Yesterday, I had a meeting with a top executive of a financial company who works at a group that owns several financial companies, including an insurance company.
First, we talked about the insurance industry Globally and in Turkey. Later, the talk came to their own insurance company. He did not like the performance of the group insurance company. He made comments such as “Ours don’t have a definite strategy, they write any risk they can find, all they case about is market share these days, etc”.
Suddeny I remembered what I lived through in the past. I don’t know why, but I have never seen a group employee that liked, but more importantly admire, their group insurance company.
I have to confess that I was never happy either with the performance of our own insurance company back in the days when I was a banker.
Later, I became an executive of that insurance company. As a group having been transferred from the bank, we worked very hard, but after 3-5 years, I heard from other finance executives of the group that the performance of the insurance company was not admired.
After us, new bankers came to the management again. But the insurance company could not be able to get the admiration of others.
I experienced similar issues in the next Group I worked for.
Happily, those un-admired insurance companies of groups were started to be sold at prices beyond expectations starting from 2007 that those who did not admire hopefully received an important message.
…
According to a research I read regarding “happy marriages”, admiration is far more important that all the other factors (love, respect, politeness, etc.) in a successful marriage.