Getting People to Commit to Something Bigger Than Themselves

A little more than 10 years ago Greg Thompson, CEO of the Georgia-based insurance services firm Thomco Inc., discovered his accounting manager was stealing from the company. One day Thompson thought he had an excess of $300,000 in capital surplus; shortly thereafter a financial audit revealed the company’s bottom line was actually in negative territory — to the tune of $1.8 million.

“We were essentially insolvent,” Thompson explained during a presentation at the Target Markets Program Administrators Association Eighth Annual Summit in Tempe, Ariz., in October 2008. “I had signed personal indemnities to all of our carriers so I was personally bankrupt. … The company’s insolvent; I’m personally bankrupt. It doesn’t get a whole lot worse than that.”

But Thompson believes that sometimes the worst things that happen to a company can end up being the best things, and that’s what occurred at Thomco. The challenge to turn the company around brought his employees together in a way that had never happened before. As a result of the embezzlement, his employees committed to something bigger than themselves, and that, in his opinion, is an essential ingredient to a company’s success.

People perform their best when they feel they are part of something bigger than themselves, Thompson says. “Obviously you’re trying to make a profit, everybody knows that. But you have to have some vision of the company other than making the owner rich.” And it’s a leader’s job to create an organization that inspires its employees to go the extra mile.

In his case, on the advice of a friend he came clean with his employees about the embezzlement. “I called everybody into the break room,” Thompson explained, “and basically said, ‘I’ve screwed up. If anybody wants to leave this company I don’t blame them. We’ve got serious financial problems. I will personally write a positive recommendation letter for another job, there will be no hard feelings, but I’ve got a plan, I think we can pull this out. It’s going to take a lot of hard work and we’ve got to pull together.’

“An amazing thing happened — nobody left. … We started working really hard and … within one year we pulled ourselves out.” The Greatest Resource

In the insurance business, people are a company’s greatest resource, Thompson said. “Unless they are committed to pushing the company forward you are not going to be that successful. … The bigger you get, the less it depends on the CEO and owner, and the more it depends on those folks out there.”

Thompson shared some of the strategies that have worked for his company in terms of inspiring commitment from his team. They include leadership, setting an example and creating a positive culture that people want to be a part of.

“People will commit when they feel recognized,” Thompson said. “Recognized by management and recognized by their supervisor. … Recognition is more important than compensation. That may be hard to believe, but there are many examples of people leaving very high paying jobs where they were poorly recognized to go to jobs maybe not as lucrative where they did feel part of something bigger and they were recognized.”

Communication is also key. Leaders need to communicate regularly and openly with their people, Thomson said. “This cannot be overstated. The bottom line is most people want to know where they stand. Most people will accept constructive criticism quite openly if you’re communicating with them regularly. People know that you’re seeing them … you’re giving them feedback. Obviously they want to be recognized for the positive things as well. But when you recognize the things they are not doing so well when you give them a compliment it’s taken that much more seriously.”

Compensation that is fair and adequate, as well as advancement based on performance, not office politics are also essential.

Leadership Sets the Tone

The CEO is the chief morale officer in an organization, Thompson said. “One thing that took me a long time to understand … was how much the CEO is looked at as a barometer of the organization,” Thompson said. “If you’re looking down, if you’re looking worried, the company picks up on that.”

He said his father, an insurance company president, “used to preach to me about the difference between concern and worry.” His point was that worry is a destructive force, as in, ‘how are we going to get out of this mess?’ versus concern, which is ‘we have a problem, how are we going to address it?’

It’s not always easy but one of the jobs of a leader is to make sure that “people feel relatively good about where they are in the company.” That comes back to communication, recognition and creating an atmosphere where people feel comfortable talking openly about issues.

“Encourage constructive criticism,” Thompson said. “The companies that are the most successful are where the truth is on the table … especially in the senior management team. We even have an executive code in our senior management team about how we’re going to relate to each other. One thing is go to the source: If you have a problem with somebody, go talk to them about it.”

In addition to being the chief morale officer, the CEO serves as the chief sales officer by having a visible presence with customers.

“One thing I’ve discovered is, I’m not a particularly good sales person but I am the CEO,” Thompson said. When the CEO takes the time to meet with customers, it delivers the message that they are important to your company.

“You need to strategically pick out your customer opportunities. … Obviously the CEO can’t be on the road all the time doing marketing but it is important that you take advantage of your status as owner or CEO,” he said.

Finally, Thompson said, CEOs must be willing to get their hands dirty. If the CEO handles some of the tough jobs, when they ask others to do the same kinds of things, those people are more likely to feel good about doing them.

Still, some “tough jobs don’t need to be delegated,” Thompson said. If an insurance company has to be fired, that’s the CEO’s job. Also, if someone in the organization that the CEO hired has to be let go, the CEO has to be a part of that too, Thompson said.

What Not to Do

There are several “no-no’s,” Thompson said, that should be absolutely avoided by those in a position of leadership. Among them:

• Public displays of temper.
• Using e-mail to discuss subject matter that is open to interpretation. E-mails can be a “very dangerous and toxic form of communication,” Thompson said. E-mails should not be used as a vehicle for people to attack others in the organization, or worse, for supervisors to discipline employees. It’s “very important to reduce heat-seeking e-mails,” he said.
• Punishing people for honest mistakes.
• Trying to solve everybody’s problems. “When somebody comes to me with a problem it’s very hard for me to hold myself back,” Thompson said. A better way is to start asking questions and listen, he said.
• Discouraging honest feedback and expression of concern. “You really need to let people point out unpleasant truths, it’s important to create an atmosphere where people want to talk about things,” Thompson said.
• Dumping, not delegating. Dumping is when you give someone a job they’re not ready for and don’t provide direction or leadership. That leaves employees feeling “like they’re left in the desert trying to handle something they’re not ready for,” Thompson said.