“8 ways to definitely fail Cultural Change” is going to be the topic of the presentation of Anja Zerbin from the German Postbank. Not about aloof, glossy stories, but about authentic ‘beautiful ugly-truth’ experiences, change works. -The Postbank approach is based on that. That takes time. And nerves. And much else. Anja will share: the hit and shitlist of their culture transformation approach at the forthcoming Comeleon Conference at the 24th and 25th of October 2019 in Tuhelj, Croatia.
After gaining experience in a communication agency, Anja Zerbin initially worked in the Deutsche Bank Group, where she was responsible for communication and change processes in various corporate divisions and subsidiaries for many years. She specializes in change and value creation processes in the digital transformation. At Postbank, she is responsible for the fourth pillar of the Digitalisation Strategy – Digital Culture.
MM: As Head of ”Digital Culture” at the German Postbank, what do you understand by a digital culture change, and why is it important to you and to the Postbank?
Anja Zerbin: Nothing increases the speed and complexity of our market as much as digitization. As does the whole industry, our company faces the challenge of becoming more flexible given an environment of uncertainty, complexity and intransparency. Therefore Agility becomes a fundamental and necessary competence. And that is just one part in a digital culture. In my point of view this is the best answer for a corporate to the current environment and the pursuit of success.
MM: Anja, you came from corporate communication, why did the Postbank appointed someone from communication as the responsible person for the culture change and not as often practised from Human Resources? And what role does communication play in the change process in the Postbank?
Anja Zerbin: They probably just hired the person with the best skills… Seriously, if you want to drive a profound and deep change such as in culture, you have to appoint people with the right skills, the right drive an some Experience in Change. And mainly those Changers work in related departments of HR or Communications. But they could well work in Accounting or Compliance… Internally, tasks and responsibilities shift across the structural borders of departments. We all do communicate. With each other, the outer world etc. That cannot be a sole responsibility of one department. We all do, must constantly learn. That cannot be a sole responsibility of the HR Department. All of us are Ambassadors of an Employer Branding, not just Marketing. So with the blurring of structural responsibilities, all departments need to find their purpose, their focus. We have to find a way to work in networks, and to find our own valuation gain within the process of digital transformation.
MM: Have you done everything in-house or did you have support from any agencies and if so, which profile of agencies?
Anja Zerbin: When we founded a Direct Bank 4 years ago, we used an agency to help us establish an open office concept, including “how to deal with interpersonal frictions” that new office concept could cause.
Throughout that we mutually developed a program on how to deal with the changes in digitization up to developing a way to Digital Culture. Since two years we tackle the topic in-house.
MM: What kind of competencies would you wish from the communications agencies and/or creative agencies to help companies for the culture change?
Anja Zerbin:
- Be a sparring partner
- Know your partner and his circumstances (espec. In larger Corporates and their slow decision makling processes)
- Be pushy and bold in honesty (cut the bullshit)
- Be respectful. Try to help rather than to sell.
