Three Questions for Leadership Clarity

Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. My name is Brent Kelly and I am your host. Thanks so much for joining me on this episode. Excited to be with you to share some very important information for you, the independent insurance agency leader. And yes, that's who this podcast is designed for, the independent insurance agency leader, to help you gain clarity, build consistency, and to make a commitment to become your best version possible. Which is the title of a book, Best Version Possible, co-authored by our CEO of the Sitkins Group Roger Sitkins and myself. And also best version possible is the experience that we take independent insurance agencies through as part of the Sitkins Network. And if you want to learn more about that experience, what we do, how we help accelerate results, how we help agencies simplify what's often very complicated, then go to sitkins.com/experience. Sitkins.com/experience to learn about this experience and again, our roadmap to proven results for independent insurance agencies.

Now, I want to talk today, this will be a series of podcasts I guess, and I haven't formalized this yet, but it will be coming out around a very important topic. And the topic, when I say the topic is probably not a new word for you, the independent insurance agency leader, but I want to approach this in some different areas, and the word is capacity, agency capacity. Now, there's a lot that goes into that. There's a lot that we'll discuss. There to me is leadership capacity for agencies. What does that mean? Sales capacity for your production team, service capacity for your account managers, your account executives, all the service staff and service support for your agency and what all that means for agency in terms of operations, in terms of results, in terms of processes, in terms of systems, in terms of everything you can think of.

Because often you'll get with agencies, and this is the truth, what's out there is that finding great people, developing great people, retaining great people is not easy. And because of that, we often see a limited capacity. So I want to talk over a series of podcasts about capacity in different areas. Today I'm going to speak around leadership capacity. Now, there's a lot that goes into this, so this is not the end all be all, but I do want to hit some highlights, some key points around leadership capacity. One of the things that I continue to learn and uncover and discover in conversations with agency, agency leaders that we work with all over and just in general conversations I have throughout the weeks and months is the fact that leaders are not looking for more things to do. And I've said this before, right? You as an agency leader, you got plenty on your plate. I think that's safe to say that agency leaders don't need more things to do.

What they really need is to understand what the most important things that they do and they should do, and have that be their main focus of attention. And again, very easy to say, not easy to do. So what I want to do today on this podcast is talk about leadership capacity, and I want to highlight three questions that you should be asking yourself or your leadership team as an agency leader that are going to help you clarify this area of leadership capacity. Now, there are many more questions we could get into. If this was a one-on-one coaching call, we could have lots of discussion, and I talk to agency leaders. You've got some agency leaders, maybe the role of responsibilities are different. Some really are overseeing all areas of the agency. Some agency leaders are working more in development or acquisitions.

We have agency leaders who have large books of business who are player coaches. So there are a lot of different areas of agency leadership, and I'm very much aware of that. But let's face it, one of the things that you can never get back is your time. And because of the restriction that agency leaders feel, the weight that they feel in time, we limit our capacity maybe to do things that we really want to do. So again, I'm going to share with you three questions to consider. So agency leaders out there, get your pen and paper ready, write down these questions, and I really, really would challenge you and encourage you to take some time away from this podcast or pause this as I go through and really think about these questions and what they mean to you, how they relate to you, and some of the steps you can begin to take to begin to expand some of your capacity based on these questions.

All right, so here's the first question. What must I change to stop trying to have it all? What must I change to stop trying to have it all? Now, this is a really challenging question that I ask myself as a leader, because let's face it, if you are like most leaders, you love new ideas, you love new strategies, you love to consume podcasts like this or videos or read articles or books or talk to people and share ideas and information, there's always input coming in, which by the way is great. Leaders are readers, right? Leaders are learners. I think that's a big part of this. But I think when it comes to capacity, this is a really important question to ask yourself. What must I change to stop trying to have it all? There's a great quote out there that I love. It says this, "There will always be more great ideas than there is capacity to execute."

There will always be more great ideas than there is capacity to execute. One of the things that we joke about, although it's really not that funny when you get into agency success, is this idea that there's a gimmick of the week or gimmick of the month club. That oftentimes agency leaders, there's this new thing that we're going to do. It's a new idea, it's a new thing. And if you're watching this video, I'm raising my hand because I get caught in that, oh, let's do this, let's do this, let's do this. And we get caught in this gimmick of the month. It's the next new shiny object, the next new thing that we're going to do. Now, why does that happen as an agency leader? Well, I think it happens for a few reasons, but a couple that come to mind. Number one I already mentioned, you're always looking for new ideas to improve, which is a good thing, but we don't really filter through it.

So every new idea becomes the next big idea, which that means we need to share with everybody. That's not correct, by the way. Just because you hear an idea or consume an idea doesn't mean it needs to be communicated with particularly your team, because they're going to go, "Oh, here he goes again, he or she goes again, another new idea." And the other part of it is when we begin to start an idea or a strategy or a process, whatever you want to call it, starting or at least getting the idea in your mind is not really that hard when it comes down to it. It's the consistency. And as Chad Holmes says in the Ultimate Sales Machine, "The pigheaded discipline," to continue through that idea, to truly execute that idea. So why the gimmick of the month club? Well, because hey, here's a new thing.

And number two is, well, the last thing has gotten kind of hard or stagnant or it's a little bit of work, so let's just try this, right? And I would add probably the third thing that happens is a lack of patience. It's a hard thing. We want results. Obviously that's a big part of what we're trying to do in growth of an agency, whether it's specific tangible results or results in growth and development from team members or relationship results, all those things that are out there, but we get impatient. We expect things to happen, boom, boom, boom. And because of that, we're always trying to have it all, right? I want to have it all. I want to have it now. I want to have it again. I want to have it this way. And so again, the question comes back to is what must I change to stop trying to have it all?

Now, I don't want to answer this question for you. I really want you to think about that and what must I change? Where do I get caught up in trying to have it all? And because of that, I get overwhelmed. I run out of capacity, my team gets frustrated, what have you. And so I want you to think about this, but if there's a word that I could maybe rephrase this question is what must I do to get better consistency? That's really what we're talking about here, right? Is getting consistency in key areas. So that's my first question to you, the agency leader. It's an important question, maybe a different question than what you're thinking, but again, that's where I often find agency leaders get stuck, trapped, or certainly run out of the capacities because every idea is a good idea that must be communicated, thought through, and then restarted with a new idea.

Number two, here's the second question to consider as an agency leader, what good things, and I have my quotes up, I know you can't all see me. What good things can I stop doing in order to do the best things? What good things can I stop doing in order to do the best things? Now, I'm sure many of you have read the book, heard the book, Good to Great, right? Good to Great. And Jim Collins talks that good is the enemy of great. What I believe and what we say is that whether you want to argue good is the enemy of great and there's a lot of different takes on this, I do see this. Because we often get caught up in the good or even average in some cases, it truly prevents us and our agency from becoming the best version possible, right?

Because we allow the good or slightly above average to be okay and take our time and capacity, it prevents us from the best version possible. So a couple thoughts on this, and I'll readdress this question. So often as professionals and certainly as leaders, we have to-do lists. We have things that we need to do. There's nothing wrong with the to-do list. I think it's great to have an actionable plan. In fact, I'll talk about that in my third question, but I would also suggest if you haven't done this before, if you're going to do a start doing list or to-do list, you should also have a stop doing list or a to don't list, if that makes any sense. Meaning that what are the things that you need to stop doing as an agency leader? One of the things that you're doing that quite frankly aren't the highest use of your value, of your time, of your energy, your effort, that quite frankly someone else on your agency could not only do it, but maybe even do it better.

Or even at the lower level, yes, you can do it. It has some level of effect. There's some type of result from it, but there are bigger, better things you can and should be doing. I run in this often with agency leaders that I talk to, especially those that are doing multiple things where they're a player coach, they've got a book of business or leading a team, they may be part of the executive team as well. So you've got multiple responsibilities, and this kind of comes back to the first question. You can't have it all. So part of it is you look at this and going, okay, instead of adding more to your calendar, that's already overwhelming you. That's probably already causing you a deal of stress and frustration and anxiety. And believe me, I get it. I live in that world and I've said before, I've got a family, I've got five kids, I've got a wife, I've got obligations, I've got all these things you're going on and travel and speaking and communications and coaching.

And so even I have to ask myself this question is, okay, what are the good things I'm doing? And they're not bad. That's why it's important. They're not bad things. If someone said, "Hey, I did this today," and they go, "Oh, that's good, that's good." But if you're really being honest with yourself saying, hey, what are the best things I should be doing that would generate the greatest impact, the greatest return on my time, energy, and investment? So again, the first thing I would suggest is if you've got a to-do list, create your stop doing list. This is my, I need to stop doing this. And there's a few reasons why. It's one thing to have a stop doing list. Maybe you've done this before, but what's going to happen is that first of all, you're going to be more aware when you write this down.

And secondly, I would challenge you to say, "Well, I should really stop doing this." The next part I would say is, well, how will you do that? Meaning, what do you need to say, do or communicate in many cases to make sure that happens? It's very similar to work with producers, and we talk about the fact is, well, maybe you need to stop writing accounts of a certain size or a type of account that quite frankly doesn't serve you long term very well at all. Well, the problem is that it's a good idea, but then when they get sucked back into it, they don't know how to say no professionally, politely, the right way. They're not confident in how to do it, so they just get sucked back into it. You may wake up and go, I really need to stop doing this.

It's not the best use of my time, energy, and effort. And next thing you know, someone knocks on your door or something like that happens. You go, "Oh, okay," because you haven't prepared yourself and how you're going to communicate that. So that's a really important part. It's one thing to stop doing. It's another thing to practice, prepare and communicate how you're going to stop doing some of these things. There's a tangible aspect of that and it's very, very important. And by the way, one of the things too to think about, I've referenced this book before, a book that came out recently. Great author, speaker, owner of Strategic Coach, Dan Sullivan, him and a partner, they have a book called Who Not How. Oftentimes as leaders, when there's something that needs to be done in our agency, the first question is, how are we going to do this?

Or even worse, how am I going to address this? How am I going to do this? And the better question oftentimes is who. Who is the right person to do this at the highest level? Who not how. So things to consider there. That's question number two. What good things can I stop doing in order to stop doing the best things? Which leads me to question number three. Question number three is pretty straightforward question. We talk about this with every role. We work with agencies, we work with the account managers, we work with producer teams, we work with leadership. So this is true for all areas of professionals in the insurance agencies, but really important for agency leaders because you've got to model this so that you can mentor this correctly. Here's the question, what must I do to become more proactive, excuse me, more proactive and less reactive?

What must I do to become more proactive and less reactive? I think the first thing you could do with this question, because you may go, well, I'm pretty proactive, right? I'm pretty proactive. This is a hard exercise, but I would challenge you whenever you're listening to this. If it's the end of the week, for example, is go back and look at your week, or if it's the beginning of the week, look back at last week and just spend a few minutes and look at your calendar that you had set up. Now, by the way, if it's blank in many areas you probably were reactive. You were just dealing with stuff that came to you. And if you've got stuff on your calendar, go back and look at how much stuff did I actually do? How much of this was proactive, how much this was reactive?

Now, you're always going to have some level of reactive work. I think the key is how much. How much do you want? How much will you allow in your schedule. And weeks change. If there is a true time where there was an emergency in flight, so to speak, or there's a true fire you're talking about and putting out fires, a true fire. Not every fire, but a true thing that happens. Yes, there's going to be variations in this. But I had a coach years ago, and I heard this, it always stuck with me. He looked at me and we were talking, this is playing sports, playing basketball. And he said, "So often we see with athletes and players is that they focus on things that are out of their control," and this is where the reactive stuff comes in. For example, as a basketball player, you may spend too much time, energy, and effort focusing on the refs and a call they made, focusing on what a opposing player said to you, focusing on who's in the stands, right?

Focused on what's being said about you and your team. I mean, we could go on and on and on. And guess what? Those things in particular, you have no control of. You can't control what people say. You can't control what people do around you. All you can control are things that you can control. And so he'd always say to us, "Control the controllables." Control the controllables. I always say the same thing to you as an agency leader. There are many things that are going to happen outside of your spectrum. By the way, it doesn't mean they don't have an impact on you and your agency. That's not what I'm saying, right? There's an impact, but at what level are you going to allow it to impact you? I mean, you could use a hundred examples here, right? If you walk outside and it starts to rain, you can't control that.

Will it impact you? Yes, it's raining. Now, of course, the question is how are you going to respond to that? More importantly, how proactively were you in that? Now, again, you can't control everything, but you might have a good idea that it's going to rain today. So prepare accordingly, right? Prepare accordingly. So control the controllables. Now, to me, this all starts with intention in your calendar, and I've talked about this a bit before, but prepare your week before it begins. And this is really true for agency leaders. This is true for everybody, but for agency leaders, because again, you've got multiple things to think about and you begin, you talk about prioritization. You've heard that word before, but it's really important because you may look [inaudible 00:17:43], these are all the things that I have to deal with. I've got these meetings, I have these conversations, I've got this department I have to deal with.

I've got some strategy meetings here. I have carrier meetings here, all those things. Now, some of them are already in your calendar, but the more proactive and intentional you can get at or ahead of the game you can get, the more you could say, what would an ideal week look like for me at my best version possible? And how do I begin a trend in that direction? If I've got an opening where I've got gaps two weeks ahead, or next week on a Tuesday afternoon, what can and should I be doing that's the highest level of my time and attention? Think strategically, think proactively, because when you don't and you let it sit, what's going to happen is Tuesday afternoon will come and you're going to do what's ever urgent, maybe even convenient, or just something that's recent. This just happened, so now I'll do the next.

It's not the most important, it's just the one that's in front of you. It's just the one that happened, and you continue to go through that, and you lose control. The only diminishing as that you have is your time, and you lose control of that. So get great intention with your calendar and commitment. So my question again to you and to think about and just go ask yourself, what must I do to become more proactive and less reactive? What must I do to become more proactive and less reactive? So those are the three questions, and this all revolves around leadership capacity. As I said on this podcast, I'm going to be doing more conversations around capacity, and we're going to talk about sales capacity, service capacity. I'm hoping to bring in Roger Sitkins, our CEO at Sitkins to talk about some of these things.

We've had some really great discussions and I want to share highlights of this with you, the podcast listener around this area of capacity. Now, I'm going to wrap this up by this, and I mentioned this at the beginning. We're very targeted and very specific in who we work with at the Sitkins Group, with the agencies that we want to be that agency partner with. And the starting point is to go to our website and schedule a strategy call. If you say, "You know what, I'm ready to move from confusion in certain parts of our agency, whether it's confusion in roles and responsibilities, confusions in the message to greater clarity that we can be very aligned in the right areas of our agency, to move from confusion to clarity." If you want to move from a bit of chaos, and I talked about this with calendar, but we're not quite sure what we're doing and our individual team members, again, there's a lot of inconsistency.

We're going to move from chaos to consistency. Find the vital few things to give you consistency, and the last one here too is it gets very easy to get complacent, and this is true for agencies, whether it's just an attitude or culture that's built, we've gotten too complacent. We've letting people get away with things that we know we probably shouldn't, and then other people watch that, and then this begins just to be a part of our culture or complacency creeps in because we're doing really well. Success can breed success, but it can also breed complacency. A lot of agencies we've had had great years the last year or two, love it. Hey, we're doing great. And certainly we're proud of our agency partners that have had some of the best results ever. And with those best members, they're going, Hey, this is great.

But what we can find out very quickly is that this success can breed into complacency because, hey, look how good we are. Look how great we're doing. And guess what, right? That's when all of a sudden you look back in the next year or two and you go, oops, what happened? So if you're looking for that, again, sitkins.com/experience is where you can learn about our best version possible experience, the roadmap that we take agencies through, which is alignment, green zone, retain, and replicate, and obtain. There's a systematic and a proven process that we walk agencies through. So love to see if that's a fit for your agency. If it's not, hey, that's cool, but it's certainly worth your opportunity or the time and opportunity to have a short conversation. If in that conversation we deem there's a fit, then we set up an executive briefing and we can walk you through more specifics of that and be able to ask you and your agency more questions. It's a very thoughtful and a systematic process that we walk agencies through.

So with that, I want to thank you for being an Agent Leader podcast listener. I'll get the words right and appreciate you. Again, if this podcast is at a value to you, I'm going to ask what every podcast person asks for rating and review or share it, right? Share it with some people so we can get the word out and help you become your best version possible. We'll talk to you soon. All the best in your success.