Cultural change program
1. Compare and contrast the old and new cultures at NAB
The old culture at NAB typifies a “Market Culture”, characterised predominantly by the competitive behaviour of employees and driven by a profit motive. The facts of the case describe a bureaucratic business structure and an internally-focused culture (as opposed to customer-focused). The behaviour exemplified by the trader’s leading up to the 2004 scandal exemplifies that each individual department worked to optimise their own internal efficiency and there was a lack of divisional cooperation and communication (i.e. hoarding important information). Furthermore, the lack of adherence to the bank’s policies demonstrates that the bank had a weak compliance framework – a result of either a lack of awareness of policies and procedure or lack of accountability for when they were breached. Leaders were decisive and achievement orientated, however, the loss of these key personnel following the scandal also meant there was a lack of visible and consistent leadership.
Moving away from the old “Profit is King” culture, NAB’s new culture prioritises “people, customers and communities”, and therefore epitomises a “Clan Culture”. A Clan Culture is on the opposite end of the spectrum to a Market Culture (see Appendix 1). Leaders, rather than being hard-drivers, are to be seen by staff as mentors and facilitators. A new emphasis is placed on employee morale and teamwork, so that a sense of family is created and loyalty and commitment is restored.
There are also vast discrepancies between the old structure at NAB to the new structure desired, with the former being more mechanistic to the latter, which is organic. Within mechanistic structures, commitment is to the exact performance of duties, job roles are more specialized, role definitions are determined by superiors, communications are more