It's Ok to Look at The Puzzle Box

Recently, for the first time in many years, I sat down to do a 1000-piece puzzle. I’ve always enjoyed puzzles – and I was up for the challenge. The degree of difficulty appeared moderate, but it had been awhile since I last committed to (or had the patience to suffer through) identifying how the pieces fit together. But I had a plan:

1.      Look for all the even edges that would form the border of the puzzle. 

2.      Identify key “landmark” pieces – things that might form a hat, a shoe, a face and the like. 

3.      Sort the remaining 700 or so pieces that were various shades of blue, brown and white.

4.      Cross my fingers.

So yes, I pursued a very traditional path. I rather quickly assembled the border pieces. I was lucky the puzzle also included a few words, and finding the pieces that formed the letters was an easy next step. But alas, I reached the point where I was staring at about 300 pieces or so that made up the sky; another couple of hundred pieces were supposed to be snow. Granted, different shades of blue and white were present – but they were hardly discernible when looking at all the pieces together.

Just as my sense of frustration started to surface, a voice chimed in over my shoulder. “Why are you looking at the box cover? That’s cheating.” For a few seconds I felt a bit guilty. Should I be looking at the box? But I then quickly began to defend my approach. After all, I did a have a plan. And the plan directed me toward a desired outcome, mainly based on what I saw on the box cover. Being aware of what the results of my efforts were supposed to look like helped drive my actions.

It wasn’t about how skillful or intuitive I might be in completing the puzzle, was it? Of course my knowledge and experience would help, but my ultimate goal was to complete the puzzle. Seeing what I was trying to achieve helped lay out my plan of attack – and set my objectives for each time I sat down.

What I didn’t realize was how closely completing a puzzle mirrored how I approached professional tasks during my career. As a group insurance underwriter, I learned to build a framework around risk decisions by:

·      Finding the “even edges.”  I’d form the frame for any underwriting puzzle by addressing several questions: Where did the risk come from? How experienced is the sales executive who submitted it? What’s the relationship with the employee benefits broker or consultant who forwarded the opportunity to us? Is the employer looking for a long-term carrier partner or a firm that is comfortable moving their business regularly?

·      Determining my “landmark pieces.” What did I know about the industry in general and this company in particular? What’s the current economic outlook – and future potential – for this firm? Are they in a growth / acquisition mode, or playing it steady and cautious (both have their merits, but could yield a different direction depending on the coverages being underwritten).

·      Assessing the risk based on what was collected thus far. This is where the “puzzle box” became critical for me. It was time to pull all the pieces together that would form the sky and snow. Lots of potential connections, but only one that was the right fit for each particular piece. The box would help drive me toward my overall vision for the risk.

Ultimately, my “puzzle box” was the final quote on the risk – a bit more abstract, but something upon which I could constantly focus. The final answer may not have been as visually evident as the box represented for the puzzle at the start, but I knew what I was trying to accomplish. Did I know the result of how I put the pieces of the risk together would always yield the desired result? Of course not. I sometimes employed the final step listed above – I crossed my fingers. But I continually maintained a picture of the completed puzzle in my head. The finished image was one of an account underwritten utilizing all of the tools at my disposure – from rating engines developed with actuarial input to the experiential evaluation I applied based on what I had seen in the past – and a little gut feel added for good measure. Bottom line, I always saw the desired end - a soundly underwritten piece of business that once sold would allow us to effectively deliver on customer expectations and increase employee and shareholder value. 

Having that box-cover available to us can be a lesson for managers as we approach our teams in the workplace. How often do we ask employees to complete a task, but don’t clearly outline or articulate what outcome is expected? How often do leaders withhold the puzzle box cover – let’s see what the team can do and how they might achieve the results without having the outline? I grew up with leaders who loved to challenge their teams in this way. One former boss was actually very direct in saying he relished the team “catching-up” to his thinking. In the end, I found I was working more to please him than to achieve a broader result.

Ok, before you say I’m being naïve -- many things in the work environment don’t have a prescribed outcome, so it’s not practical to always have a template to share in advance of asking employees to deliver – much like the puzzle box. As a life-long professional risk-taker (how many of us who were born group insurance underwriters describe ourselves), I am painfully aware of how outcomes may not always line up with expectations. But I’d like to think I always had that puzzle box in my head. Based on everything I knew, I can put this puzzle together in a way that should deliver the outcome I desire.

There is no question that the nature of work – from what we ask employees to do, to where we ask them to do it, to how we reward and recognize their performance and achievements - is in the midst of an evolutionary transformation. And there is consensus that successful businesses depend on engaged workforces that produce results that align with corporate expectations. In this environment, does it make sense to withhold the puzzle box from employees?

Employees like challenging work – and they don’t mind putting in the effort as long as they see path to a result for their endeavors. I remember a CEO constantly reminding us that he always valued our efforts, but wanted us to focus on outcomes. He closed many an all-employee meeting by telling us “I appreciate hard work, but we get paid for results.” And that makes perfect sense. It’s the outcomes that we focus on when we share our plans to the marketplace and shareholders. It’s the outcomes we build into KPI’s and measure results. It’s the outcomes that matter to customers. And it’s on the outcomes for which we ultimately get paid.

T.S. Eliot has been quoted as saying, “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”   Understanding where you are headed is a precursor to success – and achieving a successful outcome almost assuredly increases satisfaction – just as putting that last piece of the puzzle into place did for me.  So go ahead, keep looking at the puzzle box.

#witzdom; #experiencematters; #workrevolution

Reisenwitz, from the German, translates to "travel joke" in English. It explains why many a German-speaking border agent would snicker as I passed through passport control when I was working in Europe. I have modified the translation to describe me as a travelling fool - a jester, or a "wit." Throughout my journey - both professional and personal, I have acquired some insights that I find beneficial- and I now share some of that perspective here in this periodic newsletter. You can decide if it's wisdom - or "witz"dom. Hopefully you'll find a little bit of both.