Digital Leader – Are you?

We at #bankingonKarMa came across a very interesting HBR article https://hbr.org/2020/03/how-to-spot-an-incompetent-leader?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hbr&utm_source=facebook&tpcc=orgsocial_edit which explores about confidence & competence in a leader. One of the most interesting aspect of the blog which continued to stay with us is?

“Confidence is how good you think you are & Competence is how good you really are “

The other aspect that the blog highlights is that “Culture good or bad is just the product of values & behavior of leaders at helm” And this is something, we have covered in our past #bankingonKarMa transformations and also our three-part series on the book “No rules rules”

If we have covered it all, then what are we writing about now? please read along as we have an ‘interesting’ story to tell - “interesting you say?”, Let the jedi in you decide ??.

“Patience you must have”

So here is a story. Going with the norm, one of the large banks we worked with, hired a chief digital officer who was one of the co-founders of a unicorn lending fintech. She had been extremely successful in foraying into new categories of lending product(s). She seemed like the best candidate to helm the transformation due to her expertise & confidence of having been there & done that. In her initial two months, she socialized her strategy with bank executives and found them to be fearful of the revolutionary approach that she was proposing. To tackle the resistance & nervousness that she encountered from the incumbent leadership & team(s), she decided to carve out a separate digital unit, house them in a different office and hire digital talent to drive the business reinvention with the usual posters all over the place “Customer obsession to drive customer value” and “Don’t deliver a product, deliver an experience” with the real and proverbial ‘bean bags’ thrown in. The launch then happened with the usual fanfare.

“The force is strong on this one”

Initially the digital sales seemed okay and to push the digital sales up further, she managed to get the organization to divert majority of the marketing budget to the ’digital business unit’. 10 months down the line, the bank started discovering that 80 %- of the digital lending that happened in the new platform & conceptualized by the new digital team had turned delinquent.?All hell broke loose with execs all over the place wondering what had caused them to land here.?Some introspection led to the discoveries such as the incumbent underwriting team(s) had not been involved, the bank’s historic data had not been made available to the new digital team for them to analyze and garner any insights, the chief risk officer had not been kept in loop as he was considered very “old school”. We all know the fate of the Chief Digital Officer. Posters and bean bags remained though!

“The greatest teacher failure is”

?Click on season 2 (This is what happens when you binge watch any and every series on streaming platforms ??), Later the board put forth a question to the CEO & the leadership team as to “who would they trust with opening a new market or setting up a new business unit”. The unanimous response as we were told was an individual who was feisty, delivered results in the past and was willing to learn & collaborate. He was chosen by the bank as the new CDO. At first, he refused to lead the effort as his response was that “I don’t understand digital”.

“You must unlearn what you have learned”

He not only took the role but later went on to retain the entire digital team and went about with his determination to understand the customer needs. He worked with diverse set of stakeholders (Underwriting team, Risk & Compliance teams etc.) to re-craft the entire digital strategy of the bank.

“In a dark place we find ourselves, a little more knowledge lights our way”

Whilst doing this he continuously kept re-in forcing it to all the execs in the bank that re-invention was the only way forward. This attempt was extremely successful with the bank gaining momentum in the transformation efforts and establishing itself as a market leader in certain value proposition(s)

“Difficult to see, always in motion is the future”

We at #bankingonKarMa believe that

“In the digital world, contextual it always is”

?A successful leader, are you?

Competence with humility, have you?

Context (internal and external) discover you will

The next best action choose you will

Cheers,

#BankingonKarMa

You can also follow us on Twitter: @shankarsundar & @harika_mala