Episode #340
Episode 340: You May Not Have a People Problem
When an insurance agency feels overloaded, the instinct is often to hire another person. Mike Stromsoe explains why the real issue may be how the work itself is designed. He breaks down the difference between machine work and human work, showing how highly skilled insurance professionals can lose valuable capacity when repetitive, rules-based tasks remain on their plates. Rather than adding more payroll to an inefficient system, Mike challenges agency leaders to rethink workflows, identify where automation belongs, and redesign the agency so people can focus on relationships, judgment, leadership, and the work that creates the greatest value. Key Topics: - How to distinguish machine work from work that requires human judgment, empathy, and trust - Why licensed professionals may be spending too much time on work beneath their capacity - The question leaders should ask before assigning any recurring task - The eliminate, automate, delegate, humanize framework for evaluating workflows - Why automating a broken process can create even more operational chaos - How reclaimed capacity can be reinvested into retention, referrals, marketing, and team development - Why client segmentation can help determine where human expertise should be concentrated - How to evaluate whether your agency has a true capacity problem or a design problem Connect with Mike: LinkedIn Twitter Scaling an agency does not necessarily mean adding more people or more technology. It starts with understanding how work is currently being distributed and deciding where that work belongs in the agency you are building for the future. When repetitive machine work is removed from highly skilled team members, those people gain the capacity to strengthen client relationships, improve retention, develop new opportunities, and use the expertise they were hired for. The goal is to redesign the agency so machines handle machine work and people are free to do the work only humans can do.
