The “IT” Factor of ABMG

“The secret sauce consists of 3 ingredients: We have a unifying vision, we believe that healthy things grow and we always want to challenge the status quo." - Atlantic Bay Internal Employee Support Program Manager Robert Rang (while putting on a Captain America outfit)

And that’s just it … Robert Rang believes every day is great and he wants to share that even if it’s just to make his team laugh.

When he’s not leading a team of 14, being a dad of two at home and juggling umpteen IT tickets day in and day out, he’s preaching the importance of positivity and the impact it can have on people.

Robert’s management style is different in terms of how he’s measuring success.

“It’s important that we not only provide quick, technical resolution for our customers but just as important, we provide an amazing customer experience” he explains. “Our goal is to get our customers back to work while providing a positive, memorable experience. The service needs to be so amazing, that our customers should want to talk to the specific technician that helped them the next time they experience a problem.”

He’s constantly teaching his team new ways of relating to and viewing work, so that they bring a level of IT experience that is unlike anything else. One such teaching is to have the team ask a ‘magical question’ before closing a ticket: “Thank you for letting me assist you, is there anything else I can help you with?” This not only gives gratitude but also ensures that from the technical view, the customer is 100 percent able to perform their work.  But, beyond being a manager, he pushes his team to continue their success in both work and home life.

You could say his interest in psychology and unique teaching styles started at an early age and then progressed some years later in gaining his Master’s in Clinical Behavioral Psychology at the City University of New York.

Providing a well-balanced management style sounds so easy when you hear it from Robert.

“In IT, the three ‘whys’ that guide us are: to help our neighbors buy the home of their dreams, to challenge the status quo and the belief that healthy things grow,” he says. “If they have both feet firmly planted on the ground, I am doing something wrong, they should always be moving forward."

Robert goes on to say, "With the focus on growth and people being off balances, some people will naturally fall. As a manager, my responsibility is to encourage them to get back up, to give them skills, to education, to move obstacles out of their way and to support them. We also connect ourselves to the end result of our work, which is our neighbors ability to buy (or refinance) a home. When a team has the same ‘why’, the same beliefs, they become passionate about work.  Passion has an internal push to want to do your best, to ensures your team does their best, to make sure everyone is successful – if you have individuals with different ‘why’s’, then working as a team becomes that much harder since there is no unifying vision, and as a result, no passion. The team is a lot weaker.”

The “IT” factor in the ITiki bar - as the IT department is commonly known as – is that they are built on the ideology that by merging both technical skills and human skills (customer service) you become a valuable asset to the company.

And we are definitely lucky to have Robert Rang on the ABMG team.