How many people do you know who have a college degree and are working directly in the field that they studied for? Over the years of working with and interviewing professionals, there is a much more common thread of hard working people who put their careers in motion, met adversity and found a way to keep themselves moving forward. Thankfully we are a resilient species, we can find means of inspiration in our journey and if we are fortunate, we find people who will help expedite our progress. Andrew McCabe is an entrepreneur who has found ways to improve himself, is building a brand and has joined forces with like minded professionals who are seeking to innovate in their sector of the service industry. Our thanks to Andy for taking to the time to share a bit of his story and some of the snippets of success that have helped bring him to where he is as an independent adjuster, author and founder of a restoration conference. You don't meet many people that set out to get into the insurance industry, how did you find yourself involved with this profession? I took a job as a marketing manager for a restoration contractor straight out of college. I have a marketing degree, so I thought it would be a good start. I soon learned that I knew very little about "real" B2B marketing. Colleges don't teach networking or relationship building. I was quickly moved into Project Management with WRT and ASD classes. The rest is history. Currently you are engaged in several entrepreneurial ventures so let's break down a few of those components. Do I understand correctly that your main gig is as an independent adjuster? Currently I write estimates for contractors across the country as my main gig. I only recently started working as an independent adjuster out of necessity because we had a CAT [Catastrophic Loss Event] hit Bend, Oregon and it was all hands on deck. What was the catalyst for launching out on your own? The catalyst for starting out of my own was out of necessity, I had been fired three years in a row from three different jobs. I decided in late 2012 that I would never be fired again so I decided to work for myself, go figure. So, I started writing Xactimate estimates for whoever would hire me and most folks thought I was crazy and that the idea would never take off. But now we're here we are almost 5 years later there are several companies across country that do exactly what I do; write Xactimate estimates for other people I feel like the market is changing and the restoration industry which has been historically 15 years behind the time is going to be swept up in these changes. Writing estimates independently is only the beginning of what I see as a automation of the entire industry. You have written a book and developed a program around that publication titled The 24 Hour Tech, what is the story behind developing this program and what is the elevator pitch for how it benefits the water damage service providers in our industry? The 24 hour tech is another example of desperation and necessity being the mother of invention. I was working with a ServiceMaster franchise in Scottsdale, Arizona as the sole estimator, project manager and general manager. I was stuck with whomever the owner decided to hire in the given moment and I found myself training and retraining employees two and three times a month. I also found it difficult to find time to get to every single project that I had to estimate in any given day. The TPA [Third Party Administrator] framework made it almost impossible for me to do all the jobs that I needed to do. I needed to find a way to have the water damage technicians do my job for me in that I could sit back at the office and do estimates while they gathered the data and took the pictures for me. I developed The 24-hour Tech System to accomplish both things. I was able to train new water damage technicians quickly and I was able to get the information that I needed as an estimator back at the office without having to visit every single job myself. The crazy thing in my mind is that the franchise did not provide a system of training or documentation that accomplished what the 24 hour tech accomplishes so elegantly and simply. One of our taglines is "connect, collaborate and conquer", you have brought together a group of industry professionals and are putting together a conference that will meet this year, Restoration 2.0 Summit. How long has this idea been in the works and what was the catalyst for making it happen? I had/have been receiving email after phone call from folks who all have the same problems, frustrations and desires. There are so many of "US" out there, that someone had to give it a name and a place. That is the Restoration Alliance. The Rebels are the forward face and voice. But the Alliance is deeper and wider than even I could have imagined. We decided to hold this event in December/January this year. It just felt like the right thing to do. For those who haven't heard or may be on the fence, what is the primary benefit of attending R2.0? The primary benefit of the Restoration 2.0 Summit is connection and inspiration. We are all in this together, even those who chose to go it alone. We've covered three areas of your efforts, what would you say is a key piece advice either collectively or individually for restoration professionals as a collective body? I've been writing this email for the past several days, and I could go on for pages if I had the time. For brevity's sake I will say this: we need to look for and recognize the humanity in the things we do and folks we see every day. Yes, the "system" is flawed and downright frustrating. If we pause to see the PERSON sitting across from us, and next to us, we can start to find the wins without giving up our souls. You can find more about Andrew McCabe and his work through claimsdelegates.com, he is on LinkedIn and tweets as @claimsdelegates. The Restoration 2.0 Summit will be hosted in Bend, Oregon on September 29, 2017. ᐧ
0 Comments
I could wish that I was cool enough to discover thoughtful gems such as this video by myself. I have Portland State University to thank for bringing me into contact with something that I viewed as a means to an end but ended up learning a thing or two. The attached video is about an hour long, so you may need to review it in a few settings or listen over an extended commute as I did. This material came to me as a component of my undergraduate studies in Criminal Justice but the parallels to the industry in which I have devoted more than 15 years of my life are rather astounding. Laura van Dernoot Lipsky is a respected author, the speech follows the material in her book Trauma Stewardship, and speaker, including a TedTalk on this subject matter. Her keynote speech was given before service providers including hospital staff, counselors, teachers and various practitioners who come into contact with people in trauma and how those professionals ensure that their tanks are fueled enough to continue to respond. We have always said, that our team members have to remember that while we restore damaged properties for a living and have seen "a thing or two" (to borrow the tag line from Farmers Insurance), many of our customers, if they are lucky, are experiencing their first water or fire damage. When water, fire or other disasters strike home or business, there is emotional, mental and at times physical trauma. Something deeper than building materials is impacted when a structure is damaged. Our teams are meeting and responding to people in stages of trauma, most obviously when they are responding to conditions such as the recent hurricanes or the sad reality of a crime scene clean up. My interest in the parallels was peaked as so I jotted a few notes as I listened, so my unpolished review includes these thoughts: 1. There is a collective toll from serving those in trauma which can be exacerbated when the system that is supposed to be supporting those on the front lines is compromised, broken and/or dysfunctional. Our job as leaders in our fields, at whatever level we find ourselves, is to work towards a system that enables, encourages and empowers our team members to care for themselves, care for the team and care for our clients. Emotional intelligence and empathy are key (more thoughts on this HERE). 2. Many people respond to repeated trauma by attempting to numb themselves. Numbing has consequences as a) shutting yourself down is removing the one thing in your power which is your ability to "be present" (you will have to listen to hear a more eloquent explanation of this by the author); b) shutting out increases the likelihood that you are losing awareness of doing harm to self, others and those you are serving; c) you cannot selectively numb out and numb back in, if you numb out in the professional arena it will have collateral damage into other arenas of your life. In contrast to numbing oneself or shutting things out, which have negative long term effects, we want to find ways to expand our capacity to be present. The author/speaker present simple concepts such as breathing exercises and provides other tools as well. Leaders should be aware of these consequences and lead by example in practicing positive measures as well as presenting these tools to their teams. 3. A major component of personal health relates to your ability to effectively move trauma through your system. When we regularly are caring for those impacted by trauma there is a toll on our selves and our teams known as vicarious trauma which we should be aware of so that we can address in positive ways. 4. For those that think Laura is just "rainbows and unicorns" spreading psycho babble, foremost she brings her experience from being on the front lines of trauma response and she has some rather stern warnings to those who might pigeon hole themselves as victims in there roles of responding to trauma. The speaker shares the power of an attitude of gratitude and shares how those principles can practically be applied to meetings to weave this vision throughout an organization. At one point the speaker gets rather pointed with the audience reminding them that this job is not being done to you, you have chosen to serve in this field, some people may need to find other lines of work and those that remain need to connect with what brought them to the field and carry on. Trauma isn't always about one major event but rather can be cumulative which includes vicarious trauma from serving those who are in trauma. Those in positions of leadership in service fields should be aware of these concepts for themselves as well as for their teams. Investing in a holistic approach to personal and group health can go a long way to strengthening individuals while building a group that is poised to help themselves, the team and their clients. “Team work makes the dream wok”, yet everyone's dream is different so which dream are we working on? Everyone is tired from working long hours and another call for service comes in, what will the team do? Leadership has a dream that everyone will work together peacefully and profitably but the reality is that the motivation train doesn’t always steam along down those tracks without some fuel to propel it. In these situations, what will stimulate individuals to action - which team will be responding to which dream? There are many managerial delusions, one of which is that everyone marches to the company drum beat. Only the extremely deluded would state it in such blatant terms but many managers express this sentiment in other ways. The truth is that people rarely go above and beyond for a company because of the company. Brand loyalty alone is not typically a primary motivation for employees as though a mid-level manager can summon the name on the logo as a beacon to action for the minions. Enduring motivation for individuals come from a sense of family (within the team), a sense of duty to someone they respect (leader or peer) or a need for remuneration (financial goals). It's important to understand what makes the individuals on your team tick so that you can attempt to connect with them to help build collaboration within the team. If you know just enough to be dangerous, or so that you can manipulate people, this dark art of stimulation will only last so long before you will run out of trust currency. In the discussion of motivation I have yet to meet a person in a position of leadership who hasn’t attempted some level of incentives for their organization. Jeremy Watkin, who is the Head of Quality for FCR and a featured columnist for Customer Think, shares his experiences and insights with incentive programs concluding, "Unexpected acts of appreciation reinforce the behaviors we want to see in our contact centers. Couple these with efforts to empower your agents and you can watch the engagement and motivation of your team increase." There is no silver-bullet incentive that will work in the same way for all people at all times. A team member may or may not bite on the bait of a particular incentive but that alone is not an indication of their engagement or commitment to the goals of the organization. Mr. Watkin shares some of the responses from individuals within the teams he has overseen who did not participate or weren't successful in certain incentive programs:
A second managerial delusion, or faulty perception, would be that lack of participation equates a lack of motivation or loyalty. As noted above, perceived failure in response to incentive programs can occur for various reasons, remember you are dealing with individuals. When seeking to motivate people, especially if you are in a position where you need to ask for the extraordinary or draw from energy reserves that may be depleted, connect with individuals to conquer as a team. As noted previously, the number of employees that are loyal to your company (the logo) are likely few. This doesn't mean that they aren't loyal employees or that they won't run through walls for the team, it just recognizes that brand X is not the reason why. For example, if all of your people have been working long hours and you get that infamous call at the end of a long day for emergency services, some of the least effective motivational speeches you could conjure would include sentiments such as, "It's your job...This is what we do...You owe us...Do you want me to tell the CEO that you refused..." If you seek to build a connected and collaborative team that is poised to conquer their shared goals, that type of camaraderie occurs at the local level with individuals of character and a team that cares for each other. It is to the benefit of the organization as a whole when there are strong localized teams who are working for each other. Culture is no accident as we discuss in our article Culture is not a Unicorn. What matters is that the individuals on the team respect, enjoy and fight for each other as those bonds will enable the group to rise to those occasions that draw upon those deep reserves. Teamwork makes the dream work because a strong team has an energy tank with more capacity than any individual. Everyone on the team has a unique motivation, and at times in their life those motivations may change due to circumstances. A sense of brotherhood, empathy for customers in need, the desire to reach financial goals, a commitment to the rotation of responsibility (i.e. It's my turn since you did it last time), respect for a leader, as well as many other positive factors help to keep the wheels turning when everyone is ready to call it a day. Those in a position of leadership cannot expect a culture of service without being intentional about building it. Even when the culture of service is active, managers must be mindful not to become the boy when cried wolf when sounding the all-hands-on-deck bullhorn. Leadership has to understand that drawing from the bank of trust and motivation requires that they have invested currency into those reserves through things such as development, emotional intelligence, team building and employee engagement. Rather than calling for blind allegiance to the badge of the company, building the team to be prepared for service and having intentionally invested in individuals enough to know how to connect them to a need in relationship to their values and/or motivation are key. Capacity for extraordinary response starts all the way back at the point of recruitment, are we clearly representing our organization to candidates and through our process are we learning about them as individuals with respect to how they will embrace and promote our team culture? Are we reinforcing our vision and values through training, employee development and regular check ins with team members? Investing in individuals and being active in development are the right qualities in building strong teams and they will also go far in preparing the group to respond when the need arises. Don’t wait until the alarm sounds to invest in people. As noted in a previous article on Open Doors, “Leadership is an extension of customer service within your organization. When leaders demonstrate care and service to their employees they perform several key functions including engaging their employees, encouraging positive action and demonstrating how the organization treats people.” Leaders cannot expect team members to sacrifice without having themselves exemplified this value. One of the beautiful revelations of programs such as Undercover Boss is that those who sit the highest and furthest removed from the boots on the ground get a first hand view of the strengths as well as weaknesses in the organization in action. Nothing reveals more about a person or enables close connection better than working shoulder to shoulder, or in the case of services industries like ours - elbow deep in human waste. Motivation comes in many colors, shapes and sizes as so do your team members. Exploring means that recognize individuality as well as build the team are going to be the most effective long term. Making the commitment to understand the individuals and investing in each team member will assist in building individual as well as team reserves that can be drawn upon when the extraordinary is required. From recruitment to retirement, understanding the motivations of individuals and building a connected team, that collaborates on values and is poised to conquer goals does not happen by accident. Nothing worthwhile comes easy, investing in employees who grasp, build and hold their peers accountable to a culture is key to long term success. If team work is going to make the dream work we must clarify the dream of the organization, understand the motivations of our team members and intentionally build means to connect those values into something collaborative. References: Jeremy Watkin - http://customerthink.com/incentive-programs-for-service-agents-a-pre-implementation-checklist/ Are you in a personal funk and aren't sure how to dig your way out of it? Try service. Serving other's has the power to wrangle your negative attention on your own problems and redirect that energy into something positive as you help another human being. Understanding that other's need your help can break a mental storm, restore a sense of purpose and put your body in motion that lubricates your own motivation to get back on track with the forward march of your life goals. Connecting with others through service can be a powerful resource in your personal development. "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." - Ghandi Are you in a professional rut and struggling to gain momentum? Try service. As John C. Maxwell discusses in his book The 360 Leader, your ability to lead is not inhibited by your current position, you can lead from anywhere in the company. If you are not sure where to start, look to see how you can invest in those in your charge, seek out a peer whom you an assist with a project or listen for an opportunity to take a weight from your supervisor. Assisting co-workers with development, peers with progress and supervisors with optimization builds value for yourself, team members and for the organization. Collaborating with others through service can be a powerful resource in your professional development. “Leadership is more disposition than position—influence others from wherever you are.” - John C. Maxwell Looking beyond yourself may be the best means to get our of your own head as well as out of your own way. Connecting with others can broaden your perspective as well as expand your opportunities. Collaboration with others strengthens all parties involved and builds valuable networks for mutual advancement. Connect and collaborate so that you can conquer your setbacks by investing in others. Connecting over shared values and collaborating for creative solutions also creates accountability for yourself as well as your community. See our prior article HERE on family service for creative ideas on how to teach these principles at home. SHARE your experiences with breaking the funk, getting out the rut and serving others with us. If this article from IZ Ventures has not helped you with creative solutions, this video on Sally the Secretary from IZ Media may be of value: |
AuthorThoughts on personal and professional development. Jon Isaacson, The Intentional Restorer, is a contractor, author, and host of The DYOJO Podcast. The goal of The DYOJO is to help growth-minded restoration professionals shorten their DANG learning curve for personal and professional development. You can watch The DYOJO Podcast on YouTube on Thursdays or listen on your favorite podcast platform.
Archives
March 2023
Categories
All
<script type="text/javascript" src="//downloads.mailchimp.com/js/signup-forms/popup/unique-methods/embed.js" data-dojo-config="usePlainJson: true, isDebug: false"></script><script type="text/javascript">window.dojoRequire(["mojo/signup-forms/Loader"], function(L) { L.start({"baseUrl":"mc.us5.list-manage.com","uuid":"b9016446bd3c6a9f0bd835d4e","lid":"83282ffb9e","uniqueMethods":true}) })</script>
|