Move out of your comfort zone. Embrace failure.
The two ideas are ever-present in articles telling property/casualty insurance leaders what they need to do to create innovative cultures and build the momentum to speed their companies forward on enviable upward growth curves.
Executive SummaryWhile Black professionals in the insurance industry often experience the need to prove their abilities in order to be promoted to positions of responsibility and leadership, they see white men scaling their company’s org charts without records of success to demonstrate their potential to lead. Here, two Black executives discuss inequitable “proof vs. potential” standards that were also revealed in a recent survey of Black insurance professionals posted on LinkedIn. They also describe the pressure to avoid failure—a particular burden that stifles risk-taking in an industry that should be rewarding “fail-fast-and-learn” models of innovation.But with white insurance leaders unwilling to budge from the security of what’s familiar, and Black executives discouraged from risky ventures that could either propel their careers forward or result in failure, the industry has yet to embrace another key driver of organizational success: racially diverse workforces and leadership teams.