The CEO announces a new, ambitious initiative: “Digital Transformation,” “Implementing a Customer-Centric Culture,” or “Agile Transformation.” Employees receive a beautifully designed email, posters with new slogans appear in the hallways, and a multi-hour celebratory presentation is scheduled.
A few weeks go by. The initial enthusiasm fades, and whispers begin in the hallways: “How many times have we seen this? It’s the same as ‘Project Synergy’ back in 2021.” “They probably just need this for the annual report.” “My boss doesn’t even know how this will affect our department.”
As a result, the expensive and ambitious change remains a cosmetic exercise. Employees learn to smile, nod, and then go back to doing their jobs in exactly the same way as before. The transformation fails not because the idea was bad, but because it never reached people’s hearts and failed to change their daily behavior.
The Diagnosis: Why is Change Management in a Bank Often Illusory?
- Change as a “Project”: The transformation is treated as a temporary project with a manager, a start date, and an end date. It’s perceived as something separate from “daily work.” As soon as the “project” is officially over, everyone reverts to their old, comfortable way of working.
- Top-Down Communication, Bottom-Up Silence: The vision and plan are created by senior management behind closed doors. Communication is one-way—from the top down. There is no effective mechanism for employees to ask questions, voice their fears, or provide feedback on how the change will impact their specific jobs. They feel that things are being done to them, not with them.
- The Ignored “Middle”: The most critical group in any change—middle management—is often the most confused. They are expected to implement changes that they themselves may not believe in or fully understand. They are caught between pressure from above and resistance from below. If middle management is not the main driver of the change, it is doomed from the start.
- Lack of Tangible Results: The transformation promises abstract benefits like “synergy” or “agility,” but employees don’t see how it makes their own work easier in the short term. Without early, even small, “quick wins,” they lose faith and the initial momentum evaporates.
Engagement, Not Just Communication: Our Model for Implementing Sustainable Change
Sustainable change is not a communications campaign; it is the proper design of a human engagement process. Our model focuses not so much on “what” needs to change, but on “how” we involve people in that process.
Step 1: Creating a “Guiding Coalition” and a Compelling Change Story
Change cannot be driven by one person or a small group. We help the company identify and build a “Guiding Coalition”—a powerful group of influential formal and informal leaders from all levels of the organization, including middle managers and respected front-line employees. This coalition’s first job is not to create a project plan, but to craft a simple, powerful, and emotionally resonant Change Story. It must answer the “Why?” question in a language everyone can understand. Not, “We need to increase ROE by 2%,” but, “Our customers are frustrated, and our competitors are faster. We need to change to make banking simpler for our clients and our own work more meaningful.”
Step 2: From Top-Down Mandates to Co-Creation
Instead of forcing a pre-packaged solution, we implement a process of co-creation. We design workshops and work sessions where the people who actually perform the work can participate in designing the new processes or systems themselves. We use Design Thinking methods to put employees in the customer’s shoes. We ask staff from branches or call centers: “If you had a magic wand, how would you fix this process for the customer and for yourself?” This generates practical, realistic ideas that already have buy-in from the very people who will have to implement them. This turns resistance into a sense of ownership.
Step 3: Empowering a Network of Change Agents and Celebrating Quick Wins
Sustainable change spreads through a network, not a hierarchy. We identify and empower a network of Change Agents (or “Champions”) throughout the bank. These are enthusiastic employees who are given the training, resources, and mandate to help their colleagues, answer their questions, and pilot new ways of working within their own teams. They become the local face of the transformation. At the same time, we work with the teams to achieve several visible, tangible improvements within the first 60-90 days. This could be something as simple as simplifying a single, universally annoying internal form. Celebrating these small but significant victories builds momentum and proves to skeptics that this transformation is different—it’s actually making their work better.
Step 4: Aligning Incentives and Reinforcing New Behaviors
If we want people to change their behavior, we have to change how we measure and reward them. We work with HR and management to align performance management systems, bonuses, and promotion criteria with the new, desired behaviors. If “collaboration” is a key goal of the change, we introduce metrics that evaluate cross-departmental teamwork. If the goal is “customer-centricity,” we link bonuses to customer satisfaction scores (NPS). This makes the change tangible and sends a clear signal from management: “This time, we are serious.”
In Conclusion
Most change initiatives in banks fail because they focus on the “what” (the new strategy, the new system) and forget the “who” (the people who must implement the change). Illusory change is a communication campaign; real change is a deep, human-centric process of engagement. We don’t just deliver a new strategy deck. We are the architects of the change process itself. We help you build a movement, not just manage a project. We engage your middle management, empower your champions, and co-create solutions with your employees to ensure that this transformation is the one that finally sticks.
