Do you celebrate the badass?

Is "risk-taking" rewarded in your office?

How about celebrated? 💡👏🏻

We've been talking about the employee benefits strategic planning cycle. Our industry needs to change and that involves some risk.

Lately I'm hearing variations of these themes:

• Practice leaders want their teams to be more assertive & innovative.
• Teams want "management" to get focused and make creative investments.
• Benefits Solutions are frustrated brokers aren't quicker to adopt new offerings.
• Benefits Solutions & Brokers complain that their mutual clients are afraid to make changes.

We're a group that takes pride in protecting our clients. The insurance industry beckoned us saying "hey, if you like certainty and avoiding risk, come on over and build a career over here" and now we're surprised at how easily we can talk ourselves out of trying something new if we're not careful.

You know I'm right. At least a little.

When someone introduces a new solution or tackles a challenge, does anyone notice? Or we're too busy? 

I'd like you to be on the lookout for a few things as you move through strategic planning:

• Is there something you've been hesitant to try that (with some support) you're ready to tackle?
• Who on the team goes first and leads on new solutions? If it's always the same person or team, then I'd dig into that. 

If you're a benefits solution, think about how you alleviate uncertainty for your broker and their client. In my experience, most obstacles have more to do with your "pitch" than your terms and conditions.

If you're a broker, start measuring who's implementing new vendors or products. And please reward the brave group that is going first despite more work in uncharted territory.

Finally, when things don't go as planned, follow Brené Brown’s advice and acknowledge the badass that took some chances.

We aren't going to move forward without them.