On talent

Mads Løgstrup, Tryg Garanti

On talent

In the last edition of the ICISA Insider, Richard Lange wrote an excellent article on environmental matters. He then passed the baton to me to write about a topic of interest to me. No strings, no guidance. It left me considering. Why did this clever person choose me to have the pen?

Being an old hand in the industry, yes, I could look back and share experiences and tales of the past. But the industry is not short of old hands who could do the same. And maybe better than I could. And Richard did not look back either in his article – but rather, forwards. So this could not have been the motivation to choose me.

And many others have deeper insights and broader outlooks than me. Thinking not least of the lookout towers of Zurich, Munich and Hannover. Or a representative of the emerging credit insurance and surety markets could also have been chosen. Someone deeply into disrupting our old operating models and changing our futures by digital means. But not so. I, the old hand, was chosen. This is a challenge! “When you have a challenge, you must make it your friend” – a quote my mother would repeat. It rarely works, but is an appealing approach. Using this concept, I turn Richard’s invitation into an opportunity to go deeper into a space that I understand little of. Richard would surely be in full support of this approach! The number of things I know little of is amazing. So most doors are now open. I just need to make up my mind, which is not difficult. I have for some time been trying to get my arms around what it would take to make our industry a better place to work. We are competing for new talent with lots of other industries. And new talents are increasingly shifting their priorities. They want more than just financial compensation. Having now looked into the topic, I am pleased to share 3 current approaches to changing your organization to accommodate new talent. Hot opportunities you could argue:

1) The sociocracy. Here your organization is to rely on distributed knowledge, deployed mandates and action orientation. Gives tremendous job satisfaction and creates results. My favorite. 2) Diversity and inclusion. Here you drive value from access to the enlarged pool of talent. And a better balance gives higher employee satisfaction and great results. A “win-win” situation. The “how”, however, seems to be the difficult part. 3) The humanocracy. Reverses the structure and puts humanity in control of your organisation. Bottom up. It’s said to unleash human potential and improve problem solving capacity. Others will understand this better than me.

Having now shared these “hot” concepts with you, I suggest you dig deeper yourself or at least get familiar with the concepts. It could change the future not only your organization, but your own experience of the work environment. And this would be in line with what I wanted to achieve with this article: to promote the idea of always looking ahead and for new solutions. And, by the way, this may be the real lure of our industry. A constant source of inconceivable and unpredictable challenges. And perhaps, of inconceivable and unpredictable solutions. Perhaps this is the real selling point when snatching the next talent.

Don’t miss the Summer edition of the Insider Magazine!

Jan Mueller from Hannover Re will be the next columnist!