Jim Morris, Pacific Life

One of the perks of attending business school is chances to meet and listen to business leaders in person and the very first business leader I met in business school was Jim Morris, a 

current Chairman and CEO of Pacific Life, an US insurance company.

Jim Morris, Pacific Life

He was soft-spoken and calm throughout the presentation and there was a reassuring presence about him; his qualities seemed to reflect the industry he was working in and he seemed the right type of leader for insurance industry, which tends to be conservative. He first explained his company and landscape of insurance industry and how he got to his current position. It was interesting to listen to how he never thought of or sought higher positions in his company but several key promotions came his way as he became successful in each of his positions. Then he shared his business philosophies and leadership philosophies.

*Business philosophies

When he was sharing his business philosophies, I felt that he really valued having competitive advantage and sustaining that edge because I heard him mentioning competitive advantage and sustainability a lot.  Do you know what Warren Buffet’s favorite question is when Buffet considers investing in some company? It’s “what happens to your business if you have to increase your price 10%?” Jim explained that, when Buffet sees business owner stammering to answer the question, it’s a business that doesn't have much of a sustainable (competitive) advantage. How can companies achieve that competitive advantage? Competitive advantage can come from any of the following differentiating factors: 1. Price leadership; 2. Product Innovation; 3. Customer Intimacy(Service). He gave Apple as a company that has competitive advantage through Product Innovation and Nordstrom as a company that has competitive advantage through Customer Intimacy. He explained that his company can’t really achieve price leadership because a lot of insurance pricing comes from yields/interest/Wall Street and can’t look to Product Innovation because insurance products can’t be patented and has a very short lead time before other companies come out with similar products. So he focuses on Customer Intimacy or Service as source of his company’s competitive advantage. I thought it was an interesting framework to define how businesses seek to find competitive advantage in the market. Jim also talked about his approach in looking at the business opportunities and called it “flow” and how he has ideas and liking for certain business opportunities but waits for perfect opportunity and time to capitalize on that opportunity to the maximum. So it’s always good to have a range of ideas that are to your liking and look for that “flow” or opportunities to form perfectly and take advantage of such opportunities to the maximum.

*Leadership philosophies

A) Balancing work between Wheelhouse, Stretch, and Totally Uncomfortable.

Jim explained how his day-to-day tasks fall into one of these 3 categories. He said that doing totally uncomfortable  tasks are engaging and can be fun when you learn something new from it. As professionals, I think we all have our own wheelhouse skills and we should definitely keep those skills sharp. But I think doing something stretchy or challenging ourselves to do totally uncomfortable tasks at times are absolutely necessary because doing so will make us grow. Some of things I am experiencing and learning at business school now are stretch tasks and some are totally uncomfortable tasks but going through these and learning from them will make me grow, stronger and wiser.

B) Surround yourself with people with complementary skills to yours.

Jim said he is a big believer in surrounding himself with people that are very complementary to his skills. He is a big believer in knowing one’s strengths/weaknesses and surrounding oneself with people with complementary skills.

C) You can’t over-communicate as a leader

Sometimes we hope problems at work will somehow work themselves out and hope problems will go away. But hope is never a good strategy. Jim talked about Pacific Life’s relationship with one of the old clients and how that relationship almost ended. Jim said that any long term relationships that have been successful, at some point, needs re-investment. At some point, you have to re-invest in it like a new relationship. Jim joked at this point about how his wife of over 30 years said “that’s pretty good advice for marriage too” when Jim previewed his speech to his wife before coming.

Towards the end, during the Q&A session, one classmate asked Jim how he was able to stay at the same company over 30 years and here’s how he responded. He said that he had the respect for the people he worked for and felt values are the same. If values were different and if he had felt his leaders were not looking after him, he said he might have left.  Something every company interested in keeping top talent should think about.