What you'll take away from this session:
- How to create better structures and communication around managers/direct reports
Deanna Cuadra (00:06):
Just next to me here we have Karsten Wagner, Head of people at Define Ventures, largest early stage VC in digital health. With over 15 years in HR, Carson has helped companies grow from having less than a hundred employees to 400 to 500 in their workforce. Right next to him we have Laura Kloss, VP consultant of Lockton Companies, the world's largest independent insurance brokerage. Kloss frequently mentors young associates through her company's benefits academy and the effort to build up the next generation entering her industry. Last but certainly not least, we have Peter Freska Partner at Insurance Brokerage Acrisure. Did I get it? Alright. Peter works only for not only his work, not only centers on healthcare, but also leadership development and strategic planning. He has served on the boards of several nonprofit organizations like the Children's Maritime Foundation, as well as several healthcare associations. We obviously have a great panel here today, so I'm going to go ahead and dive in. I'm going to toss the first question to Karsten. As a people and HR leader, can you tell me about some key ingredients and considerations that need to go into making an effective leadership program?
karsten Vagner (01:21):
Sure. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks everybody for sticking with us today. I've been asked this question several times and when I think about companies who are starting to think about their leadership training, I think step one is figuring out who your leaders are. Who are you calling leaders? I've worked at companies before and worked with companies, advise companies who don't know who all of their managers are. They don't know what that cohort is. And as we all know in growing companies, it changes every day. People get promoted, people move out, people move in. So without a real way to understand who these people are, I think that's step one. You got to know your audience and then from there you have to have enough data to figure out what they need. And I think we will talk more about this, but you really have to start thinking about what your organization needs in order to empower your managers in the right way and not just with anything.
Deanna Cuadra (02:16):
Alright. And Laura, as you know, you are a mentor with your Benefits Academy. Can you talk a little bit about what it's like being a sponsor of that program?
Laura Kloss (02:25):
Yeah, so thank you having me and thanks for being here. That program's really cool because as Rachel mentioned this morning, not a lot of people grow up thinking, oh, I'm going to get into benefits when I get older and that's going to be my career. But people kind of just fall into it. And then we have these lifers that really enjoy it and love it, but we notice that people coming out of college don't really know much about benefits at all. So we created this Benefits Academy program and it's really for entry level people or people new to the industry to teach them, just starts off Benefits 101 and it's like classroom style training and then it's a year long program and they get introduced to be the team and get to work on clients as well. So it's kind of half and half, but just the future leaders.
Deanna Cuadra (03:16):
And Peter, I know the Acrisure has its own academy. Can you talk a little bit about what your program is like?
Peter Freska (03:21):
Yeah, absolutely. Again, thank you for having me here. Thank you for everybody coming and joining this session. It's kind of an interesting perspective because our company in 10 years has grown from 38 million to four and a half billion dollars and to 17,000 worldwide employees in 21 countries. So how do we get those folks to understand what's going on? Becomes hopefully a simplified approach in what we call the actual partner development academy. And in there we take them through a six month program, take producers, advisors, consultants through a six month program where they learn really about themselves, they learn about relationships, they learn about the business, they actually develop a business plan and go through several books, movies and get to know each other. So it's very interesting when we go to national meetings and things like that, this group, this cohort that's been developed actually knows each other from across the country. And it's very fun to see them because everybody else is saying, well, why does Peter and Allure, John or whoever it is, and they get excited to say, oh, well I was in the act, actual development academy, and they continue to grow throughout that. So that's going to be the next piece of developing. What's the next step once they graduate? What do they do next year or the year after that and how do they continue? How do we continue to teach, train, and develop these future of the company?
Deanna Cuadra (04:54):
Alright, and all these programs certainly sound effective. So I do want to ask then, how do you develop the right KPIs within these programs? How do you ensure that any employee, whether they're starting from a lower managerial level or even an individual contributor, they can become great leaders at your organization? And this course question goes to all of you. So Karsten, do you want to start it off?
karsten Vagner (05:18):
We're like, that's a good question.
Peter Freska (05:20):
That's a great question.
karsten Vagner (05:23):
I think when it comes to leadership, I can tell you about things that I've done that have been effective. One of the things that we did, it took some time, but we actually sifted through two years worth of performance reviews. We looked at 360 reviews and what employees said about their managers. We also looked at what executives said about their direct reports managers as well. We looked at managers, self reviews and independent development plans. And then we compared that with engagement survey data from teams, specifically with comments about management to just get a sense of where are we, what do we really need here? So we had a real perspective on the areas where we were strong and the areas where we had gaps that allowed us to then go out into the market and find vendors, programs, coaches, all of that who aligned with what we needed. So it felt less off the shelf.
Laura Kloss (06:21):
I think it is also important to make sure that these programs and these trainings that we do for leaders are ongoing and often because a lot of times these top performers are often the ones that are in these leadership positions. And just because a top performer is great at their job, maybe a consultant or an analyst or whatever that job may be doesn't necessarily mean they have the tools to be a good leader. So doing those trainings often and connecting people with their peers so that they can share feedback and have that feedback loop.
Peter Freska (06:58):
I'd agree the data is of course important. The relationships I think are a big piece of that and the ongoing learning, instilling in the teams across the enterprise and cost of the entire organization, that learning doesn't stop that. There's always going to be somebody that knows something more than you that's smarter, faster, stronger, whatever it is. So if we can continue to show folks even at receptionist all the way up to executive level, that learning never stops and they need to keep on growing throughout their entire career. The continuum is ongoing, it becomes a continuum. And we see ROI perspectives, especially on our advisory teams that look at total client view, they are more successful in their relationships with their clients, they're more successful financially, professionally, developmentally and relationally really is what it boils down to.
Deanna Cuadra (08:00):
And of course we know that for some industries there's up to five generations at a company, everyone's going to come from different backgrounds, different experiences. How do you develop a program that can be effective for everyone?
Peter Freska (08:16):
This is a big problem, especially in our types of business, the insurance of financial services business, to be very blunt, it's on average 67 year old white male and that's the business. It is what it is. So now we have to figure out how do we diversify that population? How do we get younger folks, forget about, I don't want to forget about, that's the wrong word to say, but forget race. Just look at young. We want 25 year old that have had a couple of years of experience in something to come in. Interestingly enough, I spent 10 years at enterprise rent a car and many of you heard of Enterprise Rent a car. They're the number one hire of college graduates from the country. In this country. They don't care what graduate degree you have, they just care that you spent four years in college so that you got an education that you made a difference and that you're trying to succeed. If we use that similar type of mentality, we could have somebody with a biology degree or from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in insurance and risk management, it doesn't matter. We want to make sure that they have a drive that they want to help people and if they want to do that, then they'll be successful.
Laura Kloss (09:33):
And I think as you mentioned, I think it's also important to have that kind of broken out. Like at Lockton we have a program called Consulting Excellence and we've broken it out so that there's a program specifically for early career and later career. I think when you think of leadership training, a lot of this gets, it's available for people later on in their career and people just starting out, it's just as important for them as well. So being able to segment that so that it's valuable to them and relevant to what they're doing,
karsten Vagner (10:12):
I think mean you asked how do you do something that we're all five of those generations.
Laura Kloss (10:18):
Well as different backgrounds.
karsten Vagner (10:19):
Absolutely. I think that's a good question and I think what we forget in this is that each group, that span that you're talking about has something to learn from the other. I think that people who have been in their careers longer have such experience. They know how to be in an office in ways that some of these folks who've never had to be in an office before, how to act in a board meeting, how to send an email, professional attire response, all reading body language, all these things that are newer for some people who are just starting out, whereas people who are just coming into the workforce are much better with technology. The people who have the most work experience are probably still using Excel spreadsheets and this kind of stuff when there are tools that are much more effective, much more faster and faster collaboration. In my line of work in startups and tech, there's a big divide between people who grew up on Microsoft and people who are using Google Docs, and I think it informs your work. I think one just moves faster than the other. And so I think there's something to internal training that collaboration could really do something.
Peter Freska (11:28):
The mentorship program that you mentioned, for example, is a great way to take that 50, 60 year old person that's been in the business for 10, 20, 30 plus years and hopefully share that knowledge with the 25 year old, 35 year old that's brand new to the industry, whatever industry that's in because I agree with you, there's a base there that just doesn't get transferred very easily. We see that in a lot of industries that we work with manufacturing, what happened to apprenticeships. It's the same idea in what all of us do or we can apply that to almost any industry that we work in that you could have an apprentice type of program that shares that knowledge. That only really comes from doing, you can't necessarily learn it in a book or at school.
Deanna Cuadra (12:23):
Absolutely. To that point, I am curious, you guys have a wealth of experience here. What are some common mistakes you often see people make when it comes to their leadership programs? Where are people going? Wrong
karsten Vagner (12:40):
I have a long list.
Deanna Cuadra (12:43):
No, go for it. Go for it. Give us start list.
karsten Vagner (12:45):
I'll start with one. It's top of mind for me. I was just talking to one of our portfolio companies this morning about it. Everybody wants an executive coach. It's like the new accessory to have this season. And I think that's a good thing, right? Because there's something about wanting to learn and wanting to improve and that growth mindset only makes your business better. I think the challenge is when you have individual learning, you lack consistency across a leadership team for instance, or across a management team. And maybe some of you have had managers come to you and say, I need a coach. I need this and that. And that's good because you want them to that drive to learn. The challenge is if you do that, if every high performer gets a coach, every high performer gets some kind of class or whatever, you've also got to be thoughtful about what they're gaining and what they're learning. Because I've seen environments where we have two different managers, both high performing, they both have coaches who are completely different, teaching them something completely different and even opposed sometimes now you put them in a room and things actually have deteriorated at the company as opposed to getting better. And it was all from good intention. But I think there's something to really being thoughtful about who you engage and making sure that whoever you're engaged is really aligned with the business and what you need and not just a work therapist.
Laura Kloss (14:10):
And I think keeping that connection through, not just during the training, but even after making sure that you're getting feedback and not having it siloed to where this person's my direct report, they only come to me having access to everybody in the company, whether it's an intern reaching out to the CEO. I think that just opening those lines of communication makes such a difference. I've worked at organizations where I don't even know who my boss's boss is. It's like a name a celebrity, and it's like maybe I can see them in the hallway at some point, but that's unattainable. Whereas the company I'm at right now, I remember our practice leader, she had just started and she came and met with every single person in the organization, gave her contact information, was like, you can reach out to me at any time. And I just remember feeling like, wow, that's so cool that I have a personal relationship with her. So I think that really makes a big difference in an organization.
Peter Freska (15:06):
I share to your point of the question of failure. I recently had just this last year in our development program, part of our program, we bring in Dr. Leroy nunnery. He runs an organization that's part of our company called Evolution Advisors, and they focus on minority owned businesses across the country and the financial insurance services world to help them develop and help them get as much of exposure and so forth as they can get. He comes and talks and spends a whole day with the class. And this last class that we ran that I moderated were almost all women. And that in 10 years has never happened, believe it or not, for whatever reasons. But it was a diverse group of women. And one of the things after he spoke, at the end of that day, a couple of the women brought up was, okay, I see you have a great book by Stephen Covey, Jim Collins, John Maxwell, all these great authors, but none of them are women, not one.
(16:11)
It was a total blind spot that I had. And I thought, oh, these are the top leadership books, development books in the world, bestsellers. So I had to reflect. I had sit there and go, you know what? You're right. And I had to sit and go, what do I want to do? So I asked them, I brought them several books and they decided that we want to add Dare to Lead by Brene Brown. And my wife also hit me in the head because she's like, I read this book, I've told you about this book. And you just had the little blinders on and going, no, I'm going to do this. I've done it for 10 years and it's worked very, very well. But you know what? Things change. People change and we need to continue back to the original. We need to continue to grow and learn. And that was a big learning moment for me in the development of our program, the development of what I get to share with folks like you and with our teams on a regular basis as we continue to grow. So don't ever stop learning.
Deanna Cuadra (17:10):
And it looks like the common theme really comes down to communication, adaptability, and well, I guess listening, secretive life listening. And I want to then ask, because I think this is a huge challenge every organization has, even regardless of size. The million dollar question here is how can organizations structure themselves in a way where there is a healthy constant feedback loop between let's say employees, individual contributors and all levels of leaders?
Laura Kloss (17:43):
Yeah. I think the first thing is to ask for feedback and be open when you receive that feedback. So how you react to that feedback is really going to make a difference on what kind of feedback you get. So leading by example before you give feedback, make it a practice that you're consistently asking for it.
Peter Freska (18:04):
I think it's interesting in this, especially related if anybody was here for the session before us, flexibility in the workplace, intentionality becomes a big piece of what we do. People are working from home, they're working from hotel rooms, they're working from conferences. Wherever it is they're working from, they're constantly working. We're more connected than we've ever been, yet we're less connected than we've ever been. We look at our phone 150 times a day looking for hope. So if we create intentionality from a leader and from a subordinate perspective to have that 360 performance review, have that open door policy in a remote flexible workplace, meaning I need to reach out to the team and call them and just have a one-on-one conversation to say, hi, we do it with our clients. Why don't we do it with our own teams? We need to do that.
(18:58)
They need to be able to do that for us too. And we need to make ourselves as leaders, we need to make sure that we're available when they call because it's easy for us to get busy doing whatever it is. And I see smiles, we're always busy doing something, especially in this world of connectivity where meetings back to back to back to back to back. So how do we fit that in? Well, maybe it's nights and weekends. Sorry folks. It's what it is. We got to make sure that we're available and being intentional about reaching out and being available to have our teams reach out to us.
karsten Vagner (19:35):
I think you have to build in into the language. We don't give enough feedback because we probably don't talk about feedback enough at your organizations and all your back-to-back meetings and everything else, you have plenty of opportunity to talk about feedback that you received or what you learned from doing this thing. And by modeling this, it starts to trickle out across the organization that this is something we talk about. This is something we do, and this is something we acknowledge and celebrate. I think it can come from anyone. I think it should especially come from leaders at the top. It should come from managers. So yes, you do need to carve out times to give and receive feedback, but almost more important than that is the PR around feedback saying, Hey, I was having this conversation with somebody. They gave me this feedback. This is what I learned, and so this is what I'm going to do now. And you say that in all of your meetings, it gets out there. That's how people learn. Say, oh, well you're going to do that. That gives me permission to do that, right? And I'm going to go do that for my teams too. It's such an easy way to build a culture of feedback.
Peter Freska (20:36):
There's a term that came out a long time, I'm sure you're aware of psychological safety, creating that psychological safety, that room for people to say whatever it is, it's okay to make a mistake. It's okay to hear positive and negative, constructive, hopefully feedback to have a full loop like you're saying. So we can have that continuous cycle of growth and learning throughout. But if a leader, if you go into that room, be it online or in person, doesn't set that tone, I think to your point, then it's not going to happen. Then the junior associate or whatever in the corner isn't going to be comfortable enough to speak up when something goes wrong or something needs to be done. You see that a lot in military teams and small units that work together very closely. It doesn't matter if you're the lieutenant commander or you're the sergeant on the line or the private. If something goes wrong, do it. You remember the old saying of the manufacturing line, anybody could pull the string to stop the manufacturing process if something isn't right. Again, apply those types of concepts to all of our industries, all of our businesses. Pull that whistle, pull that bell and say, Hey, this isn't right. This doesn't look right. Or Hey, show me how to do it.
Laura Kloss (21:55):
And I think positive feedback is just as important as negative feedback, but it's a lot easier to receive negative feedback when you feel like that person actually cares about you and is giving you that feedback to help you not to just share difficult feedback.
Peter Freska (22:11):
Incredibly valid point. In today's world, as we hear more about anxiety, mental health, substance abuse, behavioral health, and the misalignment that we see in your employee benefits, in your workers' compensation, in all of these things that you have to worry about, we see these claims coming through on a regular basis. So how do we properly mine those things so we can create an environment that allows an employee to share their concerns, to have conversations about their mental health. It's something that it's a work in progress.
karsten Vagner (22:46):
Both of you are triggering me progress. You're triggering me talking about negative feedback, please. I think you're right about mental health. I think the idea of negative feedback is so anxiety inducing, there's fear of giving it and there's fear of hearing it. And I want to challenge us to think about a different framework for it. I like to talk about useful feedback and not useful feedback. I like to talk to my teams about giving useful feedback and not giving them useless feedback. Useful feedback comes in all flavors. It can say keep doing this thing. It's really good. Useful feedback can also be like, don't do that thing anymore. It's not as good as the other thing. That's both of these are useful. The intention behind it is to make you better or make the business better, make the results better. Not useful. Feedback also comes in different flavors, not useful feedback is generalities without any examples or data are also saying, I got no notes. You're great. That's useless. What is that? That's not helpful. And so I think that there's something to phrasing this differently. There's something to language around this and bringing this to your organization, removing this sense of negative feedback isn't negative Feedback is meant to make you better. It's okay to hear. And we should teach our employees too. It's all right to hear stuff that they didn't do well because it only makes them better. It's all about the intention and the spirit. So I just wanted to say that.
Peter Freska (24:10):
Just record it. I want to write that one down. Useful and not useful.
karsten Vagner (24:12):
Useful, yeah, useful feedback. I like that one. Useful feedback.
Deanna Cuadra (24:16):
Alright, well I'm going to stop with my questions for just a second. I want to give the audience a chance to ask anything that's on their mind. Anything from the audience on leadership training on developing leaders in your workforce. Yes.
Audience Member 1 (24:33):
Hi name. I was just wondering, how are you looking at in developing leaders without a title? So maybe they're not a people manager, they're the contributor, they're a culture driver. How are you identifying those folks and then developing them within your focus?
karsten Vagner (24:52):
I can go. So something that I've done, but thank you Dominique for the question. It's a great one. I think a lot of times those people are self-selecting, they're going to raise their hands and say, I want to do this sometimes. Sometimes you have to really find them and give opportunities and see who raises their hand to take them. But ERGs are a really good example of that. Just clubs in general are a good way to do that. Covid for all the bad it brought to the world, it's certain companies that had to go remote or forced. There are all kinds of opportunities to bring connection, all that kind of stuff. Some people really stepped up. And what I like to see at my organization where I worked during that time, we built it into people's goals. We didn't want to ask anyone to do free work.
(25:32)
So if you're going to lead an ERG, you're going to lead some kind of cloud or some kind of special cultural initiative or whatever. Let's make it part of your goals, let's measure your performance on this, make sure you're getting paid for it, all of that kind of stuff. So suddenly we're giving people voice, we're giving them a broader breadth. And I think you have to give people platforms then to talk about the work they're doing and give them the opportunity to address the company, address, the executive team, the board, whatever else it happens to be. Because I think those opportunities make a leader. It also makes people say, this isn't for me and that's okay too. But I think giving people those shots and folding it into your work is probably the best way I've seen people do it.
Laura Kloss (26:14):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I like to call those people workplace influencers.
karsten Vagner (26:18):
That's a good one.
Peter Freska (26:19):
I like that one too. So the curve of folks, I think there is some self-selection that does happen. Sometimes those folks, they step to the front, they usually do. But there's always going to be those people in any organization that are over here on the bell curve, they're the top 10% or whatever it is, be it performance. And they're going to seek out those opportunities. Maybe for the wrong reason. Sometimes they do seek them out. So I guess to your point, Dominique was it that how do we get those other folks, the people in the middle or the bottom of the bell curve, is there anybody in that group? And that's the million dollar question to the data of where they're coming from. Getting to know them becomes part of that conversation, spending time with them. I loved the lightning round that they talked about in the last session, doing a meeting and having two people spend 30 minutes, 15 minutes each telling about whatever it is they want to talk about because their ultra marathoners was the example or whatever it might be. And it has nothing to do with work. But if I'm now getting to know you personally, I have a better idea of where you're coming from and what you're able to accomplish. So then maybe I do pull you into something, but if I never spend that time with you, I'm never going to have that ability to understand where you're coming from, what drives you, what motivates you. So some of it pushes back up to whoever that leader is or that management structure to get to know their people.
Laura Kloss (27:46):
And I think just giving them a voice. And during the pandemic when we were all remote, we started doing something called a virtual coffee break where you signed up if you were interested and then you got paired with a couple people that maybe you did know, maybe you didn't. It was random and it was across the whole series. So there were a bunch of people that maybe you would've met if you were just walking around the office in the lunchroom. But because you weren't doing that, you weren't meeting these people anymore. And that's kind of carried over since a lot of people are still remote or maybe just don't go into the office on the same day. So being able to get those people out and give them a voice to share what they have to say to.
Deanna Cuadra (28:28):
Alright, I think we have a few more minutes for another question. If someone else, any takers going once, going twice.
Peter Freska (28:40):
Any topic.
Deanna Cuadra (28:42):
Anything?
Audience Member 2 (28:44):
I'm wondering if any of you have led or design sessions to help people in managerial positions engage with their teams around issues of things like mental health. It has been a world where we're bringing ourselves to work and being authentic, but I think it's become increasingly difficult for managers to know where the line is and manager and not therapists. I'm just curious if that's something that you all have seen, you've training around.
Peter Freska (29:11):
Not directly, I don't do the training. That is not my wheelhouse. But we do work with organizations that do provide that training. One of the companies we work with, they're not specific on mental health, but they are about developing leaders called All American Leadership. And they've been around for a number of years and they all come from military academy, from West Point, the Naval Academy, Annapolis Air Force and so forth. And so they have a very specific process and method to their madness of developing leaders. But if you read any of the statistics, military is a place where leadership has developed and a lot of folks, and a lot of times we think military, we think, oh, command and control like the general to his troops and all that sort of stuff. But the military has gone through a wide variety of emotional growth as, I don't know if anybody here, we're in San Diego, there's a lot of military around here and it's much less about, hey, go take that hill.
(30:19)
Versus hey, we need to take that hill because these are the reasons. So things have changed a lot in how we do things and it applies to understanding that emotional intelligence that we need to continue to develop. So there are a lot of companies out there. We vet them for our organizations that we work with. I'm sure you do the same. Even as simple as some of your basic EAPs, your Employee Assistance Programs, most of them, many of them have manager your referral sources in them to say, I'm going to refer this person to the EAP. And they have five mandatory sessions that they need to do included in that EAP. But most employers and managers don't really necessarily know about those things. I'll stop.
Laura Kloss (31:09):
Yeah, I couldn't have said it better.
karsten Vagner (31:11):
Like their EAPs because they're not user-friendly. What I've done is brought in consultants. What makes me nervous is having managers just talk about health with employees in general, which probably makes you nervous too. But what I've tried to do is empower managers to know what to look for. So we've brought in consultants, I work in digital health, we've got clinicians who are obviously experiencing burnout in different kinds of ways. You bring in a consultant who knows the space, knows the world, and can teach your managers, these are the things to look for on your teams. These are the things to encourage on your teams, that kind of thing. Look for behaviors, phrases to use, phrases to avoid. That kind of thing might be helpful for you. But if you go tell your managers, talk to your teams about mental health, look out. Yes.
Laura Kloss (32:01):
Right. And I know it's a lot of times people are coming to them and they're not prepared for those questions. And it can be scary when you get a question like that and you're not prepared. So providing those trainings, and like Peter said, EAPs are a great resource for that.
Peter Freska (32:17):
EAPs are just a start though.
Laura Kloss (32:19):
Yes, right. There's much more robust resources out there. But if there's nothing else, I think that EAPs are a great start.
Peter Freska (32:26):
There's a company that's a startup company talking about digital health. It's called TruSight. And they go dig into self-funded plans and the data that is driving substance abuse, mental health, behavioral health issues, and they will pull out and engage employees and hopefully pull them out into outpatient care versus inpatient care because the result of outpatient care is much better than 30 day inpatient stay. People return over and over for inpatient stay. We've seen the data, you can look at it. So that's just one little example of being able to mine data in the digital health space on a self-funded plan doesn't work as well on fully insured plans, but they can dig through workers' comp data and a variety of other data. So help those employees out.
Deanna Cuadra (33:22):
Alright, well that's all the time we have for today. I want to thank you guys for your great questions. I want to thank our panel for joining us and offering great insight. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thank you.