Wealthy Gilbert, who joined Aflac in 2019 as chief digital and data officer, now serves as its chief transformation officer and head of particular person advantages. The promotion and title are effectively deserved. Aflac is the main supplier of supplemental medical insurance in the USA, and Gilbert has been acknowledged for his dedication to accelerating the corporate’s digital transformation technique. He was named the 2021 CIO of the 12 months by GeorgiaCIO, receiving the ORBIE Award within the World class for serving to reinvent Aflac as a digital-first firm.
On a latest episode of the Tech Whisperers podcast, Gilbert shared his profession journey and the management philosophies which have guided him to his present function, the place he’s not solely accountable for the digital providers division, but in addition Aflac’s largest P&L, Particular person Voluntary Advantages, and the Shared Companies and Communicorp group. We centered our dialog across the seven Cs of high leaders — braveness, buyer centricity, change, domesticate, communication, collaboration, tradition — traits that allow the perfect leaders to thrive in occasions of disaster whereas staying targeted on the long run and driving important enterprise worth. We spent some extra time after the present drilling down additional into a couple of of these areas. What follows is that dialog, edited for size and readability.
Dan Roberts: As an govt with each digital providers and P&L tasks, what would you say has been key to your skill to navigate and bridge the technical and enterprise sides of the function?
Wealthy Gilbert: My superpower is the power to talk a number of languages. Now, I can’t converse French. I can’t converse German. I can’t converse some other language in addition to English. Nonetheless, I need to converse varied languages to have the ability to talk and join successfully. I converse know-how so I can talk with our know-how staff. I additionally converse technique, so I can talk with our board. I converse financials, so I can talk with our CFO. I converse worth, so I can talk with our chairman and CEO about what we’re capable of ship.
This multilingual mannequin is my superpower as a result of I can discuss one thing extraordinarily technical with the know-how staff, however then I can talk that in enterprise phrases to our enterprise leaders in a means that has nothing to do with know-how. After which to the board in regards to the imaginative and prescient and worth that you just’re delivering with that know-how. With the ability to converse a number of languages helps drive connections and outcomes.
In truth, I’d add that to the seven Cs of high leaders: connections. You’ve obtained to be related to your folks. You’ve obtained to be related to your friends. You’ve obtained to be related to your clients. You’ve obtained to be related to your CEO, your CFO, and your board. Connection is vital, and that’s all about two issues: constructing relationships and being multilingual.
What does customer-centricity appear to be when you have got 50 million folks you’re defending? That’s a staggering quantity.
Insurance coverage is an fascinating enterprise, since you’re not constructing one thing; you’re in enterprise to satisfy a promise. If one thing occurs to a person, you’re going to be there. In the event that they get most cancers, if they’ve a hospital keep, if they’ve an accident or they break their leg, our a part of fulfilling that promise is to have the ability to make that so simple as doable. The entire level round constructing our options is absolutely to say, how do you drive buyer ease?
Our reply: We constructed new web sites and new cellular apps the place you merely reply some questions. It captures that materials and routes into our claims processing. It’s making that course of so simple as doable. What we’re making an attempt to do is automate all the easy issues, so you probably have bother and need to contact the decision middle, our buyer care and claims brokers can concentrate on understanding your state of affairs as an alternative of administrative issues like tackle adjustments. We would like them to have the ability to take into consideration your case, how that will help you with it and easy methods to get cash in your pocket as quickly as we will.
We constructed all these front-end techniques to make the enter simpler. However we’re additionally constructing this entire new machine studying/synthetic intelligence engine to have the ability to take the inputs and auto-adjudicate the claims — as a result of we’ve paid thousands and thousands of them, so we’ve seen all this documentation. There are medical codes, diagnostic codes, remedy codes. We will take these and apply them to the advantages you have got in your coverage, and we all know the likelihood of what we must always pay from a advantages perspective. It’s a mannequin that’s designed to extend high quality and the velocity to pay.
There’s an worker influence, too, proper? As a result of this frees them as much as do work that’s extra significant.
Proper. It’s not a full automation. What we do is current it to the claims adjuster and buyer care agent and reveal the likelihood of advantages. We’ve given you 95% of the solutions. Simply be sure that there isn’t a state of affairs that the pc can’t perceive from an empathy perspective to have the ability to end the declare. You may see how we’re doing this with inputs in our digital channels and even back-office capabilities, as a result of now you elevate folks from doing mundane issues to specializing in the actual wants and the way we remedy them.
Many occasions, folks get confused about what you’re actually doing as a technologist. It’s easy: Serve your buyer.
That is a part of your rebranding of digital providers, which has actually been a number of ranges of change on change. Are you able to discuss a bit about that?
The primary section of the rebranding journey was shifting from IT to digital providers, determining what it means to be customer-obsessed as a technologist and the way you modify the processes that you just function underneath. We needed to go from a waterfall mannequin to an agile mannequin. Now we’re shifting into DevOps, and we’re heading into a complete new methodology utilizing various kinds of know-how, particularly changing into cloud integrators. The entire level of changing into cloud integrators is to have the ability to construct options quicker.
I’ll provide you with an instance from our journey by the pandemic. First off, insurance coverage is offered by unbiased brokers, and in the event that they don’t promote, they don’t make a dwelling. Add to that the truth that insurance coverage is a product that’s offered and never purchased, and it’s achieved on the worksite. With COVID-19, the entire enterprise mannequin is disrupted as a result of there’s no private interplay, there’s no worksite and also you’ve obtained a product that requires it to be offered, not purchased. How do you cope with that?
We launched a brand new imaginative and prescient round digital enrollment. We pulled our leaders collectively from all totally different elements of the enterprise and mentioned, okay, how will we remedy this? We determined that we would have liked to offer the brokers the power to proceed working, however we’ve obtained to do it in a means that’s all digital. We constructed a sequence of microsites that may be customized and despatched them out by way of a QR code, explaining all of the product choices. We have now movies that includes how Aflac helps shut the hole in your insurance coverage protection and why it’s best to contemplate shopping for most cancers insurance coverage, a hospital plan, and issues like that. We created a choice help device that, with just a little bit of data, exhibits you the perfect product for you. Then it means that you can have a digital calendar to have the ability to schedule time with an agent.
And that is the perfect half — we linked it to videoconferencing know-how with co-browsing functionality, so the policyholder and agent can meet just about and have the power to share info. We constructed a brand new enrollment utility with procuring cart performance to see what the mixture of merchandise would value and estimate your month-to-month cost. The policyholder can now take over the display and fill out all the knowledge, signal by digital signature and the interplay is full. Then we route the enrollment electronically and ship a replica by way of e-mail. All of these issues that had been dealt with face-to-face grew to become digital. That was an enormous change for us, and it’s an instance of being disruptive whereas determining easy methods to remedy that downside and drive change.
That takes a whole lot of braveness! Braveness is a alternative, particularly because it goes hand in hand with worry. How do you make the selection and get previous the worry?
Concern will be wholesome. I all the time say, in the event you’re taking a brand new job and it doesn’t scare you, you’re not pushing your self laborious sufficient. Concern is a pure response to being out of your consolation zone and taking up a brand new problem since you care in regards to the final result. It’s wholesome as a result of it sharpens you and makes you double-check what you’re doing.
The place folks fall quick is in taking motion to beat worry. Usually, folks will give you an awesome thought or an awesome mannequin, one thing they assume will change the corporate, after which they don’t even take the preliminary step. The most important overcomer of worry is motion. That’s why, when anyone’s prepared to leap off a excessive board, folks rely down: three, two, one, soar. The reason being as a result of it instills motion. You hear that and also you’re like, okay, I’ve obtained to do it, so that you overcome the worry.
It’s the identical in company America. Individuals have to beat worry to have the ability to accomplish issues, so worry could be a motivator, however it additionally will be an inhibitor and preserve folks from shifting. Braveness just isn’t essentially not feeling worry, as a result of I really feel worry on a regular basis. Is that this going to work proper? Am I going to have the ability to hit all of the aims that we set out? Am I going to be sure that my folks really feel like they’ve completed issues and are related? However what I do with that worry is translate it into, okay, what’s the step I’m going to take? After which I take actions to have the ability to remedy that.
There are a whole lot of issues which might be outdoors of your management. There are a whole lot of difficult conditions through which you’ll have to have the ability to reply and react. Once I’ve seen leaders which might be confronted with a serious challenge, I’ll say, okay, what’s the subsequent step? Take that step as a result of it’s going to assist to beat worry and provoke motion.
For extra digital management and enterprise insights from Wealthy Gilbert, tune into the Tech Whisperers podcast.
