11月的一個星期五，天空中漂著毛毛細雨，美國前進保險公司的克利夫蘭總部，54歲的特里西婭·格里菲斯走進演講廳準備鼓舞團隊士氣。她走上演講臺，一邊興奮地跟60多名剛入職的員工揮手致意。格里菲斯剛一開口大聲說：“嗨?。。。?！”全體員工齊聲回應。格里菲斯宣布升任首席執行官的消息之后，人群更加興奮。談到早年在建筑材料公司當經理實習生的經歷時，她還拿自己的簡歷開了個玩笑：“如果有人想拆浴缸外殼可以找我，我可是持證叉車司機?！彼掌鹦θ?，然后一位與會者大喊：“好的，姑娘！”后來，一位員工問格里菲斯，對有志擔任首席執行官的人們有什么建議。 “做好你手里的工作，”她說?！耙欢〞腥俗⒁獾侥??！?/p>

格里菲斯確實很了解。因為30年前她就是在前進保險從理賠代表開始做起。她在兩個方面比較特殊：第一，她在現在領導的公司從入門級員工一路升到首席執行官，第二，她是《財富》美國500強公司24位女性首席執行官之一。她還有一點很特別：在相對穩定的行業里推動大變革。前進保險一年和三年銷售增長率（分別為20.2%和11.4%）均高于蘋果和微軟。過去12個月中該公司股價上漲近50%，利潤增長一倍以上。2017年前進保險超過Allstate，成為全美第三大汽車保險公司，僅次于Geico和State Farm?；蛟S最令人印象深刻的是，截至三季度末俄亥俄州梅菲爾德公司凈保費達到300億美元，而三年前剛達到200億美元，對一家歷史長達81年的企業來說，可謂增速明顯。

Tricia Griffith steps into the lecture hall, ready to motivate the troops. It’s a drizzly Friday in November at Progressive’s Cleveland headquarters as Griffith takes the stage, cheerfully waving to a crowd of 60 or so brand-new Progressive hires arranged in tiered seating. Griffith’s introductory “Hiiiiiii!” is greeted gleefully as the employees respond in chorus. The enthusiasm is palpable as Griffith regales them with an account of her rise to chief executive. While talking about an early stint as a manager trainee at a building materials company, the 54-year-old cracks a joke about her résumé: “I’m actually forklift-certified if anyone needs a tub enclosure moved,” she deadpans, prompting one attendee to shout, “Okay, girl!” Later an employee asks Griffith what advice she’d give to aspiring CEOs. “Focus on the job you’re doing now,” she says. “You will get noticed.”

Griffith knows: She began her career at Progressive as a claims rep three decades ago. That makes her a rarity on two fronts: a CEO who started as an entry-level employee at the company she now leads, and one of just 24 female Fortune 500 chief executives. But she’s also something else: a CEO pulling off the remarkable evolution of a company in a relatively staid, stable industry. Progressive’s one-year and annualized three-year sales growth (at 20.2% and 11.4%, respectively) tops both Apple’s and Microsoft’s. The insurer’s stock is up nearly 50% over the past 12 months, and profits have more than doubled. In 2017 Progressive vaulted past Allstate to become the nation’s third-largest auto insurer, behind Geico and State Farm. And perhaps most impressively, at the end of the third quarter, the Mayfield, Ohio, company hit $30 billion in net premiums written, after reaching $20 billion just three years earlier—a remarkable growth rate for an enterprise that’s now 81 years old.

她還主導設計公司文化，充分包容且鼓舞人心，可以說很令人興奮。今年前進保險首次躋身《財富》年度最適宜工作的企業榜單，我們也發現該公司充滿“創業”氛圍，包括黑客馬拉松和創新“車庫”等，都是由員工負責的智囊團和創新實驗室。

現狀與前進保險此前的發展路徑相去甚遠。該公司成立于1937年，剛開始是個人汽車保險公司，后來通過高風險司機找到市場突破口。但在格里菲斯的領導下，其業務早已突破傳統。2015年公司發展邁出關鍵一步，前進保險以約8.75億美元現金收購家庭保險公司ASI多數股權，將汽車和房屋保險更好地捆綁起來。公司將捆綁購買的客戶稱為“羅賓遜”，將每位客戶個性化，不再用刻板的保險術語。收購ASI之前，前進保險花了近十年爭取客戶，但格里菲斯僅用了兩年多就將客戶數從大約40萬增加到100萬，也是推動近期保費增長激增的重要因素。格里菲斯說，她喜歡“大膽定目標”，然后圍繞關鍵項目團結全公司，激勵實現投資目標。在房屋保險業務中，相關投資協助其在2017年推出HomeQuote Explorer工具，幫助客戶比較各家運營商的報價。

公司里的一些高層已認識格里菲斯幾十年，其中不少人看著格里菲斯一路晉升超過自己，大家都表示她非常擅長鼓勵團隊合作，而且經常跟普通員工聯系。如果她走在前進保險充滿藝術氣息的辦公區里，沒走五步總有人會喊：“嗨，特麗西婭！”每個星期五她都跟員工一起吃午餐。

為什么要這么做？她說，因為自己以前也是低級別的員工。1988年，她看到一條分類廣告信息后去應聘，當上了實習理賠員，她以為這份工作只會做幾年，但后來一直做到MBA畢業。她跟母親談起工作時，回應是：“哦！那家賣湯的公司！”（指的是公司名接近的浦氏）。第一年格里菲斯在印第安納波利斯一個很小的理賠辦事處，經常要在修車廠的車底到處爬，寫評估報告。格里菲斯說，修車廠里女性不多，而前進保險的著裝要求又是西裝加裙子，還有長筒襪和不露趾鞋，工作起來經常有些困難。有一次，她鉆到一輛車下查勘受損的懸掛，“我鉆出來時，有10個男的站在那里，”她說?！爱敃r的情況就是，‘不管了，再難堪也得扛過去?！?/p>

她確實熬了過去，還在理賠部門穩步提升，最終引起時任首席執行官的格倫·倫威克的注意，也是后來把公司交給她的人。當時公司找新的人力資源主管，格里菲斯的家人、朋友和同事都在勸她找倫威克。“但我內心的聲音說：‘可能做不好，’‘你又沒有相關工作經驗。’”但格里菲斯鼓起勇氣自薦，2002年倫威克給了她機會，主要相信她在業務方面的專業知識，有能力“改進公司文化，”倫威克告訴《財富》。人力資源主管是格里菲斯第一個高級職位，任上她推出了首個多元化和包容計劃，2007年成立了前進保險非洲裔美國人團體和性少數者團體LGBT Plus（此后又成立了七個團體）。

Meanwhile, she’s been the chief architect of a culture that’s not only inclusive and inspiring, it’s—dare we say—exciting. This year, for the first time ever, Progressive made it onto Fortune’s annual list of Best Places to Work, where we noted the “startup” vibe, including hackathons and an innovation “garage” that functions as an employee-run think tank and experimental lab.

That’s a long way from Progressive’s roots. The company was founded in 1937 as a personal auto insurer, eventually finding its niche in high-risk drivers. But under Griffith’s leadership, it has moved far beyond that. One key move came in 2015, when the company acquired a majority stake in home insurer ASI for roughly $875 million in cash in an effort to better bundle auto and home insurance. The company refers to these bundle shoppers as “Robinsons,” a move to personify customers rather than using sterile insurance lingo. While Progressive had been trying to sign them up for roughly a decade before the ASI purchase, Griffith led the charge to rapidly expand their numbers from around 400,000 to 1 million in just over two years—a major factor driving the recent premium growth surge. Griffith says she likes to “set audacious goals” to rally the company around key projects and spur targeted investments. In the homeowners insurance business, that investment helped launch the HomeQuote Explorer tool in 2017 to help customers compare carrier quotes.

Top-ranking colleagues who have known Griffith for decades—some of whom she won promotions over—say that she’s remarkable at fostering teamwork, as well as creating connections with rank-and-file employees. On a walk through Progressive’s art-filled campus, she can’t take five steps before another passerby calls out, “Hi, Tricia!” Every Friday she makes a point to join a lunch table to meet employees.

Why? Because she’s been that low-level employee, she says. In 1988 she responded to a classified ad calling for a claims adjuster trainee, thinking she’d do it for a few years until she finished her MBA. When she told her mother about the job, the response was, “Oh! The soup company!” (referring to Progresso). During Griffith’s first year stationed at a small Indianapolis claims office, she often found herself in body shops crawling under cars to write estimates. There were not a lot of women present, and Progressive’s dress code of suits with skirts, hose, and closed-toe shoes made things difficult at times, Griffith says. In one instance, she dollied under a vehicle to assess damaged suspension components “and when I came back out, there were, like, 10 guys standing there,” she says. “It was just like, ‘Man, I gotta fight through this.’?”

She did, and steadily rose up the claims division, eventually catching the eye of her predecessor, then-CEO Glenn Renwick. When the company was looking for a new chief of human resources, it took the persistent badgering of Griffith’s family, friends, and colleagues to persuade her to approach Renwick. “It was my own internal voice saying, ‘You probably couldn’t do that,’ or ‘You don’t have that experience.’?” But she worked up her courage, and in 2002 Renwick gave her a shot, believing in her expertise on the business side and her ability to “advance the culture,” he tells Fortune. As HR head, her first C-suite level job, Griffith launched Progressive’s first-ever diversity and inclusion program, establishing the Progressive African American Network and LGBT Plus in 2007 (the company has since added seven more groups).

擔任人力資源總監后，2008年格里菲斯回到理賠部門擔任集團總裁，隨后擔任客戶運營總裁和個人保險分公司首席運營官等職位，進一步豐富了領導經驗。在此期間，她越來越了解公司運轉的核心所在。2016年倫威克執掌公司15年后宣布退休，格里菲斯已準備好掌舵。

熟悉領導公司的過程中，她發現不僅要讓員工理解品牌，更更要的是激勵員工，讓他們要感受到與品牌產生聯系。今年秋天，前進保險廣告里的員工“Flo”慶祝了10周年紀念。格里菲斯和團隊決定請曾扮演她的女演員斯蒂芬妮·考特尼，在美國舉行兩天的巡回演出作紀念（客戶總是問起Flo，但多數員工沒見過真人）。事先格里菲斯還派遣高管飛到佛羅里達跟考特尼見面溝通，確保她對此事沒有意見。

Following her stint in HR, Griffith returned to claims in 2008, serving as the group’s president, and later solidified her leadership experience with positions as president of customer operations and chief operating officer of Progressive’s personal lines branch, during which time she got ever more familiar with the nuts-and-bolts operations that make the company run. And when Renwick ended his CEO tenure in 2016 after 15 years, Griffith was ready to take the helm.

Along the way she realized how important it is not only to be accessible but also to motivate employees by making them feel connected to the brand. This fall, “Flo” from the Progressive commercials celebrated her 10-year anniversary with the company. Griffith and the Progressive team decided to honor the milestone by having Stephanie Courtney, the actress who plays her, headline a two-day tour across the U.S. (customers are constantly asking about Flo, but most employees have never seen her in person). Griffith made sure Courtney felt comfortable too, flying top execs down to Florida to meet her beforehand.

這些例子并不是說格里菲斯只注重情商。事實上她對無感情的信息也很關注，已大筆投資人工智能支持的技術。2017年在她領導下，前進保險在全美國推出了一款針對Snapshot的移動應用程序，主要根據使用情況制定保險計劃，利用遠程信息處理技術評估駕駛風格，然后向駕駛員收取保費。前進保險表示，目前已收集超過15億英里的駕駛數據創建算法，通過手機使用和談話頻率等多個變量判斷駕駛分心程度?！爸饕哪繕耸?，了解哪些風險會導致更多損失?！备窭锓扑贡硎?。雖然其他保險公司也有類似產品，但市場普遍認為前進保險在分析領域很擅長創新?！扒斑M保險向來敢為人先?！备粐y行的證券分析師愛麗絲·格林斯潘表示。推出Snapshot之類新項目后，前進保險可以向高風險司機收取更多費用，同時降低安全駕駛司機的保費留住客戶，這點對維持利潤至關重要。

格里菲斯坐在公司的黑色奧迪后座上，一邊認真回顧旅程（她告訴我，車上播放的音樂是Rap Friday，歌名叫“我們經常學德雷克”）。什么讓她夜不能寐？氣候變化是房屋保險業務即將面臨的問題，如果車輛實現自動駕駛了還有誰會買車險？ “世界不停變化，我們也得跟著變?！彼f。但至少她能推動公司實力增長。她執掌的保險公司日漸成長為多元產品帝國，除了兩個強勁的競爭對手，其他都已甩在身后。（財富中文網）

本文另一個版本刊于2018年12月1日出版的《財富》雜志，標題為《特里西婭·格里菲斯：政策調整》。

譯者：Pessy

審校：夏林

That’s not to say Griffith is all EQ—indeed, she has embraced unemotional intelligence as well, betting heavily on A.I.-powered technology. Under her direction, in 2017 the company rolled out a mobile app nationwide for Snapshot—its usage-based insurance program that uses telematics to charge drivers premiums based on their individual driving style. Progressive says it’s since collected more than 1.5 billion miles of driving data, which it used to create an algorithm that measures distracted driving based on a number of variables such as handheld phone use and frequency of talking. “That’s really the name of the game, being able to understand what risks will have more losses,” Griffith says. And while other insurers have similar offerings, Progressive is widely acknowledged as an innovator in analytics. “Progressive historically has been very good at getting ahead of everyone,” notes Elyse Greenspan, an analyst at Wells Fargo Securities. Programs like Snapshot enable Progressive to charge riskier drivers more and cut deals to keep safer drivers—crucial to protecting profits.

Settled in the back seat of a black company Audi, Griffith muses about her journey (it’s Rap Friday, she tells me, referring to the car’s soundtrack: “We usually do Drake”). What keeps her up at night? Climate change is a looming concern for the homeowners business, and who will buy auto insurance if vehicles drive themselves? “The world is changing, so we have to change with it,” she says. But at least she can change from a position of strength. She’s at the wheel of an insurer that’s growing into a multi-product empire, with all but two of its competitors in the rearview mirror.

A version of this article appears in the December 1, 2018 issue of Fortune with the headline “Tricia Griffith: Policy Shift.”