In Italian, consigliere means "advisor" or "counselor" and is still a common title for example for members of city councils in Italy and Switzerland. The word was popularized in English by the novel and subsequent movie, The Godfather (1969). Despite its cultural connotations, the true definition of a consigliere is a close, trusted friend and confidant. And if financial institutions want to come out of this challenging time period on top, they'll need to get much closer to their customers.

It was a meeting of the executive team at an $800m company. The team spoke about the changes the organization needed going into the next fiscal year. Nothing which was brought up was a surprise to myself or the group. Actually, the changes discussed were the same changes that had been discussed the year prior, and the year before that. A companywide survey had been conducted, validating the importance and urgency of the proposed changes. However, the discussion was the same. Other "priorities" moved into the conversation. So were these original changes needed insignificant, or was there something else at play?

Many of the major problems that we see which impact the success of organizational change efforts are coordination failures. In short, any organizational problems are only solvable if everyone can agree to do the same thing at the same time. When a team is tasked with implementing change, oftentimes, individuals will not necessarily choose what's best for the group, but for themselves.

Lean is all about simplification, streamlining, and eliminating waste. What could be bad about that? Lean has been found to not only improve consistency and operations but also save a lot of money. Every company likes that. But too lean can be just that - too much. And too lean limits the organization's resilience to forces outside the consistent pattern of business - just like this pandemic.

Organizations have continually sought quick and easy solutions to some of their most challenging problems. Whether it be employee attrition, product adoption, generating new revenue streams or increasing organizational innovation, leaders look to find that "silver bullet" to turn things around. They seek out expert advice, examine competitor's offerings, and explore plug-and-play technology platforms. Each of these often have the veneer of being a "guaranteed win", where an abundance of "positive results" are lauded by a series of case studies and statistics. However, just because a solution is easy and available, doesn't mean it will work for you.

Why is it that once you roll out a new product, customers don't use it? Or a new service that you developed specifically based on customer feedback, yet it languishes with low adoption rates? It's a struggle that organizations deal with almost on a daily basis and often try to tackle with anything they can, whether it be creating sales team incentives, investing in a big marketing campaign, or extensive training programs. But the problem starts much further upstream in the development process, in the understanding of not customer needs, but problems.

As organizations try to implement change, whether it be a new project management platform or a company restructure, they are often met with significant resistance. There's a portion of the organization that wants to maintain the status quo and another portion that's ready and willing to change. So leaders often take a variety of approaches to get the other half on board, whether it be taking a hard line, amplifying communications, or reinforcing the logic of the decision. Yet, the problem isn't the approach, but the change itself.

So now that we live in a virtual world, almost everything has moved online. Zoom meetings and webinars have now become the norm. Many organizations are also translating their educational programming and training (whether internal or external) online. However, it's not as easy as taking what you do today and simply doing it "digital". Creating an effective and truly results-generating digital training program requires a unique approach.

There is something you can’t see that is getting in the way of moving your business forward, even in these unprecedented times. It is hidden from view, but it raises strong emotions in your team that make them resistant to change. Buried deep beneath all that grey matter that deals with creativity, intelligence, collaboration, etc. (the neocortex or ‘human brain’) is a small evolutionary building block of life. Our ancestors’ reptilian brain from millions of years ago is still there and occasionally, when you least expect it, it takes control.

There's something about KPIs that brings about almost a fervent obsession. Having a dashboard with a series of numbers and graphs that are intended to reflect the "health" of the company. KPIs have been long lauded as a critical tool for executives and leaders, and are frequently utilized as a "simple and digestible" way of understanding how the organization is performing. However, KPIs can often be misleading, misdirected, and even worse, fail to help the business identify the right corrective actions if things are turning down.