Include it in your culture
While all this was going on, Urban didn’t forget all these processes would affect a culture that he loved. When you have to mix a new idea into an existing culture, he says the trick is to add it as an enhancement to what already works.
“The first thing you do is you codify the culture,” he says. “You step back and you say, ‘OK, what are the things that exist in the culture today that we want to make sure get perpetuated?’ And they’re pretty basic things. Things like, we want to work together in a team environment. You want to have people that are open and will tell you what’s on their minds. … And those become the basis of your core values, and then you make sure that everybody understands those.”
It starts with putting managers on the hook for using them daily, something many leaders don’t take seriously.
“They usually have a sheet of paper with, here’s how to be a good manager and one of the steps on there is have core values, so they come up with core values, they check the box and say, ‘OK, got that, let’s move on,’” Urban says. “But there’s so much more. You have to implement it; you have to hold people accountable for it.”
At Grange, that means putting those core values in the measure of someone’s performance.
“Everybody at Grange has performance objectives; part of their performance objectives are how they live and demonstrate the core values in how they function at the office,” he says.
At Grange, 20 to 30 percent of an employee’s performance rating ties directly to his or her use of the core values, which have come to include making EODB a priority. The employee’s overall rating then ties to merit increases and promotions.
“So you might have one, teamwork, and the performance instrument will list four or five behaviors that are present when somebody’s really good at teamwork, and so, the evaluator can look at the individual and look at these behaviors and make a reasonable assessment,” Urban says. “It’s clearly subjective, but it is still a pretty good way to give an indication if the person is exhibiting those behaviors or not. That’s not that hard to do, really, you just have to want to do it.
“When somebody is up for promotion, we take a look at the performance reviews, which is a demonstration of those cultural values to try to understand how the rest of the world sees that particular potential promotee, and that weighs very heavily in our decision.”
The end result is that the culture Urban loved when he came to Grange has expanded as the company has grown to 1,600 people, and those people understand that EODB is a core function of their daily business.
“That’s really a part of who we are now, that’s a big part of Grange, and I’m so excited to think that the majority of our people and the majority of our independent agents get it, they believe in it,” Urban says. “And we’re actually kind of flattered because we’re seeing more and more of our competition talking about ease of doing business, and we know they’re doing it because they’re hearing about Grange from our agents, and if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we’re feeling a little bit flattered by that.” <<
How to reach: Grange Mutual Casualty Co., (800) 422-0550 or www.grangeinsurance.com
