REGULARS | PRACTICE MANAGEMENT
Changing the way we do business The idea of change can fill us with dread. But embracing current industry changes will help you realise a new vision for your business. BY RUSSELL HUTCHINSON
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usiness is hard, change is harder. To run your own business takes a special combination of skills. You had to learn many of them in the crucible of experience. In the insurance industry, perseverance, resilience, and in sales and advice – a willingness to speak uncomfortable truths to clients strongly enough that they listen, but not so loud that they close their minds. These conditions tend to create a certain kind of person – opinionated, self-sufficient, and good with people. I like insurance people. I also know that having found an approach that works, it can be darned hard to change.
030 | ASSET OCTOBER 2020
Change is harder because you inevitably end up breaking things that work before you rebuild them in new ways that work better. You don’t want to go around breaking things all the time, or you’ll never get anywhere. Anyone who has ever come back from a conference with a great idea to change their business and discovered that in six months of trying that the idea is now just a memory, knows exactly what I am talking about. People that you work with don’t want to change either – they have their ways – and they can’t see how good it would be if you managed to implement the change you want. All they see is the work. What we do right now is fine, they say.
Change is also necessary. The context for our businesses is changing, so we must too. The most important aspect of that changing context is our market: potential clients, closely followed by the legal and regulatory requirements for our sector, and then by the changes that our partners in the value chain (insurers and other important suppliers) are making in their businesses. As my kids are just leaving home, I have been doing a lot of reflecting on where the time went. Gradual changes around me have been thrown into sharp relief. Both my oldest kids can drive, and drive well, while it seems like only yesterday that they needed us parents to help them
