Welcome back students, this is Dr. Aviva Leggit. To my left is Dr. Renee Torchia, she is the vice president of Town Strategy and Culture at Verisk Analytics. Welcome, Renee. >> Thank you. >> Well, great to have you. So tell me a little bit about Verisk and its role in the industry. >> Sure. Verisk Analytics is a data analytics company and our role is across the different verticals that we work in. Insurance and financial services and energy and a couple of others to provide insights using big data. To help inform our customers decisions and that means helping make them more profitable, helping to have insight into coming trends, into their risk. So we are very much a partner with our customers. >> That's wonderful. Tell me about one of Verisk most significant change initiatives and how that impacted your employees. >> Sure. Actually, I really got to be part of this. By background, I'm an anthropologist and a change management consultant. And I happened to meet an executive who came through Wharton's exec ed program and I was his team coach. And so when Verisk Insurance Solutions, back in ISO, which is the part of the Verisk family. Decided to go through a restructure to more closely align with their customers. They brought me in to just as a sounding board initially and I ended up staying about nine months. Now, it was actually a really big change initiative, even more so than we think of any restructure. Because I also had not done any type of restructuring for 18 years, which is a really long time. And had long tenure employees who had been with them before when they were a not-for-profit. And so we were really changing many things at one time. We moved from being very siloed organization to a matrix model. We moved and we undertook the restructure in order to more closely align with out customers. So that we could better understand what their challenges were and to anticipate what their needs would be. And we broke apart families, teams frankly that had been there together for sometimes over ten years. So they could anticipate each other, they have end to end control over their work. And all of a sudden, we were asking them not only to move to new roles but to also work in a matrix organization. Where they no longer had control of the final product or even necessarily completely how we got there. So for an organization whose main KPI initially had been 100% excellence, this was really extraordinary and cause a lot of anxiety as you can imagine and why was it 100% excellence? That's because if you can imagine, ISO was created, it was created by the insurance industry for the insurance industry as a kind of a neutral party. So, their purpose was to set the lost cost ratios and the rates for insurance to advise them and to monitor legislation. And then to create filings in all 50 states that would be appropriate to advice insurers on how to conduct their business. What rates to set, what premiums and how they could manage their risk. So you can imagine that even a small digit off would be having an extraordinary impact to a lot of insurers. And could even cause some smaller companies to potentially go out of business, so that's a real responsibility. So we have highly responsible people as a workforce, incredibly smart, I mean they're actuaries, they're data scientists. We actually have some climate scientists with us now. And so these are very prudent, cautious, risk averse people and that's what has made them good at their job. And now we're moving to a business model which is competitive. And as I said before, we're asking them to work really not only within their own team. But in across all of these different lines and in different ways with other teams and other individuals. And so, boy, you talk about change. You mean that's just change along pretty much any axis you want to look at. >> Yeah, wow. That was a lot of really great information. One thing you said that stuck out to me was this idea of maybe not breaking apart but having to disperse families. You said the word families. I'm curious if that is literally families or teams that felt like family. Can you kind of comment about the cultural? >> Yeah, great question. So I think it is almost a thing of the past now for our personal lives and our professional lives to be completely separate. And in cases where you've had a company that's had a smaller number of employees initially, who have worked together for a very long period of time. To be honest with you, that kind of blends. The line there blurs a little bit. So I technically meant that a family feel to the culture of their team. However, part of that is really that these people were their friends and they looked forward to coming to work every day. Partly because they got to work with people that they really enjoyed who felt like family. >> So it sounds like one culture, it sounds like the non-profit was definitely this like very high-touch, highly personalized environment. What was the other culture like that they were coming into? What were some differences there? >> Well, you mean the culture that we were moving them to? >> Mm-hm. That's right. >> Sure, absolutely. So when we were moving from more of a not for profit model, even though we had been a business for a while, we really had not introduced business concepts. So thinking about other than timeliness and accuracy, how do I know that I'm doing a good job? What are my key performance indicators? Things like return on investment, how long it's going to take to go to market, what's my total addressable market. These were concepts and still frankly are concepts, that we're learning as we go. Because we have previously almost a sense that we should stay removed from that in order to do our job particularly well. That we should be more neutral. And so now competitiveness is not only about being the most excellent against your KPIs or excellent in the industry. But it is really about differentiating ourselves and being aware that we now have competitors in the marketplace where we did not before. We, all of a sudden, kind of found ourselves in a very tight market, where a lot of new insurers had come into the industry. And our customers were really feeling that pinch, then we had the downturn with the economy. Which kind of again, placed more of an emphasis on customers thinking about praise. And so in order to align more closely with out customers, we had to change our structure. And at that time, a new president of ISO which again is part of the Verisk Analytics family, came in and she was both an insider and an outsider. She was an insider in that she had worked in ISO for decades. But she had something of an outsider's perspective in really understanding what it was that our customers were looking for and understanding that we had to change. We had to fundamentally change, not only our mindset but our practices. And so she had the credibility and the legitimacy to Say to people, we need to change the, this is the story that our customers are telling us, this has to be our new story. And to be heard by that population. Now that's what's been interesting since then is that, as you might expect, we've needed to bring in other people that have additional competencies. So part of creating change is making sure that you have the competencies in your organization to be able to make those changes. And we didn't have all of it. And so, we've spent a lot of time and energy working to help our new people integrate into our existing culture. And fortunately we have a really open workforce. We have, our long term employees are very open to new ways of thinking and to new ways of looking at issues or identifying problems. And that's been really great. >> That's great, with your particular background as an expert in anthropology, can you describe a little bit about that problem solving process? What are some of the elements of a culture that you're going to look at to try to read and figure out a good solution to integrate all of these different elements together? >> Yeah, that's a great question. So I think one of the things that we often miss in organizations when we're talking about culture change is that we don't really understand that it's not just about static, values and beliefs but it's actually about a world view. And so, if you think about it, every single individual who walks into your business, your company every day, with a set of understandings about how the world works, what the relationship to it is, and what the purpose of their work is. And when you disturb that, when you change the goal, then you have to help people work through okay, what does this mean for me? It's not just about here's your job description, okay now you go do this instead of this. People have to really work through and say, well okay, but what does that mean for who I am? Because we very much identify with our professional identities. And so when you're looking at change and you're looking at it as a system, understanding that your organization has a logic to it. So if you're a senior management, you're working at that level. But that the people who have to make the change, are not in all of those meetings. And so you have to re-tell that story and you have to tell it in a way that makes sense to the people who are living it. One of the things that, I think has been such a support for success in ISO has been that, the senior leadership really looked at it as we're all in this together. So that's another element that I always say is really, really critical, is that we often go in to change thinking of it as like something on the paper. Okay, well here's our new goal, and we put numbers next to it and we put a description next to it, and we don't really bring it alive and animate it. And anthropology takes us from looking trying to think of people as black boxes, kind of walking around and we want to know what motivates them to really looking at their actions. And a story can help bring focus to those actions and it can help bring that kind of meaningfulness that I was talking about earlier into focus. So say if a leader can say, here's where we were. Here's where we're going and not just put a period on the end of that sentence but say, here's why we have to go. And this is really critical, I think, in this particular change which is that leadership was willing to say I don't have all the answers, but I believe that we do together. And so, people felt like okay, this isn't just being done to me, but I have a role in it. And this is something that I can bring my own talents to and I can have a new challenge and I can rise to that challenge. >> Can you describe a little bit about the process that you've gone through at Verisk to tell those stories, to get those out there, to support the teams and making sense of these changes? >> Gosh, there are so many things, some of them let me just name off a couple of them. One is constant communication, so for example town halls and bringing people together. Leaving plenty of time at the end for question and answer, sometimes we kind of throw information at people and we don't necessarily help them absorb it. Help them dialogue with it. So set an example, just by having time at the end of the town hall for questions and answers can let people know that it's okay to ask questions, it's okay to say, hey I have a concern about this. I think setting up an anonymous feedback mechanism, so that if people are afraid to ask a question, they can nevertheless register it. That's really critical, and then later, you would think you'd do it right away and if you can, that's great. But a lot of times, you have to do this as you go, which is set line of sight. So remember that when you move people around or you disturb a team or if you add or subtract from a team, then it changes the whole system. And so helping people reestablish, here's my role and here's your role in relation to me. Here's our teams purpose, here's our department, here's our organization, here's our function in the industry, that kind of line of site is really, really critical. And by that I mean, not just simply saying, here are all the activities that you're going to do Doctor Aviva, you're going to, here's your list, and I want you to perform this three page list of duties. That's not really a job description. It really should be around, what's the purpose of your role? And, how does that relate to the mission of our team and of our organization overall so that you feel like you A, understand your place in this new universe, even if it's a little change. Sometimes you think something's so little but it's not and also how can I add value to that. >> As a coach how do you help employees make sense of a change, even as you may be experiencing it yourself. >> Yeah, I think remembering to make it human is just really critical. Because when you start trying to put something that's abstract in front of someone and say here go, do this and you really look at them, you really think about how they're taking something in. They trust you, there's something that goes on where they at least give you the benefit of the doubt, because they feel as though you're being honest with them. And that kind of transparency is really critical during a change, because if people don't have an understanding of why are we doing this and why are you telling me that I need to do this and what you get out of it. It sounds a bit cynical and yet those are very human questions. And so if you can start as a coach from a place of nondefensiveness, and just really open this and allow people to register their concerns and ask their questions. Then you get to a point where they can hear you, and it's when they can hear you that you that you really can have an impact. >> To the many employees you have at Varisk how do you ensure that they are supported through coaching, or some kind of. Help to manage that change. >> Well, there are two ways that you could do that. You could create a coaching program, where you're teaching all managers and frankly, almost anyone could benefit from it, because you can do peer coaching, right? So, you can teach others, teach employees how to coach and what that means. So, for example, instead of delegating or giving an order, that you ask a question. And you help people kind of take accountability and ownership themselves. So that's one benefit of really looking at a coaching model and teaching that. So that would be kind of a training type of thing. And then you can model it. You can either have formal coaches, where you bring a couple of people in and they are responsible for connecting to different teams, and giving that kind of high performance coaching. And they really get to know the team and they can help them make better decisions. And to work together in such a way that they have a synergy. You can also have informal coaches. And I would say that every manager is better off by thinking about having coaching as a tool in the tool belt. It's not always appropriate. There are times that you need other leadership styles. And I think it's really critical to have a number of leadership styles to be effective as a leader and as a manager. But definitely, I think that coaching should be one of them. >> Definitely. As a coach, how do you encourage people to adjust their behaviors? As you know, habits are very much ingrained, and people have perhaps different attitudes about work and how committed they might be. So, what do you think, how do we navigate these sorts of challenges? >> Well, so we have addressed a little bit of that I think already. In terms of meaningfulness, it's such a great question. It's a very rich and complex one though. I would say that having a clear goal, being able to articulate that goal, telling stories of success. And so early on in a model, as you start seeing the results, really making sure that people are hearing that. That they see from their peers that there's something going right in this. And if you don't have stories of your own yet, then borrowing stories from other companies that you know, or even things in the news. And saying, hey, here's a company, or here's an organization or here's a team that's going through something very similar. And here are the things that they've done, and here are the results that they've gotten. So, I think examples are very important. But it really does come down to helping teams and individuals be able to view themselves as part of the story that you are trying to tell. And I don't mean that in a fictional sense. I really do mean a lived story. Because if we can understand ourselves within that story, we begin to write for ourselves. >> And speaking of examples, do you have an example of when a change management effort resulted in a stronger team? >> It's interesting, I'm working with the hub of our change right now, which is our shared services organization. And these are people who were previously at the very, very core of the work that we did. And they're very particular about their work and they are of that kind of thinking that I was mentioning earlier of 100% excellence. Because they know that even the smallest mistake can have huge repercussions. So they're very highly responsible people. They have gone through such a struggle because one of the things that happened was, we had fewer people in that area after we moved to a matrix model. Because we knew we were going to gain some efficiencies on the other side. But initially, that doesn't help people, right? So now they're working according to the old way, right? They still have new goals and a tougher performance bar that they have to meet. And we really needed them to be able to think differently, and to therefore work differently. We didn't, however, initially put a leadership into place there where that could happen. We had new managers who were taking this on. And then we had someone who was a wonderfully strong technical expert, but did not prefer really managing. Likes people, that's not the point at all, but really loved his technical expertise. That's not particularly a match. And so now we have given him a role that really aligns with his talents. And we've brought someone in who has more of a kind of consulting background. So he is taking a look at what we can do to change that model to really move us to what the goal was. And people are already excited about it, so we're seeing the synergy already. For me, are they a strong team? I could say they are a strong team because they've continued to deliver on what they need to. And yet I can also very clearly understand that they have struggled. And so, I would say that sometimes strength doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't room for improvement. >> Do you have any general advice for someone who's coaching a team? What are some things they should be paying attention to, to make sure they're in that optimal place to help others benefit from growth and development? >> Yes, one of the things I think is really critical for people to pay attention to if they're going to help the functioning of the team and try to help them be a more high performing team, is how people are adopting to the rate of change. We have kind of early adopters, mid adopters, and late adopters. And this is not a new concept to us, we've been talking about this for a while. But I think that it does drop off of our radar. Because we think once we've identified someone, that that's kind of what they are forever. And it is true that we probably each have a predisposition to whether we engage change early on. And hey, we're ready to go, when we want to be the trailblazer, that's the early. Or whether we're the mid and we'll kind of wait and see, but hey we're going to get on board. And we're going to make sure that the work is getting done as we go. Or whether we resist a little bit and that book Who Moved My Cheese?, kind of comes to mind. And we have a little bit of resistance to that, or sometimes a lot of resistance to that. But we think that that's how someone's always going to be. But actually, depending on what the change is, it can really hit people differently. So I think that's important for a manager or a leader or a coach who is looking to bring a team along, and to make them stronger. And the key is to value each of those, but to work to bring everybody along together. That's not easy. So, the gift of the early trailblazer is they're the pioneer, they're going to go out, they're engaging it, they're excited about it. So their water cooler talk is going to be very enthusiastic. They're going to carry it into different conversations in the organization so that it spreads. That's wonderful, that's a gift. Your mid people are the people who keep things going. These are your backbone, and they're often overlooked. Because frankly, they don't need as much help as the trailblazers and they don't need much help as the resistors. And so, we often kind of short coaching with them. And I think that it's really important not to overlook their importance. And then the resistors are not usually seen as having a gift, but I really do believe that they do have a gift. Because they are the people who are a little bit cynical. And they cause us to step back and say, okay, let's take a pause here and let's make sure, is this really where we want to go? And have things changed between the time that we set this goal and that we're ready to implement it now? Do we need to relook at that path again and see if things are the same, and if we're ready to go down the same road? And so, we don't want them to become anchors that we're dragging along, but actually resistors can sometimes really serve a purpose. Kind of along the lines of Kahneman's book, Thinking Fast and Slow. Where he talks about the two brains. And your trailblazers are kind of your brain one, where they're ready to engage, they make almost more intuitive decisions. They take in data very quickly, and almost like when we talk about the book Blink. And that's kind of how they operate, and they keep moving forward, and they help us make progress. Our resistors are sometimes a little bit like brain two. They are more rational, a little bit slower, they're more risk averse, they say okay, I want more data. I wanted a little bit more information, I'm not ready to go there yet, I'm not sure that I'm on board with this. That's actually a tremendous function. So when you can help these people not just experience friction, which they often do in their dynamics. They often will have friction because the people in the front are going, would you just come on already? And the people in back of the boat are going, okay you're going really fast, and do you see that there's a waterfall ahead? So when we can bring those parties together and help them dialogue, that is really where we get our best results. >> Great, thank you. Thank you very much to Dr. Renee Torchia, and we'll see you next time.
