How to achieve growth with intent: Three priority areas for banks
These three priorities are connected by one common thread – the customer. As you apply each principle, focus on how your actions deliver better outcomes and more personalised service, whether it’s for the retail consumer on the high street or major corporate clients. This intentional customer focus is what builds the rewarding relationships and deep loyalty essential for growth with intent.
These three priorities are connected by one common thread – the customer. As you apply each principle, focus on how your actions deliver better outcomes and more personalised service, whether it’s for the retail consumer on the high street or major corporate clients. This intentional customer focus is what builds the rewarding relationships and deep loyalty essential for growth with intent.
1. Clear strategy and direction
A successful growth journey starts with clarity of direction – knowing where you're going, why it matters, and how you’ll get there. Without this foundational focus, firms risk dispersing their energy across scattered initiatives, making contradictory choices, and losing momentum as teams work toward different interpretations of success rather than rallying around a shared vision of growth.
- Find your North Star. It’s vital to define why you’re embarking on a growth programme in the first place, and how it enables your broader business strategy. This will be the North Star that provides a clear, compelling vision of the future you're towards, step by step. Make sure to consistently and continually communicate this vision with the entire organisation, as this will help build the buy-in and alignment you need to drive meaningful change. It will also allow you to be agile, flexing to respond to issues or changes in customer or market demand but to do so with intent, showing clear alignment to the vision. Ultimately, it’s this transparency, from strategy setting in the board room to the engineers developing your platforms, that can enable this vision to be unlocked and delivered.
- Prioritise outcomes. Think about the results you want to achieve and how you’ll measure progress along the way. This means defining what success looks like, tracking whether you're on course, and being realistic about what it will take to get there, in terms of time, investment, and capability. Equally important is being clear on what you will not do – or at least not yet. With this focus, you'll ensure that your effort delivers impact, not just activity.
- Align delivery with vision. To move in your chosen direction towards growth with intent, you need to get clear on how to best play to your strengths, how to improve weaker points, and what changes you need to make to fully unlock existing enablers. Underlining all of this, you must be able to pivot when needed – such as when a strategy isn't delivering the expected results or the market moves suddenly – but always intentionally, in a way that aligns with your core vision. It's not about making knee-jerk reactions to short-term shocks but creating the capacity to act with agility and ambition in support of long-term objectives. Remember, the customer is at the heart of this evolution, making it imperative that the organisation can move with customer needs and the inevitable shifts that affect us all, given the volatility of the world we live in.
1. Clear strategy and direction
A successful growth journey starts with clarity of direction – knowing where you're going, why it matters, and how you’ll get there. Without this foundational focus, firms risk dispersing their energy across scattered initiatives, making contradictory choices, and losing momentum as teams work toward different interpretations of success rather than rallying around a shared vision of growth.
- Find your North Star. It’s vital to define why you’re embarking on a growth programme in the first place, and how it enables your broader business strategy. This will be the North Star that provides a clear, compelling vision of the future you're towards, step by step. Make sure to consistently and continually communicate this vision with the entire organisation, as this will help build the buy-in and alignment you need to drive meaningful change. It will also allow you to be agile, flexing to respond to issues or changes in customer or market demand but to do so with intent, showing clear alignment to the vision. Ultimately, it’s this transparency, from strategy setting in the board room to the engineers developing your platforms, that can enable this vision to be unlocked and delivered.
- Prioritise outcomes. Think about the results you want to achieve and how you’ll measure progress along the way. This means defining what success looks like, tracking whether you're on course, and being realistic about what it will take to get there, in terms of time, investment, and capability. Equally important is being clear on what you will not do – or at least not yet. With this focus, you'll ensure that your effort delivers impact, not just activity.
- Align delivery with vision. To move in your chosen direction towards growth with intent, you need to get clear on how to best play to your strengths, how to improve weaker points, and what changes you need to make to fully unlock existing enablers. Underlining all of this, you must be able to pivot when needed – such as when a strategy isn't delivering the expected results or the market moves suddenly – but always intentionally, in a way that aligns with your core vision. It's not about making knee-jerk reactions to short-term shocks but creating the capacity to act with agility and ambition in support of long-term objectives. Remember, the customer is at the heart of this evolution, making it imperative that the organisation can move with customer needs and the inevitable shifts that affect us all, given the volatility of the world we live in.
2. Structure for success
How an organisation is structured matters just as much as what it chooses to do. The right structure creates conditions for more agile execution and sharper thinking by shaping how quickly teams can move, where they focus their efforts, and their ability to adapt when circumstances change.
- Efficiency through clarity and simplicity. An effective structure should eliminate unintended duplication, reduce complexity, and enable clear accountability. It allows you to make the most of the capabilities you already have, while also providing clarity on how to develop future talent. Leaner, more focused teams also tend to be more engaged and perform better. They can move faster, collaborate better, and spend more time on high-value work rather than navigating bureaucracy.
- Agility to respond to what matters. Your organisation should be structured in a way that allows it to react quickly to emerging risks and opportunities without creating chaos. That means building in cross-functional responsiveness, flatter decision paths, and mechanisms for rapid reprioritisation. This is achieved through decisive leadership but also supported by the tooling and controls within the transformation engine of the bank.
- Designed for now, ready for tomorrow. The structure should reflect current business realities but also allow for evolution as priorities shift. You should prioritise flexibility as a key feature of roles, governance, and ways of working, so your organisation can more easily adapt as conditions change.
2. Structure for success
How an organisation is structured matters just as much as what it chooses to do. The right structure creates conditions for more agile execution and sharper thinking by shaping how quickly teams can move, where they focus their efforts, and their ability to adapt when circumstances change.
- Efficiency through clarity and simplicity. An effective structure should eliminate unintended duplication, reduce complexity, and enable clear accountability. It allows you to make the most of the capabilities you already have, while also providing clarity on how to develop future talent. Leaner, more focused teams also tend to be more engaged and perform better. They can move faster, collaborate better, and spend more time on high-value work rather than navigating bureaucracy.
- Agility to respond to what matters. Your organisation should be structured in a way that allows it to react quickly to emerging risks and opportunities without creating chaos. That means building in cross-functional responsiveness, flatter decision paths, and mechanisms for rapid reprioritisation. This is achieved through decisive leadership but also supported by the tooling and controls within the transformation engine of the bank.
- Designed for now, ready for tomorrow. The structure should reflect current business realities but also allow for evolution as priorities shift. You should prioritise flexibility as a key feature of roles, governance, and ways of working, so your organisation can more easily adapt as conditions change.
3. Empowering action
Guiding a company through change requires a differentiated leadership mindset and new cultural norms. Banks should challenge themselves and their senior teams to lead differently – without losing sight of existing guardrails and controls. This will avoid exposing the organisation to undue risk while giving leaders the autonomy needed to make effective decisions and drive the change that’s needed to reach new growth frontiers.
- Create a culture of fast, empowered action. Culturally, banks need to shift from “prove it” to “try it.” Rather than obsessing over doing things perfectly from the start, which can paralyse change efforts, leaders should encourage their teams to make a move, assess the impact, and course correct as needed.
- Genuine risk-reward decision-making. Leaders must get comfortable making risk-reward decisions that involve calculated bets. It’s not about waiting for certainty, but weighing upside potential against acceptable risk – clearly outlining the measure of success. Accountability is also critical here, as taking calculated risks means owning the outcomes and being willing to learn from them, regardless of whether they succeed or fail.
- Fail fast, learn faster – and normalise it at the top. Leaders must model a mindset where failing fast is seen as progress and not a setback. Executive teams must trust their people and make sure they feel comfortable taking risks and experimenting with new ideas, knowing that they won’t be reprimanded if things don’t work out. This requires psychological safety and visible support for teams that take informed risks, adapt quickly, and share their learnings.
- Unlock leadership capacity. To focus on customers, innovation, and future-facing opportunities, leaders must free up space from legacy processes, low-impact meetings, and firefighting. This also means realigning objectives and redirecting funding away from business as usual, towards areas where value will be created next.
3. Empowering action
Guiding a company through change requires a differentiated leadership mindset and new cultural norms. Banks should challenge themselves and their senior teams to lead differently – without losing sight of existing guardrails and controls. This will avoid exposing the organisation to undue risk while giving leaders the autonomy needed to make effective decisions and drive the change that’s needed to reach new growth frontiers.
- Create a culture of fast, empowered action. Culturally, banks need to shift from “prove it” to “try it.” Rather than obsessing over doing things perfectly from the start, which can paralyse change efforts, leaders should encourage their teams to make a move, assess the impact, and course correct as needed.
- Genuine risk-reward decision-making. Leaders must get comfortable making risk-reward decisions that involve calculated bets. It’s not about waiting for certainty, but weighing upside potential against acceptable risk – clearly outlining the measure of success. Accountability is also critical here, as taking calculated risks means owning the outcomes and being willing to learn from them, regardless of whether they succeed or fail.
- Fail fast, learn faster – and normalise it at the top. Leaders must model a mindset where failing fast is seen as progress and not a setback. Executive teams must trust their people and make sure they feel comfortable taking risks and experimenting with new ideas, knowing that they won’t be reprimanded if things don’t work out. This requires psychological safety and visible support for teams that take informed risks, adapt quickly, and share their learnings.
- Unlock leadership capacity. To focus on customers, innovation, and future-facing opportunities, leaders must free up space from legacy processes, low-impact meetings, and firefighting. This also means realigning objectives and redirecting funding away from business as usual, towards areas where value will be created next.