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Taking A Systematic Approach To Organizational & Cultural Change- By Ray Adler
In today’s highly competitive marketplace, the fundamental challenge for most management teams and the #1 reason companies fail to fulfill their annual growth objectives (this is common for all industries, not just banking), is their inability to execute the company’s strategic initiatives as well as anticipated. In the book, Execution, The Discipline of Getting Things Done, authors Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan state: “Execution is a systematic process of rigorously discussing hows and whats, questioning, tenaciously following through, and ensuring accountability. It includes making assumptions about the business environment, assessing the organization’s capabilities, linking strategy to operations and the people who are going to implement the strategy, synchronizing those people and their various disciplines, and linking them to rewards. Typically, the CEO and his leadership senior team allot less than half a day each year to review the plans – people, strategy and operations.”
Given that banks tend to run very lean, bank leadership may have unrealistic expectations about how many projects and/or initiatives the organization can effectively manage while maintaining a high level of customer service. As such, an organization becomes spread too thin for the resources available. Caught in a perpetual state of “firefighting,” employees tend to react to those tasks that Steven Covey calls urgent tasks while foregoing those that are of more importance. Without having enough time set aside for discussion, prioritization, consensus and planning, organizational change tends to occur rather reactively,
The Cost of Undergoing Change Reactively
A reactive approach to organizational change creates many less than desirable consequences:
- Does not utilize a bank’s preciously limited time and financial resources in the most efficient and productive means possible.
- Increases the probability of mistakes, employee push-back and management’s losing of credibility among employees.
- Creates a heightened level of stress on an already nervous organization.
- Costs more money and time due to having to redo, rework and/or replace various systems, processes and training initiatives that were acquired too hastily without fully understanding the needs, options, and proper sequence needed to successfully integrate them into the bank’s operations.
Taking a Systematic Approach to Organizationa & Cultural Change
For change to occur systematically within your bank, several factors must be present for optimal results including:
- Discussion, agreement and on-going support of the bank’s direction and strategic initiatives among senior management
- Link strategic initiatives to tactical execution through planning and on-going communications
- Align and connect the performance management, incentive compensation and training processes for optimal results
- Emphasize hiring, developing, rewarding and retaining top talent as a key driver of sustained business growth.
A Success Roadmap For Bringing About Effective Organizational Change
To aide you in your efforts to bring about positive organizational change, we’re happy to share our Success Roadmap for Bringing About Effective Organizational Change. The process tends to follow these phases and steps:
Phase One - Management Alignment
- Develop a bank-wide vision
- CEO sets the tone & expectations
- Conduct needs analysis
- Development of plan
- Establishment of steering / execution team
- Hold regularly scheduled progress meetings
Phase Two - Establishing & Driving Performance Expectations Throughout the Bank
- Leverage service standards into sales expectations
- Develop a performance management system including job competencies, job descriptions, performance based review form and provide management/coaching training to support the desired culture and performance expectations
- Establish goals to support performance metrics
- Evaluate performance tracking systems and upgrade as needed.
- Align incentive plans to motivate for individual, branch and bank performance
Phase Three - Focus on People as a Competitive Advantage
- Provide on-going training and development – management and coaching training, sales training for lenders and retail staff, product training, operations and regulations training.
- Create consistency and discipline through on-going tracking of results and coaching
- Create regular, on-going reporting mechanisms
- Upgrade employee screening and hiring processes
- Develop a reputation as a great place to work through annual employee surveys, formal and informal recognition programs
- Using information to support people and processes
- Adjust strategy based on results
- Focus on daily execution
- Keep the focus on capturing the entire customer relationship
The Goal - Capturing the Entire Customer Relationship
At the end of the day, we as bankers must focus on capturing more of the customer’s relationship if we are to maintain the annual growth rates enjoyed over the past five to seven years. This necessity may call for making changes to your bank’s strategic direction, internal processes, product and service offerings and the ways in which you recruit, develop, motivate and retain employees. And just as an ocean liner doesn’t change direction on a dime, neither will your bank’s culture change over night or within a single quarter. We’re confident however, that our Success Roadmap will aide your bank’s management team in discussing and better planning whatever changes are deemed necessary to remain competitive in the next five plus years.
Click here to read Article #2: Eliminate The Two Biggest Productivity Killers In Your Bank
To learn more about this topic and how BTI can bring value to your bank, please contact us.
- Ray Adler