In recent weeks, Deutsche Bank has been on everyone’s lips, especially by hiring well-known industry leaders. Directly four finders from us, Payment & Bankinghave switched to Deutsche Bank. But other familiar faces like Alexander Bechtel of the podcast Bitcoin, Fiat & rock’n’roll is another change from the industry. Better bought well than badly done is a well-known and understandable principle and happens again and again in all kinds of industries. No one was surprised when Matthew Renna (Vice President E-Mobility and Innovation at Volkswagen of America) moved from Tesla to Volkswagen. In the German banking landscape, too, there have been such changes time and again. The most prominent example is the former CEO of PayPal Germany, Arnulf Keese, who is now responsible for the digital business at DKB as Chief Digital Officer.
Of course, such changes always bring critical voices onto the scene and reflexively it comes to a statement that you have to see after one year whether person A or B has paid off. Like in football, when Joao Felix, who moved from Benfica Lisbon to Atletico Madrid for 126 million, played only three league games over 90 minutes last season and scored a total of just 8 goals.
The devil is a squirrel, as we know, because the problem is not the often excellent biographies, but the conditions or the ecosystem in which the new protagonists have to find their way around. To stay with the soccer metaphor: it doesn’t help to buy expensive players if the team or club doesn’t fit in the end. Or: aluminium rims do not make a sports car.
From lateral thinker to mascot
I used to be a mascot myself. Not dressed as a beaver in front of a hardware store, but in a big German bank. My job was to be there. This was admittedly a solvable but meanwhile a task that underchallenged me. I solved this task well until the end, so I was always there. It was less frustrating for me than it was for the team, because they really wanted to make a difference and wanted a paradigm shift. So the team had someone on their side, with some expertise, but with the moving power of a paper tiger. In the end I was just there – until I was gone.
This story is unfortunately not an isolated incident. Especially in the consulting business this happens again and again: capable consultants are employed who then fail due to the DNA of the company. In the end, the two genes called “NOT WANTING” or NOT DOING anything prevent any necessary change.
What is important
“Doing is like wanting to do, only more blatant” is a phrase that we at Payment & Banking like to thrash out. But the phrase gets to the point, because it contains two essential points that are essential: Want and do. It starts with wanting and wanting must end in the operative. So when you get a doer (or doeress) from a Fintech on board, the will to change must also be there. Because without this interaction, any necessary change is doomed to failure.
A basis that supports this change is no less important. But often it is the operative level that is not the problem, but managers (male, old) block the change because it is exhausting and does not really fit into the pension planning. And of course there are exceptions. Rarely.
The base is usually not the bottleneck and if it is, you get the easiest to convince and in the worst case you can and must dictate one or the other change. The other way round is bad.
Last but not least it needs something like patience. No matter which rock star or business punk you get, in very rare cases they can do magic and there are good reasons why you get such people. So it’s best to let them do it. Or have it done. If necessary also let it be done.
Conclusion
Can you buy happiness? No. But the condition for it. And if it fails in the end, it must not necessarily be due to the protagonists, but to the ecosystem provided. So when you look back a year later to see whether a personal has brought something, the first question you should answer is whether you have brought something as a company?