Industry: Financial Services

The challenge

Our client is a bank ranked among the top 5 largest in Europe and among the 10 leading banks in South America, present in 11 countries with over 130,000 employees.

They had a clear strategic vision, but realized that they needed to accelerate the execution of their digital strategy (digital channels growing 2 to 3 times slower than competitors).

They adopted Agile as the method to fulfill their aspiration of having autonomous, empowered and engaged teams who could deliver value to their clients as quickly as possible.  This required their leaders to erase whatever was left of the traditionally hierarchical, siloed and risk-averse banking culture, and relinquish micromanagement in favor of a shared and servant leadership style. With the transversal reach of this Agile transformation they are setting precedent in the industry, which meant they did not have a benchmark to reference.

Adding an extra level of complexity to this challenge was the need to scale the change program globally across the different headquarters.

 

 

The approach

The company launched an enterprise-wide cultural transformation journey to provide the adequate environment for the Agile teams to thrive, starting by ‘doing’ Agile at the base of the organization. It soon became apparent that applying Agile ways of working was not enough.

We claim that in order for companies to succeed in implementing Agile, leaders should first operate a fundamental shift in mindset (from Defensive to Constructive, or from Reactive to Creative, to use the prevailing terms among thought leaders).

We partnered with our client and built an approach driven by these key principles:

  • Top management support and active involvement – they undertake their own journey just like the rest
  • The starting point for discussions is always their business challenges
  • Have participants experiment with behavioral change over the course of the program, request and reflect on feedback, and find a mechanism to hold each other mutually accountable for change
  • The program consists of a series of learning experiences rather than isolated training events
  • Flexible design: after-action review after each experience, integrating user feedback in an iterative and incremental manner
  • Less teaching and more group facilitation and coaching

The core of the approach was to work with Intact teams over several weeks with designated coaches for group and individual interactions. So far we have worked with over 50 intact team workshops and completed around 400 individual coaching sessions.

The leadership journey has three main milestones: the first helps participants transition from  knowledge about Agile to understanding the mindset shift required for them to lead successfully in this new environment (Agile Leadership Immersion); the second allows them to practice the behavioral change they need to focus on as a result of their self-reflection and feedback received from peers and team members (Agile Leadership Transformation); and the third specifies what they commit to being and doing as a leadership team, based on a collective action plan they draw up and become accountable for (Agile Leadership – the ‘New Normal’).

 
 

The impact

Participants paused to reflect, share and manage challenging conversations – doing this in depth at senior levels of the organization had a clear impact on the leadership team dynamics, that are a key success factor of ‘doing’ Agile. Some recognized immediate value in shifting some dysfunctions in their leadership team before the end of the program, e.g. in their ability to listen or to truly empower.

Requesting, providing, receiving and integrating feedback was the backbone of the program and helped participants practice this behavior – so crucial for Agile teams.

The program surfaced the underlying concerns of many leaders, and some deeply ingrained beliefs, which allowed them to be addressed with concrete actions that they willingly decided to commit to, and then became accountable for.

Most leaders realized that they were polarizing between “pro-Agile” and “against-Agile” as if they had to solve a problem with only one solution, that was “either Agile or not.” Participants realized in practice how they can operate from a mindset of discovery, collaboration and abundance to address this false polarity (from doing Agile to being Agile).

“Axialent helped me develop a practical and useful set of tools that allowed me to maximize my skills and manage more effectively my gaps, adding more value to the collaborative Agile environment”.
“The Agile Leadership program has helped us strengthen our relationship as a team, set common objectives and develop as servant leaders to continue our transformational journey. It has been essential to share quality deep dive spaces to be able to achieve it. Thank you Axialent for your effective role as facilitators”.
 
Following the Axialent program, I clearly understood the task I faced to transform the culture within the business I was responsible for. After listening to hundreds of employees, we created our core values that accelerated our performance to change the culture. We saw better team engagement, happier staff, better turnover and significant improvement of our results.
Managing Director, Groupe PSA
Over the past two years, we’ve been working on a culture transformation project with Axialent. The last 24 months have been the most successful in the history of Mercado Libre. I am certain that working on our culture has been one of the key factors of this recent success.
CFO, Mercado Libre
Working with Axialent has allowed us like never before to increase our ability to take responsibility and create a culture of achievement and cross-collaboration at every level in our organization. Axialent's unique approach to having people work with themselves, each other and on key projects with full engagement has been of invaluable help to our organization.
Corporate Vice President, Microsoft
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The challenge

A multinational banking and financial services company (US$105 billion in revenue and 288,000 employees) was restructuring their operating model from a group of local banks with local identity to a truly international firm with connectivity across all. The aim was to become “one bank.” They were also changing their growth strategy from growing everywhere, regardless of size, to focused growth in the markets with the most leverage.

This change required a new set of values and a new way of thinking. The bank believed its integrity had helped them weather the financial storm of 2008. Yet they also recognized their risk aversion was holding them back. Was it possible to combine integrity and courageousness to become the world’s leading international bank? They identified three core values that would take them there: openness, reliability and connectedness.

I have considered it an absolute privilege to work alongside the Axialent team and wholeheartedly recommend Axialent for a thoughtful set of tools to help people become more mindful, deliberate and authentic in their work — and for patient, tailored coaching input to help unlock and transform specific team and individual situations.
Senior Manager, Group Graduate Development Program

 

The approach

We partnered to align their current high-potential program to the new values and leadership capabilities needed. This program is a key differentiator in their recruitment strategy and a benchmark in the industry. Every year, five cohorts of 80 participants from across the globe come together for one month of intense development. It combines leadership skills, financial training, outdoor team building, and solving a business challenge to present to senior leaders.

Different facilitators led different portions of the program. Under the umbrella of “courageous integrity,” Axialent provided the leadership development piece and facilitated the overall experience, including:

  • Running a Conscious Business 360° Assessment to identify an effectiveness gap to work on.
  • Creating a shift in participants’ mindsets to support the culture transformation needed from bureaucracy to openness and innovation.
  • Developing new leadership skills with emphasis on courageous conversations, effective meetings and impeccable commitments.
  • Facilitating learning conversations and group coaching after company-specific or financial trainings to ground the learning into a change of habits for the future. This also provided a red thread to the month and the experience of an integrated program.
  • Closing the month by helping participants identify how to take the learning back into the office.

 

Participants apply and understand company values, develop leadership capabilities and connect it all to the business. It equips them with the tools needed to drive the culture transformation desired and execute strategy through everyday business activities.

 

 

The impact

  • We have run the program for about 1,600 participants for four consecutive years, with outstanding feedback from participants and corporate university.
  • Executives report they feel they have the influence to create a workplace they can thrive in and are empowered to live the company values.
  • All of our facilitators score between 1 and 1.2 on a scale from 1 (excellent) to 5 (poor).

 

 

Following the Axialent program, I clearly understood the task I faced to transform the culture within the business I was responsible for. After listening to hundreds of employees, we created our core values that accelerated our performance to change the culture. We saw better team engagement, happier staff, better turnover and significant improvement of our results.
Managing Director, Groupe PSA
Over the past two years, we’ve been working on a culture transformation project with Axialent. The last 24 months have been the most successful in the history of Mercado Libre. I am certain that working on our culture has been one of the key factors of this recent success.
CFO, Mercado Libre
Working with Axialent has allowed us like never before to increase our ability to take responsibility and create a culture of achievement and cross-collaboration at every level in our organization. Axialent's unique approach to having people work with themselves, each other and on key projects with full engagement has been of invaluable help to our organization.
Corporate Vice President, Microsoft
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