Communicate early and often
The first steps Cubbin and the rest of Meadowbrook’s leadership team took in facilitating the company’s late-’90s turnaround are the first steps your organization can take to remain stable in the current economy: identify the areas on which you want to focus, develop a plan of attack and keep everyone companywide in the loop through constant communication.
It’s a process that needs to start at the top.
“For starters, we sat down with everybody on the executive team, talked through their specific areas of expertise, identified the things that were working and weren’t working, and determined what we needed to do to get back into a profitable mode,” Cubbin says. “Our plan ended up centering on our effort to exit the businesses that we had veered off into and were not profitable or consistent with our traditional game plan. Then we had to take advantage of and work to generate more profits from the businesses that had remained profitable through the tough economic times.”
The plan was to refocus Meadowbrook, which had $457 million in gross written premiums last year, on what had built the company — primarily risk management services to self-insured groups, agent-based insurance services and insurance for groups. It might seem easy to grasp, but implementing it required a mentality shift for 950 employees in multiple locations.
It was an example of the often-used business analogy of turning a battleship. And the only way to make the lengthy pivot move is through extensive communication.
Cubbin says the first thing you need to remember about communicating throughout your organization in tough times is to keep your messages simple and effective.
“Employees want to know that you have a game plan, that you have a strategy and vision for the business,” Cubbin says. “They want to know that what they’re doing is consistent with the company’s strategy and with the business plan. They want to hear what your thoughts are, what is happening in the market, and what you are doing to grow the business and make it successful.”
In the initial phase of the turnaround, Meadowbrook’s leaders traveled to each of the company’s locations for in-person engagement of employees. It’s a practice Cubbin continues today, through multiple communication avenues.
As your company grows, you can’t let communication break down. Particularly in a challenging economy, you might feel that employees need to hear news straight from the top. But even if you can’t engage them in person as often as you would like, you cannot let your communication lag.
Cubbin relies on multiple methods of communication to keep the organization focused.
“We have over 20 offices throughout the country, and I do try to have a number of in-person meetings,” he says. “But you can’t be out there all the time. I rely on my management team, which has been great with communicating to both our customers and our employees.
“We try to keep a steady flow of information coming from the home office, and on a quarterly basis, we report on the state of the entire company. In the interim, we stay connected through conference calls, including monthly conference calls with our branch managers. Through setting up multiple means of communication with different areas of the company, you find out what is happening in the marketplace, what strategies are working or not working in certain segments of the business, and others hear it, as well. You want everybody on the same page, hearing what is successful or isn’t successful in other parts of the company. That approach has been very effective for us.”
How you communicate in challenging times is only part of the battle. To get your employees on board with your plans and maintain their confidence in management, you also have to know what to communicate.
A straightforward, blunt answer is sometimes the toughest to give, but Cubbin says it is the right path to choose. When negative news is inundating the senses of your employees, spawning anxiety and rumors, they want the unvarnished truth from management before they want anything else.
“You have to communicate often, but when you do, you can’t be afraid to deliver bad news,” Cubbin says. “People start to fear the worst if they’re kept in the dark. If all they’re doing is watching CNBC or reading the newspapers in this environment, then all they’re hearing about is companies laying workers off and cutting salaries.
“People are going to feel the way they’re going to feel when they’re away from the office. But when they’re at the office, we just want to give them a steady stream of information. We try to have our financial statements available to them, but go beyond that and try to explain what is behind the financial statements and what is going to drive our profitability.
“If you’re going to talk to people and be in front of them in times like these, that is some important information that you can give them. If you withhold information from employees, people start to worry about the company’s balance sheet and whether their jobs are stable. That is a very common fear among employees at companies where information from senior management is lacking.”
