DR ALEX OTTI OFR DESCRIBED AS THE REDEEMER OF ABIA.

A MUST READ
ABIA'LL BE DIAMOND IN THE SKY IF OTTIFIED (Part Two)

DR ALEX OTTI OFR. Former MD DIAMOND bank plc.

Obinna Don Norman
(Alex Otti's success at Diamond Bank was not by providential stroke of serendipity but a meticulous deployment of his impressive leadership abilities.)


According to Bill Bradley, “Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.”
Dr Alex Otti displayed this outstanding trait in his revolution that changed the fortune of Diamond Bank by identifying four crucial areas of improvement, scilicet: People (disillusioned people with low staff morale); Culture (disintegrated corporate culture); Strategy (weak sense of ownership, monitoring and passion to execute); and Brand (lack of visibility and poor customer’s perspective).
These four vital components can be mirrored in Douglas McGregor’s X and Y management theories published in his book The Human Side of Enterprise.
Theory X assumes that employees:
• Dislike work
• Avoid responsibility and need constant direction
• Have to be controlled, forced and threatened to deliver work
• Need to be supervised at every step
• Have no incentive to work or ambition, and therefore need to be enticed by rewards to achieve goals
The X theory says that people work only for their money and security and only interested in their pay packages. Under this circumstance, management would be forced to adopt hard and soft approaches. The hard methodology relies on coercion, threats, close supervision and tight controls. In other words, in this situation, authority is rarely delegated, and control remains firmly centralised. Managers are more authoritarian and actively intervene to get things done. In the view of McGregor, theory X reduces workers to “cogs in a machine,” and likely demotivates them in the long term. This no doubt, was the situation of Diamond Bank before Dr Otti’s amazing transformation. He simply adopted the superior theory Y methodology.
Theory Y management assumes that workers are:
• Happy to work on their own initiative
• More involved in decision making
• Self-motivated to complete their tasks
• Enjoy taking ownership of their work
• Seek and accept responsibility, and need little direction
• View work as fulfilling and challenging
• Solve problems creatively and imaginatively
Theory Y managers have an optimistic, positive opinion of their workers and they use a decentralised, participative management style. This encourages a more collaborative, trust-based relationship between managers and their team members.
In theory Y methodology, people have greater responsibility, and managers encourage them to develop their skills and suggest improvements. Appraisals are regular but, unlike in theory X organisations, they are used to encourage open communication rather than control staff. This reflects workers’ increasing desire for more meaningful careers that provide them with more than just money.
This methodology adopted by Dr Otti on resumption of duty underlined why he, after valuation, nippily designed a monitoring mechanism that required setting up clusters headed by Executive Director to monitor for performance around 227 objectives, 446 Strategic initiatives and 1,778 action items. The mechanism achieved over 80% of its planned objectives with key performances highlighted below;
• Introduction of an automated Performance Monitoring framework and Balanced Scorecard which reduces subjectivity and accurately captures staff performance
• Facilitated the establishment of Diamond Academy- a world-class training structure that ensures holistic development of the bank’s human capital
• Significantly grew the bank’s Return on Equity from a negative position of (12%) in 2011 to a ROE of 21% in 2013 thereby increasing the ranking of the bank from the 12th to 5th most profitable bank in the Industry
• Created a customer-centric culture in all branches through a robust internal communications strategy that fostered product knowledge and sound customer service orientation in the bank. This moved the bank upward from No. 5 in 2011 to No. 3 in 2013 according to the KPMG customer satisfaction rating
• Deposit base grew from N601billion in 2011 to N1.02trillion in 2013 thereby increasing Diamond Bank ranking from No. 8 to No. 6 among all the banks in Nigeria
• Improved communication and employee’s motivation through the introduction of the quarterly GMD’s podcast and awards giving a sense of belonging to all employees. Also created a direct communication window with all staff directly through a committee to support free flow between executive management and staff
• Attained a “Best Place to Work” status by constantly improving on staff welfare, communication and feedback system
Speaking on the success afterwards, Dr Otti said:
“We implemented a survey internally that tracked the adoption of the strategy and the general perception of the bank by our people. The result was that the bank was ranked No. 3 among banks by the Jobberman survey in ‘the best financial Institution to work in’ category in 2013.
“We strengthened the banks Brand that became many times more visible and attractive. We also equipped the bank structurally to focus strategically on the retail business leveraging technology and human capacity development. Most importantly, we restored the banks performance in various sector of the economy namely: Oil and Gas sector; transportation sector; telecommunication sector and power sector.”
It is now obvious why the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) categorised Diamond Bank as one of the eight systemic important banks in Nigeria and was ranked number three just after three-years it seemed it would go under. Are you surprised? Transformation isn’t by providential stroke of serendipity. It takes out of the world managerial artistry to achieve. Dr Otti simply unlocked Diamond Bank staff’s potentials to become better by applying the words of Joseph Jaworski:
“Leadership is about creating, day by day, a domain in which we and those around us continually deepen our understanding of reality and are able to participate in shaping the future. This, then, is the deeper territory of leadership – collectively ‘listening to what is wanting to emerge in the world, and then having the courage to do what is required.”
Excellent, isn’t it? But the questions are, how does this apply to the Abia State scenario and what are our expectations after three-years?
…to be continued next week.