A College Junior Is the Best Person to Create a Community Bank's Strategic Plan

Relax you Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg, Wharton, Sloan, Booth, Haas, Tuck, Columbia and Yale MBAs. You can't even get a job after all you've learned, which means it's not about you. It's the economy, genius.But now, at least an undergraduate junior has two more years, after the shock of the worst recession since the GP, for the economy to turnaround before he applies his crystal clear innocence to a task that now-timid bankers will have the humility to consider. I've written the opening statement for the new breed of graduate: "Avoid any scheme you don't fully understand, don't trust too-good-to-be-true investments, stick to the traditional banking algorithm of 3-6-3, beware of anything that is packaged, and remember, banks are not charitable institutions or enhancers of every American's socio-economic status. Bring back the heartless underwriter, dump the salesman. I'm going to take you back to basics, even if you have to retrieve your gray suit from the moth balls."

I wonder who prepared the strategic plan for Citi, BofA, Wachovia, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros., Countrywide, Indymac, WaMu and even the 36th failure of the year, a mere $437 million Citizens National Bank in Illinois.

What were all these guys thinking? The universal answer to that question is "complexity." If it was simple, straight, understandable and traditional, it had no appeal. Hopefully, this blog might just be an alert to return to clean and simple ways of designing a custom technology plan.

My first task in the conduct of a traditional core system upgrade is to create an understandable-by-all blueprint of where the bank is heading. Individual bank employees contribute their ideas during the interview phase. I compile a composite describing where the bank will be in three years. Oh, you expected five years? Only in textbooks. This is the real world as defined during the past year. The composite requires only two pieces of paper. A general meeting of all contributors then occurs and one would think it was like the first meeting of the Obama Cabinet-a lot of good people who have no idea who is sitting next to them, but held together by a strong boss. The two-page blueprint causes vibrant discussion, even fireworks, but the impact is felt. Everyone is now on the same page.

Community banking is not rocket science work. Keep the goals simple so everyone understands them. Keep the document short enough so everyone will consume the content. Sign off on the composite after healthy debate (Who said we oughtta be in derivatives?) so that everyone becomes an owner.

In technology, that blueprint is what defends the final recommendation for the new core system. It's a five-month process so at the end if someone asks why Vendor A was chosen (and for sure, the examiners will ask), the answer is, "Because Vendor A's solution best responds to where YOU ALL said you expect the bank to be. YOU chose the system, I just did the grunt work."