Independent Banker - July 2024 - 56

fear of change is usually harder than
the change itself. "
He contends that change
management is particularly daunting
for bankers, who " tend to be people
who take great pride in being experts.
When there's a technology change,
no one's an expert anymore. It can
be devastating, and it rattles people's
self-confidence. "
The good news, says Silsby, is that
" with nearly every change we've gone
through at the bank, very quickly folks
have become experts again. "
A change strategy is critical
Not all bank executives ace change
management. In fact, 38% of
banking leaders in a January EY
study said that their transformations
underperformed against key
performance indicators (KPIs).
Jason Henrichs, CEO of banking
consortium Alloy Labs Alliance, has
even heard some community bankers
lament, " 'We've tried change, and it
didn't work.' "
When change " fails, " Henrichs finds
that the culprit may be " digitalizing
an analog process without
changing behaviors. "
In the worst-case scenario,
employees outright reject a new
system, turning instead to the old and
familiar. As an example, he notes that
when a bank implements a stateof-the-art
dashboard, the data itself
won't bring about change; the data
must actually be used by employees
before solid improvements appear.
" The human element needs to buy
into the idea that this isn't just about
learning a new technology, a new
system, a new interface-it's adapting
what we do, " says Henrichs. " Where
we see projects that don't work ... it's
because there wasn't enough time
spent around the people piece and
the cultural changes that have to
go on when you're asking people to
modify behaviors. "
Charles Potts, ICBA executive vice
president and chief innovation officer,
agrees. " Developing a strategic plan
that answers the 'what' and the 'why'
provides the guideposts and North
Star for any change-management
undertaking, " he says.
For Toni Lucky, chief retail officer
at $1 billion-asset Legend Bank in
Bowie, Texas, " getting buy-in from the
team " is critical for change to take root.
Lucky emphasizes the importance
of repeatedly communicating a
message of change, using everything
from email to team meetings or " powwows, "
as Legend's monthly webinars
are called. By communicating and
then creating internal champions,
a bank can " push out the message
to everyone who needs to hear it, "
she explains.
When Legend recently moved
away from two dated systems,
implementing instead a single, more
user-friendly dashboard through data
analytics software company KlariVis,
a former ThinkTECH Accelerator
participant, the imperative for change
was unmistakable given that one of
the systems was sunsetting and would
soon cease to be supported. Even
though the ease of the new dashboard
elicited " lots of wows, " Lucky
explains that employees still had to
be reminded to use the new system
rather than defaulting to the old.
Converting the naysayers
One irony of change management
is that organizations with extremely
strong cultures may struggle more
mightily than their peers.
Take $378 million-asset
Honor Bank, whose 78 employees
view themselves " as a team and as a
family, " says Max Anderson, assistant
vice president and commercial
lender. When the Honor, Mich.-based
community bank implemented a new
lending platform, it took plenty of
championing from the top.
" Change can be most difficult
when you have longevity and a tightknit
group, " says Anderson. Knowing
there would be pitfalls in adopting
a new lending platform, he focused
on " how as a group you adapt to the
challenges you're encountering. "
(See sidebar on page 59.)
At Kennebec Savings Bank, Silsby
" Bankers default to the technical, but [with
change], we have to default to the emotional,
the heart of the concerns, because doing so
makes adoption much quicker. "
-Raymond F. Goodrich,
Bank of Charles Town
56 // ICBA Independent Banker // July 2024
Independent Banker - July 2024

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