I was recently at Paradiso Insurance, one of our branding and consulting clients. I’ve had the pleasure of working with their VP of Personal Lines for about 4 years know. In this time Hillary has gone from being a non-licensed cupcake maker to running a personal lines team. Just like in every agency sometimes things get tough. Recently, there has been 2 people out getting additional licensing as well as a new team member joining the agency that needs some training. We all know that personal lines heats up in June and we also have summer vacations coming down the pike. What’s a manager to do?
Some people reading this blog may be thinking they have the same problem but get no support, no direction and are told to just suck it up. Sound familiar? You may find yourself talking about this problem with your co-workers and sensing the stress building of impending doom. I’ve seen it happen many times. With this motto there are few key issues that don’t help in any way shape or form:
- Talking about the problem helps build the problem’s ego. It seems to get bigger and bigger and more difficult to tackle
- Co-workers now focus on a problem not a solution
- Stress levels instantly rise when we talk about concerns
- The rift between management and the team grows as the team feels they are left to fend for themselves and management looks at it as a temporary challenge
So how do we fix this issue? We all know insurance issues are going to continue. Rates go up, people take vacation, carriers change products. It’s going to happen. What we know in advance we can prepare for. I have to share with you how Hillary from Paradiso Insurance handles this challenge.
Each Account Manager has a piece of paper on their desk, with two columns.
Column 1: Zombies That Need To Be Killed (problems)
Column 2: How We Will Kill Them
Any time the team sees a challenge, they write it down along with the way they will kill the zombie problem. They have replaced the word problem with zombies.
“When you think about it from a Walking Dead mentality you realize you don’t have a choice, you have to kill the zombie. ” Hillary Palmberg
Each day the team meets and discusses their zombies and the plan they have to kill them. Sometimes you need other zombie killers on your team to stay alive and sometimes you can kill the zombie by yourself. This plan forces teamwork by thinking about how to solve the zombie problem and not how to avoid it.
If you would like your own zombie killing sheet, leave us a comment and we will send it to you!
