Grits, Guts and Gumption

Decades ago a visitor to a local branch of SBI, after suffering two hours of ordeal for getting a DD, commented about the Logo of the bank."The bank makes a customer go round and round in circles and ultimately nails a pin on his head. This is customer service" This was the summary of the agony he experienced. But surprisingly now the image of the bank has witnessed a sea change thanks to the grit, guts and enterprise of one of the most dynamic bank executives of the country Mr. Bhatt. The process of change brought about by this icon of enthusiasm, initiative and competence and the resulting benefits is the theme of the book 'Grit Guts and Gumption' written by Rajesh Chakrabarti

The book deals with the SBI experience, changes effected at the bank with employee strength exceeding 200000, the transformation, the challenging issues in management and how a giant public sector bank overcame them. It is a great experiment and a classic example of what the human spirit can achieve under an inspired leadership. Mr. Bhatt gave a thrust to creating tomorrow's leaders, believed in thinking big, giving priority to customer convenience and comfort, reducing transaction cost, transaction time, waiting time, and paper work. He changed attitudes, skills and knowledge of employees for the better, effected ambience improvements through out the organization and made SBI a world class MNC bank. He effected transformation of groups of ordinary people into 'extraordinary teams'.

The CMD called the programme Parivartan and sent message through out the bank that the "customer is king", impressing upon the employees that to survive and beat stiff competition innovation and hard work were inescapable. Successful implementation of Business Process Reengineering improved the quality of customer service. The concepts of Dharma, service and self development were propagated and the employees were asked to take a parivartan pledge and implement it.

The detailed process by which SBI.s declining market share was reversed, the experiments conducted in various areas of banking operations with the main focus on business growth and customer service have been achieved by the leadership qualities the top management infused throughout the organization. Further efforts were made to sharpen human skills empowering every employee as an internal change agent triggering them to act for the progress of the bank providing of course the necessary infrastructure. This was the core of the transformation strategy Mr. Bhatt applied for solid results during his tenure as head of the SBI for over 3 years.

The conviction that culture can be changed, the need to motivate employees drawing richly from the Bhagavad Gita and eastern wisdom rather than depending on the western model, discovery of the inner potential of each employee, team building and the primary mission of making SBI a world class MNC bank and recognizing the long term aspirations of the employees were key elements in his new strategy.

The SBI experience and the strategy Mr. Bhatt adopted, outlined in the book is a model for other large public sector undertakings especially banks, worthy of emulation. The results dispel the prevailing notion in some quarters that public sector undertakings are incapable of improvement. In fact they can be made crest jewels worn with pride in the crown of the Government.

The SBI experience and strategy is beautifully and interestingly presented in 12 chapters as mentioned below:

Chapters

• 1. SBI gets a new leader
• 2. The first six months
• 3. Yes, culture can be changed
• 4. Building a new work environment
• 5. Strengthening ICT, the backbone of today's banking
• 6. Changing form to function better
• 7. Harnessing strengths to deliver results
• 8. Gold on the haystack
• 9. Outrunning the hares
• 10. Consolidating and communicating
• 11. Setting he bank on a growth track
• 12. Stock taking and making sense of journey so far

T Ramaswamy

ramas_34@hotmail.com