IIAT Leadership Academy a Reality
 Internet Acceptable Use Policy
 Customer Engagement
 Best Practices Benchmarks: Commercial Lines Producer Productivity
 Managing Producers: Accept the Ego (But With Feeling)

IIAT Leadership Academy a Reality

The rumors are true. IIAT, in conjunction with the University of Dallas Graduate School of Management, is launching the IIAT Leadership Academy this spring. The Academy will equip agency leaders and future leaders with the advance leadership and management skills necessary to navigate and master whatever challenges their agencies face - think mini-MBA.

Academy courses will be taught by highly regarded professors who are leading practitioners in their respective fields. The spring Academy will be delivered in three, 2-1/2 day sessions over three consecutive months: March 24-26, April 21-23 and May 19-21. The curriculum consists of 15 segments covering the following general topics and will result in a certificate from the University of Dallas Graduate School of Management:

• The Leadership Imperative: Participants will understand the key distinction between contributors, managers and leaders as well as the leadership role they play and how they develop their own leadership style.
• Strategy: Participants will be introduced to a pragmatic strategic planning process and the key tools associated with the process including execution, progress tracking and success measurement.
• Negotiating and Influencing Skills: Participants will build and practice a five-step model for selling others on products, services or ideas.
• Performance Management: Participants will develop the interpersonal and team building skills needed to effectively manage their own behavior and facilitate the collaborative behavior of others to accomplish agency objectives.
• Strategic Financial Management: Participants will be introduced to analytical tools needed to use accounting information to plan, control and make decisions.
• Marketing, Branding and Customer Service: Participants will learn how to develop brand image, loyalty and equity and will learn how to better manage the customer experience.
• Mergers and Acquisitions: Participants will be introduced to the various phases of M&As, conducting effective due diligence, and executing successful integration.

Tuition for the entire program is $3,900. All classes will be held at the U of D Frisco Learning Center. Watch for details in future e-casts and editions of Texas Agent or contact Rick Bondurant for more information. For a sneak preview of two of the Academy professors, register for this year's Joe Vincent Management Seminar, Jan 31 - Feb 2 in Austin. Dr. J. Lee Whittington, consultant to firms such as Nokia and FedEx, will present back-to-back sessions on leadership. In the first, he will explain how to balance the contradictory skills of leadership and management. In the second, he will share how to develop leadership in others within the agency. Dr. Rose Maellaro will bring her 25 years of human resources experience to "The Performance Management Challenge," where she will introduce the latest coaching and performance appraisal techniques. Seminar details...
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Internet Acceptable Use Policy

Proponents of work-related social media contend that tools such as Facebook, Linked-in and others enhance the marketing and networking capabilities of agency sales and service staff. Furthermore, they argue, the emerging pool of tech savvy employees will expect to have unfettered access to the internet and social media in return for the tech-enhanced productivity efficiencies they bring to the table. While most agencies have yet to harness whatever business potential social media brings, agency managers are increasingly wrestling with how to manage, monitor or prevent internet non-work related usage among employees.

Many studies have shown that the financial cost of internet abuse is substantial. According to a study by International Data Corp., 30 to 40 percent of internet access is spent on non-work related browsing with 60 percent of all online purchases made during work hours. Vault.com reports that 87 percent of employees use work computers for personal surfing. In addition to lost productivity, internet use is also creating security threats and copyright infringement liability. The security threat includes both loss of proprietary agency information and liability for customer personal information.

Approaches to dealing with the issue range from hands-off to the use of filtering and aggressive monitoring software. Filtering is the use of software to block web sites. Internet monitoring goes further by recording what employees are doing online. Specter360, an internet monitoring software provider and the source of much of the information for this article, contends that the biggest problem with filtering is that it also tends to block sites that staff may have a legitimate business reason to access. IIAT for example, has posted some content on YouTube. Monitoring software, on the other hand, can record e-mails, instant messaging, downloads and even keystrokes typed. For some, this may be a little too big brother oriented and would argue that the best approach is to employ trustworthy people, give them measurable performance objectives and build firewalls to protect unauthorized access by outsiders. Regardless of what measures are taken, agencies should consider implementing an internet acceptable use policy. According to Spector360, the policy should address these areas:

• Ban prohibited/illegal use by employees (gambling, porn, copyright infringement, etc.)
• Define rules for online behavior
• Define access privileges
• Define password processes
• Identify agency's confidential information and outline protection
• Outline penalties for violation

Sample policies are available at spector360.com, workforce.com and socialmediagovernance.com. To learn more about how agencies can exploit social media for more business, check out Pat Alexander's Joe Vincent Management Seminar session, "Turning Social Media into Social Business" at this year's seminar Jan. 31-Feb. 2 in Austin. Seminar details...
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Customer Engagement

A previous edition of the AM Brief reported on the findings by the Gallup Organization that there are essentially three types of employees: Engaged, not-engaged and actively disengaged. Engaged employees "are passionate about their work and are profoundly connected to their company." Not-engaged employees are "checked-out, putting time but not energy into their work." Actively disengaged employees "aren't just unhappy at work, they're busy undermining engaged employees." Interestingly, the same principles can be extended to customer relationships. In fact, Gallup has identified four key elements that constitute customer engagement:

• Passion: Can't imagine a world without. Think Apple.
• Pride: Treats me with respect. Feel proud to be a customer.
• Integrity: Fair resolution of any problems. Always treats me fairly.
• Confidence: Always delivers on promise. Name I can always trust.

Gallup refers to this as the Customer Engagement Hierarchy. Consider incorporating this into your customer relationship training and discuss strategies with your staff to move customers up the hierarchy. 
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Best Practices Benchmarks: Commercial Lines Producer Productivity

The 2009 IIABA Best Practices Study, which aggregated the financial results of more than 300 high performing agencies across the country, can be a valuable guide for managing your agency. Among the many important benchmarks captured, the study includes the following producer production benchmarks:

Inferred from the data, the larger the agency, the more productive the producer until at some point there is a diminishing marginal return. That seems logical given larger organizations have more infrastructure to support producer production activities and can open doors to larger accounts. As for new producers, the IIABA Best Practice Study doesn't report new business production. It does report average pay for new producers which ranges from $41,250 to $54,404 for these revenue categories. A study released this past year from Marsh Berry subscribers reported that the amount of new business expected from a new commercial producer by the end of 1.5 years was $54,750 for rural agencies and $85,207 for suburban/urban agencies (www.marshberry.com). For more benchmark data, including revenue categories over $5,000,000, go to http://bp.reaganconsulting.com.
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Managing Producers: Accept the Ego (But With Feeling)

According to the benchmark study of successful producers conducted by ZERORISK HR for IIAT, 72 percent of top producers scored high in the competency of self-awareness. The self-awareness competency measures an individual's ability to think positively about their personal competence in comparison to other people, in other words, strong ego. This provides the producer with the confidence necessary to be persuasive and determined. It also explains why some producers may be described (by their account managers?) as contentious and egotistical. On the other hand, the study also found successful producers to score high in the competency of empathy, which allows them to connect emotionally with other people and build strong relationships.

The following chart highlights the critical competencies identified for successful producers from one to 10 with one being light in the competency and 10 being strong:

                         
The full study can be found in the Hiring Tool Kit in the Career Center. If you have a producer not performing successfully, either in production or in terms of their relationships with other people, you might want to have them take the ZERORISK HR profile. Your first one is free. Go to http://www.zeroriskhr.com/go/iiat for more information. Two sessions at this year's Joe Vincent Management Seminar, Jan. 21-Feb. 2 in Austin, will touch on producer management issues. IIAT's Paul Martin and Jim Gavin will share what they've learned about what makes producers successful in 10 years of training through the Producer Development School and ZERORISK HR's Mike Poskey will discuss how high emotional intelligence quotient (EQ) correlates to producer success. Seminar details...
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