According to an Insurance Institute of Canada Study(1), up to 43% of Canadian P&C insurance managers may retire by 2022. The leadership and knowledge vacuum created by this wave of retirements demands a re-think of how we prepare our next generation of leaders. Different learning accelerators are needed to advance the pace of their development. Bringing emerging leaders from multiple companies together in a peer learning network is one way we can positively influence their development. Here’s why:
- Short timeline: the window to prepare for this demographic shift is tight. Traditional, decade-long proprietary learning systems won’t be sufficient to grow the knowledge and skills of new leaders.
- Deepen the industry leadership talent pool. We all draw from the same talent pool across the industry. Investing in accelerated learning will help all industry participants in the long run.
- Learning inside your current organization should be supplemented with more diverse thinking. There is a wide range of proprietary leadership learning programs offered by insurers. Some companies use on-the-job experiential learning, while others supplement this with deliberate development programs. The advantage of a multi-company learning environment is the opportunity for future leaders to access and develop innovative approaches that could be absent in a company sponsored training program. Giving leadership candidates access to new ideas can augment the company’s current approach with greater exposure to real-world successes and failures
- The approach can better equip leaders to guide our industry into the future. Exposure to diverse thinking in a high quality peer network will assist new leaders in the development of creative approaches to contend with the rapidly emerging threats and opportunities in our business.
- Improve the development path:When I think about the preparation I had for my current role, accessing a broader cross section of peers and senior executives would have helped me understand a wider variety of paths to build a successful business. Shouldn’t we enable the next generation of leaders with the learning tools we never had?
Resistance
There are lots of reasons why this type of forum is difficult to pull together. Senior Executives across the industry offered up their concerns: from the prospect of having their emerging talent “poached” by another firm, to the potential to breach competitive protocols, and the fact that they already have strong development programs within their shop.
These are fair concerns, but here’s the thing…
Strong emerging leaders already have high visibility across the industry. A few well-placed phone calls can help determine top talent in nearly any firm. Bringing this talent together is unlikely to promote an increase in job-hopping. Hopefully, it has the opposite effect – promoting improved retention by demonstrating an employer’s commitment to help grow top talent.
Ensuring compliance with competitive protocol can be appropriately managed with strict adherence to guidelines on the topics that may, and may not be addressed in this environment.
And finally, a rich proprietary learning system is not a reason to preclude attendance at these sessions. The multi-company forum is best viewed as a learning supplement, or accelerator, not as a replacement for in-house development.
Here is where I am starting:
With the help of a number of Senior Industry Leaders, I am facilitating the creation of the Leadership Learning Circle – a forum that brings together up to 12 members from different Specialty Insurers, brokers and their partners. The group will meet regularly over the course of a year and have the opportunity to learn and network with peers as well as the Senior Executives from each of the participating companies.
I look forward to seeing what this talented group can accomplish together over the coming year and where they will take our industry in the future.
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1 A Demographic Analysis of the P&C Insurance Industry in Canada, The Insurance Institute of Canada
Published on October 4th, 2016 by Andrew Steen
