Remembering Frank - a life well-lived

The time to shape our legacy is now. In the midst of such dynamic changes, the actions we take now will have long-lasting effects on our employees, customers and all the communities we support and serve. Alex shares an important lesson he has learnt about legacy from the life of his late father-in-law

Over the last few days my family and I have been putting together a memorial for our beloved dad, grandad and father-in-law Frank, who passed away recently after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 90. Reading the messages from family and friends of how he was remembered and what he meant to all the people he met got me thinking about legacy.

When Frank was first diagnosed with cancer, he set about putting down his memories including his early years in East London, his evacuation as a child during World War Two and joining the merchant navy as a young man. From his tough childhood to his world travels as a merchant seaman and into his later years, Frank maintained a strong desire to keep learning and develop. This manifested itself in many ways from building a fibre glass dingy from scratch (in his living room) to learning to play the guitar. He was always asking how does that work and why? This tenacious drive for continual growth is an important lesson for us all.

I've written before about trust and the importance of an emotional connection with our customers and reading the press recently you get the feeling that both are still in short supply in some areas.  But as we now seem to be entering the period that will shape the new normal, we need to look carefully at what we have learnt. Over the months of lockdown, we have adapted and found alternatives to the way we used to do things. If there is one exciting opportunity from this period it is that we should be able to banish the "we do this because it's what we have always done," response to change.

Inevitably, as restrictions are eased, questions are being asked about how consumers’ and businesses’ behaviours might change in the longer term, and how wider society might develop as a result; that’s everything from the future of globalism to the emergence of hyper-local communities. All of these have a bearing on how insurance will be viewed and its role in the future. For some parts of the industry the challenges are manifest and for others adapting to meet the new needs of customers mean showing they have learnt the lessons and understand and not just saying they do.

Legacy is shaped by what you do and how you do it. That can be a deliberate drive to shape change or simply be the desire to be remembered as a decent person.  It can be something that becomes clear at the end of a life but is also something that is created by the everyday behaviours and the choices we make. Very few of us beyond politicians and the odd billionaire or celebrities think much about legacy; it can feel like a vanity project. But as my father-in-law Frank demonstrated, if you don't stop wanting to learn and try to be a better person it can mean so much to others.

In loving memory of Frank Hector Baker (1930 - 2020)