Date: September 19, 2021
Where: Austin, Texas
Last year has proven to be both interesting and illuminating. We watched senior leaders “circled the wagons” as if their banks were in a “last stand” defense against COVID-19 and the myriad second and third-order effects. Major initiatives in place before COVID-19 stalled as managers focused on the tactical instead of the strategic. I started seeing phrases in bank trade association articles like, “during these unprecedented times” and “given the rapid pace of change.” Were things different? Sure. Life-changing? I doubt it.
If that mindset or behavior sounds familiar to you – whether you were the one planning the “final defense” or you saw colleagues acting in those ways – in this session we will discuss how to best get back to doing the business of leading your bank. In fact, what we all experienced is but another blip in history that, I would argue will be far less significant than 9-11 or the financial downturn of the late 2000s. Rather than the way many of us have been taught to think about the world, since the 1990s the U.S. military has been applying a concept called “VUCA” – Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous – to describe the nature of the post-Soviet Union world. VUCA certainly applies to the pandemic, but the concept certainly isn’t new (and the business journals have all begun talking about it in some form or fashion).
We will explore managing around the VUCA framework, discuss its implications for leadership and followership in your organizations, and debate what’s really different (versus what hasn’t changed much at all). Stephen Ingalls, our President/CEO, leads this discussion for Independent Bankers Association of Texas convention attendees.
