From Where He Sits, Guardian's CEO Likes The View

He got his chance in the early 90s when he got a call from the home office and was asked about coming up to New York. After moving his family and home, Manning said he was on the job for about 2 weeks when he thought, "What have I done to myself?"

It was "so bureaucratic," he said. So when, a couple of years later an opportunity opened up in one of Guardian's prominent GA operations in White Plains, N.Y. he went to the CEO and said, "You've got to let me go to White Plains."

The operation at that point was "an organization living in the past and they were spending like they were living in the past."

A lot of changes had to be made and some of the old-timers resisted, but Manning said there was a core of 6 or 7 producers in their 30s who were doing well. "I got their feedback and got the young people on my side," he said, "so when the whining started with the older guys it was already a done deal."

A few years later he returned to the home office–"this time with no reluctance to do it"–and took over the individual life insurance operation.

This experience has shaped how he runs Guardian, Manning said. "You need to find out what's worked and what hasn't," he said. "You need to talk to the most successful GAs in your company and find out what they doing."

The GA system "is fabulous for attracting quality people," Manning said, "but it's not so easy to make changes. It takes a little longer. You have to take them through why. And the longer they've been successful, the harder it is to get them to change."

But he said he's "always been very collaborative with the GAs. In the end, while they're thinking about themselves they also recognize that it's good to have a strong company behind them."

With a desired retirement date of at the end of 2011, part of his pride, Manning said, is how strong the ranks just below the CEO level have become at Guardian. "The succession plan isn't just the next CEO. We've got 6 to 7 executive v.p.'s as a succession team and they're hiring the best people they can find."

Any advice for young people looking to insurance as a career? "Insurance is the foundation," he said. "And where else can you go into business for yourself and make lots of money?

"Why work for a corporation," he continued, "when you could be fired tomorrow? Realistically, the most successful agents only answer to their clients. Theoretically, they answer to the GA, but if you're successful, nobody's going to do anything to you."

And what about starving for the first couple of years in the business? "You have to have the wherewithal to make the move," he said. "If you don't have the resources you can't do it."

One area where Manning feels Guardian is not doing as well as it could is in hiring more women. "It's a sore spot," he said. The company has one female GA at present out of about 80. "We also don't have enough women field reps."

Meanwhile, as Guardian commemorates its 150^th year, its core whole life business is giving the company one more cause for celebration. "We've just completed our best life insurance year since 2002," Manning said, "and we had the best December ever. I was almost shocked at how good it was."