Today, we’re talking about what most bank boards are missing and how the elite banks are fixing it.
Let’s talk about the invisible wall. Between the executive suite and the boardroom lies a gap that most banks don’t even see until it’s too late. That gap—it’s not about information. It’s about interpretation.
I see it all the time. Boards are shown reports, but not strategy. They are briefed on results, but not behavior. They are given updates, but not insight.
And here’s what makes it dangerous: you can’t govern what you don’t understand.
In a recent study by PwC, over sixty percent of board members said that they lacked confidence in their understanding of the organization’s cultural alignment.
That’s not a data problem. That’s a strategic leadership failure. The top five percent of banks fix that. They don’t just invite board members to read about strategy.
They bring them into the real work—connecting culture to bottom-line results, reviewing leading indicators, not lagging ones, understanding how performance systems—not posters—drive results.
At one bank we work with, the CEO used our performance planning model to bring the board into weekly execution rhythms, not just quarterly reviews. The board stopped asking, “Are we okay?” and started asking, “How are we accelerating profitability this week?”
The difference? Full alignment between CEO, executive team, and board. Two times growth rate increase in twelve months. Fourteen-point efficiency ratio improvement.
A banking award win and a culture that now drives the numbers.
And just guess where that transformation started. You guessed it—at the Breakthrough Banking Blueprint Bootcamp.
The place where most of the highest-earning banks in the country have come to learn how to build a system of transformation for highest performance. That CEO came to the event, heard from other top five percenters, and realized that their board was out of the loop and out of power. So they brought two board members the next year.
Those board members told us afterward, “This is the first time I’ve ever felt I knew exactly how to support the CEO—without micromanaging or just cheering from the sidelines.”
That’s what this conference does. It’s not another vendor pitch fest. It’s not theory. It’s the only room in America where top-performing CEOs, executives, and their boards come together to build strategy, culture, and profit.
