The Governor of The Bank of England recently said, of the banking industry, “The cultural issue is fundamentally important. There has to be a change in the culture of these institutions“.
Generally little-understood, retail banking institutions, with business-principled kernels, have sometimes amused the public with their comforting marketing campaign strategies that carry messages of a having a culture that works in their customers’ best interests – rarely is it heard of many actually doing things the way their customers like.
With vertical management structures, theirs are bureaucratic systems, therefore having a slow-moving culture. Add to that, regulations that make some quicker elements relegated to additional slow processing, the quickest changes seen might be trust becoming increasingly eroded, prudent attitudes being viewed suspiciously and, when reasonable negotiation is unworkable, antagonism compounding the complexity of necessary changes.
Yes Mr Governor – culture is fundamentally important to an institution, comes from the top and, unfortunately, is usually slow to change.
Image credit: Barnaby Kerr Photography Article credit: Copyright SUF 2013 ©