No. Hard Pass. - Insurance Broker Mumby Insurance Brokers Employee Review

I recently completed my first 30 days as Chief Operating Officer at Mumby Insurance Brokers Inc., Waterloo Ontario. I am a licensed insurance broker. I accepted this position knowing that every business, whether large or small, encourages continuous improvement, innovation, and creativity from its employees as part of its everyday organizational nomenclature. From experience, I also know that every organization re-engineers, that there are always challenges to overcome, some old, some new, and recognize that no matter how large or small, how experienced or successful, ALL organizations require guidance, assistance and counsel from time to time as evidenced by the multibillion-dollar business improvement consulting industry. For an experienced COO, working with ownership, ensuring the right people are on board and sitting in the right seats, guiding, and mentoring employees, operational problem solving, injecting creativity, process smoothing, is both attractive and very exciting. But it wasn’t just those issues that excited me. I was speechless when Anthea Mumby asked if I had ever taken a KOLBE test. Indeed, I had, in another life, while a part time civilian instructor in the Ontario Police College “Leader Program” teaching Risk Assessment and Risk Management to emerging Police Leaders. (The Kolbe A Index measures a person's instinctive method of operation and identifies the ways they will be most productive) Police LEADERSHIP considered KOLBE “The GOLD STANDARD”. I was deeply impressed that a small business would be aware of KOLBE, let alone using it in their hiring practices. I was also deeply moved by Mumby’s commitment to Mission, Vision and Values and the RIBO Broker’s Code of Conduct. THESE DOCUMENTS TELL A STORY. They signify Mumby’s DNA describing WHO WE ARE and HOW WE DO BUSINESS. They are not NEGOTIABLE. In my public and private sector experience, I found that individuals who refuse to adopt or wilfully compromise an organization’s values, self-identify as OUTLIERS. They are unlikely to become team players, they require increased supervision, have low productivity, produce poor quality work, and more likely than not, become disgruntled, disillusioned, or both, and eventually uncover their own pathway out of the organization. My first thirty days have been very exciting to say the least. A large part of my time has been consumed listening to and developing relationships with our employees, utilizing their ideas to establish a pathway for change, assessing our culture, i.e. demonstrating mutual respect, building trust that builds teamwork. I audited our systems and production to establish a base line of current performance. I find we are doing a lot of things RIGHT. We know we have to do things RIGHT. Each time. Every time. No exceptions. We know where we wish to go. One of the highlights in the last 30 days is that Mumby Insurance Brokers has been awarded the Waterloo Chronicle People’s Choice PLATINUM AWARD – (INSURANCE AGENT). By listening, talking, and collaborating with each other, our team continues to learn how to work as a team. GREAT teams don’t start out great. They have to LEARN how to become GREAT. We have identified a number of specific areas we admittedly must improve upon. Closing that gap with continuous improvement is our collective mission. We know we must execute. I have also observed a high level of appreciation and respect between our TEAM as individuals and professionals. We all agree, nothing is achieved by “shooting inwards.” Honest and respectful feedback YES. Feedback outside these boundaries NO. Our audit results HAVE identified action items. In my experience, such results were expected and are normal as fresh eyes always identify opportunities for improvement and change. We will learn from our audit experience, live up to our values and keep improving, keep moving forward, and NEVER STOP TRYING TO BE QUALIFIED FOR OUR JOBS while providing our clients with superior customer service. Our action items have demanded a lot of extra effort from our TEAM whose response I can only describe as AMAZING. A big shout out to say THANK YOU. Their skill, their commitment to continuous improvement, our clients and company, their hard work and efforts speak volumes about their character and who they are as individuals and as professional expert insurance brokers. Our culture at Mumby is fluid and ever changing. Committed, honest, hardworking, value-based insurance professionals. We have no OUTLIERS. When the RIGHT EMPLOYEES ARE ON BOARD, TEAMS don’t need to be tightly managed or fired up; they are self-motivated by their inner drive to produce the best results and to be part of creating something great. Stay tuned.