Trust Over Control

Before embarking on this transformational journey, the Personal Banking department was quite traditional in its makeup: many employees, controlled by many managers. Throw in plenty of rules, regulations, and KPIs and you get a fairly good idea of the day-to-day business.

“The system the department was working with was based on distrust and control instead of trust and common sense.”

With so many control mechanisms restricting people, employees found it hard to get their work done and often looked to their managers for guidance. As Pieter de Lange, Head of Culture and Transition described it, “the system the department was working with was based on distrust and control instead of trust and common sense.”

To Pieter, a successful organization is led by leaders with a lazy mindset and the ambition to perform better than others. While that seems paradoxical, Pieter felt it was the perfect blend of extremes that could result in success.

The transformation of his department, done in collaboration with SSI, began with a focus on effectiveness and common sense. It meant bringing down the list of 35 KPIs they were tracking to just seven KPIs. They took out the ones that were too detailed and clarified the seven KPIs to sharpen the intent of the department as a whole.

Very often, more layers of management means more scattered and incomplete information – so the transformation also targeted reducing the number of managerial layers and managers in the department. That meant, going down from 275 managers to just 25 managers. This move aligned the department to the SSI premise of maintaining a manager-to-employee ratio of 1:100.

The 250 former managers saw their role being redefined as “team coach” and their sole purpose was supporting their teams in achieving their goals. The teams no longer reported to them in a traditional sense – through written reports or dozens of meetings every month – which took a load off the shoulders of the employees.

The traditional role of a manager became redundant, as Pieter puts it. For many, it was a hard pill to swallow but there’s no place for formal report-outs or meetings in a true, effective and self-organized household – which is what the transformation aimed to mirror.  None of those formal modes of communication are required to get a feel for the day-to-day operations of an organization.

Responsibility Over Structure

The changes to the organizational structure revealed that the mindset of the people working in the Personal Banking department at ABN AMRO hadn’t changed – yet. Pieter felt these challenges in shifting mindsets could be tackled by asking a simple question: When are you really successful?

In response to his question, people began sharing their vision for their work and careers. “For people to have a fulfilling job, it’s vital to know their vision for themselves, and then think about how it can be aligned with the vision of the organization,” shares Pieter. It’s that alignment between personal interests and the interests of the organization that truly motivates people and gets them to commit. In the end, it’s all about purpose (Is the why clear to me? Does my work make sense?) and (self) interest (How does the work I do benefit me and the organization?)

“You can even compare it to your own marriage,” Pieter said. “When your vision or strategy for raising kids or managing finances doesn’t align with your partner’s vision, you will discuss the issue and look for ways to find common ground. If, in the end, you both aren’t able to align, you will probably move on without the other.”

However, in many business situations, when people and their visions aren’t aligned with that of the organization, they don’t move on. Instead, they become victims of a situation they feel has been imposed on them. They become disengaged, unhappy and maybe even a burden on their team, he explains.

By defining their own success within the organization, employees at ABN AMRO felt more committed to the company and began to approach their work with a renewed sense of responsibility. “We learned that before you start organizing your new company structure, you need to first focus on what matters to the people who will work within that structure,” said Pieter.

Accepting New Roles

Responsible for Culture and Transition, Pieter still faced many obstacles in redefining the sense of responsibility employees felt. There were changes being made to the structure and vision of the organization to align it with the goal of the transformation – to become more human-centric.

However, it was hard to transform into a human-centric organization while also maintaining effectiveness, efficiency and gaining experience in this new way of working. In retrospect, their biggest mistake was not providing adequate support to former managers in their new role as team coaches. Operational teams were supported by Team and Skill Coaches. While the Skill Coaches helped the team develop the new skills they’d need to work in this new environment, the Team Coaches (former department managers) were drowning in ambiguity around their new role.

When they moved away from traditional leadership roles, the Personal Banking department had to learn to deal with informal leadership positions that could emerge anywhere within their team. Again, this wasn’t easy as the formal corporate hierarchy had been deconstructed. And, on the other hand, former managers were very reluctant to accept their new roles.