Winnipeg, Canada - Manager, Commercial Insurance Brokerage

Hello all!!

Bio: 20+ years in insurance brokerage specializing in a particular client and product segment. I manage a team of 15 professional broking staff with no sub-managers (all 15 are directs, which is a lot of one-on-ones!) handling files nationally for our sales teams in the largest client sector for our company in Canada.

I have been listening to the Manager Tools casts for the past year.

After taking a new management role with my company as the head of a completely new department with a very broad and undefined mandate, I found myself questioning my decision to move half-way across Canada in a department fraught with personality conflicts, workload issues, and deep-rooted engagement problems. After I lost two staff members to competing firms (which made the workload even worse for those who stayed behind), I needed some help.

And almost completely by accident, I found Manager Tools!

I won't say that MT solved all my problems for me, but it gave me - an experienced individual contributor and technical expert - a track to run on that just might have saved my career.

One year later, my department staff has grown in numbers, my staff is happier because they are productive and they know I am here to support them. Our department YOY productivity is actually up 25% and we haven't had a single person express issues with their job satisfaction or a desire to leave in over 6 months (yes, I know a lack of failure does not equal success, but this time last year, in the words of one of my staff, it was like we had napalm in the hallway, so the lack of people heading for the hills is a big step forward).

We've still got a long way to go as a team but we're working well and moving in the right direction.

Now I've decided it's time to get myself off the bench and back in the game, as it were, hence this introductory post, hopefully the first of many.

See you all in the forums!

Rob

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