"It's not a one way street, it's a dialogue" - Yariv Hasar of Sapiens

In this episode of the Land and Lead podcast, Dr. Josh Elmore interviews Yariv Hasar, a leader with a diverse background in technology and organizational transformation. Yariv shares insights from his journey, including his experiences in the military, telecom, and now in the insurance technology sector with Sapiens. The conversation explores the importance of iterative leadership, cultural adaptation, and the need for a shared vision in driving successful transformations. Yariv emphasizes the value of reflection, collaboration, and understanding the history of an organization as key components of effective leadership.

Transcript

Dr. Josh Elmore (00:00)

Welcome to the Land and Lead podcast, where we explore the real stories behind leadership transitions, the setbacks, strategies, wins, and moments of growth, all aimed at helping other leaders land well and lead effectively. 

I'm your host, Dr. Josh Elmore of Court Street Consulting. 

Today we're speaking with Yariv Hasar. Throughout his career, Yariv has consistently delivered successful projects and products, growth and operational excellence in complex, fast-paced, and challenging environments, helping organizations achieve their various business goals, while modernizing, expanding, improving, and embracing innovation. 

Yariv provides a very fresh look over technology-driven transformation, along with the impressive track scaling businesses across industries, and a fascinating personal and professional background. 

Welcome to the show, Yariv.

Yariv Hasar (00:45)

Welcome and happy to be here, Josh. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Josh Elmore (00:48)

Yeah, certainly. We're excited to chat with you today. So, you're at Sapiens, and you've been there for about eight months. Is that right? 

Yariv Hasar (00:55)

Yes, about...

Dr. Josh Elmore (00:57)

Great. can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you landed at Sapiens?

Yariv Hasar (01:01)

So I guess that I have a relatively unique, I would say, background for the rest of the audience because I started, I was born and raised in Israel. I started my career actually in the military in a special program. I went to college before going to the military and finished up computer science and then joined the army. I became a software developer for the F-16.

the Israeli F-16. So I started, climbed my way across the lines of the technology side in the aviation software development. So at the age of 27, I was running the entire software, if you will, software house for the F-16s of the Air Force. And did my master degree, moved to executive roles, led the software unit of the Air Force, did my MBA in Kellogg, actually in Northwestern Chicago as well, and moved to different executive roles. Among them, I was stationed here in the States for three years as the head of the F-35 program of Israel, in charge both on the software architecture, but also on the entire program altogether. It was a very nice experience, I must admit.

After that, I came back military and led the electronics and the software on behalf of the Air Force in the headquarters, retired, moved to the telecom industry. Actually, I decided to depart from the defense tech to the telecom industry. I was running the delivery for Amdocs, which is a global unit, 7,000 employees, very profitable.

And with 70 transformation in parallel worldwide. So, it's a very extensive and successful journey and a very good school for business as well as for transformation to some aspect even better than the Air Force, I must admit. From then I moved to a startup that went IPO. I was running the technology there for three years, I was the general manager of Pagaya. 

And then opportunity came, I met with Sapiens, I met the CEO, Roni he offered me to do a transformation to the organization. I think that that was a very unique proposal with somewhat of adventures on a personal note because it made me relocate to the States back again. This time only with my wife, my daughters are old enough to stay in Israel.

And here I am eight months in the role getting into a new rhythm. So after the defense tech telecom, and FinTech, now I moved into the insure tech business. So, it's also an experience both on the personal note, on the professional note about transforming the organization and transforming the business because this is what we do. We are doing a lot of transformation for our customers.

We are evolving and developing the products for the future of the insurance and being one of the market leaders, I think that we are actually also setting the tone for the future on the insurance business.

Dr. Josh Elmore (04:21)

Wow. Yeah, so varied background and kind of industry to industry, but still staying with that technology piece along the way. So that hasn't changed, right?

Yariv Hasar (04:29)

Most of my roles were holding a lot of technology within them. Now I'm running the business, but of course there is product roadmap, product, delivery, development, engineering, architecture, and business as well. So I diversified that, I consider that as a T-shape. Every good leader have to have some kind of a T-shape model when there is one strong arm or background that is actually dominant in his background in his career and his way of thinking even. In my case, it's the engineering side. But, you need to have some expertise and some, I say, round, knowledge in all the other 360 degree of viewpoints of the business and what we are doing.

Dr. Josh Elmore (05:14)

Sure, yeah, and I can't wait. Maybe we'll get into that piece around kind of that T-shape where, you know, how do you balance it as a leader being very specialized in one area, but also having to have that broad scope? Something to explore as we continue this conversation. So you told us a little bit about Sapiens. Can you tell us just a little bit more, what is Sapiens, what do they do, and the context of you entering the organization?

Yariv Hasar (05:38)

Sapiens is actually insured software developer, product developers, software based products for the insurance business. We are providing an arsenal or portfolio, if you will, of products, which is actually divided into two platforms. One is for the life and annuity or life and pension in the rest of the world. Annuity is only in North America. And the property and casualty ⁓ which is the other side of the insurance. 

So we have two platforms that we evolve and actually maintain as we go along. For them, we have the full breadth of everything that is needed for the insurance business, meaning the underwriting from start and the portals for the agents, along with their commission and things like that, as well as claims that the consumer can open for claiming his right based on the insurance and of course the policy and management and application and all of those stuff. 

So we have a full breadth of a platform. Of course, there's a big, I say common denominator between those two platforms and the digital part, the data part, the AI, the cloud, all of those are actually shared foundation for those life and annuity in one hand and P&C on the other hand, arsenal of products.

We have, pretty much we are able to take care of the entire life cycle of a policy of any business in the insurance, including reinsurance, as well as, as I mentioned claims and application and policy and underwriting. Sapiens and all together is very widely known in the insurance and in most of the areas we actually considered as a top or key players if you read worldwide and in North America. It was founded 40 years ago actually and scale up throughout the years. Partly because, thanks to organic growth, and partly because of an M&A which we have a very strong I would say strategic approach to this. And this is how we managed to grow. 

We are better known in the rest of the world than in North America. And this is part of the transformation that we wanted to achieve in order because we have local offering for the North American market, but we also have the global offering of Sapiens that we are introducing to the North American market. And this mix and converges of product and portfolio, that's one of the challenges from the transformation. 

How we are maintaining the local I would say angle of things and taking the benefit of this, ⁓ while preserving all the global benefits of our products. One place that is very interesting is, for example, our reinsurance product that is actually able to support multinationalities and multi-currency, which is less relevant to smaller companies within the US or Canada.

But once you are getting to a certain degree, then you are able to enjoy the full breadth of the multi currency, multinationality activities of the reinsurance. So, this is just, so how do you maintain that? How you manage to have a local presence and the local touch and a unique flavors that is attached to the local market and local industry while holding the global R&D efforts, product roadmap, commonalities and gain of knowledge as well as technology that we managed to gain throughout the global expansion of Sapiens?

Dr. Josh Elmore (09:12)

Wow, yeah, so big task in current state, but also ahead as you continue to kind of expand efforts here. And so, you know, you're coming on, you kind of have this transformation you're tasked with, and you’ve returned back to the United States and you're also, you're working in person, I imagine, is that right?

Yariv Hasar (09:31)

Yes.

Dr. Josh Elmore (09:31)

Yeah, so you're working in person and how are you navigating the transition? What strategies are helping you navigate kind of transition into the organization and taking on this big task of transformation?

Yariv Hasar (09:42)

So I think, and by the way, for this I can thank my military service and experience because you are moving a lot of roles, several roles, every couple of years between roles. So I'm pretty used to getting into a new ⁓ chair or a new role, but it's still very much dependent on the content. But the process is very similar in my humble opinion. 

First of all, you need to decide what good look like. What you're trying to achieve, what is the ideal state that you would like, you will say, hey, this is where I want to be. You can quantify it by KPIs or financial KPIs, but you can talk about functionality. You can talk about the wellbeing of the employees as well as the customer appreciation or feedback or things like that. 

And this is, and you need to, stay a lot of that if you don't know where you're heading, anyway will lead you there. So you need to make sure that you know where you are heading and to spend some time with your peers, with your bosses, colleagues, board even, and of course, customer, what good looks like? Where are the things that you would like to change and where are the things that you would like to maintain because they are good as they are right now. 

So you better not destroy them by accident or intentionally. So define the ideal situation of the organization or the unit, or in my case, the region, from business perspective. After you define that, now you need to reverse planning it. OK, if that's the great and we are here, let's do the gap analysis. Let's understand what are the gaps. Let's understand why there are gaps.

Because sometimes the reasons are very important and sometimes, you know, in order to get and sometimes you need to do some kind of a feedback loop and to reverse your thinking about the ideal because say, hey, in order for us to achieve that, this is a contradiction with that. So you need to set a realistic, although ideal situation for the future for what good looks like. But it needs to be realistic because you cannot hold the stick in both sides in some cases, not always.

And I'm always trying to hold them in both sides, but it's not really physical. And you need to understand so by that, by doing this gap analysis, and now you're going to work, OK, how can I'm going to meet these gaps? What are my plans? And by the way, here, if you have the strategy in mind and the vision, I would call it, the ideal state you don't necessarily to have a full-fledged plan for the coming, I don't know, three or four years in order to achieve that. 

You need to have, and I believe in agile, kind of methodology, be it on the technical side and then the engineering. And I'm adopting an engineering mindset into an executive, if you will, management style.

So, okay, I don't need to know what I will do next year. I know what I'm gonna do now. But, I have a vision, I have a place in mind or an imagery of vision where I want to be. So now I need to take a step toward that place. How the next step will look like, it's very much dependent on this step. And this is how I'm, I would say building my grand scheme of strategy and tactics out of it, if that makes sense.

Dr. Josh Elmore (13:12)

Sure, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And so this goes back to that T-shape, right? You said you're using your engineering, your agile mindset to inform your leadership style. And so, thinking about that and kind of reflecting on that iterative approach of kind of learning and feedback, which is definitely something I recommend in terms of kind of listening and tuning in and continuously updating.

How is that landing for you in this program, in this practice here at Sapiens? How's that going so far?

Yariv Hasar (13:40)

So it's a very big question. I'm only eight months within this, but I can see also a few, I can see some good traction, some places that you are getting an unforeseen, I would say hurdles along the road and you need to think wider. Are there only tactics or maybe you are missing something and you got it all wrong to begin with. 

And this reflection, as you mentioned, and retrospecting and lesson learned. Yet again, it's another habit of mine from the Air Force to do retrospecting after any meaningful milestone or activity. And it's very important. And I'm trying to do that, honestly, on a personal note, almost on a daily basis. ⁓ Reflecting about my day, what I did good, what I did wrong, what was actually the thing that I should have done better and how and why it wasn't like that to begin with. 

So this is pretty much…so I think that this iterative, it actually makes you a stronger and more resilient leader because you are taking the metacognition out of the daily activities of yours. And I think that this is very important because you are extracting a lot of lessons learned for the life of yours, as well as your next role or your next journey, be it in the same role, but ⁓ in different aspects. So you are taking a lot of...aspect. 

From my personal experience, are some, I'll say, pleasant surprises. There are some unpleasant surprises in some cases. You need to accept that. You need to accept the uncertainty of that because at end of the day, anything that any executive role is actually embracing the uncertainty is risk taking to some extent. 

You need to do it consciously, but you…If you are always winning, so it means that you are playing it safe. And if you are playing it safe, it means that you are, I would say, leaving opportunities unhandled. So you need to decide how much ambitious you are, how much you are trying to take risk, meaningful risk, where you want to do that. And this is part of the journey. And you get the hang of it as we go along because, OK.

Here, I'm not sure that I will succeed, but I need to give it the best because if not, I will learn out of it, and next one will be easier. So even though you know that there are slim chance that you will meet this milestone or something, but you are giving it the best shot because you are teaching the organization, for example, how to work properly and how to collaborate and things like that that you need to do that.

Dr. Josh Elmore (16:22)

Yeah, yeah. And so ⁓ your kind of reflection, that iterative thinking and updating, it reminds me, and you mentioned the military, the US Army has the after action review, is there the way that they call it.

Yariv Hasar (16:33)

Exactly, exactly. We are operating very similar on the and we were collaborating quite a substantial amount of information and processes between Israeli Air Force and the USAF. so yes, I'm happy to say that yes. And as I said, actually born and raised from the methodology of Lockheed Martin and the software development the US Air Force. So we have very similar background in this aspect between USAF and us.

Dr. Josh Elmore (17:01)

Yeah, and there's, you know, a lot of actually industrial organizational psychology that field came out of selection in early world wars, you know, in the idea of how do you fit people in the right place, you know, Fredrick Winslow Taylor thinking about time and motion studies and placing people in just their movements and timing them and making it all kind of the most efficient as you can, especially from like a factory perspective. But a lot of the organizational theorizing came out of soldiers, but also factory workers. 

So it's interesting, right? But that agility piece that you mentioned and the ability to be able to change. But then there's also this like, you walk into this new organization and what's the culture? Is it ready for Yariv's kind of approach of agility, quick thinking, quick movement, how do you reconcile your preference and thinking for best practices for how an organization can transform with the reality of meeting the organization where it's at in the moment? How do you meet them there and how do you kind of bring them along?

Yariv Hasar (18:03)

It's a wonderful question because it's really tough. need to acknowledge that you are, to some extent you are changing culture. Changing culture is changing people, it's tough and it takes time. And you need to acknowledge that. So embrace yourself to some, I would call it frustration along the way. 

You need to be patient, that's the, and, this is another...maybe the first tip that I can give in this aspect, be also humble. It's not necessarily that you know it all. And sometimes some culture, or culture feature or characteristic better stayed as they are. And you need to embrace that, for example, the resiliency for risk or the tolerance for risk or quality assurance in software. 

Most of our customers are much less, I would say risk taker relative to other places which you can allow yourself to be a risk . I'm not talking about the Air Force. In the telecom industry, if you run a bill and you charge someone by two extra dollars, it's meaningful, but it's only two extra dollars. It's not a policy, life policy of millions of dollars or life or death in the case of the military. 

So, need to be, so whatever fits for you on a personal note as a leader, not necessarily fits for the role and you need to adapt and you need to adapt to what, and you need to be mindful on that. Yes, this is where, this is where is my sweet spot where I'm feeling comfortable, but this is what the organization needs, and by doing this conscious decision and again, gap analysis, you also understand where you need to be changed. 

It's not just the organization, it's also you. If you are just trying to change the organization, sometimes either the organization or you might be broken as part of this. So we need to be mindful of that. It's not a one way street. It's a dialogue between you, your peers, your colleagues, your subordinates and the organization, I would call it culture to begin with.

Dr. Josh Elmore (20:14)

I like that word that you use, dialogue, right? It kind of speaks to that iterative nature.

Yariv Hasar (20:18)

Yes, exactly.

Dr. Josh Elmore (20:20)

So, right, it's early day. Actually, just kind of before we get into the kind of ⁓ wins and setbacks, I know it's early days, but I'd love to know if there's, kind of any early wins or setbacks that you've had. But, you mentioned this idea of reflecting on a daily basis. How do you find the, I mean, you your schedule must be packed, you must be, you know, drinking from the fire hose, as they say. ⁓ How do you find the time to have that kind of headspace to reflect?

Yariv Hasar (20:45)

I think it's a mindset. It's not a matter of time. It's priorities. Everything in life is priority. We don't have enough time in any given day for sure for every one of us. But if you prioritize this and you are doing reflection and you are looking, you just need to look on the calendar and the schedule for today and have a quick review. What did I do from the morning till day? Did I move the needle? Where did I move the needle? What have I done?

What could I have done better? Just this reflection. It's not more than five minutes that are going on within your mind even. But having the mindset and the willingness and the desire to do that actually, in my case I must admit it's almost, I would call it even a routine. I almost, it's come instinctively by the end of the day, looking at the calendar, I said, okay, what did I did today? Have I moved the needle? What could I have done better?

And by the way, it reflects both on my doing within the schedule and the calendar, but also on the schedule itself. Did I set the right priority about meetings? Should those meetings have taken place now, or maybe I should have prioritized something more important than that? So it goes also to time management, also for the content itself. So I think that this iterative dialogue with yourself is very critical. 

Sometimes I saw that in I was working within the startup and then roles and responsibility are less strict and definite, you have a very good partnership with someone and then you can reflect to each other which is…so that's the reason that a lot of the companies or the startups that they went big are actually co-founded. I think that this dialogue of people is actually very helpful. So if you have a trusted guy or peer or colleague that you can reflect with, it's also a good idea. Don't just keep it to yourself.

Dr. Josh Elmore (22:39)

Super powerful and kind of speaks to the importance of teamwork and kind of not just skilling yourself up, but skilling your team up to prepare for whatever's next and helping them along.

Yariv Hasar (22:50)

Yes, and you mentioned actually wins. And I think that that's one of the things that I think ⁓ it's just a milestone in the way. But I think that I managed to do a better collaborative work nowadays with Sapiens. As I mentioned, there's a lot of ⁓ M&A's that were under the hood and crafted this platform and activities.

And not all the teams were collaborating in a seamless manner. And this is something that I think that I, let's say, if not seamless, we are, at least raised the bar and at least several levels better than where we were eight months ago in terms of collaborative approach and way of working. And even if sometimes there will be, I would say, hiccups along the way, how good looks from the process perspective is now much better, clearer than it was eight months ago. So that's one of the small wins that I can see. So we are still struggling in some cases and everything, but at least the process is working. And you see that and it's very, for me, it's a very nice win that I appreciate myself for.

Dr. Josh Elmore (23:44)

Yeah, and so, you know, I'd love to hear, you know, how did you how did you nurture that win? How did you make that happen? And then also kind of in a follow up in reflection, kind of any setbacks that you've had and how you manage those, you know, in this early period.

Yariv Hasar (24:17)

So, how I manage it, I bring all the team and I reflected to them what I see. I see less of collaboration. I see that there are things that are falling between roles and responsibility, between the chairs, within the crack. I said, guys, how do you suggest to, so even though I thought that I knew the answer, because I had more experience in delivery, but I still…

And the reason that I'm saying thought is going back to the humbleness that I mentioned before, because we came up with a somewhat different, I would say, flavor or variant of what I had in mind. And if we were not doing this dialogue and opening, giving it as an open question, perhaps we would have settled to my, I would say, pre-designed solution, which is not necessarily the ideal or equipped to the specific culture, notion, and activities within Sapiens. 

And by doing this discussion and say, hey, who is in charge on that? You have seen that this one is in charge. One is taking this amount of responsibility. The other two, but who is seeing the end to end? Am I supposed to do that? The program manager supposed to do that? Who is the one that we're in charge? So they, but we are not equipped to that. 

I said, okay, but let's first define the gap. If the gap is only training and knowledge, this is one thing. If we are managing the expectations, so let's manage the expectation and then we will go out to meet those expectations. But let's first align what are the expectations from each of the people in the group or between the different teams. Because I think that each and every one, and that's my humble assessment, is that each and every team its own

collaborate and work pretty good on their own. The problem goes when we are trying to integrate it. The problem where we were trying to integrate it. And we managed to overcome this by open dialogue and how do we want to build ourselves for the future. 

And I felt that relatively quick because you are doing the stand-up meeting, you are taking active role going into the detail and you feel the different notion, but the real win is that the customer reflects in that and said, hey, I see that you change. I see that it's working much more smoother than it was before. And this reflection actually means a lot because at the end of the day, we are here to make our customers successful. 

Yes, we want to make money out of it. It's a long-term strategy. It's a win-win, but it cannot happen without them being successful. So their appreciation and their, I would say, acknowledgement is vital to the success of any transformation of the organization.

Dr. Josh Elmore (27:04)

Yeah, that's great feedback, Kind of a great outcome or, know, what does good look like? And a good look like having the customer notice that we're changing for the better, for sure. 

You know, what your answer reminds me of here is, you know, a lot about this idea of systems thinking, right? Where you're taking a perspective of the interconnectivity of all of the components in the organization and you have this diagnosis, right? You come in, you're new, you see it.

And you say, hey, everybody, this is what I see. And it's interesting how you had in your mind kind of the solution. But you brought it to them. And instead of kind of implementing it and kind of pushing it down, you said, here's what I'm thinking. What do you think? And you gave it to them to kind of iterate and have that kind of right-fitting it the organization's needs or where they're at in the moment. Is that right?

Yariv Hasar (27:54)

Yes, it's actually just to be fair, so I'm very much appreciate and know the system theory altogether. Actually, my master degree was on Markov change, which is very much related to systems theory. So maybe there is some, I would say, unconscious. It's funny that you mentioned that because I wasn't thinking about it about up until now, but.

Maybe there are some of the talking about the T shape and the engineering and knowledge. So maybe some of it is coming from that place, how you can impact the system. Although there are some limitations for the theory, and maybe I will get that because you asked me. I think that one second tip that I can give is to invest in the history of the organization, understand the history, because the history…And unlike Markov change, which is actually looking only on one iteration, but that's for system in people, history matters and organization are shaped by the history, by the day, previous or past wins and loses, changes of workforce, failures in projects, successful project wins, important strategic wins.

And if you invest a lot of that, and I was fortunate in this because our CEO invested a lot of time with me after hours to share with me the history of the organization and he runs the company for the last 19 years. So he's very familiar with the history of the organization and the company altogether. And I did that also in Amdox. And of course, in the military, I was part of the shaping of the history. So it was helpful but.

Invest in the history of the organization that you are coming. Sometimes, even if it is just, you are moving between division, it's important to invest in the uniqueness of this division because it can tell you a lot about why things are like that right now. Sometimes the why is no longer relevant and sometimes it's still relevant and you need to be aware of that.

So yes, system theory is actually is okay up to a point. Sometimes you are going into more of psychology and history of people, which is also important.

Dr. Josh Elmore (30:06)

Sure, yeah. I mean, and of itself is systems thinking, right? Like the history, like all of the matter as it relates to the organization for sure. So you're taking it to that next level. And then just, kind of briefly, if there's any kind of setbacks that you had so far and strategies that you used to mitigate them.

Yariv Hasar (30:25)

I think that the main setback that I feel that again, and I'm trying to extract out of the lots of details is the lack, I wouldn't say even trust, lack of belief in the way. So eh, we try that in the past. Eh, we didn't manage to do that. Eh, they are of no good. We cannot collaborate with this.

Those kind of activities and a lot of the people and I'm fortunate to have a lot of people that with a long tenure in the industry as well as with the company and this, they have a lot of history together and sometimes this lack of, disbelief, so you need and I'm taking it and let's engage them on the vision, not on the problems.

Do you agree with the vision? Are you aligned with what we are trying to achieve here? Yes, but it is not achievable because of those people or because of these limitations. So, okay, so let's give it a try. Because we want it's worthwhile to achieve this, right? Because that's what will enable us to achieve the greater vision that all of us wants to succeed. So how you can bridge that? 

You need to engage people that are, you are not able to onboard to your vision and you need to work on a buy-in on this on the vision not on the actual tactics. Because the tactics doesn't matter the vision does matter because at the end of the day if you you're managing to make your team and your peers and everyone change agent for the vision sometimes you will be surprised because they will pick different routes than you expected.

But they will be aligned on the vision. So focus on engaging on the vision less on the aligning and say getting them to do the tactics. Once you are getting the alignment on the engagement, there will be some disagreements on the tactics, but then you can say, okay, let's do an A/B testing. You will try that. And if it will fail in a couple of weeks, let's do another way. 

And this A/B testing, as long as we are aligning with the mission, that's fine. You have enough, I would say, time and flexibility to explore. And sometimes, again, if you are not fixated on the tactics, you can be also optimistically surprised. I would call it.

Dr. Josh Elmore (32:33)

Yeah, I like that lot where this idea of working with the end in mind, right? Knowing where you're headed and using that as your North Star. I wonder, how do you come up with the North Star? And do you update it given the input that people are giving you, right? So you're trying to, people may be quibbling about semantics of the way to get there. But if you're saying maybe it's like they don't...

You're trying to get people on board with where you're headed. And you've talked a lot about this idea of iterating on kind of approach. Do you iterate at all on the where you're headed? Do you update that, so it can broaden the tent of people that you can bring along with you? Or do you revise it? You know, how do you keep that end in mind? Or keep it sufficiently shared, in terms of ambition such that you can include the most number of people in it?

Yariv Hasar (33:42)

No, I think that a good vision, a good end in mind, and remember it's a moving target because you always need to think strategically for, I don't know, three years ahead in time. So there will always be another three years. So it's all, it's constantly a moving target. It's, if it did change a lot, putting aside, I would say the couple, the few couple of initial months where I was still shaping it in my own mind and spirit, along with the dialogue that I mentioned. 

After that, it is changing, but not to that extent. So it's getting stabilized and clarified as we go along, actually. But how do you do that? It's actually by communicating.

You know, there is the same in that if you teach something that only then you know, it means that you learned it. So, by constantly communicating that and shaping it with people, dialogue in it, be it internally, be it also with your customer, advisor, analyst in the market, it shouldn't be…a good strategy, it's not a secret strategy. It's something that is shared. As you said, I think that the key word is share, and sharing is, as I said, it's a dialogue, not a monologue, a one-way street. So you are shaping it as you go along. You are getting feedback. Some of the feedback will involve the tactics. Some of them will talk about risk and constraint that you need to handle as you go along. And some of them will simply acknowledge that, it sounds as a right approach and the right direction that you need to head.

Dr. Josh Elmore (35:21)

And you mentioned the time that you've been there, right? You mentioned a couple months of getting your clarity. And so we're gonna kind of think about this broad scope and we're gonna move on to this question that I like to ask the guests on the show. In the 1980s, John Gabarro ran a few studies focused on general managers and presidents as they pursued new roles and wrote the results in the book, The Dynamics of Taking Charge.

Gabarro explained that executive has fully taken charge when they have mastered the new assignment in sufficient depth to be managing the organization as efficiently as the resources, constraints, and the manager's own ability will allow. Thinking about this definition where 100 % is having fully taken charge in your new assignment, what percent would you say that you are at now?

Yariv Hasar (36:11)

Actually, very tough question, I must admit. Because my gut feeling will say 80%. But with all honesty, I'm not sure that there is 100 % in any time spent. It's not a matter of time. I think that I know the business… And I will never be an insurance expert. I'm getting to learn the industry, like I did the underwriting in consumer credit three years ago. So I think that I'm now pretty okay there. I will get to be okay in insurance business, but, executive management is to understand the business, understand the people and resources and constraint and to be able to operate on them. 

But I want to give 20 % of humbleness. One, is for the uncertainty and the things that I haven't experienced yet, which might occur. And specifically that once you are not able to cross a full year of cycle of rhythm of a public company, so there is something there for sure. And another is that I am not sure that I want to have 100%.

Because I want to empower my subordinates as well and I want to give them some autonomy. And so there will be always, and if that's my perspective about management, about leadership, so by design I have some ignorance in some places that I trust them to lead and to engage and to manage on my behalf. So by design I have some, I would say, black spots in my radar, in my vision and that flexibility that is allowed to my subordinates to operate.

Dr. Josh Elmore (37:55)

Super powerful, yeah, going back to your idea of dialogue and iterativeness and kind never quite actually fully baked because just the nature of humans and history and all of the contextual factors that make us have to do a transformation in the first place, right?

Yariv Hasar (38:12)

Yes, yes.

Dr. Josh Elmore (38:13)

So final question, what advice would you share with leaders currently entering a new high stakes role?

Yariv Hasar (38:20)

Currently entering, so I mentioned about the humbleness, I mentioned about the history. Listen more than you speak, which is actually relevant to both of those. Have the end in mind and start shaping the end in a dialogue manner, because that's the focus. You need to learn the present, but you are brought here for the future. So spend as much time that you are spending about learning the present, about learning the ideal future that you trying to achieve.

Dr. Josh Elmore (38:51)

Yeah, learning and it goes back to your dialogue philosophy. Wonderful, well, thank you so much, Yariv for taking the time to chat with us, really appreciate it. Such a powerful leadership approach that you're taking, taking your kind of engineering background and that kind of that T-shaped, agile, that is just such a big requirement these days for any change management, but also kind of the humility that you bring to a role to help an organization be honored, right, as a system that's been around for a long time, having that history, as being a newcomer, I think that's a really powerful practice. So is there anything you want to share with the audience?

Yariv Hasar (39:27)

I invite you to subscribe to the LinkedIn of Sapiens. I think that there would be, there are very interesting good news if you are from the insurance business, but if you are in any high tech or software company or something like that. And also on a personal note, please subscribe and join my LinkedIn. I'm trying to post every, talking about reflection, so I'm trying to post reflection at least once a week about our doing, my doing all together. So I think it's worthwhile to stay tuned and to read it up. I'm trying to shorten the post so not to bother the audience. So please feel free to join me.

Dr. Josh Elmore (40:10)

Great, meet Yariv on LinkedIn and do the same for me. Thanks so much for listening to the Land and Lead podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Josh Elmore. Tune in next time for more stories from leaders navigating high stakes role transitions.