CHANGING THE CULTURE TO BECOME THE BEST BANK

How do we become the best bank in our market?

THE CHALLENGE

If you want to become the best bank in our market, the first step is deciding on how to accomplish the mission. Second the purpose, new values and strategy have to be communicated to your employees, and, third, everybody, including senior management, needs to be enabled to achieve the goals.

OUR APPROACH

Working with a traditional bank, wanting to move from a hierachical structure to a flexible working style, together with the board and their communication team, we developed an interactive communication process, consisting of 14 roadshows targeting 1400 key employees across entire Romania.

After having developed and designed the overall architecture of the project, our first step was to train local facilitators in how to lead individual roadshow events. Local facilitators were chosen because of language reasons and of their special role as ambassadors not only for the duration of the roadshows, but also afterwards. Furthermore training these 85 managers to act in the role of facilitators, was an additional chance to build up the leadership team. The workshops provided these managers with a more interactive communication style, which lead to a collaborative management style, being highly welcomed by employees.

To enhance the change to this interactive and collaborative managemen style, we relied not only on presentations by the CEO during each roadshow event, but also on working formats engaging the audience in the process. “Market places” for example gave employees the chance to discuss objectives for different stakeholder groups directly with senior management. Employees were given the possibility to contribute ideas and provide feedback, which was presented to the Board for further implementation.

As a final step employees had to create a “piece of art” representing their view of the new values, which was used in further cascading the values throughout the organisation.

During the roadshow events, organizers of followed up workshops with further employees were equipped with a “cascading package”, giving clear instructions on how to engage every single employee throughout the bank. These “ambassadors” were also coached by superiors.

An online reporting gave the project team the possibility to track the progress of roadshows and follow up meetings, as well as receiving feedback from employees, which reached the top management.

THE RESULTS

The chosen process had a major impact, not just presenting the new purpose, objectives and values but also activating the organization thanks to a very interactive format that stimulated open communication and dialogue between senior management and employees, as well as enhancing collaboration between all participants. The internal facilitation created further commitment from senior management and employees, who became closer and were able to provide constructive feedback to their managers.

• Getting the message across: Purpose, Mission and Values as a basis for our joint further development
• Successful internal facilitation Support of the local managers for implementing the change
• Collection of Inputs/ideas from employees to fulfill the purpose/ objectives
• Stimulation of creativity and innovation
• Mobilization of employees and direct involvement & participation
• Roadshow concept/format well received by participants