that the best producers, and I would say the best leaders, have a couple things in common. Number one, they're extremely coachable. What I mean by that is they're open to new ideas. What got us here isn't necessarily going to get us there. They realize they're not perfect. They don't have an ego to get in the way of excellence, as, hey, you know what, we're doing some really, really good things. But I know there's some areas that could really help us take the next level. Same with producers. And number two is that they are intentional, not accidental, right? My favorite quote from Jim Rohn is this. I'll leave this podcast with this. If you don't plan your life, there's a good chance someone else will. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much. So be intentional. Determine what you tolerate, understand the impact and what that sends to your team, and continue to strive to be an agency leader that is best version possible. Wish you all the best in your success. Thanks so much for listening to the Agent Leader podcast. Take care, everybody. Hey there, Agent Leader. Brent Kelly here want to take just a few seconds to remind you that now is the time to create your true best version possible agency. If you go to sitkins.com bookacall sitkins.com/bookacall we'll get to know more about your agency, conduct an agency assessment, and provide your agency with a customized plan to help you avoid some of the pitfalls, frustrations, challenges and roadblocks to get your agency to true ultimate freedom and become its best version possible. It all starts by going to sitkins.com bookacall.