MiWay Insurance Limited Deloitte Best Company To Work For 2011 survey
Medium company category: Ranked Number 1 - Amanda Dormehl
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iWay Insurance Company was founded in 2008 making them one of the youngest short-term insurers in South Africa. And they can already boast numerous achievements. Two of these are the Deloitte Best Company to Work For; Winner in the Medium Company Category and the Ask Africa’s Orange Index 2011 Industry Winner. But winning awards is not what it is about at MiWay. We caught up with their CEO, the imposing and philosophical Rene Otto, to discover more about the ways of MiWay.
Otto describes his own management style as consultative, inclusive and participative; underlying this style is the belief that people have enormous value to offer. He sees his leadership role as not to instil greatness, but as to elicit it. He continues: “That is our style. It is why our people are happy working here. We treat them like people who have greatness in them and we try to create an environment that brings that greatness to the fore. We encourage an open door policy and we invite people to partake in debate. We are clear that we are playing the ball and not the man and when disagreements arise we have passionate debates. I believe that we move forward, that we raise our standards more so when there is robust debate.”
Otto has observed some quintessential mistakes made by leadership teams. He feels strongly that staff must be allowed to express themselves and that leadership should
embrace these communications rather than try to suppress it. Another example is the improper design of incentive programmes. Otto warns organisations to guard against their underlying message that can be distorted as to de-motivate staff. And he feels that people are sometimes treated as commodities rather than human beings who have inherent greatness, potential and talent.
Part of MiWay’s culture is to develop the full potential of its staff. Another aspect is their innovative thinking and approach to everyday business activities. They live by the principle of differentiating themselves and have delivered several ‘firsts in industry’.
Otto reflects further on features of the business milieu: “Business is simple in the sense that you play to win. There are different rules, but you need to simplify them so that everybody in the organisation understands what they need to do in order to maximise value to all stakeholders. Many organisations battle with execution. Strategy is only 20 percent of the game. Delivering on your strategy stands or falls on your execution. My challenge is to be a facilitator for critical thinking amongst our staff. It is truly amazing to see the transformation that some individuals go through when you challenge them. The only thing you prove by feeding them information is that you know the answers. Sometimes it is difficult as the pace of business is very fast, but you need to keep in mind how you see
44 Management Today | April 2012
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