If an Opportunity Falls in Your Lap, Are You Ready?
The coming bank consolidation isn’t a surprise. It’s been predicted for years. In fact, the next 18 months are destined to be a major “shake out” period when...
Welcome to the Top 5 Percenter™ Blog
Nice Doesn’t Pay the Bills: Why Culture Determines Profitability
Most bank leaders say culture matters. Very few understand how directly it impacts profitability.
In this week’s video, Roxanne Emmerich shares the story of a community bank that had strong service scores, happy customers, and a great reputation—yet profits were slipping. The problem wasn’t strategy. It wasn’t the market. It wasn’t the competition.
It was culture.
More specifically, a culture that avoided accountability, tolerated underperformance, and confused being “nice” with driving results.
In this video, you’ll discover:
- Why employee recognition programs, motivational speakers, and perks rarely fix performance problems
- How top-performing banks create accountability without creating fear or resistance
- The connection between culture, employee engagement, turnover, deposit growth, and profitability
The highest-performing banks don’t manage people better. They build systems that connect daily behaviors to financial outcomes. When culture becomes a performance system, profitability follows.
Want to discover how top-performing banks engineer cultures that consistently drive growth, deposits, and profitability? Join our free upcoming masterclass, “Culture Is Not a Feeling—It’s a Performance System,” on June 11 at 1:00 PM CT.
Watch now.
You’ve probably heard the phrase, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Well, mediocre culture doesn’t just eat strategy—it chews up your margins too.
Let me give you a behind-the-scenes example. One community bank had impeccable service scores and a reputation in their region for being friendly and reliable.
But behind the scenes, the numbers told a different story. They were bleeding profits, and it wasn’t because their customers weren’t happy. It was because their employees were trapped in a culture of avoidance. Managers hesitated to hold people accountable.
Performance reviews were vague. Everyone smiled in meetings, but nothing changed. And when we asked about their culture, they said, “It’s nice here.” But nice doesn’t pay the bills.
They had tried to fix it before by adding an employee recognition program, bringing in a motivational speaker, and even upgrading the break room. Not one of these things addressed the real problem: the absence of a culture that rewards performance and tells the truth about what isn’t working.
We helped them rebuild.
Understanding that performance comes after an extreme discovery experience where people understand practical ways to be more helpful to customers that never feel like sales. Only after they’re winning do we start bringing in performance metrics because, hey, listen, don’t get ahead of your skis. If someone has to be accountable to something they can’t hit, that’s a problem.
What happened?
Twelve months later, profits doubled. Voluntary turnover dropped 40 percent, and engagement scores rose. But this time, people were winning.
They were making great things happen, and they knew it.
And that’s the game worth playing.
More From The Blog
Get Paid the Premium Pricing You’re Worth with Critical Drivers that WORK
If you ask commercial lenders how they’re doing, most would say they’re performing strongly. But performance for them too often means sitting in the bank, waiting for B and C credits to walk in, interviewing them, getting their data, sending it to the credit committee—then trying to sell the committee on how to make that loan work, even though it has risks.
Acquisitions That WORK: The Bomb-Proof Management System That’s Ready to Roll
A lot of bad things happen around acquisitions. If you’re being acquired, it’s rarely pretty. And if you’re the one acquiring, the Wharton School of Business says your chance of failure is greater than 83 percent. And even if you don’t go down in flames in the opening round, the real heartaches continue for two years after the acquisition as two dark forces are inevitably unleashed:
Are your job descriptions killing your bank’s performance?
Your job descriptions could be killing your bank's performance. We both know you have two types of employees: superstars — and the well-meaning, but average performing...
4 New Strategies Shaping the Future for Top-Performing Banks
Here are four new strategies that I’ve found that are shaping the future of top-performing banks. These strategies are profoundly changing the game of banking,...
4 Secret Strategies of The Most Successful Banks in America
#1. Culture trumps strategy. Hundreds of studies now show that culture is the leading predictor of future growth and profitability. The Gallup Organization found the...
The Sure-Fire Way to Stop Disorienting Your Best Salespeople—and Help Them Massively Succeed.
Most banks are screaming for loan growth. But they’re not going to get it.
They think the only way to achieve that growth is to do traditional sales training.
Never, in the history of time has that ever worked. No really…never.
The Seven-Step Formula for Creating a Franchisable System
Can you give them what they need to succeed? Not unless you’ve created a franchisable system to help them duplicate your success.
Here are the seven crucial elements of building a franchisable system in your own bank:
Mergers and Acquisitions: If an Opportunity Falls in Your Lap, Are You Ready?
The coming bank consolidation isn’t a surprise. It’s been predicted for years. In fact, the next 18 months are destined to be a major “shake out” period when weak banks will be acquired or closed—and banks that are in a position to capture the best customers in town will become stronger and more profitable.
Bank Culture: The #1 Predictor of Future Growth and Profitability
Culture asks, “Will your people leap over tall buildings in a single bound to make sure your client is successful in their business or personal financial goals?” “Will you go beyond bank “product” to create Unique Selling Propositions that rock their world and cause hundreds of thousands of dollars of impact for them? And will your people have fun doing it so that your system is sustainable?