With the success of the Best Practices Study over the pastdecade or so, we all now have a very clear understanding of what"good" and "average" look like. Agency managers continually analyzeand measure and quantify. These are all good efforts and allcritical for gauging one's place in the agency universe and formeasuring and tracking progress.

Here's a thought: The Best Practices metrics are helpful, butthe difference between the good, the bad and the ugly agency canultimately be summed up in a single word--people.

If you have an agency populated with mediocre employees, youhave a mediocre agency. Do you have great people? Then you likelyhave a great agency.

In a nutshell, this was perhaps the single most importantconcept in perhaps the most important business book in ageneration, "Good To Great," by Jim Collins: Get the right peopleon the bus, get the wrong people off the bus, and then leave it tothe right people to drive the bus where it needs to go.

It never ceases to amaze me how unwilling many agency owners areto take this advice to heart.

I was asked by an agency owner a few years back to meet with acontentious 50-year-old producer who refused to be held to any newbusiness goals whatsoever, and openly ridiculed the agency ownerfor trying to hold any of the producers to such an arbitrarystandard.

After thinking how miserable and pointless that meeting wasgoing to be, I asked the owner what he thought the realisticprobability was that this troublesome producer could be "righted."He thoughtfully responded, "zero." Today, three years later, theproducer is still there--still a thorn in the owner's side.

Do you have a problem employee who cannot be righted, despiteyour best efforts? What are you waiting for? Do you not see theimpact your indecision is having on your organization?

A client of mine loves to tell the story of the day he fired amillion-dollar producer who made life miserable for everyone whodealt with him. This producer (also a shareholder in the agency)seemed to take great joy in bullying his support staff, companyunderwriters and fellow employees.

But, with a million-dollar book, he felt bulletproof--and, formany years, he was.

After a particularly ugly exchange with a customer servicerepresentative, he was summoned to a meeting with his partners andgiven his walking papers. To this day, the agency president refersto this as one of the most satisfying days of his career, and theday the agency began becoming great.

For many years now, Roger Sitkins, one of this industry's mosteffective sales trainers, has encouraged producers to periodically"trade down" the smallest accounts in their books of business--thatis, to replace the bottom 10 percent of accounts (typically verylow in profitability and very high in hassles) with new businessthat tends to be much larger, more profitable and more fun.

Might not we do the same thing in our agencies with the bottom10 percent of our employees? Can you imagine the impact replacingthe bottom 10 percent with new hires would have on your agency?

Anyone come to mind in your agency who clearly needs to exit atthe next bus stop?

What, then, about getting the right people on the bus? One of mypartners is fond of asking agency principals: "Are you getting morethan your fair share of the best talent available in your market?"This, more than any metric you might find, likely answers thequestion of whether or not you have a great agency.

For today, do this:

Forget the soft market, forget your loss ratios, forget theprofitability of your small commercial department, forget thecontingency mess, forget all the issues (the same issues thatyou'll be facing in a decade) and ask yourself this basic question:"Am I getting more than my fair share of the best talentavailable?"

If not, maybe you've got more pressing issues than your margins,markets or contingents.

A small number of clients come to mind (the great ones, really)who do not struggle to find the best talent available--it comes tothem via their reputations as great places to work. We know anagency well whose mission is simply to become the best possibleplace of employment for insurance professionals--particularlyproducers.

They figure if they can do that, all the other "stuff" will takecare of itself. It does. They are a great agency.

I see a lot of strategic plans that deal with all the typicalissues that most strategic plans deal with. Wouldn't it be aninteresting exercise to plan strategically around this one singlequestion: "What can we do as an agency to become the greatest placeto work in our community?"

However, be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking thatcreating a great place to work is primarily a question ofcompensation--it is not. Greatness speaks more so to a dynamicenvironment with excellent leadership, management, systems, marketsand opportunities.

Create this kind of environment and you're likely to create atruly great agency.