An award-winning regional bank had acquired a team of blue chip investment bankers to spearhead their strategy to ‘step up to the big leagues’.   The bank’s leaders needed to evolve into a more strategic and disciplined team and to shift the direction and environment within the firm.

Lime designed a detailed operating blueprint for the leadership team, and supported them individually in building specific, critical leadership capabilities.

As a result, the leaders crystallized a new strategy, and the business was able to pivot to being seen as an investment bank rather than a sales and trading shop.

Despite having been named one of the ‘best of the boutique investment banks’ in the Northeast, leadership inside this bank tended to be ad-hoc and misaligned. Communication spread through rumor, morale was low and yet turnover remained low because of the tough employment market.

As a result, the climate of the firm was depressed and the Board and the employees had lost confidence in the leadership team.  At the same time, the firm was facing profitability pressures that could only be addressed by growing to become more than boutique-sized.  The leadership team urgently needed to pivot the direction and climate in their firm.  They asked Lime’s help to do this, despite historically being averse to using consultants.

OUR CONTRIBUTION

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THE OUTCOME

The organization was in considerable pain and needed the vehicle of the diagnostic interviews to provide the catharsis needed to get them unstuck.  Within a few weeks of starting the project, levels of engagement and performance increased dramatically throughout the organization and continued to increase.

The once-fragmented leadership team established norms to enable better decision making and productive dialogue for business planning and issue resolution.  The next-level-leaders were enthusiastic about the increased transparency and focus and as a result were willing to hold themselves accountable for supporting strategIc efforts.  The investment banking team was able to establish a solid foundation in the equities market and begin to succeed in the M&A market.