It’s All About the People—Building Engagement and Thriving Businesses

It’s truly both an honor and a privilege to serve this wonderful association for the next year as your President. As the year progresses, I look forward both to sharing a few thoughts every few months, as well as listening to your ideas and concerns.

Before we get started, however, we need to tip our caps to Tom Padilla and his Annual Meeting Program Committee for a terrific Annual Meeting in San Diego in April. Tom’s theme for the year was “Making a Difference,” and we truly made one in San Diego. In an effort to truly make a difference, Tom wanted to do something unique in keeping with his theme. The goal was to give back to our veterans who have given so much to our great nation. Through keynote speaker Retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Dave H. Buss, we were introduced to Retired U.S. Navy Admiral Hugh “Denny” Wisely and the Blue Angels Foundation, who are supporting the Research and Recognition project helping to fund cutting edge research into post traumatic stress, which affects so many of our veterans and their families.

Tom and I are very proud to announce through the generosity of our members and affiliates, NASBP has raised over $100,000 and have commitments for approximately $20,000 more. At this time, we’re also waiting to hear from several other sureties that expressed interest in helping. Special thanks to John Knox and SureTec, who announced they would match all contributions made at the NASBP Annual Meeting and have done so. Since our Annual Meeting, Merchants Bonding and CNA Surety have made significant contributions and both Chubb and Liberty Mutual have made commitments.

Retired Admirals Wisely and Buss were both very touched by the generosity of everyone and commented NASBP members displayed a camaraderie and dedication similar to that of our military. Coming from these great men, this is a supreme compliment. We should stand very tall and take great pride in what we’ve done to help our young men and women as they return home from battle.

Our caps need to tip, as well, to our outstanding staff in Washington, DC for putting on a terrific Legislative Fly-in with four members of the U.S. Congress addressing our group. Altogether we made 60 Hill visits, exercising our constitutional rights to talk to our U.S. Representatives about the issues our industry is facing. See highlights of the Fly-in provided with pictures in this issue of Pipeline.

Later on in the week we held a Federal Construction Contracting Seminar put on by Adrian Bastianelli and his colleagues from the national law firm of Peckar & Abramson. The content of the seminar was outstanding and focused on Fraud: The New Mantra of Federal Contracting & How it Affects the Surety Industry. This seminar was so relevant, be on the lookout for an article soon summarizing the biggest takeaways. We were also apprised of the proposed rule changes for the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) as well as had the wits scared out of us by a Special Agent of the SBA Inspector General’s Office, who has made it his mission in life to get the cheaters and put them in jail. The Seminar brought value to the members in attendance…the kind of value they can share with customers differentiating themselves from their competitors. For more about the seminar, see related article in this issue of Pipeline.

In preparation for serving as your President, I thought long and hard about what I wanted to accomplish. At the end of the day and for those of you who know me well, it’s always all about the people. When I considered the themes of our past few Presidents, whether they were talking about the need for passion and advocacy, to be a mentor, to preserve, protect and defend our business, to raise the bar or make a difference, there was one component missing for me—fully engaged people. But just having fully engaged people isn’t enough. We have a tremendous amount of work to do. But in order to have fully engaged people working in our industry…in order to best preserve, protect and defend it…we all need to work in thriving businesses. If our own businesses are stale, we’re not successful and there’s no time or money for industry efforts, much less thoughts about the future of the bond business. My theme is, It’s all about the People—Building Engagement and Thriving Businesses.

Over the last few months and with the professional collaboration of many, I’m happy to say we have a number of things planned throughout the year. Hopefully, one or two of them will interest you or a member of your team. We’re going to challenge your thinking as well as provide opportunities for each of you regardless of your budget to participate and find a takeaway or two to help your business thrive.

So here are a few questions for you…do you want to lead a team in the future or better lead the one you already have? Do you want to learn to be a better coach…to be impactful, or to make better hiring choices? Can we learn more about problem solving, conflict resolution or the decision making process? Do you have any whiners on your staff or people who need their eyes opened to the possibilities? Have you found your difference maker? Is the staff within your company currently dealing with generational issues? For example, do you have senior people who aren’t transferring their knowledge to the next generation? What about younger people who think they know everything…but don’t know what they don’t know? What about up and coming all-stars you fear you won’t retain? In all my travels, issues around talent top the list of surety and construction industry executives. Whether you are a Grade 4 bond assistant like I was when I got started or the president of a surety company, there is always room for improvement somewhere.

Hopefully, by the end of the next year, you may have a few more tools in your toolbox to help with some of the questions above. Here are a few of the ideas we’re planning over the next year:

With the generous assistance of Rick Ciullo of Chubb Surety and his team, we’re going to offer a one day Leadership Conference on October 22nd on the front end of my Mid-Year Board Meeting. The Conference will be held at the Omni Hotel in Nashville and will be facilitated by professionals with New Haven Consulting. Many thanks to Rick, as well as to Ed Heine, Spence Miller, Todd Loehnert and Matt Cashion, all of whom assisted me to educate the consultants about our industry. Each participant will do some pre-work and have their DISC profile ready for them at the beginning of the day. We’ll spend the morning learning all about differing communication and personality styles, which should enable participants to better communicate with others. The afternoon will be spent building on those skills in case studies on both generational and ethical dilemmas.

We’re also going to have a NASBP Leadership Series of Virtual Seminars, focusing on emotional intelligence, interviewing skills to make better hiring decisions, creating engagement, coaching, conflict resolution, problem solving and the decision making process. All virtual seminar annual subscribers will have access to the entire series. Anyone else who isn’t a subscriber will have the option to purchase individual seminars or the entire series in a discounted package.

One of the things NASBP has been doing over the last seven or eight years is develop our future leaders through the 5-15 Leadership Committee. Past President Steve Cory implemented the idea I believe will be one of his greatest legacies. Some years later we’ve had nearly 100 people come through that committee. One thing we haven’t done a very good job of is show their employers what we’re doing to help build their thriving businesses. Next year at The Broadmoor, we’re going to showcase those young professionals. They’re ready for the national stage and we can’t wait for everyone to see what we can see. One thing they’ve been asking for is the natural progression of opportunities to engage with young professionals within our affiliate members. We’re happy to announce at future regional and annual meetings, NASBP will sponsor opportunities for our 5-15 members to network with the SFAA’s newly created Young Professionals Group. Rather than show any hesitation to create such a group out of fear it would be easier for other companies to poach their people, we’re thrilled to see the SFAA Board step up and create a group of young professionals to engage with our 5-15. In my speech in San Diego, I challenged them to be brave and trust in their own thriving businesses and leadership to develop the potential of their people so they will want to stay. Altogether we have a tremendous amount of collective knowledge amongst us to transfer to a new generation. Only when that’s done will our legacies be complete. Is this a good start? I think it is and like our chances very much.

Lastly, in an effort to introduce myself as well as offer a bit of an upfront explanation, I’m a bit of a sports nut and tend to draw upon sports analogies occasionally. It comes naturally. My Dad was a SEC, OVC and high school football and basketball official for over 40 years, as well as a Little League umpire, a very serious golfer and pretty decent card player. Unfortunately, I lost my mother at the age of 9, so my father not only took us to games all over the south…he taught me how so much can be learned either from sports or simply the love of the game. Ultimately, it was the love of football that led me to Jeffrey and ultimately to marry into a football family. I’m a little nutty about Lady Vols basketball, University of Tennessee Football, the San Francisco Giants and 49ers and have recently become what I’m calling a Golden State Warrior “bandwagon jumper oner.” Is there a direct correlation between sports and successful businesses? I’m here to tell you there is, so forgive me if you read one too many sports analogies or quotes this year…

NASBP is a great brand. We’re going to play our brand and we’re going to outwork the people who want to threaten our business. My goal is to help make sure your business is thriving; and, give you a few things along the way to help sharpen the tools in your toolbox and create engagement in your workplace. Both your business and our industry are sure to benefit as a result.

Susan Hecker is Executive Vice President and National Director of Contract Surety at Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. in San Francisco, CA. She can be reached at Susan_Hecker@ajg.com.