Leading for Growth: How Umpqua Bank Got Cool and Created a Culture of Greatness
By Ray Davis with Alan Shrader
John Wiley & Sons, $24.95, 226 pages
Can a book by a bank CEO really have something to say that hasn't been said before? Actually, Ray Davis's Leading for Growth: How Umpqua Bank Got Cool and Created a Culture of Greatness, really does. When bank consultant Davis took the helm of the $140 million, five-branch South Umpqua Bank in rural Roseburg, OR, in 1994, customers were known to laugh out loud when bank employees answered the phone with, "World's greatest bank. How may I help you?"
Few in the industry are laughing now. Davis has remade the backwater institution into a $7 billion, 134-store unqualified success in an industry not known for outside-the-box thinking. Today, his retail-based approach to banking has been widely adopted by the industry's biggest and brightest; his adulations of how Ritz-Carlton and Apple perfect customer service and marketing are now common industry know-how.
No doubt about it: Davis has almost single-handedly invigorated a business that isn't known for breaking free of conventional thinking. One of those areas is employee recruitment. Davis eschewed employee candidates with banking backgrounds and pursued those with retail experiences, high energy and optimism to burn. And once a team is hired, he argues, management has to keep its staffers more than just motivated-they have to keep outperforming, day after day. Managers can achieve this by empowering employees and making them as responsible for the bank's successes and failures as the top brass. "If you communicate your passion effectively, people will quickly understand what the corporate values are, what the heart and soul of the company is, and what the culture is ultimately going to become," he writes. "You have to tell them what it is again and again and then set the example by doing it. Live up to what you say it is."
In fact, Davis argues that it was his vision for Umpqua to become the "world's greatest bank" that ignited his passion to make it happen. His initial idea was to build a bank that looked and felt as comfortable as a Nordstrom or a Starbuck's, where customers would not only enjoy doing their banking but be willing to socialize there, too. That's what led to the ideas of offering Umpqua-brand coffee and Umpqua-branded homegrown musical talent piped through bank loudspeakers. Attracting customers is a 24/7 job.
To that end, one of Davis's more important revelations is that a corporate leader's key goal is to prepare employees for change; they shouldn't just manage change, but lead it. "If you want your company to be a relentless growth machine, you've got to train people to be used to change, expect change, adjust to change, and even welcome change," he writes. He highlights five roles a leader should fill: support people and hold them accountable; empower your people by allowing them to make decisions; take yourself out of the daily fray in order to rise above the battlefield; explain your vision; and be yourself.
Davis isn't afraid to give credit where it's due, and he quotes generously from the insight of other leaders, like Marriott International CEO Bill Marriott, Leading the Revolution author Gary Hamel, and Walt Disney executive Mike Vance.
Though Davis loves his clichés, corny employee-motivational techniques and has no qualms about repetition, Leading for Growth also has its share of charming anecdotes, words of wisdom and motivating concepts. In fact, his unbridled enthusiasm is so infectious that it might have nudged Willy Lohman out of the doldrums.
It took him 14 years to come this far, but Davis believes Umpqua is still only at the beginning of the industry's revolution. Even with $7 billion in assets, Umpqua remains a community bank, he says. "It's our identity and it's the way we still operate: Decisions are made locally, our staff is empowered, and we are deeply involved in every community where we have a store. ... Being a community bank is ingrained in our culture. I don't ever want that to change." It doesn't sound like it ever will.
(c) 2007 U.S. Banker and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
