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By Root 1030 0

’s case, then, his education program was two-pronged: It served to improve the knowledge and education of USAA’s workforce, but it was also a signal to employees that USAA thought of them as more than Henry Ford’s “pair of hands.” Thus it operated alongside the automation programs, the preauthorization to approve claims, and the bureaucracy busting to show people that USAA was a different kind of company. In the process, he redefined their jobs, too: They were now to serve the customers—in fact as well as in name. All of this together—the bureaucracy-busting, the devolution of decision-making authority, and the educational benefits—constituted McDermott’s campaign to move from “how” to “why.” In the process, he changed the way USAA’s employees thought of their relationship to their customers—transforming Dante’s call-answering robots into natural service leaders.

This is not just happy PR talk. In 2005, a member called USAA to conduct some business about her home insurance. But the sales rep, trained like everyone else at USAA to be conversational and helpful, not just transactional, picked up on the worry in the woman’s voice and asked: “You sound distraught. Is there something wrong?” The woman explained that her husband had Alzheimer’s and had been missing for four days. The police couldn’t find him.

After a short pause, the rep said, “You have a credit card with us. Why don’t I call over to our bank and see if we can get your husband’s credit-card transactions over the last few days. It might tell us where he is.” The information was found and the sales rep happily shared it with the woman, suggesting that she call the police right away to pass along the information. Using the credit card data, the police found him in a hotel many miles away from his home. Not a bad display of customer-service leadership for a call-center operator.

Although such service is considered par for the course at USAA, this case—perhaps due to its emotional impact—merited not only a story in the company’s internal newsletter but was also slated for publication in the company’s annual report. And the message was clear to both employees and customers, who are known as members in USAA parlance: “We do whatever we can to help our members.” And at USAA, “whatever you can” means whatever—including breaking the rules, as shown by the story of another remarkable USAA employee.

A member who had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer called to see about getting her life-insurance coverage increased. The USAA rep, June Walbert, walked her through it, including the cost, and got the policy written. But a couple of months went by, and the member called back. “You know,” she told the customer-service representative, “I just can’t afford this. What did I get myself into?” Contractually, she was stuck. At most companies, continuing the conversation from there would have been akin to beating one’s head against the wall. But the rep looked at the file and said, “You know what, this is wrong. We should not have done it.”

Walbert continued the story: “I felt like we, as a company, didn’t hold up our end of the bargain. We should have really talked to her more to make sure that she didn’t take that policy. So I just broke the rules. I said, ‘We’re going to undo this policy, give you back what you had before. You had a good policy before. Let’s leave it alone.’ I sent this to our underwriters and they didn’t give me a hard time…. They just said, ‘You’re right. We shouldn’t have done that.’ That was what was best for the member.”2

We asked what helped her take such an action. “I think that our robust training program is really what I would call the ‘secret of the ninja’ to USAA’s success as a liberated employer,” she offered, spontaneously homing in on the key role of education. “Because whenever you have sufficient training, it increases your technical skills, which in turn, increases your confidence to serve the member well.” In this case, natural leadership meant bending, or breaking, the rules to do the right thing. But Walbert didn’t look like a corporate