During the 1980s I worked in an IT role at Lloyds of London Insurance Market for a Managing Agency, splitting my time between an underwriting syndicate in the Lloyds of London building and the agent's offices. The main underwriter for the syndicate I was placed with was a wonderful character, with twinkling eyes behind gold-rimmed specs and white curly hair. I thought the world of him and we would grab a sandwich and have lunch together often. We would talk about anything and everything and chuckle at the absurdity of life.
After six years, all the syndicates under the managing agent's umbrella were computerised and I was moving on to fresh pastures. A global insurance crisis hit, Lloyds of London had to change some of their practices, and the moneymen moved in. Over the years, my friend and his colleagues had amassed a wealth of experience and as seasoned underwriters, they trusted their instinct no matter what the figures, broker or facts said. The changes flowing through at speed related everything to the bottom line. My underwriter was troubled and convinced that shutting down the underwriters' instinct for good and bad risks was a mistake.
I remember some of his parting words as I left. 'Never let anyone cast doubt on your instincts, Jane. Trust yourself first.'
Now I work in the funeral sector and some companies are struggling to make ends meet. Surveys are prevalent for clients to give feedback, and the metrics used to measure the satisfaction level and scoring system are unbalanced. This is affecting staff morale. The flip side is some team's performances are being measured through the metric of money and that is also undermining staff morale.
At a recent coffee morning for bereaved families, I observed a lady whose husband had died a few months ago. She mentioned to our funeral arranger that she would be calling to make an appointment soon to come and buy a funeral plan and make her wishes known.
You can't put a metric of measurement on her trust and faith in the funeral arranger and the company she represents. It most certainly isn't about money, upselling or any kind of sale at all. She was comforted by the service provided and how she felt the team had looked after her husband, herself and their family.
You can't buy trust, faith in a company and a reputation, and you most certainly can't measure it or reduce it solely to a metric of measurement in money.
In all our dealings, the memories we leave people with lead to the future choices they make, and instinct, kindness and trust are not currencies you can measure.
It is sad that in many companies performance is ranked in conjunction with profit... We as a corporate world have put profit before people so many times...
Trust has to be earned, and again in todays busy world of assessing a persons self worth is often misdiagnosed by thinking its their wealth status that sets them to be more trust worthy. When in fact it is the service to others given that counts... That lady who booked her own funeral plan, saw for herself the service to others and the quality of that service and trusted that the same service will be given when that time arrives for her.. Which is a great compliment Wishing you a wonderful rest…
I regret that money is so often the yardstick for measuremment in any transaction, even in conducting affairs of the heart on occasion. We seem to grade people by their success in aquiring money rather than by assessing how they aquire it. Morals have been defenestered and Trust as well as faith overlooked. Very few places seem to have the standards of service we would have seen as the norm at one time. Oh for a time when my use of rose coloured lenses were needed less and my expectations of others were a given. Life is still absurd Jane, and worthy of a chuckle on most days, but money or the gathering of it is an unwelcome intrusion. Huge…