The Benefits of Technology

By: Aaron Smuda

Working in technology may seem like an odd choice. If you’re not fluent in it or if you haven’t been trained in it, there can be some apprehension around working with it. I view it as a tool to get things done more efficiently. It broadens your horizons a little bit more. You don’t get so apprehensive as it relates to new technological advancements. And you embrace it a little bit more because I think you should embrace any tool that can make your job easier or your life easier.

We sometimes see technical apprehension in our customers, especially in the agents our carrier customers work with. Because things just change so rapidly, it’s hard to stay on top of things. You can easily get left behind. Or maybe you’re comfortable with the way you operate today and don’t want to jump through hoops or ask for help. By the same token, during COVID especially, we saw people adapting to video calls, which they hadn’t done in the past, because it was the only way that they could see their loved ones. So life events sometimes force people to get into technology a little more or to embrace new tools.

Since people tend to be afraid of things they don’t understand, you have to put yourself in their shoes and build a bridge. That’s true with our system or any new technology. You have to introduce them to the benefits, which makes them more eager to understand the technical intricacies. Once you roll up your sleeves and get your hands a little bit dirty, you realize it’s not that bad, and the system can do a lot of the heavy lifting. That’s when we really see people starting to come around. Some of them even become champions, advocates for the system. While there will always be people who resist change, there are probably more of them who get comfortable using new systems or technologies.

I liken it to fishing. You’ll catch more fish with live bait. At the tackle shop, they keep minnows in tanks with water that’s really cold. They bundle your minnows in a bag with that cold water and oxygen. When you get to the lake, rather than opening the bag and dumping the minnows into a bucket, you put the bag in the minnow bucket because if you just dump the minnows into the bucket, the sudden transition from the cold water in the bag to the warm water in the lake would kill most of the minnows. But if you keep them in the bag and let them acclimate slowly, none of the minnows die.

In the same way, if you try to acclimate people to a new system too quickly, it’s too challenging. You have to start with the benefits and then slowly introduce change, especially when you have people who may be a little bit more resistant. Put yourself in their shoes, try to think like them, show them the benefits over a period of time, and they’ll sometimes end up being one of your star performers.

That’s why I love what I do. I find if people aren’t passionate about what they do, they do things halfway and compromise the outcomes. I want to be passionate about what I do because when I’m fully engaged, I have the best ideas and can better the people around me. And when you’re working in a company, it’s not just about your own career advancement, it’s about building a team of people or an entire company. You’re engaged and trying to better the people around you to help their careers.

At Finys, we really stress collaboration. We don’t want to end up in silos or get comfortable with what we do. We want to constantly be innovating. Things move so rapidly in the technology industry that if you don’t innovate and adapt, you’ll lose market share or stagnate. So, when we hire new people, even if they’re just out of college or starting their careers, they might be able to show us things we didn’t know or wouldn’t have thought to do. So that collaborative environment allows us to match objectivity, enthusiasm, and experience. So, people enjoy coming to work.

In fact, this was my first job out of college. I graduated from Bowling Green State University ’09. I said I’d take my first job offer, assuming it was in a company in which I could contribute. I wanted to test the waters and see what it means to be a software developer. I said I’d reassess after three years, and I’ve been here ever since. I think that’s true, at least in part, because while we’re a technology company, we wouldn’t exist without the people and the perspectives we have here. And people open up when you collaborate and build together.

The people who thrive here are passionate about technology, who embrace change and uncertainty, and who like challenges, thinking on their feet, and collaborating. We guide people along the way, so they can achieve their goals on their own and feel more accomplished as a result. Some of our best people don’t have college degrees. But they’re eager to learn and find the tools and online instruction they need. Some of them have already built their own applications by the time they come to interview.

We like to think we’re about discovery, confidence, and mastery. By encouraging people to contribute, they discover things about themselves. They bolster their confidence. And they achieve levels of mastery in their work. We encourage them to contribute and discover because you can’t be confident in your mastery of anything, if you’re just mimicking what people have shown you. That’s what leads people to say, “Well, that’s great, but maybe there’s a better way we could do something.”