Yahoo Finance Concord Servicing Corporation’s ‘Share the Vision’ proves pivotal to success
Jon Catlin
Concord Servicing Corporation Chief Information Officer
Scottsdale, AZ, Oct. 28, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Concord Servicing’s commitment to multifaceted company enhancement on multiple levels—from continuous improvement to customer service—is driving high client satisfaction, employee engagement, and new business success.
Notes Jon Catlin, Concord Servicing Chief Information Officer, “Share the Vision looks at what Concord can achieve by doing something different—near term as well as two-plus years out. Everything being done now is moving Concord toward the future while establishing value in the present. This includes the all-important initiative to train people for future leadership and communication challenges.”
Top 10 Share the Vision aims are:
1. Create a culture of collaboration, communication, confession. That’s right, confession. To fully collaborate and communicate requires relating the good, the bad, the ugly. Concord encourages its people to explain what they did wrong and what they learned in the process. This provides a roadmap for what to do going forward and what to avoid. Everyone can learn from mistakes, so encouraging “candid confession” around them is a big part of the culture. It’s common sense and leads to better client performance.
2. Aspire to continuous improvement. It’s woven into the fabric of what Concord does. It’s the glue that binds the entire business together and enables offering continuous improvement in client, partner, and other stakeholder relationships. As part of this process, Concord surveys the team every three months to take the pulse on what’s working, what needs improvement, and how to get like-minded people together on implementing beneficial change moving forward.
3. Spread the wealth of knowledge. It’s great to have that one indispensable go-to subject matter expert, until more resources are needed—and there’s no one trained to step up. Then you have an expertise vacuum. Instead of one expert, Concord works to create a team of experts who can share the load and shorten the timeframes needed to meet a challenge.
In the process, it helps the teacher learn more as well, through a sharing of perspectives and ideas among the team. It also helps team members communicate more effectively by changing their words when it’s clear the audience isn’t understanding what’s being said. This is truly a team sport where everyone should have the opportunity and encouragement to participate fully.
4. Embrace empowerment, promote passionate thinking, celebrate success. To get a group to embrace change, empower it to effect the change by overcoming financial and other objections. Beyond individual departments, empowerment requires managers and executives to show support for empowerment initiatives and “evangelizing” certain processes and protocols. When people aren’t empowered to participate fully, it empowers someone to tell them what to do. Instead, make it collaborative so people can self-motivate and champion their efforts. And, always celebrate successes with acknowledgement and an opportunity for team members to share what they did.
5. Open all doors to change. Open doors exist throughout an organization, not just within departments. Unlike some IT teams that work within a silo, Concord makes sure the doors are open to the executive team, managers, and everyone else involved in making the company do the best job possible. Open doors bring two outcomes: Informing and directing everyone fully; and promoting the exchange and discussion of ideas in a completely open and non-threatening environment.
6.Question the status quo. It’s always important to challenge the status quo, because the vacuum created without challenging it is stagnation. Shine a light on everything and brainstorm how to think about things differently, effect change, find a new perspective—and assess whether or not doing something is the right thing. Encourage thinking through an issue thoroughly, and despite pre-existing mindsets, how changes can enhance overall outcomes.
7. Get LEAN. Concord uses a model called EASS—Eliminate, Automate, Self-Service. It is based on principles of LEAN management to eliminate waste and create the most efficient, cost-effective environment possible. Essentially, it works like this: a) Can something currently in the stream simply be eliminated without adversely impacting solutions? In other words, is it superfluous? b) If it needs to be addressed, can it be automated so that people currently handling these tasks can turn their attentions to other matters? c) If it can’t be automated, make it self-service so that human resources can concentrate elsewhere. Ultimately, this enables workforces to be most productive and highest performing in the areas where people are needed most.
8. Drill down to full disclosure. In large part, this focuses on asking questions, questions, questions. Bring it up, ask “silly” questions (which almost never are really silly), and drill down to what’s not okay. In turn, this fuels the fire to move things forward to continue a discussion and offers multiple chances to share opinions and ideas about value and explain the need.
9. Scale up productivity with Total Team Training. If a particular scope of work will take one person 10 weeks, yet it needs to be done in 5 weeks, where does the rubber meet the road? No matter how expert the top specialist is, sometimes 10 weeks is 10 weeks, period. To get it done in 5 requires training other people to pitch in and further ramp up productivity. Despite this seemingly sound logistical argument, there too often is pressure on the one trained specialist to perform miracles. With Total Team Training, multiple specialists working together can scale down the time needed to 5 weeks while working in a thorough, reliable, and minimal stress environment.
10. Make IT make sense. While technical language works well within the IT department, it’s easy to lose one-third of the audience, or more, outside the department. This opens the door for IT (and anyone else with their “own language”) to communicate differently—in a way that can be understood by everyone. Ask questions and encourage the asking of questions. Then, double-check to make sure everyone who needs to understand is receiving the communication clearly and understandably.
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About Concord Servicing Corporation
Founded in 1988, Concord is a full-scope loan servicer delivering innovative, flexible, and scalable portfolio servicing solutions to meet the demands of loan originators and capital providers (and their customers) in a variety of asset classes—including home improvement, solar, energy efficiency, and vacation ownership. Three-plus decades and a positive reputation among existing clients and partners document the ability to handle new challenges efficiently, accurately, and completely. Concord's corporate headquarters and base of operations is in Scottsdale, AZ, with a regional office in Mexico City and a staff of 275+ professionals. Concord services 2 million+ consumer obligations, with a portfolio size of $7.7 billion ($2 billion+ is in asset-backed securitizations). In addition to primary loan servicing, Concord also serves as a master/backup servicer for approximately 110,000 loans with combined balances of $2.25 billion. www.concordservicing.com
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CONTACT: Kyle Derry Concord Servicing, Inc. (480) 214-2995 KDerry@concordservicing.com
