The Actuary Whisperer
By Max Geifman and Darryl Wagner
The Stepping Stone, March 2022
Bruce Arians began his coaching career in 1975 as a graduate assistant for Virginia Tech, his alma mater. Aside from a brief retirement in 2018, he has been coaching in some capacity ever since. His career highlights include three super bowls, two with the Steelers as an offensive coordinator and one as head coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Bruce is best known for the work he has done with all-time great quarterbacks including Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger and Tom Brady, granting him the nickname the quarterback whisperer. In his book The Quarterback Whisperer: How to Build an Elite NFL Quarterback, he talks about his experience coaching great quarterbacks, what separates these all-time greats from other NFL quarterbacks and how he was able to locate the individual traits that drove each player to succeed.
Like NFL quarterbacks, actuaries have important roles within their organizations and teams, and these roles continue to evolve. Actuarial development is changing to facilitate and guide these changing actuarial roles. Managers need to act as Actuary Whisperers and coach their employees through the stress of actuarial work, a changing exam process and further career development.
Skills vs. Capabilities
When creating actuarial development programs, it’s important to differentiate between developing a skill versus developing a capability.[1] Skills are defined as tactics, knowledge or expertise needed to achieve outcomes within a specific context:
- Skills are generally quantifiable and may be learned or trained within a short period of time.
- Skills are time-bound; one moment a skill may be in high demand and the next it may be obsolete.
- Examples of quarterback skills include the ability to throw the football far and accurate.
- For an actuary, examples may be technical knowledge of an actuarial modeling platform, or business and functional skills like knowledge of an actuarial guideline.
Capabilities are observable human attributes that are demonstrated independent of context and applicable across jobs or tasks:
- Capabilities are not directly learned, but rather they are cultivated and amplified with the help of others.
- Capabilities are timeless in their applicability.
- Examples of capabilities include confidence, adaptability and decisiveness. These capabilities are beneficial for both actuaries and quarterbacks.
Often over the course of an NFL game, plays don’t go as scripted. Great quarterbacks are able to adapt when things go wrong, act decisively to adjust as needed, and confidently execute the play. Student actuaries are often “quarterbacking” various model-dependent processes. When processes don’t run as planned, actuaries may help overcome those obstacles by being adaptable, decisive, and confident as they adjust the process and explain the proposed changes to management.
These capabilities might be difficult for young actuaries to develop early in their careers, as they depend on skills that the actuary will likely develop over time. So how may a manager help foster these capabilities in struggling actuaries?
Coach Arians talks about a conversation he had with Peyton Manning in his rookie season, a season in which Peyton led the NFL in interceptions and the Colts were one of the worst teams in the league. “Hey, we’re going to get better every week. Every week we’re going to see a little improvement. It may not show up on the scoreboard, but we’re getting better.”[2]
When actuaries make mistakes, managers should remind them of the improvement they have already made and press upon how they will continue to improve in the future. Managers may take this a step further and share with their employees’ times where they struggled and what did they do to be more adaptable and decisive when one of their processes broke down. Actuarial managers and their organizations should focus on developing capabilities first and skills second since over time skills will likely become obsolete, but actuaries with developed capabilities will always be prepared to face new challenges and can quickly develop the skills needed to address them.
Passion of the Explorer
A key capability organizations should focus on cultivating is what’s called the passion of the explorer. This means challenging employees to identify skills they would like to develop in order to solve future unseen problems.
One way to do this is to create a BYOC or “Bring your own challenge” program. Time is put aside periodically to allow employees to work on side projects where they may learn new skills and hone capabilities.
Another is to create an internal “gig” platform that connects employees to problems that need solving across the firm. Often when a team lead needs temporary staff, they look within their own workstream or business function. An internal gig platform allows a lead to post a role, review submitted bio’s, and select the best fit based on talent and availability. This benefits the organization through flexible staffing, the “gig” employee through development opportunities, and the destination team through exposure to someone from elsewhere in the organization.
If an actuary sees an opportunity for personal development through a role on another team, attendance at a learning program or seminar, or pursuit of a certificate, they should realize that companies are generally supportive of such initiative and often have funds reserved for learning purposes. Putting together a clear business case for how the learning opportunity likely provides additional value to their organization and increases meaning in their own work is the first step in obtaining approval.
Coach Arians does an exercise on a weekly basis to help develop passion of the explorer with his quarterbacks. “I’ll also ask my quarterback at our Friday meeting to give me his fifteen favorite pass plays. Then I’ll get fifteen running plays from the coaches and I’ll script the first thirty plays. If there is a pass play that I really want to include in those first thirty, I’ll put it on the projector and make my case to the quarterback. But if he strongly disagrees, then I’ll let him win that argument.”[3] Here Coach Arians is giving his quarterback ownership to keep him engaged in the game plan.
Notice the coach is still calling half the plays, and will nudge the quarterback into certain plays, but he recognizes that if the quarterback is not comfortable with a certain play, he won’t execute it. This strategy may be used by managers to help design a development plan for their employees. Instead of pass plays and run plays think developmental opportunities and core firm projects.
At the end of the day each employee has a core role within the firm, and the manager will need to define how the employee needs to execute those projects. For development, managers may give the reins to their employees to make decisions about what side projects they going to work on. The manager may still try to nudge his employee in a certain direction if the manager thinks it’s a good fit, but at the end of the day if the employee isn’t buying in, they will likely not make the most of their development opportunities.
Just like how every quarterback is different, every actuary is different, and the levers managers are going to have to pull to develop capabilities within their employees will likely need to be different. Managers may require training on how to identify different personality types or on how to motivate actuaries at different points in their careers. When in doubt about the best way to inspire an employee, managers could try to set an example for their employees and talk about their own struggles and career path.
Coach Arians notes a conversation he had with Peyton Manning in his book. “We (Peyton and Coach Arians) had such a strong bond. But I was a quarterback coach and I wanted to become an offensive coordinator. He knew what my goals were and he genuinely wanted me to succeed and continue climbing the NFL coaching ladder. Heck, I think he wanted that for me almost as much as I wanted it for myself.”[4]
Managers should share their career goals with their employees. This gives employees a road map of what they need to do to succeed, create an open environment for employees to be honest with their mangers and show why these conversations about development are important.
In today’s rapid evolving and increasing complex environment, it is more important than ever that actuaries develop true capabilities. Managers who can act as Actuary Whisperers play a key role in helping actuaries as individuals and as a profession successfully rise to the challenges and opportunities before them.
Managers who wish to be granted the title of Actuary Whisperer should look to:
- Focus on cultivating capabilities of employees
- Challenge employees to identify skills they need to improve
- Provide the freedom to seek out and solve problems outside their own business function
- Seek out trainings on how to identify and motivate different personality types
- Act as a role model by sharing their own difficult experiences and career aspirations with their employee
Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries, the editors, or the respective authors’ employers.
Max Geifman, ASA, is a consultant at Deloitte Consulting LLP. He can be reached at mgeifman@deloitte.com. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-geifman-asa-3514a9175/.
Darryl Wagner, FSA, MAAA, is principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP. He can be reached at dawagner@deloitte.com. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darryl-wagner-08b7455/.