You Don’t Have a People Problem, You Have an Alignment Problem.

Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. This is the podcast for insurance agency leaders to raise the bar, to challenge your thinking, and to ultimately become a best version possible leader who leads— you got it— a best version possible agency. Hi, my name is Brent Kelly. I'm your host. Delighted to be with you on this episode. And On today's episode, we're going to continue the conversation through these 4 steps, these 4 phases of a best version possible agency. If you're an ongoing listener, thank you for being a listener. And you know that we've talked about these 4 steps overall, these 4 areas, these 4 disciplines. And the last episode, I went deep and talked about the first phase, which is clarify. Today, we're going to talk about the power Of alignment. We're going to talk about being aligned as an agency. Now, I have done previous episodes in this podcast about alignment in different areas, and today we're going to take another step and really understand the power of alignment. Because here's what I believe— I stated this for many weeks, probably months now, with agencies that I have conversations with— is that I don't believe that most agencies, probably your agency, That most agencies don't have a people problem. Now, let me just stop for a second, because oftentimes when I talk to agencies and I ask them their biggest challenges or frustrations, what do you think that number one challenge or frustration is, or certainly is about? People. I understand there are challenges and frustrations in working with people in your agency, but I don't believe that most agencies actually have a people problem. I believe they truly have. If you pull back the layers, they have an alignment problem. Most agencies have talented people. They often have experienced people. They have people who care deeply and often work incredibly hard. But something that's really important as I kick off this podcast today is just understanding that activity, doing things, is not the same as alignment. You can have leadership, sales, service all working hard. And yet they could all be moving towards 3 different destinations. You know, bottom line is we typically see this, and this isn't going to shock you by any means. But sales believes that the priority is what? Well, new business. Service believes the priority is taking care of existing clients. Leadership often believes the priority is improving profitability And productivity. Now, there might be different, you know, processes within each of those 3, certainly, which we can talk about. But here's the big point. None of those priorities that I just mentioned between sales, service, and leadership are wrong. They're not wrong. But if they're not connected, the agency will create friction instead of momentum. I'm going to say that again. If we don't align sales, service, and leadership, the agency will continue to create friction instead of momentum. That's why I want to speak today and talking about this, that the second step in our process in working with agencies, and I want to share on this podcast, is align. Again, the 4 steps: clarify, align, execute, optimize. Clarify creates awareness. Align creates momentum, execute creates results, and optimize creates continuous improvement. You know, I talked about in the previous episode, the importance of clarity, understanding where you are, where you want to go, and of course, what's standing in your way. But clarity at the top of the organization isn't enough. It's the starting point. It's foundational. It's extremely powerful, but it's not enough. Because alignment is the next step. It's shared clarity throughout the organization. You know, I can talk with a team of leaders and we can get really clear on what's important, and that is a foundational step, but it's about transferring that clarity, the conviction, and of course, the consistency of things throughout the organization. Imagine for a second, a championship team. Every player has a different position, different responsibilities. They might even have different individual goals, but they're playing the same game using the same playbook and trying to reach the same destination. You know, the best sports analogy in my opinion, and I played this sport, is football, right? You've got different rooms for different positions: the quarterback room, the running back room, the wide receiver room, right? The offensive line. You know, you got defense, it's a whole different set of rooms there, right? Different playbooks individually, but they come together to run a play that works together. Right? It really understands that alignment does not mean that everyone has the same role, obviously. But it does mean that everyone understands how their role contributes to the same result. And now, unfortunately, this is something that we see quite often. This isn't how many agencies operate. What we often see when I initially talk to agency leaders and we go deep on initial conversation is that, you know, leadership may have a plan, but the team doesn't understand it. Sales, they have expectations, things they want to get as outcomes, but those expectations and of course the behaviors behind them are inconsistent. Service, hey, go provide a great experience. We need great service, but great service has never been clearly defined. Right? So everyone's busy, but everyone's running in different directions. And this is often what we call at Sitkins a high maintenance team. A lot of things happening, but a lot of maintenance that needs to be in place. Leaders are constantly answering the same questions, solving the same problems, correcting inconsistent decisions. And pulling people back towards the agency's priorities. We don't even know what to focus on. A high-performance team is different. They know what winning looks like, right? The end in mind, the goal is clear. They know what matters most. And here's a big part. They know what's expected of them because they know how their performance will affect the rest of the team. The goal of alignment is to move from a high-maintenance team to A high-performance team. Now, when I think about alignment, obviously how critical this is, I believe that it requires 5 things. Now, is it more than this 5? Probably. But I'm going to share 5 things that I think is required around alignment, at least successful alignment. How's that? One vision. We've got to have one clear vision, not 7, one Clear vision. Shared priorities. Right? Understanding where we're sharing priorities. Clear roles is number 3. You know, so oftentimes I'll talk to agencies or a different department or an individual person in agency, and I'll say, what is your specific role? They're not even sure. Right? So that's number 3. Number 4, this is crucial. Ready? Common language. We understand there's different roles. And obviously, for most of you listening to me, you know, the insurance world itself has its own unique language. Right? We could give a bunch of acronyms in the insurance, but your agency needs to be speaking the same language as well. That's number 4. And then number 5 is consistent standards. All right? So, those are the 5 areas I think is important for alignment. I'm gonna break these down starting with vision. All right? Starting with vision. Where is the agency going? Right? And, and something that we use all the time, and you've heard me say it if you listen to this podcast, but it's important. What is your best version possible? There's a reason we ask that question. What does that look like for you? I have agencies define what a best version possible agency looks like, not in generic terms, for you and your agency. Here's a question to ask. What are you trying to build beyond simply producing more revenue? Right? It's an important question. Are we in alignment around that? Because if you ask 10 people, In your agency where the organization is going, would you hear one clear answer or 10 good but different answers? You cannot align people around a vision that they don't understand, right? So that's the first key area of alignment. Secondly, shared priorities. You know, I believe this, that most agencies, they don't suffer from a lack of opportunities. They don't. There are limitless opportunities out there if you really think about what an agency can do. But they do suffer from too many priorities. Everything cannot be the most important. Because when everything is a priority, we've got to do this and we got to do this and we got to do this and we got to do this and we got to do this and we got to do this. Guess what? Nothing. Is a priority. Alignment requires leadership to identify the vital few outcomes that matter the most right now. What are the 2 or 3 things that deserve the agency's best time, highest level of energy, and greatest attention? Important part of alignment. Third, I talked about clear roles. Once the priority is clear, every person needs to understand a few questions. What is my responsibility? How do I fit in the team? What does success look like in my role? By the way, a great question for any person in an agency to talk to their leader about. It's fantastic. What does success look like in my role? And then, of course, how does it fit in? How does my work contribute to the agency's success? You know, one of the things that we find out oftentimes, and this is true for any department, but I often find this very typical in service departments, is they're working really hard, they're doing lots of stuff, but they're not really sure how their work truly contributes to the agency's success and goals. Because alignment does not eliminate individual accountability. It doesn't. That's not the point. We're not trying to just push stuff off. It actually strengthens it. But people can't be accountable for expectations that were never clearly defined. Right. So that is critically important. Number 4, common language. This is one of the most overlooked elements of alignment because guess what? Words matter. Here's some examples. What do we mean when we say ideal client? Now, one of the concepts that we teach is future ideal clients only. Okay, great. But what do we mean? What does that look like? Right? That's one example. Here's another thing that we talk about. We give great service or we have great proactive service. What do we mean by proactive service? Are we using the same language and definitions? Right? What does a quality future ideal client look like? Now, this is typically more true in the sales team, but what does that mean? One of the examples we talk about is proactive renewals. The term that we use is continuations. Here's a question for an agency to ask. What is a continuation? Ask, what does a continuation process include and does it vary by a tier of client? You know, most agencies will tell me, Brent, what we really want is we need to uplevel organic growth. What does organic growth actually mean? Well, it just means more organic growth. Now, what does it actually mean? What does it constitute and how do these different roles contribute to that? Because when everyone uses the same words, But they attach different meanings to them, you don't really have communication, do you? You have confusion. Common language creates common understanding. Common understanding builds trust. And guess what trust creates? Alignment, right? Trust creates alignment. In fact, one of the things that we teach and preach in our programs is about appreciation, respect, and trust. Because when you do those things, trust creates alignment. And alignment creates momentum. Now, this is reflected in our core programs at Sitkins. You know, we run core programs at Sitkins throughout the year. We've got many other things that we offer our agency, but this has been a critical piece of alignment because although each program that we run and we have a sales program called Profit or Producer Fit, we have an account manager program for service professionals called AMFIT, and we have a leadership program. We also have ongoing monthly meetings in those different areas. And although each program themselves focuses on different roles or responsibilities within the agency, they absolutely reinforce the same key principles, the same key strategies, and using common language. They're all aligned around the shared goal of retaining and obtaining ideal clients. See, when leadership, sales, and service understand how their different roles support that goal, it creates what I just mentioned— appreciation, respect, and trust across the entire agency. Different roles, same goal. Different roles, one team. Different roles, one shared outcome. Finally, number 5, and I have done podcasts on this topic as well, but I want to share how this Fits in alignment. Consistent standards. One of the phrases I've used before, and I want to share it here because it's very important, is that goals will inspire us. You're listening to me now. We could talk about goals. What do you want to accomplish by the end of the year? What do you want to accomplish next year? What do you want to accomplish the next 90 days, 1 year, 3 years? And whoo, I'm inspired. I do. I love goals. They're great. Goals inspire us, but standards sustain us. A goal tells us what we want to accomplish. That's good, by the way. A standard defines how we operate while pursuing it. See, to me, a standard is your identity. It's not what you do, although it does include what you do. It's really about who you are, who We are. Now, at Sitkins, and we've talked about this before, and this is going to be one of the highlights of our upcoming mastermind meeting, and I can't wait to dive in with our agency partners. It's going to be a fantastic conversation. But we often discuss the 3-4-5 standard. 3-4-5. We use those numbers very importantly, very impactfully. And here's what it means: 15% organic growth, 30% operating profit, And $300K or $300,000 of revenue per employee. And again, you add $300K, 30% operating profit. By the way, that doesn't include contingency and 15% OG organic growth. That gets you 3, 4, 5. Those numbers, those are benchmarks, not guarantees. That's what we strive for as a standard, right? Every agency's gonna clarify its own best version possible. But guess what? 3, 4, 5 is absolutely attainable. But here's the deal. The larger principle is universal. We could talk about the numbers and all that, and having standards is important. But the larger principle is what really matters, because high-performance organizations, they establish standards for how work is done, how decisions are made, and how people are expected to perform. Because without standards, what do you lead by? How do you manage and lead people? Well, typically it's by emotion or by mood, how you feel that day, what happened this week, what happened last week. But one person is held accountable sometimes, and one person might be excused. There's no consistency, right? If we manage or lead by mood, you might have one producer who follows a certain process, another one, well, they just do what they want. Again, there's always flexibility within, within that. I understand that. But again, this comes back to standards. What are our agency's standards? Because if we don't have standards, maybe one department embraces the agency's priorities. They're all in. This is what we're going to do. And another one just keeps doing stuff the way we've always done it. That's not alignment. Alignment requires consistency, especially— and this is the key— from Leadership. Now, here's another important distinction that I want to share on this podcast. Please hear me: alignment does not mean complete agreement. Alignment doesn't mean complete agreement. In fact, when we have our leadership meetings, and we'll do this in our mastermind meeting, I'm going to challenge the leaders in their own groups, in their own agency. To debate ideas and topics on things. They're not going to agree on everything. We understand that. But one thing that I do believe in from a leadership standpoint is that in your own room, in your own area, in your own space, go hash it out, disagree, challenge each other. I love it. Have that important dialogue. But when you come out and have conversations with your team members who are looking for leaders to inspire, to lead, to create vision and consistency, We've got to be aligned. See, a healthy leadership team should debate and people should challenge assumptions in those meetings. All right. I'm all about bringing different perspectives, identifying potential problems. In fact, it's great when you, when leaders in a room talking about it because you can test ideas before they're implemented. But once the decision is made, the team must align around it. Debate. Debate before the decision. Align after the decision. Too many leaderships, unfortunately, they do the opposite. They avoid the honest debate. I don't want to ruffle feathers. I don't want to challenge this. Something's not right, but whatever, I'll go along with it until some point you get frustrated. And then the team starts getting mixed signals and mixed answers, right? So they avoid honest debate during the meeting, appear to agree, and then debate the decision with everyone else after they leave the room. And guess what that destroys trust. A team cannot execute what its leaders do not consistently support. You know, this is true in parenting. And this isn't easy, by the way, I get it. As a dad of 5 kids, it's not easy. But here's the point. When my wife and I were trying to parent kids, if I have one way of doing things and she has another way, Good. We can disagree, but we talk to the kids. We've got to be aligned. And some of you have experienced this. I don't like what dad said, so I'm going to go ask mom or vice versa. It doesn't matter. The same is true in an agency. A team cannot execute what its leaders do not consistently support. If your agency is not aligned, you've got to resist the temptation to blame the team first, because alignment Is a leadership responsibility. So your calendar must align with your priorities. Your coaching, your leadership must align with your standards. Your recognition must align with the behaviors you want repeated. And all your decisions must align with the vision you've communicated. Your people will pay more attention to what you reinforce than what you announce. I'll say that again. Your people will pay more attention to what you reinforce Than what you announce. Announcements are easy. Reinforcement is where the money's made, right? Here's a simple alignment test you can use with your leadership team or your entire agency. You could ask these 3 questions. Great questions to ask, right? Simple alignment test you can use with your entire leadership team, or if you want to, depending on the size of your agency, your entire agency. Number 1, great question. What is the most important result our agency is pursuing right now? What is the most important result our agency is pursuing right now? By the way, you can back that in and go, okay, what are the behaviors required to attain that result? First of all, we have to know what it is, and then what do we believe about that? So once we understand the result that we want and we can align around, now here's the second question. What is my role? In helping us achieve it? And if you've got a leadership team of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 people, what a great question. What is my role in helping us achieve it? Here's number 3. What standards and behaviors are required from me? Again, these go together, but really important questions. So you could sit down with your leadership team and again, or your agency, ask these questions. Hey, listen, Want to make sure that we are on the same page. I've got 3 questions for all of us. We're going to spend some time talking about it. Number 1, what is the most important result our agency is pursuing right now? Number 2, what is my role in helping us achieve it? Number 3, what standards and behaviors are required from me? Now, here's the great caveat and great leadership thing to think about. And this is hard. This is hard, leaders. Are you ready for this? Ask your key people And shut up and listen. This is not a time for you to say everything we're going to do, right? There's a time and a place for that. This type of conversation is, I want to hear you. Guess what? When you allow people— and this is true in sales with clients in the marketplace, definitely true with your leadership team— when you allow people to think and respond and begin to design answers or solutions, guess what you get? Buy-in. Guess what buy-in gives you? Alignment. Right now, another thing to think about this is that if you receive dramatically different answers, which you could, you've identified an alignment gap. Doesn't mean you have bad people. It means leadership has work to do. So here's my challenge for you this week. I know I've asked you a number of questions. Go back and listen to this podcast again. There's important nuggets on this. But here's my challenge for you this week. Identify one shared priority. Not 7. One shared priority. Write it down in very simple language. Then define how leadership, sales, and service contribute to that. Give you an example. Help you think about this. For example, if the priority is improving organic growth, By, by the way, one key part of our 3-4-5 metric is organic growth, right? Here's an example. If the priority is improving organic growth, leadership must create focus, establish expectations, and coach performance. Sales, we got to build pipelines, improve conversion, closing ratio, generate new revenue. Service must protect relationships, round out accounts, identify opportunities. Again, they could be whatever your answers are, but once we're clear on that, Now we can all get really clear, dependent with our departments and our individual roles. Different roles, different responsibilities, one shared outcome. That's alignment. That is alignment. Now, if you're part of a high-level independent insurance agency that's already achieved success, right? You're doing stuff, you're doing good things out there, but you know, deep in your soul, there's another level of growth. A higher level of profitability, greater performance available. Well, this is exactly what the Sitkins process, the Sitkins method, is designed to help you accomplish. We help agency leaders clarify where they are, where they want to go. We help agencies align their people and resources around the right priorities. Of course, I talked about that today. We help agencies execute with greater consistency and then, of course, optimize for continuous improvement. If you're ready to explore what that would look like for your agency, I invite you to schedule an initial conversation. No pressure, no assumption that we're the right fit. The purpose is to learn more about your agency, understand what you really want, and determine if there's a fit. And also determine if we have a territory that's available in your market. And go to sitkins.com to learn about our entire process. Also go to sitkins.com/bookacall to schedule a conversation and take the next step Toward your agency's best version possible. Clarity without alignment creates frustration. The leader knows where the organization should go, but the rest of the team, whoo, they're operating in different directions. Alignment turns individual effort into organizational momentum. It connects the vision to the priorities, the priorities to the roles, the roles to the standards, And the standards to the daily behavior. So here's the question I want you to take back to your agency. Something to think about today, tomorrow, this week. Are we all pursuing the same vision? Are we simply working really hard in the same building? Hey, hard work matters. Talent matters. Experience matters. But when talented people align around a shared vision, clear priorities, and consistent standards, The impact, it multiplies. Common language creates common understanding. Common understanding builds trust. Trust creates alignment. And I said it before, I want to say it again. Power of this alignment creates momentum. Now, in the next episode, we're going to move into the 3rd step of the Sitkins process. Execute. You know, every agency's got ideas. Execution of those ideas, that's the difference maker. Because knowing where you're going and getting everyone aligned around it, absolutely essential. But eventually you're going to have to close the knowing to the doing and then to consistently produce results. Until next time, keep learning, keep leading, keep growing, keep pursuing your best version possible. Again, my name is Brent Kelly. Thanks for being with me, and I wish you all the best in your agency success. Thanks for listening. Today's episode is brought to you by Rough Notes Magazine. Since 1878, Rough Notes has helped independent insurance professionals stay informed, sharpen their leadership, and grow their agencies. From industry trends and technology to marketing and specialty lines, Rough Notes delivers practical insights that you can put to work. They also offer Rough Notes Advantage, giving agencies additional tools and resources to help them compete and grow. Visit them at roughnotes.com. 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.