Leadership culture with digitalisation at its core: Management consulting for banking
Digitalisation and leadership performance. Consulting case of a financial services provider in the context of Neuwaldegg’s management consulting and development.
The bank’s management has been working with us for years on its own management culture. Much has been achieved: work is becoming more networked, new focal points are being implemented more quickly, new meeting formats and control parameters are being applied and the organisation as a whole has become more “modern” in its structures. The next challenge is digitalisation: customers expect fast digital support and management expects an organisation with digital innovations.
Understanding digitalisation together and making it workable
The aim of the next steps together is to understand the topic of digitalisation with the management team, to make it workable, introduce it to the organisation and produce the first results. The already established framework, two management retreats and the future workshop will be used for this purpose. It starts with a common understanding of digitalisation among managers, an internal employee driving this topic and an organisational strategy that enshrines digitalisation. Each area nominates focus projects that contribute to the strategic goals, with a focus on process optimisation.
Consolidating the dynamics and assumptions using learning journeys
Innovation and employee participation is the focus for managers in the next step of the process: for this purpose, learning journeys are taken to digital and innovation companies in order to better understand their dynamics and assumptions. These experiences are then evaluated together and further directions are developed. Employees experiment with prototypes using new methods within the framework of “digi-garages”. The entire workforce is involved in a specific process, culminating in a major event. The principle of the process is to allay employees’ fears, get to know what has already been created, be able to develop their own prototypes (highlight: a team’s prototype app is launched after six months) and develop new business models using Business Canvas.
Focus on leadership performance: questioning patterns and establishing something new
The focus is repeatedly on their own leadership performance. New formats are established for business managers and divisional managers to question their own patterns and establish something new – closely linked to their own daily business. Sounding boards for employees point out where the biggest areas for action are and give managers “stuff” that they can improve in.
The close cooperation with management and different formats for management levels, which allow for authentic work, are essential levers to support continuous development within the organisation. Ideas and neutral feedback are helpful for this, and a management culture must be established that can absorb and process this. This can best be achieved by working on very specific issues related to the organisation’s everyday life.