Rich Rod and Commercial Lenders

What does Coach Rich Rodriguez and commercial lending have to do with one another?  Better yet, how can banks learn from his career history when it comes to hiring a new commercial lender?

Let’s start with the latter and work our way back to Rich Rod.

Commercial Lending Hires

Since working in banking, I have seen two schools of thought in the hiring process of commercial lenders.

Hiring From Within

When a commercial lending position opens up with the Bank, the position is filled with a banker who wants to be a commercial lender.

Pros

• Promotion: The bank can raise overall morale by promoting someone that already works for the bank.
• Culture: The new commercial lender already knows the culture of the bank, will have a rapport with bank staff,  and will understand the expectations of the position.

Cons

• Training and Development: The new commercial lender will need time to learn the position and develop into a commercial lender.
• No Portfolio: The new commercial lender comes with no established customer portfolio, which can slow down production in the loan pipeline.

Due to the cons of hiring from within, a bank may fast track the learning and customer portfolio curve by hiring a seasoned, experienced commercial lender

Hiring Outside the Company

A bank may want to see an immediate spike in their loan pipeline and hire a commercial lender from a competitor.

Pros

• Immediate Pipeline: An established loan portfolio can lead to new loan revenue from the lender’s current customers that are not bank customers.

Cons

• Culture Shock: The commercial lender needs to learn the culture of the bank, learn the processes and build a reputation with the staff.
• Lack of Loan Revenue: Just because the new lender has a customer base at their previous bank, doesn’t mean they can easily bring their customers with them.

Regardless of the decision, a bank is rolling the dice when hiring a new lender, but let’s compare the previous two examples with the coaching career of Rich Rod.

Early Success at WVU: Hiring from Within

Rich Rod was hired as WVU’s head football coach in 2000, but that wasn’t his first experience as a Mountaineer.  Here are the highlights of Rich Rod’s life before accepting the head coaching position at WVU:

• A native West Virginian
• Attended WVU and played defensive back for the Mountaineers
• A student assistant coach
• Served as a volunteer assistant

Rich Rod was a logical choice for WVU and during his time there, the Mountaineers exceeded expectations by dominating other teams in the Big East and becoming a nationally ranked top football program.  He was able to hit the ground running due to his long relationship with the Mountaineers.

A Michigan Rocky Ro(a)d: Hiring Outside the Company

The University of Michigan saw the winning record Rich Rod had at WVU.  The Wolverines wanted a winning coach and had heard Rodriguez was getting frustrated with the new President at WVU.  They made the coach an offer he couldn’t refuse, and Rich Rod officially replaced his West Virginia blue and gold for Michigan’s gold and blue.

Rich Rod only spent three years as the University of Michigan’s head football coach.  What happened?

Short Sighted Vision

Michigan wanted a winning coach and they knew Rich Rod already looked good in blue and gold.  Seemed like a winner, right?  What Michigan didn’t realize was that Rodriguez’s offensive strategy, the spread offense, didn’t fully match the football players at Michigan.  This would require a change in players and in staffing.  In fact, players ended up leaving Michigan, citing “offensive behavior” but one has to wonder if it really had to do with “offense changes.”

A move from traditional offense to a spread offense doesn’t happen overnight, it takes seasons to accomplish.  Unfortunately for Rich Rod, the Wolverines didn’t have the patience to see it pan out.

Culture Clash

It is well documented that Coach Rodriguez didn’t get along with the Michigan environment.  He wasn’t a “Michigan Man.”  He didn’t plan on conforming to what boosters and the Michigan administration and boosters wanted from their coach and it came back to haunt him.

Learning a Lesson: What Works for You

This is just one example of several when it comes to hiring.  Just because it didn’t work for Rich Rod and Michigan, doesn’t necessary mean it will not work for your organization.  Shoot, look at what Rodriguez is doing at Arizona.  To date, they have had two winning seasons, and this season they have the opportunity to win the Pac-12 Conference Title.

If your bank does decide to hire outside the company to fill a commercial lending position (or any other position), consider the following points

• Thorough background check: Go beyond the credit and criminal check, get to know the person.  Find out if they are going to be a good fit for the position and your organization.  Do they have the same values as your company?  Will they fit in with your bank’s strategic plan?  To answer these and other questions, you will have to have several interviews and include different people to sit in on the interview.
• Loan Portfolio Review: There is no true way to review someone’s loan portfolio before you hire them.  That said, it is important to have some level of due diligence to ensure the new commercial lender’s customer base matches your bank’s target market.  If your bank is focused on growing commercial and industrial (C&I) loans by creating relationships with manufacturing companies, it may not be in your bank’s best interest to hire a lender who only focuses in commercial real estate (CRE) lending.

Hopefully this Rich Rod metaphor helps you and your organization the next time you need to find your next commercial lender.

Football and Your Company’s Depth Chart

What lessons can companies and department managers learn from college football this season?

If your company is suffering from a talent shortage, then you may find the following post rings true in your organization.

Backstory: College Football

College football season is wrapping up and fans are either excited about their team’s successes or questioning what went wrong this year.

As a WV Mountaineers fan living in Knoxville, Tennessee, it has been a season of ups and downs for the two teams I hear the most about: WVU and UT.  Both teams had very close games, but couldn’t close the deal.

Why?  My humble opinion: each team’s depth charts.

Not enough experienced people

If a college football team has to burn a redshirt and start a true freshman, then their chances of success are slim to none.

WVU: In the Mountaineers’ case, they don’t have enough depth in their defense.  An article written in The Charleston Daily Mail last month sheds some light on this subject.  In the article, writer Mike Casazza, points out:

WVU played nose guard Darrien Howard even though he was on track to redshirt. The defensive line was without the starting defensive end and a backup nose guard against Texas Tech.

UT: The University of Tennessee has done a great job recruiting young, strong athletes.  That said, they are still lacking depth and it has hindered their overall performance.  The Tennessean was able to point that out in an October 31st  article.  In this article,  Coach Butch Jones addresses the depth issue head on by stating:

We need much, much more depth.  A lot of that will be addressed in recruiting.

Both coaches are obviously aware of their depth issue, and both of them have stated in several interviews that they are committed to fix this issue with short-term and long-term tactics.

How does this relate to business?

Regardless if you have a huge corporate organization or a small business, do you have the right people to fill in when needed?  Since I’m in the banking industry, I’ll use banking as an example for the business industry.  When I speak to most HR directors and managers in banking, two issues typically pop up in the conversation.

1. Succession Planning
2. Reduction in Branch Staffing

These two issues are independent from each other but do have a connection when a bank is reviewing their business depth chart.

Succession Planning: Who’s going to be in charge next?

More and more Bank HR conferences and webinars focus on bank succession planning.  In fact, this issue continues to be a sticking point with bank regulators.  Regulators not only want to make sure a bank has long-term vision, but they also want to see how a bank is acting upon the long-term vision.

A 2013 article from American Banker, states a few facts about the lack of succession planning:

The absence of a thorough succession could derail a bank’s strategy, opening it up to a takeover. Since 2008, the average bank CEO age is roughly 58, while CEOs of banks that have been sold have averaged about 61, according to a study from Morgan Stanley. For the 35 bank deals announced during the first nine months of last year (2012), the average seller’s CEO was approaching 65.

Now if you work for a bank and your CEO is approaching, or has already reached, 65, don’t start panicking yet.  Just because you don’t know if there is a succession plan doesn’t mean there isn’t one.  There could be a succession plan written and approved by senior management and the Board of Directors.

But as previously stated, is the bank acting upon the plan?

Ask yourself, is there appropriate training in place?  Are the future leaders of your bank learning about possible future roles?

• If your CFO is in place to be the CEO, are they learning about how to lead people?
• If the CCO is next in line, does that person understand what needs to be done to raise low-cost/non-interest deposits?

If you answer no, again, don’t panic.  There is still time to fast track training and different ways to approach it.

Reduction in Branch Staffing: Do you have the people, but not the talent?

Banks across the country are running into the following issue.

For decades banks have staffed their branches with tellers.  Now with a decline of in-branch transactions, some banks are loaded up with a staff that doesn’t have anything to do.  Will they have to lay off teller (a current trend) or have they started training these tellers for other positions within the bank?

There are two factors to consider when training tellers (or anybody): skill set and passion.  For example, if you plan on transitioning a teller to mortgage lender, think about…

• Skill Set: Does the teller have some of the natural qualities needed for this type of position.  Do they enjoy working with people?  Do they understand that mortgage lending requires a level of knowledge regarding regulations?
• Passion: Most of the skill sets needed can be done through time via training, but passion is an internal mechanism that a person must have.  Without it, all the training and skill sets in the world will amount to nothing.  Make sure they have passion and find ways to keep that passion alive.

In order to successfully make this transition, branch managers, human resources and senior management all have to be on the same page.  All three must work together to identify what areas need more depth and then find the person who can fill in the depth gap.  This opportunity itself is another blog post for another day.

Wrapping Up

Whether it is football or business, being the best means always improving and looking for opportunities.  In order to do that, you have to make sure your team is loaded with not only play makers, but with rising stars.  Make sure to prepare your rising stars so that they can move into the play makers position as seamlessly as possible.