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BirdsEye View

 At a recent CCO Forum my friend Tony Ross, CCO of Woodforest National bank, shared with the group his leadership rules.  As Tony says, in the Army, we are all leaders.  If two privates are standing together, one of them oversees the other, at least by time in grade.  The idea is, every person makes choices whether to lead or just df=rift along.

These rules are based upon rules created by BG (Retired) Jimmy R. Watson.  He was Tony’s Battalion Commander and went on to be the Adjutant General of the State of Florida.  Tony adapted these rules to his job as a corporate banking relationship manager.  They are valid across many swaths of life.

I quoted the rules as they were given to me and added my own personal interpretations to them.

1. Take Care of Your Clients & Prospects – external & internal.  Taking care of people – on their terms and by their definition of well-being - is a gift and a responsibility in every walk of life.  Credit departments have both direct (RMs) and indirect (bank customers) customers, and the first step toward their success is being customer-centric (but without compromising their convictions and credit parameters).

2.  Don’t Be Afraid to Lead – be proactive with clients & prospects.  Initiate different methods to achieve the customers’ goals beyond what was initially envisioned if traditional solutions do not fully solve the client/prospect’s problem.

3.  Accept Total Responsibility for Everything You and the Bank Does or Fails to Do.   They made me do it” is a sentence that diminishes both you and the company you work for.  Whatever happens, own it.  AB:  I find this to be a key guideline in all facets of my life, a good rule to live by.  Sometimes both you and the client know you didn’t cause the problem; nevertheless, owning it is the honorable approach.

4.  Be Physically Fit – helps body & mind well-being.  AB: Anyone who knows me realizes I’m addicted to living well and to the fullest, starting with exercises and ending with chocolate.  

5.  Be Technically and Tactically Proficient – how to do your job & why; continually improve.  This is a tall order.  It is difficult to keep up with technological changes, especially those we haven’t grown up with.  It is an important part of success, through, since technology is fast-evolving.  Solutions that will help us get to the desired end-result faster and more accurately are being developed every day.  Embracing such solutions is essential to help empower your RMs in the marketplace without incurring incremental risk to the bank.  It is a critical aspect of your competitive position.

6.  Don’t Lie or Slant the Truth, Ever!

7.  Don’t Make the Same Mistake Twice.  AB:  A GREAT principle!

8.  Be Positive, Be Motivated, or Be Gone.  Positivity is an energizing force.  In the credit underwriting business it is hard to come by, since most credit people have seen the ugly side of life, including seeing good people doing bad things.  Also, if one isn’t positive or motivating, they owe it to themselves and to the organization to move on… My experience is, staying positive is not easy, but it’s much harder to be positive after being negative.  Finding your inner energy to get things done for the satisfaction of doing them well, remaining positive in the face of adversity, is finding your inner strength, and increasing your personal resilience.

9.  Learn How to Communicate Effectively and Keep Communicating.  Even those of us who communicate effectively fall short of doing it often enough.  I’ve always felt that saying something once should be sufficient.  The reality is, it is not.  Communicating in a way your listener is most likely to hear and internalize the message is the first step.  Then, repeating it enough times so that the listener understands the importance of the message is the second part.

10.  Develop Plans Quickly, Keep Them Simple, & Don’t Make Unnecessary Changes.  Nimbleness is a rare and incredibly valuable personal and organizational characteristic. Simplicity is the cornerstone of nimbleness and agility.  Quality plans rely on real-time learnings to implement mid-course correction and achieve relevance in the moment.  All too often we tend to plan for aspects that are too unpredictable, which preclude us from building sufficient flexibility within a simple plan with crustal-clear focus and end-destination to make changes “in the field” as the environment warrants.

11. Don’t Do Anything Unless It Increases Client Service or Productivity.  The intent is to use your time exclusively to advance the ball.  If your personal goals go beyond these two elements, spend all your time executing on those goals. The message is – focus on what makes a difference and moves the ball forward.

12. Don’t Whine!  What a beautiful rule!  Whining has it purpose, but it is not a productive activity.  In fact, some times it drags a whole group down.  Spending precious time whining can hurt the entire team and will certainly reduce the effectiveness (and the well-being) of the whiner.

13.  Work Hard, Be Courageous. Courage is a rare quality, especially in risk management areas.  Sometimes it serves an important purpose – to waive an entire group off a wrong path, or to speak out when a proposed solution is inconsistent with the bank’s ethos and culture.  I have great respect for courage – but it is a risky behavior (by definition).

14.  Doing Things Sequentially is Easy, Learn How to Make Several Things Happen at Once, That’s Synchronization.  Tony notes the definition of synchronization:  (1) The arrangement of military actions in time, space and purpose to produce maximum relative combat power at a decisive place and time; and (2) In the intelligence context, application of intelligence sources and methods in concert with the operation plan to respond to intelligence requirements in time to influence the decisions they support.  My perspective:  Doing things concurrently isn’t as difficult as we think.  It compresses the time every credit decision takes without increasing the risk, and that’s a good thing.

15.  Always, Always Provide Security. All day long we deal with client confidential information.  We cannot be complacent about it.  Cyber security, physical security etc. must be continuous and vigilant.  

16.  Be Prepared to Go to War on Short Notice – i.e. crisis, last minute things will happen.  Covid and PPP already taught us this lesson.  They showed us how capable our teams are, and how agility yields excellent customer engagement without incurring incremental risk.  As the environment normalizes, we are slowly reverting to old patterns.  Fight that and remain flexible.  Any experienced credit person knows that last minute things will happen.  Our job is to handle these unexpected surprises effectively and swiftly.

17.  Plan Everything, Back Brief Everything, Rehearse Everything, After Action Review (AAR) Everything.  This rule dovetails or several preceding rules, starting from simple plans and ending up with never making the same mistake twice.  Post mortems are essential to prevent past mistakes from recurring.  We have done so after the financial crisis and are in the midst of doing that again.  Lookbacks are invaluable teachers. 

18.  Learn to Fight at Night, i.e. learn how and be prepared to do your job without electricity.  While technology is fully integrated into our work and personal lives, enriching and enhancing both, we should always be able to do without it when it crashes.  Business Continuity and analog back-ups fall into this category.

19. Do Client Maintenance All the Time.  Client maintenance should not be an event or a project.  It should be a daily task.  Certain things in life are never-ending (dishes, laundry etc.).  Client maintenance is a similar activity.

20.  Don’t Ever Be Late – this not only includes attendance & appointments, but due dates, report dates, past due loans, etc.  Being late is disrespectful to our customers and team members.

21. Remember Our Only Reason for Being is to Serve.  We often forget that without those pesky internal and external customers we do not have jobs.  If it weren’t for them we would not be here.

22.  Have Fun, Laugh, and Enjoy.  We spend way too much time at work not to enjoy ourselves and find fulfillment in what we do.  Look for what motivates you and brings you joy at work and seek it.

You may not agree with all of Tony’s rules; that’s OK.  Find those which fits your work and personal life and commit to them.  At the end of the day, this is all about getting more out of life – more engagement, more productivity, more joy and more rewards.