Create wealth: enrich your corporate culture.

• Author: Aloi, Frank
• Position: Feature

Whether planned or not, your financial institution already has a shared set of attitudes, values and goals. The problem is that these traits may not be the ones that management prefers. Here are ways of introducing and molding the type of high-performance practices and habits that beef up the bottom line and enhance sales initiatives.

There are three questions that marketers and managers 4 should ask themselves concerning their institution's corporate culture:

Do employees love coming to work?

Do customers enjoy their transaction experience?

Is the bank's bottom line profitable?

Chances are if you answered "no" to any of these questions you answered negatively for all three. The reason is that profitability is related to positive employee motivation; and positive employee motivation is related to positive customer experience. If fact, all three questions are one and the same. If you gave any answers, that response indicates that your bank has an organizational "culture" problem.

Not all bank managers understand this.

The first thing that some managers say when they see that the bottom line is weak is, "We need to develop a sales culture!" A sales culture is a wonderful idea, but you need the foundation of a strong corporate culture (or what I call a corporate "cultural initiative") before you can move on to the higher stage of a sales culture.

A cultural initiative is about creating consistency in the workplace. Examples of retail companies that have achieved success through powerful cultural initiatives include Southwest Airlines, Home Depot and Starbucks. Employees at these organizations are trained well and treated well, and customers know what to expect when walking into any one of these retail shops. The experiences of both employee and customer are positive in the overwhelming majority of instances.

Why is it critical that financial institutions learn from their successful retail peers? Because in this highly competitive economy, the bank team that keeps both its employees and customers happy simultaneously is the team that wins.

A cultural initiative does not take place only at the managerial level or in a short period of time. There has to be a firm commitment from the top down, and there are no quick fixes.

I have outlined below some steps that a financial organization should follow in defining and developing a cultural initiative. I have included an example of how Mt. Washington Bank, a $272 million institution in South Boston...