March 9, 2017 // By Magenic
During our recent webinar, Jumpstarting Innovation in Financial Services Firms, our speakers didn’t get a chance to answer a question relating to a pain point that we know many Financial Services firms are struggling with. We asked our Financial Services Practice Partner, Heather Zimmerman, to tackle the question in this follow-up blog post.
Question:
“You called out culture as a big sticking point, which makes sense. The question is, what's the best way to get started changing culture? I understand the mission, but it seems like a big job getting our culture to shift in a more digital, innovative direction.”
Many of the firms I speak with have shared that one of their biggest barriers to their innovation success is changing the culture. They are struggling with the best way to get started without undergoing a large organizational transformation.
At the root of culture is the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior. Taking a bi-modal approach; one that starts with changing behavior through learning and then matures through experience attacks the core of culture, the behavior, empowers employees, and builds new beliefs systems through success.
Getting started starts with “you”. How can you bring innovation and change to the work you are doing? You do not have to wait for your firm to implement an innovation program, think tank or advisory committee. Start with the initiatives you are currently engaged in. Open the dialog up, find time as a team to come together to set the culture you collectively want for your initiative. Define what an innovative culture looks like, the behaviors you want to see, what you want to learn and how you can and how you will measure your collective success.
Then begin to share. Have your product owners share the customer needs and hypothesis they are solving for and have the Engineering teams share the latest technology trends that are being employed. Begin to ideate and problem solve as a team.
It will be important to set a cadence to innovate and measure your progress. Ceremonies and retrospectives are great methods for reinforcing the culture you defined for your initiative and reflecting back on your behaviors. –HZ
To learn more about creating an innovation roadmap for your organization, contact us today.