1: The year was 2012. DBS, a large Asian bank headquartered in Singapore, had a problem. Card skimmers had hacked into their ATMs. Money was being stolen.
CEO Piyush Gupta moved quickly to identify how the breach had happened.
“The problem was traced to a decision made by a junior operations colleague,” Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra write in CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest.
The question? Why had he made this decision?
“Because the way the card protector works increases the cycle time by ten to twelve seconds,” he answered. “We have long queues at our ATMs, so I made the trade-off that reducing cycle time to improve the customer experience was more important than the remote possibility of getting hacked.”
The bank moved quickly to rectify the losses suffered by customers while shoring up overall data security.
However, when regulators in Singapore pushed the bank to hold the individual accountable, CEO Piyush refused.
“In fact,” he said, “I’m going to give the person an award, because this is exactly what I’m trying to create at DBS—the capacity to use your head and think and make choices.”
One of Piyush’s big goals was to change the bank’s culture. He wanted to encourage risk-taking.
Installing a new workplace culture is never easy. The best CEOs are always looking for opportunities to make a statement. Piyush’s action made a statement.
Overnight, the way he handled the hacking situation became company folklore.
“It cost DBS a few million dollars to make their customers whole,” the authors write, but for Piyush, that was a small price to pay to truly convince his employees that he had their backs when they took risks—as long as the gambles weren’t so big as to put the franchise in jeopardy.”
2: When Toby Cosgrove became CEO of Cleveland Clinic, one of the world’s leading nonprofit medical centers, the hospital ranked dead last in patient experience among large American hospitals.
Toby pledged to change the hospital’s culture. His goal was to improve the patient experience.
Step one: Improve the physical plant.
“When you go to a hospital,” Toby asked, “what is the physical experience? Well, all of the senses, essentially what you see, what you smell, what you taste, what you hear are all involved.”
So, he tasked his team with redesigning hospital rooms to allow for more natural light, Carolyn, Scott, and Vik write.
Next, they went to work improving the quality of the food being served.
He even partnered with designer Diane von Furstenberg to create new hospital gowns.
3: But what action had the biggest impact?
Toby gave a badge to all forty thousand Cleveland Clinic team members—from doctors to orderlies to janitors—which read: “I am a caregiver.”
Not everyone was happy with this move. The doctors said, “We’re the caregivers.”
“No,” Toby responded. “You can’t do it without somebody in supplies bringing you your instruments or your bandages or whatever you need. We’re all in this game together, everybody’s a caregiver.”
Toby’s goal was to change the identity of the entire organization. “Now everybody is referred to as not an employee, but a Cleveland Clinic Caregiver,” he recalls. “It really came down to that business of putting the patients first.”
Within five years, the Cleveland Clinic went from being last in patient experience to being first of all large American hospitals.
That’s culture change.
More tomorrow.
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Reflection: What opportunities do I have to change my organization’s workplace culture? Is there a signature statement I can make?
Action: Do it.
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