Andy Worhol, Progressive Insurance, and Mao Zedong.

Three things you don’t expect to hear in the same sentence, right? Well I have an interesting story for you that involves all three of these. For those of you who don’t know me I own two companies, one of them is an independent insurance agency called Mayflower Insurance. Our agency is one of the larger agencies in the country and I was invited to Progressive Insurance’s sprawling headquarters in Cleveland, OH. It was a rewarding experience, but unlike many of the other agents there the best part for me was not going to Progressive Field (Clevland Indian’s Stadium), to see them continue their now epic win steak last season. 

 The moment our shuttle pulled up there was an interesting dichotomy in the environment. While all the people we had talk to us and guide us around were your typical white color executive types, the other Progressive employee’s seemed to be very laid back. As the day went on and we went to the other part of their head quarters a few miles away, I started to feel more like I was on a Silicon Valley campus. It is perfectly fine for an employee to show up in their pajamas if they want to at Progressive. As everyone in the shuttle noticed when pulling up to the second part of their corporate headquarters.

  Something did seem unusual when I first arrived as the ambiance was very light. You know when you don’t feel all the stress in the air, but instead more of a peaceful and serene feeling. I normally get bored very easily, especially when walking from one activity to the next and waiting for it to begin. To put this into perspective, if you lock me in a pitch black room I will make myself tired by thinking about all kinds of random things like how mycelium networks are similar to cryptocurrencies or something completely random. It doesn’t take much for me to go into a daydream state, even when someone is a foot away talking to me.

  Interestingly until I was sitting at the airport waiting to leave I failed to notice that I was engaged almost the entire time I was at their headquarters. I failed to realize that this place was like a mental candy store and I was tasted all of it.  

  Almost every wall and corner has some piece of art work. They took us to the wrong cafeteria and while they were figuring out why the catering wasn’t there I noticed a wall covered with notes from employees about what they don’t like. Lets just say they were VERY candid and not what you would expect most employees would dare scribble on a piece of paper, let alone put it up on a wall. At this point I started trying to poke and prod the people involved in the tour for the agents more and more to try to understand more about how the company works. It was like a secret mission for me because I was intrigued and wanted to understand more about them the company culture, which I clearly had the wrong impression of since we started working with Progressive back in 2004.  

  As I mentioned after lunch we were taken to the other part of their headquarters a few miles away. As we walked downstairs after entering the building my mind was immediately blown. This is what was hanging from the top of the ceiling from chains. 

  Its made from mostly wax and it is massive. It was also obviously extremely fragile as you could see pieces of it had fallen off. We were beginning the art tour! I failed to notice where it said there was an art tour after lunch. As we would come to learn Progressive doesn’t just have a full time art curator on staff and a full time person who manages the collection, they actually commission artwork to be created. In some case’s like this giant wax thing hanging from the ceiling is created at the Progressive Headquarters and it becomes a part of the building. My camera handy work was not so great so here is a picture from Progressive’s website of the entirety of the art piece.   

  Petah Coyne is an American contemporary artist who is known for use of unconventional materials and making large scale sculptures. This piece was made from wax being dropped over and over to form the sculptures.  Caution if you do check out her work, it definitely got a lot darker shortly after this piece it would seem. 

  I didn’t care too much for the globules of wax and just kept staring at the Warhol next to me! I have been a huge Worhol fan since I was in high school. In fact, I am listening to “Candy Says” right as I inserted the picture 😊

   

PETER LEWIS

  As the tour guide began to explain the history I was continually impressed by Peter Lewis, who is for all practical purposes the man who took Progressive from a small 40 person company to one of the largest auto insurers in the country. I know for some of you politics guides you and you cannot look beyond anything but that. As a politically conservative person I can put it aside and appreciate what good this man brought to the world, no matter how hardcore democrat he is. 

  It turns out that Peter Lewis purchased and put the piece up right when Vietnam was still fresh in the minds of most in the United States and a very turbulent relationship between the communist China was only beginning to thaw. Now keep in mind that he put up this piece at the Progressive headquarters in the front hallway where everyone would see it. Think about that for a minute, during the cold war the CEO of an American company put up a massive art piece of the communist Chinese leader Mao Zedong. There was an immediate backlash from the public and even from within the company. Peter Lewis stayed true to his beliefs and kept it up. For me it is not the piece itself which makes the whole thing incredible, but his reasoning for doing it and standing firm in his beliefs. 

  Peter Lewis was a man that wanted people to discuss their emotions, talk about how they feel, and have those hard conversations we are afraid to have today. The man was a crusader for cultural diversity and looking at things differently. From what I have read about him, he seems to be a person who wanted to bring things out into the open so that they could be hashed out. 

  What the tour guide told us was that Peter Lewis specifically wanted to “provoke conversation” and that this piece certainly did succeed at doing that. Much of the artwork you find within Progressive is meant to do exactly that “provoke conversation”. Amazingly, the art collection Progressive owns sustains itself financially. They are able to sell a few of the art pieces every year which may be financially valuable, but the company just isn’t “feeling” anymore. If it isn’t provoking those conversations, it is often sold. They focus only on contemporary artwork where the artist is still alive. Then they can purchase and commission many other pieces, which years from now could become valuable and continue to sustain the project. The art collection is a separate business from Progressive Insurance and incredibly if you look at it from a business perspective it has grown immensely. Peter and his ex-wife are like the Warren Buffet’s of contemporary artwork, they just know how to pick winners, even if that is not what they are trying to do. 

  For you artists out there take a shot at it and apply at: https://www.progressive.com/artcollection/artist-opportunities.html 

  I will end this post with a cool piece of Amish artwork that was in a cafeteria. Until going to Progressive’s headquarters I had no clue that there was such a thing. It turns out that Amish artwork is known for having hidden meanings. Basically like a puzzle, see if you can figure out what it is saying and post it in the comments. I have put multiple pictures of it below for you and you want to interpret what is hidden within it from left to right.

Whole Picture part 1

Whole Picture part 2

Part 1 of 4

Part 2 of 4

Part 3 of 4

Part 4 of 4