Alliant National

Alliant National Title Insurance Company was founded in 2005 to provide title insurance services including underwriting and claims processing to independent title agents across the United States. Like all insurance companies, Alliant National faced constant tension between managing risk and developing sales. But by 2012, that tension had escalated into something far more dangerous: two opposing factions, each led by one of the company's founders, locked in conflict so deeply entrenched it threatened the company's very existence.​

Founder-Led Factions Paralyzing Operations

"It became pretty apparent that there were two camps in the company," explained Phyllis, describing the division that had taken hold. "We had a lot of conflict within our senior management team," Scott added. The division wasn't abstract—it was personal, operational, and destructive. Two founders led opposite sides of the business, and their conflict created an atmosphere of mutual skepticism, mistrust, and hesitancy that reinforced each side's conviction that their position was unequivocally correct.​

"Certain functions weren't talking with other functions and so there was a lack of alignment," Kyle recalled. Every decision became a battle. Every interaction reinforced the divide. "Nobody was really trying to figure out what the other person was saying," Phyllis noted about the breakdown in communication. The stalemate fostered growing dysfunction and hobbled business productivity company-wide.​

Failed Interventions Making It Worse

Alliant National had made several attempts to reconcile the two sides of the business. Each effort ultimately failed to solve the underlying issues. Worse, the bungled interventions backfired, worsening an already divisive situation. Traditional conflict resolution approaches emphasized communication techniques or behavioral tactics, but these surface-level fixes couldn't transform the persistent conflict patterns when the root problem remained unaddressed.​

Missing the Stakeholders That Mattered

The company's narrow focus on competing interests prevented them from seeing the bigger picture. "Pre-Arbinger and pre the work that we did in Arbinger, if you had asked folks they probably would've named two" stakeholders: "our customers and our owners," David explained. This limited view meant crucial stakeholders—employees, colleagues, partners—were invisible in decision-making. "Am I truly helping my colleagues out? Am I truly giving them my best when I have a role in a project?" Bob asked, reflecting on questions that weren't being addressed.​ 

Leadership Recognition of Root Problem

In 2013, one of Alliant National's founders read The Anatomy of Peace. He recognized that the inward mindset depicted in the text was the same root problem that plagued the company. "We discovered that for the kind of company that we are and want to be, that we needed to do a lot better job taking care of our people," Bob explained. "In hindsight, it looks kind of obvious, but it wasn't obvious until I first understood how self-deception worked."​

At the co-founder's request, other members of the senior leadership team read the book and came to the same conclusion. This wasn't a problem of communication skills or behavioral tactics—it was a problem of how people were seeing each other. The leadership team turned to Arbinger for conflict resolution training and help moving forward.​

Two-Day Workshop Revealing Personal Contribution

After assessing the situation, Arbinger conducted a two-day workshop for the senior leadership team. The workshop facilitated personal insights and a shift in mindset that ultimately proved even more crucial for creating change than the actionable tools provided.​

Jeff highlighted a key realization: "Because every time you betray and you resist, you're spending energy." The leadership team began to see how they were each contributing to and perpetuating the conflict. This breakthrough realization, made possible through a change in mindset and honest accountability, enabled senior leadership to quickly start addressing and defusing the tension.​

Embedding Outward Mindset in Daily Work

Alliant National's leaders wanted the transformative experience to extend beyond the workshop. "The notion of being in service and really thinking about who you're in service to," David reflected on the shift in thinking. They began to embed an outward mindset in their day-to-day work, enabling more effective collaboration and a greater emphasis on results.​

To spread the influence further throughout the organization, they sent a senior executive to be trained by Arbinger as an internal facilitator. She then worked to train and support the rest of the company in understanding and utilizing Arbinger tools. "If we can show up with the right frame of mind and be willing to be participants to solving a problem, we get a lot more done," Scott observed about the change in approach.​

Strategic Planning Aligned to Stakeholder Needs

Arbinger consultants then led Alliant National's senior leadership through Arbinger's Strategic Planning and Execution process. "We identified all of our service lines, all of our stakeholders," Kyle explained. The team discovered they had been missing the full picture. "We were able to identify 11 stakeholder groups," David noted, a dramatic expansion from the two they had previously recognized.​

Alliant's leadership reconceived the company's work and redefined its objectives to ensure they were aligned with the needs of these stakeholders. "Then we took that and we identified all of our function lines or our departments. We looked at how those interrelate. That was really important because at that point we had more alignment. The white space started to disappear," Kyle described the integration process.​

They recalibrated their own roles and company functions to better support one another in reaching the company's overall goals. "Our functions could understand what our stakeholders need," Kyle emphasized. With this foundation in place, Alliant National's senior leaders developed detailed personal work plans that outlined how each individual's work served those who were impacted by their efforts.​

David highlighted the shift in language and thinking: "People will say, 'Well, what does your customer want?' And it's about delivering value, but they won't talk about it in terms of what is the customer trying to achieve, and then how am I being in service to that objective? That distinction in the Arbinger paradigm really created the ability to have insight in the organization that we didn't have before."​

By implementing Arbinger's conflict resolution training and working to deeply integrate an outward mindset, Alliant National achieved dramatically improved results. The existential threat dissipated as the company united as a single team pursuing the common goal of serving independent agents.​

From Dysfunction to Collaboration

The transformation was tangible across operations. "Focusing with an outward mindset and focusing on what others are trying to do has been really huge in allowing us to have more productive meetings and just to work with each other and get the results that we want for our agents," Phyllis described the change.​

There is now a sense of openness to new ideas and willing collaboration between risk management and sales—the two sides that had been at war. Donna illustrated the new way of working: "I'm getting an idea of what they need and what's important to them, so I've been sitting back going, okay, then what can I and my department do to further that goal?"​

Alliant National used Arbinger frameworks to reduce conflicting objectives among employees, align resources to better achieve corporate goals, and create personal responsibility. Gordon from accounts receivable noted the ripple effect: "When we help them in accounts receivable, and we do really well, it makes the agency managers shine." Employees responded powerfully to this new way of working, enthusiastically embracing the invitation to redirect their focus and accomplish objectives while prioritizing coworker and organizational success.​

Meaning and Purpose Beyond Jobs

"Arbinger's helping us create a mindset that's more responsive to our customers by helping us each individually understand how we might resist that," Bob explained about the ongoing impact. Kyle reflected on the deeper significance: "If we as a management team provide a great environment in order to help our people have that voice, and they feel that they can grow personally and professionally and contribute, it's not about a job. It's that my life had meaning and purpose. And when you can walk away after a five year strategic planning and you get five years down the road, and you've been able to contribute to that, that's pretty cool. That's really cool."​

Measurable Business Growth

The noteworthy internal impacts of this shift were reflected in external metrics. The company grew at a rate nearly twice that of its competitors, received the official "Great Place to Work" designation, and became one of the top ten title insurance underwriters in the United States. This growth happened not despite addressing the conflict, but because addressing it unlocked the company's potential.​

The Ultimate Test of Trust

While the public recognition and business results speak impressively about Alliant National's progress, there is another result that may be even more telling. Because of the changes in the company, one of the founders felt comfortable enough to retire, placing the future of both his company and his retirement in the hands of the other founders. This act of trust would have been unthinkable during the height of the conflict.​

Bob acknowledged the continued journey: "Did we take the time to really understand what our people wanted and what was important to them? No. Have we done a better job at that? A way better job at that. And we have a long way to go." He summarized the cultural transformation: "Alliant National is a fun place to work! The culture is no longer one of conflict. Planning is more creative. People are energized and excited about the future. Our unity throughout the company is attractive to potential employees. People want to be a part of Alliant National because of how we work."​

Alliant National proved that founder-led conflicts threatening a company's survival can be resolved—but not through traditional behavioral interventions that ignore the root cause. When two opposing factions led by founders created dysfunction so severe it paralyzed operations, multiple failed reconciliation attempts only made it worse. The breakthrough came when leadership recognized the problem wasn't communication tactics or behavioral skills—it was inward mindset. By addressing how people saw each other rather than just how they acted, and by expanding their stakeholder view from two groups to eleven, Alliant National transformed existential conflict into unified collaboration, grew twice as fast as competitors, and achieved top 10 national ranking. The lesson: you can't resolve persistent conflict with behavioral band-aids when the wound is how people see each other. Address mindset first, and behaviors follow.​