Leadership Insights in Elite Financial Arena: Coutts & Co - 2000-2023

"Real Success Takes True Character"

This is the brand quote on the Coutts & Co website and it takes me back to my first major contract in 2000 in my brand new consultancy venture. This time taught me many lessons about banking, wealth, people and quality service.

If "True Character" is what it takes to successfully serve the top 1% of wealth clients, surely we can apply this to being of True Character from any background? We explore the inside track as I discovered it over two decades ago and ask "Is True Character still visible in the banking arena, in service to clients, and in leadership, and is it a gold star standard we can all attain and maintain to ensure business serves both server and those served, leaders and those lead, with grace and ease?"

Coutts & Co is a British Private Bank, unlike no other bank I know.

Famous for being the bank for the Royal Family of the UK, as a child growing up in London, I heard about it as a young teen from my parents, and I always knew it as "The Queen's Bank"!?

My father was an accountant by trade and a wise man who always respected people and money, and somewhere in dispatches around the dinner table, I garnered these things about the world I had yet to explore.

My home territory was conservative, royalist, and catholic, with a traditional upbringing for the future respectable rebel I would become. It made me a polite, well-mannered, and observant, somewhat chatty young adult.

But I learned about Coutts &Co and the finance sector later in my professional life. As an experienced entrepreneur starting in 1989, I had run a highly successful partnership for a decade delivering High Impact Communication programs to major corporations, when in 1999, I branched out and established Corporate Heart Ltd.

Here I began my journey to evaluate, elevate and execute tools and techniques that inspired and embedded the gentle art of confidence building, professional presence, and credible conversation to benefit the relationships needed for wealth managers.

Coutts's reputation spans centuries, with their wealth management headquarters still in London, England, based on the Strand. Founded in 1692, it is the?eighth oldest bank in the world?that is still in existence.

Until the 20th century, Coutts was a?clearing?bank to the?nobility?and?landed gentry, but then became a wealth manager to a broader range of clients, including entrepreneurs, entertainers, athletes, professionals, executives, lottery winners, and football players.

The?British Royal Family?are notable client as it has to meet stringent requirements to be accepted as a client, not just based on financial assets by having at least ￡500,000 in disposable funds. In 2022 potential clients are asked, "Are you looking to borrow ￡1m+?" or to use the bank's investment advisory services for assets over ￡1m.

As I set out into central London on my new mission to bring an enriched life with "Corporate Heart" methodologies to add?people energy?to?measurable profitable outcomes, I found myself drawn to the financial sector, telecoms arena, and technology firms and many professionals such as Lawyers, Accountants, and even Actuaries.?

Notably, these were and still are male-dominated business arenas where 'soft skills' were not part of the regular work agenda or spending budgets.

I was networking and practicing my newfound intentions when I met an HR Director at Coutts. Fortune favors the blessed, maybe.?

It was genuinely fortunate when he shared that their immediate issue was raising the professional confidence and 'savoir fair of the male private bankers whose clients were in the top 1% of wealthy clients! I was given 12 male Private Bankers to work with and increase their success rate with each portfolio of clients they managed. These were wealthy, exclusive, and often the 'gentry' of the times.?

If you are not British or experienced with this arena, these were sometimes introverted high-strung individuals who expected Private Bankers to meet them in their surroundings. Even for me, it was an unknown parlance required, like going to any culture you have never been to. The art of human interaction is to become aware and tuned into the requirements of the resident environment and to serve with tolerance for differences.

'True Character", I believe, is about self-confidence and building good relationships above everything, using the authentic human touch that builds success within the matrix of products, deals, investments and securities where private clients are concerned. It is also about building a solid reputation for the Coutts experience so that clients can trust their wealth is in safe hands.

Is reputation and good service aligned to values and is this a number one priority for leadership agendas over profit? We will come back to this point about reputation later.

In my life experience, people will respond to your kind attention when you lead with self-awareness, observation, due diligence, a healthy curiosity, and intelligent and sensitive inquiry into your client's life requirements.

This was back in 2000, and fast forward to today; I have since consulted on cultural development and leadership performance across most every sector, and this has ranged across large and medium size businesses run by men and women of all diversities and across different continents. My team and I have dealt with specific people challenges of diversity, equality and inclusion, service and performance standards. I was blessed to work on this Coutts project early in the progression of Corporate Heart Ltd and learn about people in different sectors and large-scale organizations.

My mission is to make companies healthy, high-performance environments to deliver better profits, yes …but also healthy, happy employees as a priority for sustainable growth.

Coutts & Co now state they proudly serve "Wealth management for people doing things their own way" and state "REAL SUCCESS TAKES TRUE CHARACTER"

Let's explore this idea of "True Character' with regards to leadership and service at all levels of the organization and my experience in 2000 and how we find Coutts & Co today...you may be surprised how suddenly reputation can change.

Character, presence, moral compass, savvy-ness: What does this conjure up for you? How do you see evidence of this in today's leadership and followership? How do clients of various standings receive the best individual and unique attention??

Shall we treat the highly valued 1% of the wealthy differently from any customer on the high street? What is the human touch within an organization regarding good product service and service with a kind, generous, compassionate, service-minded "bedside manner"?

As we regard corporations today - and medium to small businesses – and solo entrepreneurs or business owners, can we ask the same questions?

However, in challenging times, when people are under pressure to perform, the biggest question I come across is "how do we create authentic harmony with all whom we serve.. and make profits?" By understanding the positive advantages of human nature and our many differences as beneficial - we can learn to relate to our clients, patients, family members, or those needing care and more attention. The goal is to can provide authentic leadership, great employee-employer relationships, and honest reliable customer-client service with genuine attention and value.

As I designed my consulting VIP sessions with these private bankers, i.e., wealth managers, I came to understand how situations and service require a range of skills and attributes, a moral compass, principles, shared values, honor for different people and a deeper understanding of when misunderstandings might both hurt a client and the deal offered by the bank. These were on the fringe of often fragile conversations held individually and collectively.

To throw a personal light on this quite extraordinary start to my business in 2000, my main client was the Head of Private Banking, a very eloquent and well-dressed Etonian man, suits hand-made in Savile Row tailors, immaculate presentation every time we met in his oval office, and an aura of international savoir-faire.?

His 'men', the private bankers I consulted with, were not in his league nor probably native to the company of any of the 1% wealthy clients they served. Now you may say that he and those clients are not the average customers of any high street bank, and you may mount an argument that these private bankers need only to be themselves in a highly wealthy, privileged client base. This is my belief too. The fact is that elevations to different leagues can not be made with the false mask.

"Being more of who YOU are" is my baseline philosophy in Corporate Heart International. YOU cannot be anyone else. However, you can fill your heart and mind with awareness of yourselves and others and grow your Very Important Person (VIP) performance with authentic presence in every role.

This is precisely what my VIP sessions, delivered to this contract in 2000, focused my clients on how to be more of who they were and be in any situation, deliver excellent client relationship service and the products, these private bankers found more confidence, grace, ease, and personal meaning and satisfaction in service to their clients.

They didn't need to be exactly like their 'Savile Row' boss, and indeed he learned to be openly proud of them all as highly loyal and effective Private Bankers and be themselves and enjoy their company for who they were.?On all levels, new perspectives become embedded, reputation was heightened and maintained to the standards of "Real Success Take True Character"

Reputation rock solid or a potential Titanic situation?

Now I reflect on my project at Coutts in 2000, and how this contract to raise the "True Character" of those 12 private bankers was hugely successful and added to the highest service and reputation that Coutts & Co has now nurtured for 331 years.

This reputation has guaranteed the utmost discretion to make it the bank of choice for the rich and famous – including King Charles and every member of the royal family since George IV has hit a roadblock. Everyone contributed to that reputation; my 12 private bankers, their boss, and all employed at Coutts & Co. This is true of all organizations when we consider the human elements of business, the heart of service, the true character of reputation.

This summer Coutts finds itself a very high-profile target in the latest UK culture war, following a decision to cut ties with?its former customer Nigel Farage, after a review by its wealth reputational risk committee decided that his views “did not align with [the bank’s] purpose and values”. The affair, say crisis management experts, risks “destroying Coutts’s reputation, if not its entire business”.

To relate more of the details here is not my mission, it is to be alert to this?Titanic moment?and explore the potential crisis for leadership strategy and a cultural standpoint to protect both reputation and it's people who served with "True Character" as I am sure they do now. You can check out the news item easily and see it is as volatile as the economy the banks are in today.

There has been various statements and attempts for damage limitations ; acceptance of blame, apologies negotiating settlements, etc. All are remedial activities. I am focused on the words and actions taken that caused a major bank to require the Prime Minister's intervention to save grace and an apology from the CEO of the larger banking arena Coutts & Co now are associated with.

If any organization is building 'True Character' in it's leadership and client interface and building a solid true reputation, it should be able to sail the high seas safely. Reputation, service and trust go hand-in-hand and today's news feels like Coutts & Co have a potential Titanic moment on their hands. A single rip in the fabric of the ship sent it to its demise.

I am not here to provide a reason why this banking crisis moment has occurred - it is a matrix of consequences and probably mis-trust, mis-understandings and mis-guided statements and decisions. The question is "can use this sea change help us explore how leadership insights and new narratives can change the course of the next part of the bank's journey?

I would love your views on this.

Over my business career across so many sectors, cultures, continents and more diversity issues than I will share here, I learned a lot about people, their natural abilities, their "ease or unease" with other people they are not like, and their joy at attaining their True Character" which I term as their personal VIP status.

Here is my perspective and a review of what it takes to be a VIP Leader:

·????Value- evaluate and own your unique natural gifts and talents in your leadership style and define your values and principles with others

·?????Impact- know your natural attraction and relationship quotient that expands when you tune into others - knowing that good reputation goes to the core of how you lead others with your 'true character'

·?????Presence – your ability to walk tall with confidence and dignity in any situation and environment and be present to yourself and your company inspiring others with your vision.

The questions for leadership today are multiple - how do leaders grow from the Titanic possibility and other lessons - the good, the bad and the ugly - how do they care about people and profits, reputation and service, trust in self and perseverance against volatile markets, and thrive against human pressures?

Today REAL SUCCESS comes through LEADERS CHARACTER by being the BEST VIP YOU CAN BE!

I invite your reviews, ideas, comments and action strategies as we transform and evolve together.

"We deemed the Titanic unsinkable, a belief that led to a complacent and reckless approach, particularly concerning our most valuable assets—our people" . ~?Pauline Crawford PHD

Watch my interview with Izabela Lundberg on the Legacy Leaders Podcast as we explore Innovation & Transformation in Banking; Lessons Learned from Barclays & Coutts.

Check out last weeks LIGHTHOUSE NAVIGATOR newsletter for the story on Barclays.

Please add your comments below or if you have a direct question on the story shared and interview conversation, contact Pauline Crawford PHD

Chief Vision Officer Corporate Heart International

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