Performance Success with Mike Rempel

Hey, GonzoBankers. Tony DeSanctis back with another hot take. I want to start this one off with one of my favorite quotes from Zig Ziglar: “If you aim for nothing, you’ll hit it every time.”

So I asked Mike Remle to join us from the performance team. He’s got three steps to successful performance management and how to manage your metrics effectively.

Mike, tell us a little bit about what these magical three steps are.

Yeah, well, I’m not sure they’re magic, but I certainly think it’s a potential best practice for folks who are starting to look at this for the first time.

The first one, nothing innovative, but let’s get an understanding of where we’re at today. Let’s establish the baseline and be pragmatic and thoughtful about how we’re measuring performance today.

And go deep.

Go deep, right. I think we don’t go far enough if we just look at overall expense, overall revenue improvement or account growth. Within each line of business, bankers should be looking at a mix, a balanced approach, if you will, of performance improvement, service measures and expense to be able to really paint the full picture of performance.

Okay. Number two?

Number two is, once you have an understanding of where you’re at today, set thoughtful targets for the future. It’s one thing to say, “Look, we’re going to be a high performer in every category,” which, by the way, is super hard to do.

In fact, I would argue that if you’re not focusing on a niche, then you’re not going to be able to be everything to everybody. I like to say the riches are in the niches. Let’s focus on what we do well, and it’s okay to leave the things that aren’t as strategically significant to the wayside.

And that’s how the fintechs have won market share, right? They’re not doing all things for all people. So I think it’s a great takeaway.

Yeah. Number three?

It has to be an iterative process, meaning we can’t just do it once a year at strategic planning and call it good. It can’t be a one-and-done, check-the-box exercise.

It can be, but I think you’re going to have very limited results with that. One thing that we counsel our clients to do is, whether it’s twice a year, four times a year, quarterly or at least annually, let’s review our performance measures and understand where we made progress.

If we didn’t meet our goal, let’s have an open, honest, candid culture of accountability around that. That way, we can adjust for the future because there may be things where the market has shifted or our focus has changed, and it’s okay to adjust our strategy accordingly.

What we don’t want is to miss our goal, have nobody accountable and end up somewhere down the road with no meaningful impact.

It sort of falls off the radar. I think the other thing we talked a little bit about, which is important, is no one’s lacking for data. We all have the data. It’s the actionable insights, right?

So when you’re establishing that baseline and figuring out your path forward, you want those metrics to be meaningful, tangible and actionable.

That’s right. We don’t want this to be a data exercise. We shouldn’t be doing an activity just to say, again, we checked the box and we have measures. We want a culture of progressive, forward-looking decision-making supported by data to help us get to where we need to be as an organization.

Awesome. Establish your baseline, figure out where you’re going. You’re not going to get there the first time, so iterate your way through it and keep it as an ongoing process, an ongoing routine.

That’s it. It’s easy, right?

Facebook doesn’t look like it did five years ago or 10 years ago. Does your bank look the way it did five or 10 years ago? You’re probably not innovating, you’re probably not looking at your metrics and you’re not continuing to evolve and grow.

So let us know in the comments what you’re doing with your metrics and how you’re measuring success.