Self-awareness and faith in the workforce will enable organisational cultural change as the bedrock of digital transformation, delegates at Finextra's annual Nordics conference heard.
Mindset needs to change from the top-down as much as from the bottom up, it was stressed on more than one occasion by leaders in top Nordic banks such as Swedbank, Nordea, SEB and Handelsbanken during discussions on open banking, real time payments and AI.
Those in key decision-making roles need to understand why their organisation needs to change and there is increased recognition that this cannot be done without trusting their employees from the lowest pay-grade up, and encouraging autonomy and individuality, the 300+ delegates heard.
This is somewhat incongruous to corporate hierarchical structures but nonetheless essential in the new open banking and digital marketplace, and is being addressed at firms with even the most traditional of reputations.
"An innovative culture is all about getting the people in the business to change the organisation themselves," said Johan Lorenzen, Handelsbanken, during the culture panel discussion. He also said technical advancement had instigated organisational changes from within.
Panellists discussed the danger of reactive decision-making driven by stress, irrelevant KPIs and the pressure of ROI, during the culture panel session.
"It is essential that we get the culture change right, before we embark on digital transformation. Fail fast, fail forward and fail often - this constitutes innovation," said Maciej Janusz, head of cash management, Nordic Region, Citibank.
Alisa Mamonova, commercial strategy and product lead, Neonomics said that encouraging autonomy empowers and engages the creativity of the workforce, while conceding this does come at a price.
"Innovation needs freedom and can be expensive and resource-consuming to implement in a hierarchically driven organisation," she said. But definitely worth it - in the era of open banking, banks can’t afford to rest on their laurels without changing.
As Anders Nicander, strategic lead and head of digital wealth, Nordea, put it in the first of two opening keynotes, “Great customer experience is created by great employees. Make culture the top priority. This will decide who wins and who loses in the area of digital transformation."