Yes, But - Your Bank's Secret Weapon Hiding in Plain Sight
In a previous life, I flew around the world giving presentations about an emerging business and technology trends in banking and spoke with the audience gathered in the conference room about how this particular bank could prepare.
At the back of the room, there was, inevitably someone with deep expertise and experience in an area like security or enterprise architecture who would raise his (and it was usually a “his”) hand to ask a question. A ““Yes But”” question.
The ““Yes But”” question usually focused on the questioner’s area of expertise and experience. The questioner almost always raised legitimate concerns about these areas and, obviously, how my presentation did not answer them.
This happened so regularly that I prepared for it. I tried to acknowledge that I understood that my presentation did not cover all of the “Yes But” questions that could arise and that I did not have all the answers.
Over time, I came to see that these questions were not really even for me. The “Yes Buts” were for the senior VPs, team leaders, department and LOB heads in the room. They raised legitimate concerns meant to test whatever strategy or initiatives this part of the bank was seriously considering. Perhaps if their questions weren’t considered, “Yes Buts” could paralyze or kill an initiative.
I discovered evidence in survey results courtesy of The Credit Union Connection that the “Yes Buts” have not gone away.
45.5% of banks and credit unions offer no digital account opening capabilities
21% offer digital account opening for savings and checking accounts
33% of banks and credit unions offer digital account opening for checking accounts, savings accounts and CDs.
While your first reaction might be some version of “well, this proves that credit unions can’t keep up and/or are falling behind,” I hear something more.
In each of these bullet points I hear the echoes of the “Yes But” questioner in the back of all those conference rooms years ago. In those internal conversations about changing or digitizing a product or line of business, “Yes But” raised questions and challenges to strategies and project.
The system is too old and/or costs too much to upgrade/replace/migrate.
The vendor won’t partner/integrate with xx fintech.
We need a significant upgrade to our security architecture to accommodate this...
That feature is on the vendor’s product roadmap….
If we do this, that project will be pushed back X months/years.
We don’t have the staff/money/time.
Over time, in too many financial institutions, these objections became more solid obstacles. And here we are:
Fewer than 50% of credit unions have digital account opening for the most basic of products and almost 50% of FIs offer no digital account opening at all
Instead of fighting against them, it’s time to embrace the “Yes Buts.”
It’s time to bring the “Yes But” folks into the digital/transformation/AI conversation(s).
Is this advice just for credit unions? No. I am sure “Yes But” folks in every financial institution of every size are raising all kinds of questions about AI.
Take a New Look at the “Yes Buts”
The “Yes But” people are your secret weapon hiding in plain sight.
Instead of hiding from the Yes Buts, bring all the objections and the people who make them into conversations about current initiatives:
·What are the obstacles, questions, concerns?
Are these “Yes Buts” related to the reason these initiatives are stalled, not working or running into problems or related to over budget projects?
Instead of trying to understand why “Yes Buts” may have been ignored or passed over the in the past, focus on
How can we use these Yes Buts to fix current problems or issues or to prevent future problems?
This means your FI is going to have do stuff you’ve been avoiding. The BIG conversations. You know which conversations I mean: The big one about the change that everyone has avoided for years.
The core system that won’t play with any other system
The data that has never been normalized or used outside of the system that creates or stores it.
Enterprise architecture that was built for the past
Vendor challenges & obstacles that everyone knows about but no one talks about.
Add yours here
Why are these conversations so important right now? Short answer: AI.
Financial services is already looking at a lot of AI-related disruption. It’s not just banks developing agents to automate processes – but it’s the ability to transform previously siloed workflows to create intelligence that agents and/or humans can act on. The same AI technologies enables many types of fraud that seem to multiple exponentially. “Yes But” people have significant institutional business, organizational and technical knowledge about systems or data challenges and obstacles to change. The “Yes But” folks know and understand the FI’s enterprise architecture, systems and data – how they work, integrate and interact - or don’t - and why; their strengths, weaknesses & vulnerabilities. They may also have important information about organizational obstacles to change. They have pushed back against various strategies and initiatives because they know how and why your FI’s system(s) can or cannot accommodate change.
Deploying AI technologies is not simply a technology issue. You must incorporate ethics, your FI’s mission, governance, regulatory compliance and more from the start is critical. You must address siloes, legacy systems and aging architectures. You must address multidimensional security issues.
It’s time to use all of these Yes Buts - challenges, obstacles, weakness or vulnerabilities – as critical information that will help your financial institution use AI technologies in ways that increase value and mitigate risks from every perspective –regulatory, ethical, business, technological, customer, product development, deployment, security, architecture – from the start.
Takeaways
Financial Institutions
Identify those who question existing initiatives and why. This is not an exercise to mark or punish or humiliate anyone. You can easily get this information without shaming or blaming - or even exposing anyone.
Bring them into the relevant projects to troubleshoot and identify vulnerabilities that may already be stalling those projects.
Expand your teams to include the people who most object to AI anything, online/mobile/digital account opening in every strategic planning, budgeting and project. The goal is not to stop projects but to drive better collaboration, collaboration through listening not domineering.
Show, don’t tell, that people who object to projects or raise issues will not be silenced or otherwise penalized for doing so. Do this by including “Yes But” people on the teams that develop strategy and budgets, new products or services or systems replacements – from the start. Their objections are essential to your FI addressing all potential problems from the start.
Be transparent. Tell how your FI is going to evolve to work with AI, how people in your FI will collaborate with, not be replaced by AI. Show, don’t tell how their jobs will evolve to include more analysis and less paralysis. Show how the executive team, managers are preparing for the next phases of AI project implementation. Your employees don’t understand or accept or believe managers or management about the strategy or technology or that they won’t be laid off after the change happens. In that crevice, fear, uncertainty and doubt insert themselves. If, however, your strategy is to replace human workers, be up front about that too. Give people time to find other work.
Vendors
See the points above. Your organization however, have a different objective.
Anticipate the “Yes Buts” that will and have come from prospective, existing and former customers.
Create services that help your financial institution customers use AI technologies in ways that increase value and mitigate risks from every perspective from the start. These services will add to your value as a provider.
Provide forums to air all of the “Yes Buts” from everyone in your organization – from marketing to development. Again the object isn’t to focus on who is a “Yes But” but to identify what those concerns, objections, contrary opinions are. This is especially important as you upgrade solutions with AI technology or create new AI-based solutions/platforms/agents. AI technologies, including agents, will have foreseen and unforeseen consequences. Implementation is not simply a technology issue. You must incorporate ethics, your FI’s mission, governance, regulatory compliance and more from the start is critical. (See Banking on Artificial Intelligence, A New Ethos in Banking and The Agentic Bank to start.)