Umpqua bank Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Umpqua bank - Essay Example This paper will discuss the culture at Umpqua in relation to Steins theories of organizational culture. The bank as it sat when Davis took over was starting into its midlife. It had grown and was popular but it was also fighting the possibility of a buyout. Their culture of a small town friendly bank was already ingrained and now they needed to move on. As they said, their present culture was stretched. They needed someone to come with a new plan, make the changes needed and move the culture forward rapidly and that is exactly what Davis did. This new CEO had a vision and was in no way afraid to tell everyone about it, bringing many on board right away. Then to assure that others could see his vision, he sent staff out to popular shopping areas and ask them to look around and figure out what was popular about them. He started calling the bank a store and the thought process about the bank began to change all together. Without them even realizing it, he had put together his change team and the ideas that came out were theirs which was even better. He brought in designers to help the change team figure out how best to put together areas that would meet the needs of their customers. They began to see the things that were most important about customer service such as getting people who could not serve the customer out of sight and cross-training everyone else so they could move the customer through quicker. Schein asks first, "Why change" This is exactly the question that Davis put to the staff and then he ask them if changing the outside was good enough. Did the inside not also need to change The second question is "What does the future need to look like" By this time, Umpqua was on a roll. They had a unique name and a unique concept and now they wanted a building design that met all those needs and that is what they got. The building itself was like no other bank building had ever been. It included all kinds of services for customers including use of the internet and financial counseling. All of the things included created a win-win situation for the customers and the bank. Assessing the present state according to Schein (2009) is important so the change team can evaluate where the present state is as compared to where the new state needs to go. This is often one of the most difficult tasks for a change team to manage due to the fact that the present state according to Schein (2009) is often difficult for them to see. They decided that the only way to get what they wanted was to spend their time 100% making the customer happy and they were only doing that 1/2 of the time now. To solve this problem they put together training sessions for all new managers and for anyone inside the business who felt they might want to move up eventually and trained them in what the new culture was, how it worked and how to please the customer 100% of the time. They also sent these people out to other stores that they felt were doing very well and were within the cultural dynamics that they wanted so they could see firsthand how it was supposed to work. They talked about t he "wow factor" and roll played how the customer should be treated and it would feel to them if they were a part of that service. Shein (2009) often says that the administrative staff must be fully onboard to assure a culture change