Education Comes In Many Forms

But education in the public sector is not the only victim of budget constraints today. Corporate America is also experiencing a budget crunch resulting from a drop in profits. Like state lawmakers, company "bean counters" are having to look to expenditures that can be eliminated or reduced. Typically, advertising (a form of education) and education itself are among the first to feel the knife. Again, the temporary relief usually has long-term consequences that can be a drag on future growth and prosperity.

Commercial education, while having a somewhat more narrow focus, does nevertheless share the mission of public education in that it transmits the present culture to future generations. Long before the professor at Indiana University I referred to earlier was born, our business was teaching through the lives of our heroes.

In the early 1900s people like Ed Woods, Paul Clark and John Newton Russell championed the concept of the life underwriter as a professional, setting an example for future generations who would be attracted to the CLU program they helped established.

In the mid-1900s towering figures like Clay Hamlin and later John Todd extended our reach to the corporate uses of life insurance, sharing their experiences with several generations of life underwriters.

In more recent times, we learned from people like Ben Feldman, Marshal Wolper and John Riddings Lee that there is virtually no limit to what one can achieve in life insurance sales.

In my own case, along with countless others, I was educated at local life underwriter association meetings by heroes who, in an unselfish way, shared their secrets of success. I am absolutely certain that absent that learning experience, I would never have made it through my early years in the business. Then later, exposure to a more sophisticated, but similar, experience at annual meetings of the Million Dollar Round Table and the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting enabled further growth.

Fortunately, that kind of educational opportunity is still available, although sad to say, it is severely underutilized. At a time when economics require belt tightening in other areas, it is in everyones interest to reinvigorate this cost-effective means of bringing our culture to new people in our business.

The field manager who fails to encourage his or her people to take advantage of this bargain basement learning experience is passing up one of the finest career development experiences available.

Perhaps if we learn to do our job more effectively, we can also help those troubled couples to better manage their finances, thereby lowering the divorce rate, which is approaching a national disgrace. Education is the key to an enlightened society and it can come in many forms.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, May 12, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved. Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.