ARAG Legal Insurance

Service: Culture Change, Leadership Development
Size: One office, 150 Employees
Budget: 2 billion worldwide premium base

Challenge

ARAG was experiencing increased competition from inexpensive, online legal services. and getting aggressive growth projections from their parent company. As a multi-year recipient of “Best Place to Work” awards, they wanted to acknowledge the best of their past, leverage their potential and create an organizational culture that could adapt, innovate and grow at market pace. Past experience without outside experts who had attempted to “fix” things had not gone well. With this transformation, they preferred a home-grown, self-facilitated process.

Solution

Fifteen “culture champions”: a microcosm of influential and respected formal and informal leaders--were trained and empowered with Appreciative Inquiry. They then codesigned and facilitated an intervention, using AI to disassemble silos, nurture relationships and rebuild a relational infrastructure. Because every member of the workforce participated in setting direction, they were committed to proposed changes This built in-house capacity and long-term cultural impact / sustainability

Results

Current leadership continues to employ AI-based processes to make companywide decisions, identify key leadership competencies, determine an optimal leadership structure and align team leaders’ personal strength in better service of their mission and goals. Before/after surveys found company-wide improvements in collaboration across functions and levels, risk-taking, information sharing, creative problem-solving