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ThriveHR is a podcast for HR professionals to lean into the world of employee benefits. Our goal is to provide listeners with the industry's latest, best practices, and to cultivate a community within this space.
 Perfect. Well, welcome to the show.
Oh, thanks Andreas. Thanks for having.
Super excited to have you. And maybe it's a little disclaimer here. Will and I, we are working together on the board capacity of Strive Pass, so it has been really privileged will to work with you together. And thank you for all your input.
And then, obviously for the time today,
It's my pleasure.
So I always like to ask this question at the beginning, Will, you where you were at Aon for a long time, right? Is there anything interesting about you that even your coworkers at Aon didn't know about you?
This might be a hobby random language that, you know, anything that you can share with the audience.
Yeah. I, as you can imagine, I've been asked that question at various points throughout my career and there's always some go-to answers that you've always had. But my wife actually suggested that I go to a relatively recent development, which my son is a student at the University of Louisville.
And when we started going there four years ago I, we went on a distillery tour and discovered that we liked the bourbon distillery story. And I have become a little bit of a fiction auto. Around the story of bourbon and I actually really. Hosting tasting not necessarily drinking bourbon, but hosting tastings and bringing out five bottles of bourbon or rye and talking about the mash bill and the toast of the barrel and the length of time that it's been distilled and the barrel and how it's been handled.
And I find that really fascinating and I can get pretty excited about hosting a bourbon tasting. I've actually had a few people ask me if they could pay me to host a bourbon tasting for their clients. So different, kinda answer to that question. .
Yeah, I was just going to ask what what does anybody has to do to get an invitation to a special tasting here?
You know what just tell me that you're, you have a passion for bourbon and maybe tell me a little bit about your favorite one and you're in
I'll put that on my on my list.
There you go.
In all seriousness I will start our conversation today with your career at Aon.
And I think what's maybe today a little bit unique about it is that, the majority of your career with one firm, right? And we see, these days, a lot of young professionals switching, jobs more frequently. So maybe tell us about the beginning and your journey specifically.
Sure. I, I actually was an actuarial science major in the mathematics department at University of North Carolina coming outta college I was a pension actuary. I joined Hewitt Associates in Atlanta, Georgia. While I decided the pension world was a little more overly regulated I really enjoyed the culture of Hewitt and learning about business.
And so what really attracted me to be at one place for such a long period of time was the culture and my, the realization that the more I gave into the culture, the more I gave back to me. I, I put a lot of myself into it, and I'm of the belief that you don't join a culture, you contribute to a culture.
And so when I found something that I, that was really, felt really good to me I just wanted to continue to contribute to build the culture that was there. And Hewitt, of course, was eventually acquired by Aon. Um, Oddly enough, I actually went from Hewitt to Aon and then Aon bought Hewitt.
So I technically did switch employers, but but I stayed with Aon and Hewitt for 33 years and did it. It's funny I actually don't think of it as I stayed in the same place because I moved around to so many different physical locations and so through, through so many different Roles and responsibilities.
I definitely have a little bit of a restless personality when it comes to that, and I probably moved as much inside of Hewitt and Aon as others have in their career moves outside of and in between different organizations.
It's interesting that you mentioned the culture, right?
Is one of the main drivers, mm-hmm. , , how would you. Define the culture at the beginning, right? When you started your career, and then how has it evolved and how have you maybe as one of the leaders of the organization shaped the change.
Yeah. When I joined Hewitt, it was a partnership and a private partnership operates very differently and can have a very different culture than a public organization.
And for organizations that are going through their growth stage and have aspirations to go public, it definitely can have an impact on culture. So you have to learn to adapt with that as you go. Hewitt was a very much a one firm, firm mentality, meaning it didn't have profit centers, it didn't have it didn't have lost leaders in terms of product.
It really was everybody helping each other. And one of the things that I really loved about Aon is the evolution of that from a private partnership at Hewitt and into a very large public entity at Aon. At Aon, we were all about the Aon United and as Greg Case would put it, he was our C E O.
He said, everybody at Aon does, we do one of two things. You're either helping a. Or you're helping a colleague help a client. And that attitude mentality was actually very consistent with my principles of what makes a great culture. And putting the team first instead of individual advancement just felt good to me.
And that's the kind of thing that. You can have a core of the principle that, that started in a different way when I was young and with a private firm. And then later on in my career, I was actually able to contribute to the development of that culture of either helping clients or helping colleagues help clients in my own way as a leader.
And frankly, in my leadership role really. Lead with the principles of that culture. And what I really embraced about it and made other people feel like, hey, it was about the the success we're having as a team in an organization and the fact that every single person has a role and we do it great and we work together and everything we're about is helping each other.
That's a culture that I really valued. And it carried me through 33, wonderful years with those organiz.
So two, two follow up questions. One is your title at the end was US Health Solution Practice Leader. , Mm-hmm. , you gotta, you gotta define that for us, right? And explain what, fall all under that umbrella, what your responsibilities were, but.
also, based on what you said, you mentioned that eon was very client-centric, right? , either the output, the work has to be for a client or you're supporting somebody else for a client. So were there any other factors over those three decades where you would say, this is, this was really our secret source for success for.
Sure. well First off, so yes, my role the last six years of my career was the US health Solutions practice leader at Aon and Health Solutions was a sort of an umbrella term that en enveloped everything we did in the health and benefits consulting space. So all of the consulting activities, the brokerage work, our active health exchange, our retiree health, Voluntary benefits, executive benefits, essentially everything that was around employee benefits, other benefits other than retirement services that sort of defines what the scope was.
And it was a US role specifically. So I, I did oversee and support our colleagues up in Canada and the health practice up in Canada. My, my direct p and l responsibility, which. , you know, almost nearing about a billion dollars in 2000 colleagues toward the end. , that was entirely in the us.
And then you asked a question about our secret sauce. one of the things I really appreciated about Aon was a willingness to take informed risk. So it wasn't just taking brash risk on anything that came along, but being willing to take a risk if you came along with a well-informed plan and an idea of something, it was a very kinda as, as much of an entrepreneurial environment as a really large, complex bureaucratic organization can get.
And and we focused around trust. I if you. . If you've earned trust and you've built trust among others, and you can give trust back to people who have also shown that you can trust them. , you put trust in each other and there's a secret sauce there that's really important because it's almost like you've locked arms in, and that is what teamwork ultimately is about.
If you can't trust your team the, it's gonna be, it's gonna be an issue. So it, it, it build a little sense of almost a it's not a, it's not so much a loyalty or an obligation, it's just that there's people who have depended upon me and people who I have depended upon. And were interrelated and, their success is my success.
And vice versa. . That's, having that I do think that's a big part of the secret sauce.
At the end you mentioned you the organization had almost 2000 employees that were essentially in the organization. And I'm wondering how would you define your management style and maybe also, how did that evolve over time?
Sure. For clarity, the 2000, people that was in the health on the health team in the us yeah, Aon is almost 50,000 employees worldwide, and I actually call it out because part of my role as a leader is not just to lead the 2000 colleagues in the.
And the portfolio of the business, but also how that interacts and relates to the other parts of the business. As I mentioned, Aon was big into the, the Aon United one firm, firm mentality, and we worked quite a bit with the other parts of the organization, whether that was. Health colleagues that lived in different parts of the globe or other US colleagues that served our clients but in a different capacity, maybe in the retirement practice or the property and casualty business or the human capital practice.
And so in, in that leadership role was interacting with and representing the 2000 colleagues on our team. and our relations with the other 48,000 colleagues across the globe. So my style is, there's no question I was, I'm a servant leader. I'm a roll up your sleeves and, tell me what I can do when I've got someone on my team that is really strong.
My, I view my role as being to support. , advocate them maybe get out of their way a little bit and let them, them run with it. Be there to provide advice. Break its high if needed, if there people don't agree on things. But the most important thing was to find really strong leaders that surround the leadership team with those leaders, and then enable those folks to do their thing.
I really believe in the value of surrounding yourself by trusted a trusted circle of leaders that you can share things openly with. There's a lot of time you spend, as you well know, on on the center stage on a video call, literally on stage, somewhere on a microphone in front of an email that's being read by thousands of people.
If you don't have those times where you've got a small circle of folks that you're able to really work through your issues with it, it can be really lonely at the top. So I actually believe leadership style is to get a really strong leadership team that works with you and be a servant to the, to that leadership team as well.
I'm, I've never been a command and control kind of person, it's just not my style. I am, I'm aware of my own shortcomings and in fact, if anything I actually lean on my shortcoming. because my strengths are gonna, my strengths are gonna come out anyway in, in just our work interactions.
And if I'm aware of the things that I maybe not as strong in, I put more focus there. And I become more well-rounded as a leader, work to overcome those shortcomings. And I think in the end of my career, I actually discovered that I had become really good at some of the things that were shortcomings early on in my career, a as a leader mentoring and, Facilitating and encouraging people to try a different way of doing things.
So often I, early on in my career, I felt like I, I knew how things should be done, my gosh, hey, this is the way you should organize this spreadsheet, . And I had to learn how to let go of that and encourage other people to come up with better ways than I would've come up with. And you know what?
More often than not, when you're not the smartest person in the room, people come up with better ways than you come up with. That that definitely has been a hallmark of my my leadership style and the outcomes we've driven over the last several years.
And maybe before we dive into kind of like how you evolved and and the topic of mentorship and whatnot.
You, you mentioned trust a few times now in our conversation. Yeah. And how important that was in building the right leadership team and scaling the company. I assume that one parameter to build trust is just time, right? Are there, yeah. Other elements? They would say like, Hey, this is how I define trust and this is how I build trust with with my teams.
Any recommendations you can give to
other leaders? It, it starts by follow through. If you say you're gonna do something, you need to do it. And if you don't do it, , you need to come back around and explain why you weren't able to do it. Sometimes it's okay not to do some of those things if it's a matter of of trade-offs or time involvement.
But ultimately, if you tell someone that you're gonna do something, you better follow through and do it. And I think that's really important. And it's not a matter of. Under promise and over, over deliver. People use that a lot in like a, a customer service mentality.
Trust isn't about customer service. It's not about delivering on a, exceeding a, a bar that's been set. It's about, people feeling that you're genuine that you're giving them an honest truth and. You'll have their back. And that's one thing that's been really important to me is I want, I've always wanted my team members to know that I've got their back because I certainly would want them to have my back when I've needed it over the years.
I just I just think it, it starts with being able to look someone in the eye and be very genuine and don't tell 'em something if you don't really. Yeah.
And to, to your vulnerability, right? Just being honest about the stuff that you know and you don't know, right?
And sharing openly. Certainly another way to Yeah. Build the trust among the leadership
team. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. The, another one I'd have to say is um, is sort of a hot topic right now, but Inclus. . If you've got a p a group of people in the room and you're only listening to two or three, you've lost trust with the other, five or six in the room.
And you really do need to be open and encourage others to to participate. Actively ask them to be involved, ask their opinion. Comment on the things that they've done and make it feel like an environment that's safe to open up and talk and contribute and suggest and that it's safe to make a suggestion without fear of ridicule or fear of being wrong or rejected or argued with.
I just find the collaboration is so important to that dynamic and encouraging everybody to be a part of that is, is important.
So you mentioned that like at the end of your career, a lot of it was, coaching and mentoring and whatnot to your team. , let's maybe talk about the flip side in terms of who, how did you, in your career use mentors, coaches?
What kind of a role did they play in your career
growth? Yeah, I. . I've had so many coaches and mentors. I, there's a temptation to, to name names. I'm not gonna do it. Cause I've probably said some of the people that who I'd forget to include. Those who stood out were al It was always, someone who was willing to confide in may seek my help, even though I felt like they were, more senior.
Certainly more experienced more knowledgeable, but they would seek my help ask my help and my opinion. And they would, we'd go back to trust. They'd put some trust in me. And I always noticed when a really good coach or mentor, they'd allow me to succeed or fail. Not fall flat on my face.
. But it's okay to fail. It's okay to allow someone to fail, especially if they're gonna learn. I mean, You have to. , you know, give them a soft landing pad of course. But giving them room to stretch their stretch, stretch themselves is really good. And I think you trying to define someone's the, so someone's role too tightly is like, here's the things that they do.
oftentimes inhibits growth. And most of the good coaches and mentors I had over the years would actually seek me out to do something that wasn't part of my formal job description and give me a chance to stretch my legs away in a way that maybe a direct growth path might not. And that, that resulted in.
Having a pretty wide array of career development opportunities along the way. I mean, It was really amazing to me how how many different directions my career could have gone in given the opportunity as I was given at earlier stages of my career with
these calls or mentors.
Right. Where maybe two, two questions there. One is did you, how did you seek them out? Did that develop organically, right? Or did you have so in blind spot where you said Hey, I wanna develop in a certain way. And then the other follow up question would be, were these relationships typically more formal or informal in a structure?
First off it was definitely more organic. . It wasn't like I saw someone and went out of my way to find them and said, I want you to be my mentor now. I certainly made myself available to people who were, who I was attracted to, from a standpoint of who they were and what they did and the things that I thought I could learn from them.
So there's a little bit of growth in both directions, but it definitely was organic.
And then the second part of your question it was interesting letter, interestingly enough, it was definitely more informal. Usually those coaches or mentors did come from a more formal leadership role in the organization, but.
It wasn't a, like I was nominated to be someone's to be assigned as someone for mentoring purposes. It really was more in informal where I would develop a relationship with somebody who maybe was more senior in the organization and I was able to learn from them and interestingly enough, in most cases I actually became, They became friends.
They're people who I , who I still am, some of my closest friends today are people who were at one point were my mentors. and I ironically at least three of them, I ended up being their manager later in their careers in, in, in my role. And we had a great time making fun about that fact as I was wrapping up my career.
But there's other ways you can do it. I, there's outside coaches. I, at one point I had a. . I did have an executive coach when I first came into the National Practice Leader role. , and I found that to be valuable. Some people get more out of it than others. For me the hands-on experience was definitely better than having someone a paid coach on the outside that helped.
I will admit that I probably didn't get as much out of it as maybe I, I had hoped it certainly was valuable.. The, the things that stuck with me longer were definitely the ones that were developed on a more informal basis, organically in inside the organization. People who saw something in me and gave me a chance, and really gave me some of their time that they otherwise might not have.
And that meant a lot to me. And it made me really wanna take make full use of the time they were giving me and, maybe return it in future years by developing into that resource that they, were hoping I could.
Yeah, it certainly resonates what you said about ideally if you can build relationship in business that are also, it's that friendships, right?
And, , you combine those two things that's certainly the sweet spot. So if you think about your. your career and your progression. Mentors, coaches, that's one element, right? , what else did you find beneficial as you think about self-improvement learning, right?
Is this were you part of certain peer groups or are there certain conferences? Anything else that you would say was really valuable for you from a self-improvement perspective?
Sure. Maybe I'll start by I'll put in a shameless plug for the actuarial profession. . . Yeah. I came outta school and I was an actuary.
I was a fellow of the Society of Actuaries six years outta school and with a concentration in the health practice. And for anyone who's thought about taking the actuarial exam track, it's gonna be a little daunting. And you're surrounded by some really brilliant, intelligent people.
I, I couldn't say enough good things about it, and it was less about for me the. The actual detailed calculations and more about the thought process, the problem solving analytical mindset that you brought to any conversation. And I, there are some people who believe that, hey, if I go down the path of being an actuary, I'm gonna be in a backroom somewhere with spreadsheets and data and analytics, then that's gonna be my career.
and I, it couldn't be anything further from the truth that actually opens up so many doors. If you've got good communication skills and curiosity and ability to step back and apply that, that that thought process that, that you gained through the actuarial training it actually can, it actually leads into so many different directions from a business leadership standpoint.
Self-improvement and learning. Probably started really with my Going through the actuarial exam process and then working as an actuary for several years and then adapting the skills that I gained along the way into different kind of, of analytical engagements.
So that was one thing that for me is, was really good. And I'm all for a good balance of conferences and corporate training classes and things like. In the end, I like hands-on learning. . . The things that I the times in my career when I, probably the biggest inflection points for me were definitely where I got a chance to work on a project or an initiative to help create something that didn't exist in the organization previously.
And, if they looked for volunteers, I'd raise my hand. And that all comes from the, just being curious about the things that are happening in around. Being aware that, you're gonna learn something from, literally everybody you come in contact with, and this doesn't just apply to the work environment.
Every single person you come in contact with, you can learn something from. It's, you're open to it. And if you keep your mind open and you look for the things that you can learn from them. It's pretty enriching.. . And I think that it comes back in ways that you can't even anticipate in the future.
So for me, I just think that approaching every conversation with there's somebody here who has something that, that I can learn from them is, has been really helpful for me.
So will, you mentioned a few inflection points in your career where you raised your hand, right?
And you saw an opportunity, you grabbed it. Are there certain examples of that you can share with your audience? And then maybe also outline what were some of the key learnings, right? What did you take away from these experie?
Sure. So at least the one that stands out the most for me was in the late nineties HEW Associates.
We tried to develop a an e-business. This is back in the.com age. Before the bubble birthed in the early two thousands we developed a, what was essentially a new at that time, a form of sort of an online health insurance exchange. and I did take a very, it was a risk, a calculated risk as we talked about before, informed risk or a reasonable risk to leave a a nice role as a partner in this organization and go to a, essentially a startup.
And I had an opportunity to do to be much more of lead. Developer of that business, it was 1112 of us who were partners that helped to create that. And, it, it failed in, in by all measures. It didn't succeed. And part of that was the bubble bursting with the.com business.
But I, I just learned so much there. And the other partners in the organization welcoming back in afterwards as we knew we were taking a risk and trying to build something that could create tremendous value and. One of, one of the, so when I came back in I was actually, I had developed so many additional skills in terms of how to develop a business, how to learn on the fly and build something in, in the void of where the, something wasn't anything previously.
and the other partners embraced us and brought us back into the organization. So it was a, like I said, it was a reasonable risk that I took and I got comfortable with the idea of taking risks in the career. I certainly was tethered, I had a tether on me. I wasn't I wasn't free climbing without a belay, for those of you who knew anything about rock climbing.
And so when you got that I feel it's so worth it to take a chance and to put your all into something and see what can happen. And if you're genuine and you lean on, in, on those on this, both the strengths and the weaknesses I think that you will find the experience, however successful or however to whatever extent it fails in the long run.
You're gonna grow from it. You're gonna gain from it, and then all en likely to end up in a better spot.
Yeah, we, I think very similarly, like in, in our organization at Thrive Path, we are constantly thinking about these, educated risk, right? Where Yeah, I always say out of, five of these ideas we work out, that's great, right?
That's how you, that's how you differentiate and you also have to be, , , fine with the fact that, some of these will not work out right. But as, as long as you're taking the right learnings out of it it's certainly a win for the for the, yeah,
In order to succeed, you have to be willing to fail.
You have to be okay with ex with experience and.
Absolutely. I think that is you gotta take certain risk. Are there certain things now that you reflect on your career where you would maybe say Hey, I would do certain things differently from today's perspectives?
know, There are, I'm not sure that I would call any of them out specifically. I do I have. Experience, Andreas, that every once in a while I'll look back at what I thought, how I did things, the way I acted and the things I said five years ago. And I'm always surprised at how little I knew back then.
Mm-hmm. . . So I call it my five year role. And that applied when I was 30, looking back at 25. It applied when I was. 45, looking back at 40. And let me tell you, it definitely applies. I'm 55 looking back at 50. I cannot believe how little I knew five years ago. Now I say that a little tongue in cheek obviously, but look, there are always things that you would do differently.
and the fact that I can sit there five years later and recognize some of those things and I, it just, it just means I've, I know I've grown and learned so much in those last five years, so I don't know that I can honestly say that I would do things differently. Look, hindsight's 2020, everybody would sure have something that they would do differently, but I don't know that I would stop and undo everything.
I just appreciate the fact that I can look back and recognize how. Did how something I did or said or thought wasn't as spot on as I thought it was. And I think by recognizing that I, I learned and it actually helps me in my decision making today because I can, I, I know right now as smart as I think I might be five years from now, I'm gonna look back and realize I didn't know anywhere near as much as I thought I did.
I think this is a really interesting nugget, right? To realize, yeah. The more somebody becomes an expert in the field in any given field the more you realize you don't know about that field. And the more Yeah, the more questions oftentimes come up. Yeah. . So tell us what, what's next in your career, right?
You obviously spend you are very successful , at Aon, , what is your current focus and what does the future hold for you?
Yeah. I can tell you that right now I'm doing a great job of catching up on, on my outdoor time that I didn't experience over the last 33 years. Nice.
So I've enjoyed that. You know what I'm doing right now? I am doing advisory work. I'm helping. Getting involved in boards, both corporate and and volunteer boards. Finding others that, and helping them reach their potential and being able to manage the amount of time, who I work with the topics that I work on, how much time and energy I put into them.
I, that's something that I can control now. And I've found that I've done a great job of re-energizing and almost like having a rebirth in the last year. I'm a young guy. I literally just turned 56 and I've got a little more runway left in me. But I'm really pleased with my decision to retire at an early age and do things.
I'm more of a part-time basis moving forward. I, I am certainly open. Others that might need some advisory services. Based on my background and skillset, I'm happy to have a conversation with almost anybody who comes along. But for me, it's just having that balance and really maintaining that balance between the personal life, the things that I'd like to do and my active years here and being looking at my professional life and how I can give back to others in a way that people gave to me as I was developing through my career..
Yeah. It, it, it sounds like the dream job, right? Where you still are involved Yeah. In a lot of, yeah. Just interesting conversation, innovation the industry itself, but less from a day-to-day operations perspective, and then just having a little bit more breathing room for the family and personal.
Yeah. And I'm not sure if it's a, I don't know if it's a dream job per se, but it certainly is one that I, I couldn't have done if I hadn't put in the hard work and the elbow grease for the last 33 years. It's not like you can choose to do this when you're 30 years old. So I am I'm humbled and appreciative that there's many people out there that want to, have conversations with me and think that I can add value to their situation and.
As I said I'm a very collaborative person. I wanna help people succeed. And it feels good to me to be able to do that. That's where I, that's where I get my energy from. Get where I get my buzz from. And and I've got more energy now than I have probably have in the last 20 years.
Yeah.
And it, it shines right? It comes through very clearly. So. Thank you so much for taking the time today.
It's my pleasure
and I hope that I will be part of one of the future burbon tasting. So this will be my shameless platform invitation there, .
You got invitation, my friend.
Perfect. No, thank so much again for the conversation and enjoy the rest of your day.
Thank you. You too.