Aflac U.S. President Virgil Miller encourages you to walk your own process

Become a customer of your own process. How do you know if it works if you haven't done it yourself? Have you filed a claim yourself? Have you called the call center yourself? Call it. Did you have to wait long? Did it answer your question? Why don't you go through the process yourself? So if you own that process, then you need to test it. Fundamentals, fundamentals. Make sure it works well. How do you make sure it works? You practice it. You practice, you try it, you try it, and then you do it. Take customer feedback, absolutely. Will you listen to customer feedback? But you need to do it yourself. Walk your own process.

It is absolutely my pleasure to be here, and Don, thanks for having me.

Don, the term I used growing up was a businessman. Gray slacks, white shirt, blue jacket, briefcase, casual or more loafer-type shoes. I never saw him wearing tennis shoes growing up. He told me, he said, 'Virgil, you have the acumen at an early age. You're gonna be a businessman like me.' He said, 'So I want you to dress the part, and I want you to start learning certain things that's going to make you better in life. A businessman first needs to understand the numbers. If you understand the numbers, count your own money, understand how you bring in revenue and revenue goes out, that is the core foundation of what you're gonna need.' I didn't even know what he did. I never knew. I was gonna ask because in all of that, I read, I never heard what his actual job was. But the way he presented himself is what stood out to you.

I joined the Marines when I was in high school, actually at 16. I left when I was 17, and when I was 18, he had passed away. I came back. I learned at his funeral he was an IRS agent. Go figure. That's what he did. It was all about the persona that he had created, and I kind of patterned my life after that.

Yes.

Let me say, we love Coach Prime. He's been a great brand ambassador and actual champion of care for Aflac. He helps us get the word out to audiences we normally can't reach, closing the gap initiative. So we love him. And it's what you said also, Don. When Coach Prime enters a room, the standard rises. He sets the tone. He changes the temperature, baby. Yes. Hey, I told him, I said, 'Whenever he comes in, my energy level comes up.' And that's what you do. He sets the tone just how he walks into the room, how he enters, his whole persona can uplift you. We love working with him. I'm absolutely better for it.

Yes. I was trying to put together a formula. The importance of a formula is doing things that are repeatable. When you find something that works and you're able to get success from it, the best thing you can do is package it so it can be repeated. When I enter any type of role or a new position, the first thing I do is meet with my next level. Whoever am I under, I meet with that next level, and what we talk about is, 'What are my expectations?' If you can align your expectations with their expectations, make the boss look good, then you're going to be better off. And here's the point too: don't leave it up to any ambiguity. Once we have set those expectations and we narrow the focus, then I create a scorecard for that. Everything must be driven to tangible, quantitative results. Translate that. So if you said to me, 'Don, Virgil, I want to make sure that you increase profitability,' okay, that's ambiguous. Exactly right. Now let's take that, let's put it into quantitative measures. A 2% increase. So if I get a 2% increase, that's what you're looking for, right? Yeah. I create that scorecard, and I begin to actually report that to you on a regular basis, whether it's weekly, monthly, quarterly. Some results don't need to be reported as often, but I will say to you in that own way, I'm actually writing my own performance appraisal. We've agreed on what's expected. We talked about how you measure it, and you're constantly evaluating it. Right. You don't leave it up to chance.

Thank you. Not complicated. However, it is. Can you execute it though to perfection? I got a chance to see that play Hamilton. Oh, I love it, man. That's a great... Well, there's a song in there, and it talks about 'In the Room Where It Happens.' And guess what? When your compensation has been discussed, your next promotional opportunity has been discussed, your next assignment, guess who's not in the room? You aren't. Right. You better make sure how you're represented in that room. Now, the best way to be represented in the room is through performance outcomes. Make it tangible. The other best way though is know what someone is going to say about you. So I'm constantly talking to my leader about, 'What's the feedback you're going to give me? How am I being perceived? What will you say?' Because I want to know how I'm represented in a room where it happens. Wow. So that's look up. That's look up. When it talks about looking down, I've always been in leadership roles coming out of the Marines at a young age, so I've always looked at it through the lens of a leader. And take this from Aubrey Daniels. He was a behavioral scientist who wrote 'Bringing Out the Best in People.' I've always studied behavioral sciences, and the first thing that we say is the measure of any leader is based on the performance of his or her people. So if my team fails, it's because of me. I accept full accountability. I fail. I am only measured as a leader based upon the success of my people. Once I know what I'm going to be accountable for and what my objective goals are, I translate those down. I'm going to tie your goals to my goals. There can only be one set of goals. There's only one set of strategies because we're all gonna be pulling on the same side of the rope. But I make sure you understand what those are. I make sure that your behavioral attributes of how you perform every day tie back to exactly what we're expecting to yield the expected outcome. Everything ties. There's always a leadership part of it is what I call 'lift as you climb.' So I'm going to also make sure that I grow you, help you achieve your career objectives, because if I can pull you up, it only elevates me. The common thread between those two, looking up and looking down, is intentional communication. Yes. You're not leaving anything to chance. There's no synonyms here. We're not guessing what it is that you are trying to say. No, you're not guessing. And then everything must tie. Everything must tie. Here's what the highest level leadership is looking for. Here are my objectives tied, and then here are my reports and how they're tied. And then everybody knows what those expectations are. Wow. I'm also gonna invest in that individual as a person. When you invest in me as a person, then I'm gonna generally have a tendency to get on board with it. So you're bringing the team together. You invest in you as a person. I'm gonna tell you how I can help you be successful, because if you're successful, then I'm successful, and it goes all the way up. Which then gets to the look around. It is all about teamwork. If one succeeds and the rest don't, we fail. That's the teamwork aspect. I've seen a lot of talented people. I've seen a lot of great individual contributors, but they fail. They can't work with others. You have to have the ability to work as a team, as a team-first mentality. You have to have the ability to collaborate, and you have to have the ability to be able to share and lift others up with you. So put the formula together: looking up, you look down, and then everyone pulls together and works together as a team. That's that working. The magical formula right there.

Thank you, Don, for the opportunity to share. Think about a young man leaving Georgia for the first time, now on board experience on Parris Island. Shout out to all the Marines. One of the toughest training regimens of any of the military's forces across the world, on Parris Island in the 1980s, where things are tough. And I'm sure they still are, all my fellow Marines out there, but things were tough then. And it was not unusual for someone either to try to leave Parris Island or, unfortunately, sometimes try to commit suicide. And in this particular case, a young man... I was on what we call firewatch. There's generally someone always on duty at night, right? And I was on duty at night at 3:00 AM, and a young man attempted to commit suicide in the bathroom, or what we refer to as the head in the military. So when I go into the bathroom, I was in shock. And you have to then go wake up the drill instructor, and that is already a terrifying experience. Yeah. Nobody wants to do that. Yeah. No one wants to do that. 3:00 AM, you have to bang on the hatch three times. 'Sir, recruit Miller requests permission to speak to you, sir.' And you better believe the answer is not going to be a friendly one. He rushed out of the barracks, into my face, threw me on the floor. I'm doing push-ups, sit-ups. 'And what do you want?' Finally, I tell him that this other recruit is attempting to commit suicide, attempting to kill himself. He says, 'Wait here.' So he went back in, and what he really did was grab some first aid tools, immediately goes into the bathroom. He says, 'You stay here.' Well, being curious, Don, I didn't stay there. So I snuck behind, and I looked. And what I saw and witnessed that day was the toughest, loudest, meanest, like one of those guys in the military, 'Hurry up, move now, get here.' Say, 'Listen, son, it's gonna be okay.' Nice, gentle, self-passionate voice. 'We're going to get you taken care of. The Marines is not for everyone. We'll get you sent back home, and it'll be all fine.' I saw compassion. I saw a caring gentleman which I had not seen before. I had automatically typecast him as someone who I thought he was that he really wasn't. He was being what that role called for him to be. But when he needed to be someone else, he needed to be someone compassionate to save his kid's life, he became that person also. I understand why the Marines need him to be who he is. You're training people that are risking their lives to defend the country, so we've got to have a set of disciplined toughness to train new recruits. But however, what I saw was someone who had transformed into that but had a genuine heart. Wow. I can do that. I can be who they need to be by understanding the attributes that the Marine... Why?

Leading the US, there are certain expectations that I must be able to do in order to do my job. There are certain requirements of this job that you are counting on. I must be able to fulfill. I need to know what those are. I need to build a skill set, and I need to be an expert at that. What are those skill sets? What are those behaviors required? That's what I mean by flawless execution. I make sure I actually define those things out. That's where I become. But sometimes I need to be someone else when I'm working with a child at the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, going out and showing compassion with someone undergoing cancer treatment. It's a totally different person or skill set, or showing a different discipline that we need to be at that time. So a lot of things we do at Aflac, we give back to the community. We help support those fighting childhood cancer. That calls for a different approach. So I'm never gonna need to be this 100% of the time, but when it's time, there are certain requirements I must fulfill to be good at what I do. Well, that's the drill instructor lesson. That's awesome.

Yes.

A couple stories come to mind, and a couple people come to mind. I want to start with my dad though. Imagine a kid in Little League baseball, all-star game. Game was on the line, Don. I struck out. Took a called third strike. My dad, I actually saw him when he left the bleachers and walked to his car. It hurt. It hurt. When I got in the car, you know what he said? 'Son, don't ever take a called third strike. You can't hit the ball if you don't swing the bat.' Swing the bat. You're not gonna see me sit on the sidelines. I'm not gonna be on the bench. I'm gonna swing the bat. I'm gonna swing the bat. I'm willing to take some risk with that. They're calculated risk. So in corporate America, I take risk. They're calculated, but you got to swing the bat. I won't take a called third strike. You better believe that, buddy. I get passionate even talking about it today. There you go, dude. I'm loving that one. That's one. I'll tell you another one though. Someone who really influenced me, he was also my cousin, but he was my coach, Coach Cecil Patterson. One of the greatest coaches in baseball history, right in great Georgia. Great baseball player himself. But he had so many sayings. I could go over two things that he taught me. Well, people say don't sweat the small stuff. I say sweat the small stuff. In the Marines, we would say attention to detail. You look at everything thoroughly. I am counting on everything to be right. Mission critical. Well, Coach Patterson told me that at a young age. Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. Playing third base, he would take a paddle ball, tape it through our hands as your glove. You know, like a ping pong paddle ball, right? That's what we used for a glove because he was teaching the technique: soft hands. When the ball comes, your hand gives, using two hands to cover the ball and be ready to throw. We would practice that over and over and over and over. Fundamentals. Second thing is even hitting baseball. We used to practice off of a tee. It's like a T-ball player, and here we are in high school. We would hit off a tee all the way up until the last two weeks before the game. We were going into practice every day complaining, 'Sick of hitting off that tee. I'm tired of hitting off that tee.' But it's like, no, if I get your swing right, watch how easier it'll be when you get in the game. So it taught me the importance of fundamentals. I make sure my teams look at the small things. Walk your own process. Walk your own process. How do you know it works? Have you filed a claim yourself? Why don't you go through the process yourself? So if you own that process, then you need to test it. Fundamentals, fundamentals. Make sure it works well. How do you make sure it works? You practice it. You practice, you try it, you try it, and then you do it.

Yes.

That does happen. I love it. But you're breaking new ground for us.

Yeah, to your point, Don, I love baseball, football, love basketball. I just can't make the team. Golf, I love golf. I would never be a low handicap golfer. My handicap is my backswing. That's my problem. You're about like me, Don. So therefore, when I went to college, I wanted to try something different. So I said, 'I'm going to take a fencing class.' Never fenced before. Now, when I joined the military, I had a lot of interest in martial arts. I took the Japanese arts, Shito-ryu and a Shōrin-ryū. Wow. Another first. Covering new kinds of ground for us here. So when you're actually fencing with a foil sword, one of the first moves they teach you is what we call the parry. And I compare it to the martial arts because it's a block, a counter attack, right? If you just remember those three things: block, counter, and attack. When I was being taught this, I would never forget the professor, who was also the coach of the fencing team. He said, 'Virgil, you're a natural at this.' But why was that natural? Martial arts. I think it was a combination of all. So what's important in fencing is speed, agility, accuracy when you're actually sticking someone with the foil. Now think about this. Go back to baseball and football and basketball. It's hand-eye coordination, right? Yeah. It's reflex. I used to have very good reflexes. I played third base in baseball. You need quick reflexes, right? So when someone would lunge at me, I could immediately block. But I would block with power. When you're blocking with power, you're actually pulling the other foil down. And I had this one move, Don, where I would come straight back over the top and lunge quickly and extend full extension. But all that came from footwork, from speed, from agility, hand-eye coordination, reflex. Those are things that came from other sports. I will say too that in college on the fencing team, I would have been one of the first black people on the team. But there was another black classmate who was the point guard for the basketball team, Williams. Speed and quickness with that foil, he was also very good as a natural. And the other rest of the fencing team, they had not played or did not mention playing other sports. Therefore, I think all those things added to that. There's a great business lesson in that too: the ability to bring a multitude of disciplines together that allow someone to become really valuable. You used all those things that you had learned to help make you better in this new endeavor.

Absolutely. I remember the last football game I played in high school. Coach Williams said, 'Leave it all on the field.' To anyone that reports to me today, 'Let's leave it all on the field. Let's give it our all. Let's put it all into it.' Last year, my mother passed away. She used to say all the time, 'Live life with no regrets. Life is short. Life is precious. This is just a moment. You blink, Don, and you know your career will be coming to an end. Leave it all on the field.' I go out and play every game like it's our last. I try to make sure that people do that today. When I enter the building, you're going to get my all, 100% every single day. That's hard. That's hard to do, isn't it? Hard to come in every day ready to give everything you have. There's some people who, boy, they get exhausted with that as a thought process. How do you maintain your energy?

The greatest thing that happened to me in my life is I now work for an organization that we have an aligned passion, 100%. You've heard the term all the time: be passionate for what you do. If you're in a job that you don't like doing, you're not passionate about it, Don, it's gonna be hard. But I am 100% passionate about what I do. Why? What is it? Well, I was able to speak to a team here at Aflac yesterday. We did our town hall meetings. It is a discussion. We get an opportunity to discuss key topics, and what we normally do is allow people to write in and give us questions about what you want to hear about. So I was able to go on stage yesterday and respond to those questions. And every meeting, Don, I always start with, 'It's a great day at Aflac.' Someone asked me, 'Why do I always say that?' Because I believe it. In my role, I get a chance to see the millions of people that we help with our products. I get a chance to read the complimentary letters. 'Virgil, I had a situation where I was undergoing cancer treatment. Thanks to your first occurrence benefit, it saved my life. I would have been in financial ruin had we not got the check that we were able to get. I was able to put my child in daycare as I had to quit my job to undergo treatment.' I hear all these stories. Our insurance pays for expenses normally not covered by a major medical. I've heard the duck tell me that story. You've heard the duck tell you. Come on. When you see what it means to someone, and by the way, the great news is that the American Cancer Society just released a report demonstrating that cancer survival rates are now increasing. That's good for all Americans. We try to encourage people to go out and get checked out and get early treatment and get early diagnosis. So we offer a wellness benefit. If you go for that wellness benefit, we're going to pay you to go get a checkup. But if you happen to get diagnosed with cancer, the earlier you catch it, the better. Here's what happens normally. What we've seen, you must undergo treatment now. The good news is the chances of recovery are better. However, treatment could be ongoing. It could be a day, could be a week, could be months, could be years. With that, many times it's not just the person who got diagnosed, but you're impacting the entire family. Absolutely. Generally, another family member will have to quit work to come take care of you. There's hotel expense, there's food expense, there's daycare expense. I can go on and on. We're helping put money in the pocket of those individuals. I also see what Aflac does in the community. I was there with Coach Dawn Staley. We got a chance to go to Children's Hospital in Virginia. A young patient there surviving cancer gave her some survival beads that she has now been wearing for over a year. She gave her a new set of beads. But I was there with her and saw the difference that made in her life. I get a chance to see that all the time about how we are able to change and impact lives of those with Aflac and those without. We've given over $176 million to support children undergoing cancer treatment and other blood disorders, along with sickle cell. I am proud of that. I'm passionate about that. And then also, just the way we treat people, our employees. We've been named many times for one of the best companies to work for. That is why I get passionate. It's a great day at Aflac. No, it is a great day at Aflac. Why do I say it? Because I believe it.

Growing up, I always thought first about my individual accomplishments or individual accolades. That is absolutely secondary to anything today. Playing team sports, you learn that. I can hit four home runs, but if the team loses, it's a loss, right? I can score 60 points in a basketball game, but if we lose as a team, it doesn't matter, right? In the Marines, we call it 'esprit de corps.' The spirit of the corps. Everyone join together. You've heard that 'Semper Fidelis,' always faithful. There are things that bring us all together in the fight for freedom. I served in Desert Storm. I got a chance to serve during war and during peace. But therefore, I know what it takes. That brotherhood is extremely important. All those things should say already had it done. But then when you get in corporate America, you start thinking about your own financial goals, and you start saying, 'Well, as an individual, I have some individual goals. I want to drive my income to better my family. I want to make sure that I hit this certain goal.' So sometimes you start to think 'I' again. And I was like that. You're right. I got promoted a lot of times. Rarely early on in a job for more than a year. I led a team in an early management role. I was able to take this one team from last, by way of performance, to first in eight months. I got promoted. Congratulations. Pat me on the back, right? This officer told me, he said, 'Virgil, the problem is they're gonna go right back to where they were because you helped lead them there. You helped bring them there, but you didn't leave things that were sustainable.' Good lesson, right? You didn't leave things that were sustainable. The organization looks like it did before you got there. Now without you, the guy that was able to rally them and motivate them and get them to do these things because I worked 24/7. That was my first eye-opener. Now as a leader, my measure must be that I grow those people, that I leave a sustainable model behind, that I transform. And one of the things I always say now is, 'Did I leave it better than when I found it?' Did I leave it better than I found it? That's the question I always ask. I reflect back. I got a chance to attend Creighton College. It's the first time I attended a Jesuit school. Great learnings there. But one of the things they taught me was the art of self-reflection. And so after every quarter, every year, I go back and self-reflect. And the first question I ask myself is, 'How was it when I got there? Is it better than when I found it? Did I improve my individual skill set? But in order to help the team, how is the team performance now based on that?' Just like here, I lead the US for Aflac. Well, I can have some individual departments, divisions succeed, but if the overall Aflac fails, where we're not able to deliver shareholder value back, we fail as a company. And it's on me. I take accountability. It's on me.

You've got to have the right structure. Go back to some of the coaches we work with currently. I got a chance to spend time with Coach Saban. He would tell you, and I'm sure if you were to interview him about him leaving Alabama as a head coach, that he put in a structure though that's sustainable, right? I got a chance to interview Coach K. I mean, one of the greatest interviews I've had. Coach K talked about when he was leading USA Basketball, how he built the structure that you are the USA when you put on that jersey. And he built the culture that doesn't matter which player was there, when they came in, they were the USA. I try to do the same thing here. I work with the culture that CEO Dan Amos and his family created. But when you come to this culture, whether I'm here or not, it will continue forward with or without me.

Oh, that's awesome.

The best way for a team to work is to rally them around a common goal, a common cause, a common mantra. If you can do that, you're gonna have a chance to succeed. Let's go back to sports. It's about winning. Everyone's rallying around to get to that championship game or to win a championship. In the Marines, the first thing you're taught when you're signing up is we are the ones who will defend freedom against foreign or domestic enemies. We're going to defend the weak. We're going to defend those who can't defend themselves. And I'm willing to lay down my life for that. That brings everybody for a larger rally cry. Same thing in corporate America. We give back to the community. The $176 million I mentioned was donated by Aflac employees and those that sell Aflac, our agent force, our 1099 force. They're not even Aflac employees. All contributed to that $176 million. Wow. Because it's a greater call. The best way to do that, Don, is then to roll that up to something people can understand. Now, this pen I'm wearing today, if you can see this ribbon with the duck on it, it stands for 'Care on Purpose.' It's a part of getting everyone to understand why we give back and what we do to make a difference in the lives of people. Aflac was founded by three brothers, but the principal founder, John Amos, said that we were founded on the premise of 'pro us,' and that's to be there when people need us most. It's the same thing we carry forward today. So when I talk about giving those donations, we're being there for people who need us. When I talk about the policies we've created, it's being there for people who need us. When you can get everyone to rally around that, that's how you're gonna keep a team moving forward.

Yes. Let me give you a few examples of what I've had to endure. As a fan of sports, also my Atlanta Falcons. Oh, no. In the Super Bowl, 28 to 3. If that wasn't a momentum shift, I don't know what is. Oh my gosh, Don. I am still hurt by that today. I'm sure there's counseling that's been involved.

I told Coach Prime this. We had a great relationship with him. We were able to have some sponsorship provided with University of Colorado this year with his leadership there in the Buffaloes. And the game against Colorado State, oh man, you can see momentum swings. Yeah. Growing up, one of the things about the baseball team I played on, we were so good. Then we had quite a few players going to play Major League Baseball. But we were so good, it was a known fact we're gonna win the region and go to the state every year. So as a freshman to make the team was one thing. We had right about 40 baseball players. You know, average you carry about 18. Or we carried 40 baseball players. But Don, you had to earn a pair of pants. So we called you the blue jean team. You didn't get a pair of pants. You wore your own blue jeans to the game. You had to earn pants first. You had a jersey but no pants. You had a jersey first. You had to make the team, then you had to earn a pair of pants. I earned a pair of pants by the time I was a freshman or sophomore. I never forget this. We were leading a team 18 to 1, fifth inning. We kept asking, 'Put us in the game, coach. Put the bench into the game.' He cleared the bench out. We all went into the game. And you're talking about momentum. Next thing we know, it was 18 to 17. And you can't put the starters back in in baseball. Can't put them back in. We finally got that third out. And we're coming to the bench, and thank God our parents were there and no physical harm came to anyone. But I remember him throwing his hat into the ground, and he said this famous statement. And you ask me why? Just think about that. I gave you the chance, and you didn't deliver. I gave you the chance, you did not deliver. It won't happen again. One person gets an at-bat. That's why people have rally caps, right? The best player comes in and says, 'Let's get it going.' Yeah. There's absolutely momentum. Somebody gets a hit. Next person gets a hit. It just continues on. Same thing can happen in corporate America. Winning is contagious. You're hitting all your metrics. Everybody's on board. And then all of a sudden, you don't hit a key metric. It impacts customers. It impacts compensation. It impacts everything. And then you can see people start to get down. Then another one happens. You can just see it start to change. Everything. Someone has to step up, break that chain of events. We used to say in baseball, 'Somebody make a play.' Or in football, 'Somebody hit somebody. Make a play. Stop that momentum.' That's all you're saying. Somebody do something big to stop the momentum. And that absolutely happens today in corporate America. I love it. I love it.

You can learn a lot about Aflac just by going to aflac.com. We have all of our information out there. I'm out there. I'm out there on LinkedIn if you're looking for me personally. We have a lot of things that we do. We, of course, are passionate about the products that we provide. We're educators in the supplemental space because we know the average American has less than $1,000 in savings and is not prepared for an expected or unexpected medical event. We hate to see somebody go into financial ruin. Therefore, take a look at the products we offer and see if we can help. The other thing I would tell you is we work with a lot of providers. We believe in diversity. Aflac is recognized as one of the most diverse organizations out there. Why is that though, you know why? What American can't get sick or hurt? Disease or accident doesn't know color, race. In many cases, doesn't know age, right? You know, seeing a small child with cancer just touches my heart. You just don't know. So we're open to do business and work with anybody out there.

Well, thank you so much, Don. I really have enjoyed this. But if you wanted to, you can. You know why, Don? You know why? Because it's a great day at Aflac. It's a great day on the Corporate Competitor podcast.