P & C Technology Blog

Jeanne Eddy: Insurance Executive

Jeanne Eddy was an insurance executive who retired just over a year ago to travel and spend time with her husband.  They died in a small plane crash in Alaska last week along with Jeanne’s sister and brother-in-law and their pilot.  They were on a sight-seeing side trip from an Alaskan cruise.  This is shocking and terrible news for those of us who new Jeanne. 

I met Jeanne about six years ago when she was an executive in a regional P&C carrier where amongst other things she was responsible for IT.  Acting without a CIO at the time she supported the bold recommendation of one of her IT Directors and hired my small, relatively young, company to oversee a very important project.  During the next year I met intermittently with Jeanne.

First impressions can be dangerous.  It was easy to initially underestimate Jeanne.  She was a short, plump lady with cropped white hair, a round, kind face and twinkly blue eyes.  Put glasses and an apron on her and she could have advertised country biscuits or cookie dough.   She looked like an idealized Grandma.  But it didn’t take long to realize that you were actually dealing with a razor sharp intellect.    Jeanne had a habit of smiling at you with those blue eyes, cocking her head in a birdlike way and skewering you with tough questions.  I learned to prepare well for meetings with Jeanne and to take a deep breath and collect my thoughts before responding to those inquisitive, smiling eyes. 

Unfailingly polite as she was, she didn’t have much time for fools.  But she did have a lot of time for bright hardworking people and she was a natural mentor.  Everyone who worked for Jeanne learned from her.  She took a special interest in the careers of promising young women.  Everyone seemed to like her and everyone seemed to grow and benefit from knowing her.

Unfortunately, the project that brought us together was deeply flawed and did not succeed.  I was personally involved in the painful task of communicating this to Jeanne.  It was her responsibility, conceived on her watch, it was a big deal and it failed.  There are a lot of things about that situation that I don’t know, but I do know this:  the company did the right thing in a professional manner and none of the messengers got shot.  I suspect the failure hurt Jeanne’s career but it didn’t hurt anyone that worked for her.  And if she did take a fall she did it in silence and without any obvious change of demeanor.

It is terribly sad and a little strange that having recently written about “C” level executives and their tendencies to live in intellectual airplanes I find myself writing about a “C” leveler who died in a real one.  Jeanne wasn’t a member of the “broccoli brigade”. She was “real people”.  She was curious and questioning and a good listener.  She was also one of the nicest and most genuine people I have met in my lengthy business career.   The last time I saw her was just before she retired.  She gave me her personal contact information and said if there was ever anything she could do to help me in the future to please contact her - me, just a small time vendor.

A lot of people knew Jeanne better and spent a lot more time with her than I did.  I hope I have represented some of their thoughts and feelings.  It would have been remiss to let this tragedy pass without acknowledging a special person. 

Thirty Thousand Feet above C Level: Win an iPod

I spend a lot of time in airplanes and occasionally reflect on the pleasing notion that from thirty thousand feet large trees look like small pieces of broccoli.  Unfortunately, this slightly fanciful notion is indicative of the world view of many of the people who control our budgets and our ability to execute projects.  The common “view from thirty thousand feet” metaphor indicates the high level, initial or cursory view which is so often held by what we now refer to as “C” level executives.  I heard a great illustration of “C” level thinking last week from an IT executive who reports to one of the lions of the insurance industry (someone we would probably all consider to be a “CCC” level executive.  The lion wanted to know why it would take the IT guy three months to select a core systems software vendor given the fact that he “could buy a damned insurance company in less time than that”.  One interesting potential answer is that maybe it is more difficult to select a core systems software vendor than it is to buy an insurance company, but I strongly doubt that was the lion’s conclusion. 

The problem with high level executives is that they live in intellectual airplanes.  Everything looks like little pieces of broccoli to them.  These are the people who look at you with incredulity when you tell them that it will take two years (you are lying, you really mean three) to replace the company’s policy administration system.  Then when they ask what in hell can possibly take that long, they cut off your explanation because they don’t have time to hear it.  One of the main reasons that so many projects end up late and over budget is that the guys in the airplane just cannot not fathom what we were telling them and insist we reduce the numbers to something which fits better with their arbitrary world view.  We are dealing with trees and they are dealing with broccoli.

So how do you explain that the little piece of broccoli is a hundred foot tree?  And how do you anticipate the moment when the “C” leveler suddenly pays your project A LOT of attention (usually when you are asking for money or some other major commitment)?

At a talk on software selection at the recent IASA show an attendee asked how to deal with “helicopter executives”.  To switch aeronautical metaphors for a moment, a helicopter executive is one of those “hands off” types that hovers out of sight for most of the project life cycle and only occasionally drops out of the clouds, joining the rest of us at ground level and raising a great deal of dust. 

So here are some ways to deal with the executives in your life, whether they fly airplanes or helicopters:

·                    Business and IT executives are incredibly time sliced. Talk briefly, in simple, high level concepts. Details will make them malfunction.

·                    Despite the contrary protestations of a former US President, C levelers do not “feel your pain”.   The stresses and strains of a major project are not their concern.   Getting the project done is their concern.  Empathy is not the overwhelming character trait amongst those who fly in the corporate jet.

·                    To communicate effectively with C levelers you need to talk in terms they relate to – dollars, head count, time lines, and talk only about big issues.

·                    Understand the project from their perspective.  Think business drivers, cost benefits and technology support for business plans.

·                    When building teams make sure that the C levelers have proxies on the team who can represent their views, keep them informed and tell them what to think. 

·                    Make sure you report progress regularly to the C level.  A project sponsor meeting goes a long way to at least informing if not involving the decision makers.

·                    Never surprise a C level executive, they are remarkably easy to spook.  Especially never blind side them with real news in a public forum.  Private briefings, followed by public meetings will help to move the project along relatively smoothly.

Joking aside, the majority of us project types don’t have a lot of exposure to those who hold our fates in their hands.  We don’t know what they do or how they think or how little time they have for genuine reflection.  I had a boss years ago who would walk through the IT department with a meaningful stride and a fixed smile on his face.  One hand extended in salutation he would call at intervals: “Everything OK”, and disappear without ever stopping.  It took me some time to realize that “Everything OK” was not a question.  Years later I asked him why he never stopped and apparently didn’t want to hear the answer to his “question”.  His reply was to that he used to stop and listen but realized that either people would tell him what they thought he wanted to hear or they would bombard him with details which he couldn’t possibly absorb and action.  So he settled for a daily “run thought the gauntlet” which looked good and achieved nothing. 

          

So, here is the point of this post.  You all know aeronautical executives.  Share your best C level story with the rest of us and I will arbitrarily award an Apple iPod to the one I consider to be the best.  C level executives may participate, assuming they have the time.  Get to it.  This one time offer only last until I land.

Hats Off to Insurance

This post is not about technology.

I was born in Glasgow, Scotland.  I traveled through its airport as recently as last summer when my younger daughter and I were caught in the chaos that immediately followed the foiled attempt by terrorists to mix bombs on Transatlantic aircraft from various liquids in carry-on containers.  Remember when you could carry toiletries without having to check your bag?  That was a long, arduous and sobering ride back to the States.  I have family in and around London and visit or at least travel through Heathrow or Gatwick ever year.  So the events of the past few days are personally charged for me.

A couple of things come to mind that are appropriate for this forum.

First, as we say in Glasgow: “Keep the heid (head).”  A balanced perspective is important in evaluating risk and behavior.  As any actuarial type can tell you - you are much safer flying than to driving.  You are also more likely to be struck by lightening than by terrorists.  So, I’ll be off to London later in the year as usual.  But when I travel to the UK now there is a small voice in the back of my mind talking the plane into an uneventful landing at Heathrow, and a watchfulness around major tourist spots which would make such iconic targets for those bent on mayhem and destruction.

Second, the internal anxiety is significantly reduced by……….insurance!  As a parent I worry about two things in these situations.  Naturally, along with everyone else, I worry about being hurt or being killed in a violent manner.  And, as a parent I worry about my ability, alive or dead, to provide for my family.  And this is where insurance comes in.  Without wishing to sound like an insurance salesman, this is exactly what insurance is for.  It is peace of mind.  Insurance is not glamorous but it is important.  Many if not all the major risks we undertake, we would not or could not undertake without the backing of insurance.  In the example we are talking about its life, disability and medical coverage that provide the peace of mind without which I might not visit Big Ben or The Tower of London.  In other instances – buying a car or a house – the chosen risk with its attendant high reward, would be impossible for most of us without the backing of auto and homeowners insurance. 

In a very vital way our lives would be smaller, less interesting and much less comfortable if there were no readily available insurance to take care of the various financial catastrophes which can attend our actions and acquisitions.  In fact without insurance we might live in a world that looked a lot more like the one that breeds terror than the one we enjoy each day.  I understand that the terrorist profile of the radicalized, impoverished young male is simplified and sometimes wrong.  Take the “doctors” who tried but failed to immolate themselves and hundreds of Scottish holiday makers (hope they were better doctors than terrorists).  But qualifications aside it seems to make sense that materially comfortable people living in a functioning democracy with effective laws and open communications would be far harder to radicalize than those in poor, closed societies.  And it is no stretch to claim that a major pillar of our market based democracy is insurance. 

So just for once it's hats off to insurance.  Not only does it pay out salaries.  It extends the possibilities of our lives.