You’d never guess the median age at Seubert & Associates is 48. The 80 employees there — like the one who went skydiving for his 90th birthday — act much younger. Even President Brian Long donned a guitar on his 39th birthday and has been rocking with his band, Midlife Crisis, ever since.
“Although our median age suggests we’re middle-aged, we do believe that continued education keeps you young,” says Long, who led the insurance agency to 2008 revenue of $12.5 million. “I think the way to keep a mind sharp is to be looking at constant and never-ending improvement.”
Smart Business spoke to Long about encouraging employee development.
Q. How do you make your company flexible for development?
We do not have a pyramid org chart. Certainly, you have areas where somebody would report. A pyramid suggests that … if everybody wants to grow within that organization, that some are going to have to leave just because there aren’t that many seats at the top.
Our org chart is what we call a circular org chart. The inception date of [a customer’s] insurance policy is the start of our service timeline. As president of the company, I might have something to do with the service on that account. Everybody has their piece. So if somebody has a claim, it goes to our claims operation. When we’re approaching a renewal, it would need to go to our marketing people to solicit additional insurance quotes, etc., so we can come back to (the) inception date of the policy.
None of us are wired [for a pyramid] so we do profiles on all of our people, including me. I don’t have the perfect profile for president of an insurance agency. I have some areas that I might be good in, some that I might be lacking in. The superstructure allows us all to be somewhat palatable teammates. If I’m lacking in some area, another teammate needs to feel open enough that they can approach me. That it’s not a top-down management structure. That they can say, ‘Hey, partner, you’re weak here,’ and kick me in the tail.
