Leading the Way: Carolyn Monroe on Steering Success at Old Republic Title

Glad to be here. Thank you.

Well, probably like most people, I didn't really know what the title insurance industry was. Someone told me I should go and apply there. I had just moved to New Mexico, and prior to that I lived in Denver and I'd been in banking. But I got married, moved to New Mexico, didn't work for a couple of years when I moved there, and then decided I wanted to get back to work. Having a finance background, there was a title company in Albuquerque; both of their bookkeepers had walked out. I was supposed to go start at a bank, interviewed with the guy that was running the company, and he convinced me to come into the title business. It was pretty simple, like that. And I did it and loved it. I've never left since then. It's been over 40 years.

I think that it's helped that I worked my way up from the bottom. I didn't just come into this industry in a leadership role. I was able to work side by side with people. I've learned a lot of jobs, and I just think that really getting to know the industry helps you. But also, I care a lot about people. And I've worked for people that I didn't want to be like, and that really helped me on the kind of leader that I wanted to be. I don't think anyone ever—well, maybe some people do—but I never said, 'Oh, one day I want to run the company.' It was just not like that. I just started doing jobs and literally worked my way up, and it was just fun.

I think probably the biggest one is the regulatory environment. You know, it's different from the West Coast to the East Coast. You have to understand it, you have to learn it. You can't learn it all, so you've got to make sure you have really good people in your organization that understand it. But also, the economic fluctuations that we have—the good years, the bad years—just trying to navigate through all that can be difficult in our business because no matter how good we are, we're really dependent on a market. We're dependent on the economy, we're dependent on jobs being out there for our industry to be successful. And so you have to understand all that and be able to navigate the good times and the bad times.

Especially now, it's a lot more difficult because we have a lot of young people entering the industry. Every generation seems to have a different style of how they like to communicate. My generation had to learn texting, but you have generations now that that's really how they communicate. And you have to understand that. You can't force people to communicate your way, or it just won't work. That was difficult. I remember when I first had to learn video conferencing. I remember telling someone, 'Oh, it's okay, we like to talk by phone.' Well, then things happened and video conferencing became really important, and now I don't know what we'd do without it. It's just part of it. So I think you just have to understand, especially with the current leadership team I have, it's really important that I understand the best way to communicate with them. And I've just learned it, and I don't make them adapt to me all the time. I try to adapt to them just so I can get the most out of it. You just have to be very flexible as a leader. It's not all about you. That's the hardest thing for a lot of people to learn. It's not about your style; it's about learning everyone else's style too.

Sure. The best thing as a leader is to always have people on your team that you can rely on and that give you good feedback. You always have to make the final call, so you have to be comfortable with it. Not that long ago, I had to make a total restructuring decision within the organization that really took a whole group, a department, and sort of turned it upside down. But it was the best thing for the company. I had to go into it really understanding every piece about it: if I left it the way it was, how it would affect the company, and if I changed it. I just had to really weigh the good and the bad. In the end, we made the change; we totally restructured it. The thing is, when you make difficult decisions, it usually involves people not being with your organization. So you have to be really sensitive to that and what that is going to do to the rest of the organization and to that person. As a leader, you're always sensitive to what you're doing to people and how you're affecting their life when you make a decision about their job. I just had to take all that into consideration. In the end, you have to do what's best for the people that are left and for the company, because that is your responsibility as a leader: to the company, to your owners, to your employees. You have to consider all of that. It's not easy, but if you get enough good input, it helps you. Don't always rely on yourself to make every single decision; it shouldn't be that way.

Well, I have to just remind them again that not everything is in our control. You have to remember you can only control what you can do. It goes back to the market; we can't control the market. You have to just keep that in mind and focus on what you can control, and that's what we do. I think that communicating with your team and with your employees is the best way to keep them motivated. If you sort of go into hiding because things are getting difficult, that's not good for people. When things get difficult, you have to be the person out there telling people what's going on. Don't let other people tell your story, especially in difficult times. In good times, I love for other people to tell our story because other people should get credit for the successes that are going on. But as a leader, it's your responsibility to either take the blame or take the responsibility when things aren't going well. People want to see you; they want to know you're in this with them. I think that's really important: to always be out there in front of your employees.

I think networks are really important. You meet people in this industry that you sort of... I mean, it can be years, and then you remember this person and how they influenced your life. Our network in the title industry is not just title people; we get to be with Realtors, we get to be with lenders, we get to be with attorneys. All those people that you meet somehow affect the decisions you're making, conversations you'll remember. It's always important to keep up with these people. You never know when you're going to need them or when they're going to need you. The title industry is a pretty tight network. In fact, someone recently said that to me. I don't want to use the word 'incestuous,' but we've all worked together at some point. The other thing to remember in your network is to be careful, because you're going to meet someone that one day might be your boss. That's important to remember when you're meeting people and networking: always be respectful of people because you're going to cross their path again. You just are, no matter how much you don't want to, it's going to happen. But I think maintaining a network for success is really important. It's just nice to know there are other people doing what you're doing that you can rely on at times.

I think the biggest one that sticks out is just the change of technology. It's funny, because doing this for over 40 years, every few years someone's going to disrupt our industry. For years, nothing ever changed in our industry, but technology is starting to play a bigger role in the title business. I think it's important to understand it. Technology is not my background; it's not what I do. So it's important to always have people on your team that understand it, but you have to understand how it plays into our industry. Technology is fun, AI is interesting, all this stuff is great. But you don't want to get so far out there that you've invested a lot of money and time in something that is not anything that we really need. It's that shiny object, and it's great, but you can waste a lot of time and money. So I think you just got to really understand where does it fit, how does it fit within our industry and within your organization. That's the other thing. So I think really trying to stay on top of that and navigate through that is something that we're really facing now and I think will continue to be in the future. The other is just motivating people to get in our industry, to attract younger people to get in our industry and love it as much as all of us have that have been doing this forever.

Always trust your gut. I think that's really important. I think it's important to really trust your decisions, but also make sure that you have people that you trust around you and that you rely on. Like I said before, you can't do this by yourself. Anyone that thinks you can is going to be lonely. It's not lonely at the top unless you choose for it to be. I've always chosen for it to not be that way. You have to be respectful of the people that you work with. You have to remember how you got to where you are as a leader and who helped get you there, and rely on those people. There's always people that have helped you along the way. There's a reason they helped you: they believed in you and they understand what's going on. So just never forget that. And don't ever think it's weak to talk to people and go, 'What do you think?' A lot of people are afraid to ask for help. I've never been. I'm really quick to let people know when I don't know what I'm doing. That's the other thing: you have to be really careful about that. Don't always think that you have to know everything because you don't. You have to admit when you don't, and you have to rely on other people. The minute you try to start talking about something you don't know about, you're done. So I'm really careful not to do that.