One of the most impressive business leaders I’ve had the pleasure of working with was the leader of a Chase business unit offering up financial services.
This business unit was in an industry that was tough. Very fragmented. No real market leader. Everyone doing about the same. He was able to break through, in part, because he was such a phenomenal leader.
I worked with him for over 5 years. Here’s what I saw: he took the information that we produced on the customer, the customer strengths, weaknesses, priorities, evaluations into his management team and led them through a discussion of what they needed to do.
It was an annual exercise that coincided with their strat planning. He led them to make decisions on two or three things that they were all committed to for the year. Here’s how they’re going to impact their customers. Only two or three things because they wanted a major impact — and they’re committed.
Second, he communicated that and engaged with employees. He explained: here’s what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and why we’ll all win. Employees responsible for implementing this bought in every single year.
And finally, he led the charge on communicating this change to customers every year. Here’s what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, what you should expect to see, and how it’ll benefit you. Everybody joined him in that messaging.
You can imagine the impact that it had on customers. Everybody knew what they were doing and every year, we saw phenomenal gains in the customer relationship. As unit leader, he became the leader of the business unit with the biggest share in the industry. They just grew phenomenally — what a success story!
He led the executive team and the employee teams through prioritization, change, and communicating to customers. It was incredibly impactful and the whole organization won because of it.