It is my pleasure to introduce Nick Jue.
Nick is currently responsible for ING's business in Germany,
and previously, Nick was responsible for ING's business
in the Netherlands.
You have successfully led ING Netherlands
through three different transformations.
What would you consider to be the key success factors
across these transformations?
-: Yeah, I would say there are a few elements
in every transformation.
One of the elements is
having a very inspiring vision,
and especially an inspiring vision
because you have to explain people
what this transformation will bring to
employees and to customers.
They have to understand why they need to do it,
and feel inspired by it.
Another element would be,
I would say a fact-based case for change.
And what I mean with that is that
facts are the most important thing
and so you have to know, for example,
what it means for your margins and for your volumes,
in different economic scenarios,
what will it bring?
But facts always are there,
they speak for themselves.
So it really makes your case for change very powerful,
and an element is a very strong team,
you need a very strong team to get through a transformation
and it doesn't mean you don't have a lot of discussions.
You can have a lot of discussion,
a lot of debates,
but after the debates,
will you take a decision
and you go into execution mode.
You need a team that fully supports the vision
and really goes for it.
-: In your most recent transformation,
you completely changed the culture
and a way of working into agile.
And I remember that you often use the analogy of
a large elephant racing against greyhounds
to illustrate what ING Netherlands has gone through.
Why is that?
-: Now, because I think this picture
of this elephant chase by greyhounds,
is exactly how the big public
how people look at banks.
People view banks as big and flexible,
animals, and then they're chased everyday,
by those greyhounds,
by those fintechs,
but there's all these new companies,
and they will have,
I would say the banks for lunch.
What I also try to say
at least the challenge we had in the Netherlands,
what we try to do,
is teach and train that elephants,
to become as fast and as flexible as the greyhounds,
but I want to be an elephant
because I want to keep the power of the elephant.
So this is exactly why I use this picture
because I want to bring this message across,
I don't want to be a greyhound,
I want to stay an elephant,
but be as fast and as flexible.
-: But if the world around you is changing so rapidly,
how do you know which direction to take?
-: Well, I would say that was exactly the question
we ask ourselves.
If you don't know the direction,
which one, which direction do you take,
do you jump on every new development?
Do you pick one or choose one?
and just go for one?
And then we said to each other,
or you can adapt your organization in a way,
that you are flexible
if trends or things change,
you can just adapt quickly.
And I think we came to the conclusion
that the only way to do this,
is to start to adapt
and to become agile,
to start the agile way of working,
because this was the only way
to be able to adapt very quickly to changes
in trends and developments.
-: Nick, What did you try to change
about the way of working
of people in your organization?
-: I will say a few things.
One of them is collaboration.
And what I mean with collaboration is
remove obstacles in a way that teams and individuals
can work more effectively together.
And other thing is empowering people.
Giving people a higher level of responsibility,
a higher level.
People can decide things for themselves.
So they feel more empowered,
they feel more passionate.
And I would say last but not least is culture.
You need next to structure and organization,
you need a strong culture.
And the culture we developed at ING
is what we call,
the Orange Colt,
which were really implemented
in every detail in the organization.
-: ING Netherlands was one of the first traditional companies
to completely transform to an end to end
agile way of working.
What advice would you have for companies
who want to change their way of working as well?
-: I would say you BCG,
took us to Zappos,
and to Spotify,
so you took us to companies
completely outside our own industry,
and they inspired us in the way they did things.
And next two days,
you helped us by designing,
and implementing a model,
based on the inspiration
we got from those companies.
Next to that I would say,
think boldly and dare to change.
And what I mean with that
if you start a change process,
you want to become more efficient,
to improve your company.
You say, let's do it with 5%,
at the end,
the outcome will be incremental.
I'm sure that will be the answer.
If you start a whole change process,
with the idea let's improve by 50%,
then probably you will end up with 40,
that's always, much more,
than the outcome of 5% you had
in the other approach.
So if people say,
what's your advice to us
in this kind of processes?
Is look outside for inspiration,
think bold, and dare to change.