Leadership Training

Jay Scherotter is the Director of Learning Resources and Organizational Effectiveness for the Scottsdale Insurance Company, a subsidiary of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company. This property/casualty insurer specializes in excess and surplus insurance lines (E&S) — insurance coverage for higher-risk individuals and businesses. Scottsdale Insurance was founded in 1982, and currently employs over 1,400 associates and in 2007 recorded annual sales of more than $2 billion in premium.

Jay will be a featured presenter at the upcoming Training Leadership Summit in San Diego on May 5th. The topic of his seminar will be “Implementing a Knowledge Continuity Management Process”.

• “Can you please give us an overview of you professional background?”

I’ve been in the Human Resources and Learning and Development field for over 26 years now, with 8 of those years spent as the Director of Learning Resources and Organizational Effectiveness for the Scottsdale Insurance Company. Prior to my time here (and oddly enough), I directed the training function for an international private fire and ambulance company. Before that, I provided learning and development consulting services for commercial and consumer banks. I have also served as the director of the Quality University for American Express.

The origins of all this began with my time as a trained social worker. But early on I became very attracted to the human development opportunities that a corporate environment provided.

• “What brought you to your current role as Director Learning Resources and Organizational Effectiveness for the Scottsdale Insurance Company?”

For me, it was a combination of wanting to stay in this area and also have a position that serves a meaningful purpose and is also very satisfying from a personal perspective.

We have over 1,400 associates that work on one campus, so from a learning and development standpoint, it’s a dream scenario! Also, insurance is really about creating and assembling people lives, and I really feel that makes this a very noble business. Finally, Scottsdale Insurance has always been ranked very highly as a top organization to work for, both by the community and by publications such as Training Magazine. It’s probably why our retention rate is currently at 93%.

The anchor to all of this really comes down to our culture, which is expressed in the integrity of our intent. It’s all about doing what we say we are going to do.

• “Is there a specific person or mentor from your past who was instrumental in leading you down your current career path? What was it about this person that resonated with you?”

Here’s a story that just recently was able to weave together on it’s own. Back when I was in graduate school in 1978, I took a class in Organizational Development that was taught by Jack Dauber. Somehow I was magnetized by Jack, as well as by the content of the class. We had conversations after class where I asked him more and more about this OD field that seemed very different and unique to me.

Fast forward now to this past May, when I went to a ceremony at this school where my friend was given an honorary doctorate. I hadn’t been back there since ’78, but the moment I walked back through the halls I realized that it smelled just the same as it did nearly 30 years ago! On one of the walls there was a picture of Jack Dower. When I asked someone how he was doing, I learned that he had passed away about 7 years ago. In that moment, it really hit me just how influential Jack had been to me, and how he had led me down the career path that I had chosen.

After my visit, I wrote a letter to the Dean of the College to let him know just how much Jack’s class had meant to me. I wrote that the experience had led me to take on a career that I had devoted my life to, and I asked the Dean if there was anything I could do to honor Jack’s memory. Here replied and told me that there was: I could teach his class at the university. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do for a week this summer.

• “What are some of the high priority programs and initiatives that you are currently planning or rolling out for Scottsdale Insurance in 2008?”

We have a very rich and deep framework here at Scottsdale Insurance for Learning and Development, which we provide an overview of with our Learning Resources Practice Areas (see below). Here are a couple of examples of programs that really stand out and have an edge to them:

- Claims Training Unit (CTU). This is where we take young individuals and bring them into our Claims organization to turn them into claims representatives. Now, most training programs that teach a technical skill involve a great deal of standard reading and testing. How boring is that? So we were just talking one day, and said “what we can do to create something that is a rich learning experience, but also unique and interactive?” We went back to some of the original adult learning theory, and it brought us all the way back to Socrates and the Socratic method!

In this program, which is roughly nine months long, the students are given questions to answer prior to the actual training session. They do the research, they do their interviews, their reading, etc.. When they arrive in class, the material expert asks them questions and the students answer. The facilitator (instructor) then will say, “great answer! Who wants to add to that,” or “you’re off base, can someone correct him/her?” So the learning is really done prior to the learning experience, and the role of the instructor is to facilitate the recall of the required knowledge, and not to teach.

With nine months of this kind of classroom work, you get a great feel for the material, because you’re always thinking on your feet, and you can’t hide, so you come prepared!

- Executive Institute. Through succession planning and account review practices, we identify a handful of high potential executives who can expand their role in the organization at any given moment. This program usually involves 5 – 7 people and lasts for about 18 months. There are four quadrants that the participants go through: group learning, self-directive learning, in-business learning, and community involvement. Of the last 5 employees who enrolled in the Executive Institute program, 4 of them are now on our executive team, so we’re very happy with the track record of this program. As is the mentor of this program, who just happens to be the president of our company!

• “If you had to give a prospective employee the #1 reason why they should come to work for Scottsdale Insurance, what would that reason be?”

There’s two ways I look at that question; first, to look at the width and the depth of this company in terms of its values and expressed culture. The four principle core values of this company are trust, respect, courage and passion. They are expressed in such a way that an individual can see and feel that, and expect that from our company on a daily basis.

The other way I look at it is from a longevity and opportunity point of view. If someone is looking to hang around here for a while, we offer mobility within the organization: in any given year, we have as many as 20% of our associates move into a different job. In addition, we’ve been able to weather the financial storms around here quite well. In the 26 year history of this company, we’ve had no layoffs. We’ve had organizational change and shifts, but absolutely zero layoffs.

If those two reasons aren’t enough to persuade a potential candidate, then consider the most important benefit to working at Scottsdale Insurance: we have free underground parking! Trust me, that is extremely important come summertime in Arizona.

• “Can you give us a sneak preview regarding your upcoming presentation at the Training Leadership Summit?”

When it comes to knowledge content, we were noticing three things here: first, because of the age range of some of the associates, when someone leaves it’s a big deal. You want to say, “you can’t leave! You know too much!” We’ve also noticed that the frequencies of retirement have started to tick upwards a bit. Lastly, we have a great deal of internal movement from position to position as well, so cumulatively there’s a great deal of lost knowledge and wisdom.

The typical response to this type of issue is to ask the outgoing individual to write up a log or job desk manual to hand over to your successor. To that solution we said, “boring!” We started thinking about creative ways to capture knowledge as an alternative; we brought in some external consultants but weren’t satisfied with the solutions they presented us.

Then one night I was watching “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”, and I thought, “could we build a Knowledge Continuity Management Program in a week or less?” So we teamed up and put together our own “Extreme Project” with no charters, no flip charts, agendas or minutes, and put the entire program together in a day and a half.

Knowledge Continuity Management has three components to it; Legacy Capture, Knowledge Capture, and Knowledge Transfer. I’ll get into more details at the Summit, and some of the really exciting twists we’ve put into the program.

• “Anything else you’d like to discuss today?”

I’d just like to bring up a fun contest that we are promoting in our Health & Wellness Practice Area. You’ll see people on our campus wearing pedometers; the first team to walk to New York City from Scottsdale in terms of number of steps will win a prize. We recently opened up an office in New York City. Just another way we promote a healthy and competitive workplace here at Scottsdale Insurance.

Scottsdale Insurance Company, Jay Scherotter, Director of Learning Resources, Organizational Leadership, Interview