New York Life Insurance Co.: coaching and training makes business secure.

• Author: Pielli, Brooke
• Position: ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY'S 2009 CORPORATE 100

It doesn't take long to understand that Roberto Recine, managing partner of Anchorage's New York Life Insurance Co. (NYL), is a man who sees his work as the coaching and training of the newest members of his team. Teamwork has always meant a lot to Recine over the many years he has worked in the insurance industry.

"A friend prodded me," Recine said, "telling me to go into insurance when I was a young man of 27, living on Long Island near Manhattan. I was attracted by the management opportunities."

That belief still drives him as he works with his trainees.

"I see my work with my staff like that of a coach in an athletic setting," he said. "You need to discover what is holding you back, and decide what is important to performance and work from there, from the goal of what is needed to do in order to enhance performance, to get rid of the problem."

Recine sees this as uncovering and examining a possible self-defeating attitude, and then working on neutralizing it.

"Decide on what the goal is," he said, "on why that is the goal, then devise a strategy to reach that goal, and through it all, to have a good mindset to achieve that goal."

In addition to this positive attitude, Recine believes "it is also important to decide what is the most important goal that is quantifiable to reach then reach it."

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Team effort also is crucial in this endeavor, Recine said.

"Decide on what is important and then make it a team effort to overcome it," he said.

Recine is always on the lookout for a new team member who can add something to his existing team, whose members already have a positive attitude and a strong belief in self. Where does he find such dedicated people?

"Most recruits are recommended, while some come from job fairs," he said.

A whopping 80 percent are recommended by associates.

The "coach and train" attitude also means that management does not have clients to distract them from their focus on developing, achieving and implementing goals.

"Management is focused on developing agents, making the team-effort concept work," he said. "At coaching seminars, we work on goals and how to achieve them."

Typical and unique to NYL, to some degree, is that training is ongoing and focused on the one goal that everyone understands, and for which everyone has encouragement from the team.

"New associates are on a three-year program of training and exams as part of their required attendance. At the end of the three years, agents make a...