1. Walking with Dinosaurs
Re-building NatWest - Part I
1) The CEO is the single source of energy and personality for the company. He or she is a
visionary, a communicator, and needs to reach out and connect with all parts of the organisation
and market. Messages must be regular, relevant, simple and consistent. (For more info see
Mike’s golden rules for Iconic Leaders)
2) How do you eat a Dinosaur? Slice by slice. The organisation is too big. Its size mitigates
against efficient business management; it encourages complacency and tolerates ignorance.
Organise people into smaller units and give them real business management responsibility.
Create an ABB paradigm for the service economy.
3) Encourage (that means invest in) experimentation and failure. And balance that with the
development of a brand that delivers intergrity and trust. Pull off that trick and staff and
customers will be rewarded.
4) Be truly courageous – listen to customers. If they say something is wrong, put it right even if
the costs go up !
5) Be revolutionary and put the long-term profitability of customers at the heart of our
processes, systems and business. Demand that this guiding principle is followed and see how the
Management Information and business decisions change.
6) Concentrate on being a first class bank and not a financial services organisation. Acknowledge
what customers want and get the little things right. This is a business based on a thousand
moments not a few events. (For more info talk to BT about their clean payphone strategy).
7) Smash the glass ceiling of pay scales which severly restricts the role of management.
Rediscover the Art of Management and let your managers manage.
8) Bring the ‘perks’ of the job into the modern world. Either introduce a flexible range of pick’n
mix benefits or rebalance the pay scales. If it’s seen to be fair and flexible then staff will
respond. At the moment it’s not and they don’t.
9) Demand (and invest in) excellent and consistent business management from your managers.
There is far too much flab, far too much woolly thinking that we would not tolerate from our
own customers. Our shareholders would be shocked.
10) Get rid of the paper. Concentrate on quality of output not quantity of input. Make things
simple. A slimmmer dinosaur is a faster dinosaur.
© Mike Barnes December 1999