Culture Is a Reflection of How We Lead

At the beginning of June, I got an email about delivering a keynote on Friday, June 28…in Romania. I was due for a little adventure, and after one Skype call and a little schedule maneuvering, I was booked.

I was looking forward to spending time with top executives from the most profitable bank in Romania. Raiffeisen has 540 outlets throughout Romania that service approximately 2 million customers. I did my research on the company, but really had no idea what to expect.

The night before my keynote, I had dinner with the management board of Raiffeisen Bank.

This highly-skilled management team has successfully navigated a challenging European financial market. The team is largely focused on one central theme to drive business performance and growth into the future: culture.

Raiffeisen Bank President and CEO Steven van Groningen led us through a thoughtful discussion about the delicate balance between focusing on profitable growth and providing a world-class work experience. The central theme: the company can’t sustain one without the other in the new economy. We discussed the leadership challenges: providing meaningful work, helping employees grow professionally, creating career mobility, ensuring competitive compensation and high levels of employee engagement, and ultimately delivering remarkable customer experiences.

Our dinner conversation closed with a commitment from everyone at the table to make their organization a better place to work. This commitment from the company’s leaders cemented the central theme for the next morning’s keynote message:

Culture Is a Reflection of How You Lead

The next day, I led the company’s top 100 executives in a conversation about culture. Based on our dinner discussion the evening prior, I encouraged all of the company’s executives to embrace the commitment to make the company a better place to work.

Profitable growth alone is not good enough for this team. Instead, they run their business based on two important goals:

• They aspire to enrich the lives of their employees and the customers they serve.

• They want to impact their communities in a meaningful way and ultimately leave a legacy.

Raiffessen Bank is already well on their way to accomplishing these goals. The company has been successful because they understand:

The People Are the Brand

The company’s new HQ reinforces this idea. It’s located inside the brand new SkyTower, the tallest building in Romania.  As I toured their new office and had the opportunity to meet with employees, it was pointed out to me that something was notably absent in their new design: offices. The open design is intended to fuel more collaboration and connectedness across all employee levels in the organization.

The company’s philosophy is that cultivating a more open, connected, transparent culture will help employees deliver the brand experience – and it’s working.

This trip was eye-opening and refreshing for me. I experienced a leadership team championing innovation and change halfway around the world. Their success reinforced core principles that ring true in any developed country where I’ve worked: The people are the brand.  Culture is a reflection of how we lead.