When you talk to bank chief executives about creating an effective sales culture, you quickly sense that some are more interested than others.
Though there is widespread agreement that banks of all sizes need to develop stronger sales capabilities, most senior bank executives seriously underestimate the impact their own personal commitment has on the successful creation of a sales culture.
Creating a new corporate culture-one in which the attitudes and behaviors of bank employees are pro-selling-requires fundamental change.
At most banks, change is a form of "creative destruction." Much of the old, operations-oriented bank culture must be modified in order to make way for a new, customer-focused sales culture.
As the dismantling and rebuilding of the bank's culture proceeds, you can count on some degree of employee resistance.
When resistance surfaces in earnest, senior bank leaders must step up and send a clear message that the changes will proceed regardless of employee sentiment. If the bank's senior leaders don't strongly affirm a decision to create a successful sales program, the change is likely to be stopped in its tracks.
One skill all employees seem to learn almost intuitively is how to tell when senior management is serious about a new undertaking or is just paying lip service to it.
Employees at all levels watch the actions of the senior executives. They watch to see how senior leaders spend their time and how they allocate the bank's resources. In the end, they pass judgment using the old maxim-"you are what you do, not what you say."
Without the visible support of a bank's senior leaders, the development of a sales culture won't be taken seriously by employees. And without employee support, failure will surely follow.
The critical role played by top management in shaping and defining a bank's culture is highlighted by the research findings of Professors Stan Silverzweig and Robert Allen outlined in a 1976 article "Changing the Corporate Culture."
Published in the Sloan Management Review, the article said: "An organization's culture is tremendously influenced by the behavior of the people with the most authority and power. Behavior throughout the organization is affected not by what top management pays lip service to, nor even by what it actually does, but rather by what leaders are perceived as doing, by what appears to get their attention and their priority."
In his classic work "Leading Change," Harvard Business School Prof. John Kotter writes at length about the essential role of leadership in bringing about desired organizational change. And creating a true sales culture certainly qualifies as major organizational change.
Prof. Kotter defines leadership as adapting an organization to significantly changing circumstances. He writes that a true leader also has a vision of what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen-despite obstacles.
Creating a sales culture takes time and lots of hard work on the part of everyone employed by a bank. However, the senior leaders of a bank carry a particularly heavy responsibility.
Unless top management's commitment to selling is real, and employees perceive it to be real, creation of an effective sales culture is simply not possible.
