Bank Mandiri custom program

Bank Mandiri: The quest to build an integrated approach to strategic talent development

Context

Bank Mandiri is no stranger to transformation. Formed in 1998/99 following the Asian economic crisis, the next two decades saw the bank undergo several transitions to accelerate growth and shape its future.

However, as it continued to expand regionally, the bank recognized that its employees needed new tools to internalize and act on the dual goals of optimizing the existing business while creating future sources of revenue and profit through new businesses.

Challenge

Recognizing that one of the biggest drivers of positive change has been people empowerment and cultural transformation, Bank Mandiri shifted its focus to developing strategic business talent. Beyond building internal capabilities to deliver on performing today and preparing for tomorrow, the bank was also navigating a complex business landscape simultaneously.

Changing consumer behaviors, a highly competitive digital space, and a strategy to uplift underserved rural areas meant that the bank needed an integrated approach to talent development. Employees at all levels must learn new skills, competencies, and behaviors to realize Bank Mandiri’s internal mandate to become not just a top bank in the region, but one in a league of its own.

The IMD approach

With a strategy anchored in dual transformation of the core and future businesses, Bank Mandiri’s learning and development (L&D) initiative with IMD was focused on building ambidexterity into the organization’s DNA.

To do this, IMD’s proprietary 5s2 Model, a leadership performance framework with five leadership scales, each with two competing behaviors, informed every aspect of the partnership. From participant selection, through the structure of learning programs and modules, to specific ways the initiative combined the company’s growth needs with individualized development plans, the entire L&D journey was designed to help Bank Mandiri leaders embrace paradoxical mindsets and pivot between contradictory behaviors to effectively overcome challenges.

Two groups of leaders were identified. Over five months, both groups embarked on separate learning programs that were created using the building blocks of executive education modules, on-the-job training, coaching, and stretch assignments. In both programs, the overarching emphasis was on developing skills and behaviors that would propel executives from their “safe zone” of hierarchy, process, and execution to new areas such as creation, experimentation, coaching, networking, and exerting informal influence.

Impact

Due to COVID restrictions, the delivery mode of the program transitioned from face-to-face, to online, to finally hybrid, in which modules were held in classrooms and virtually at the same time. Despite this, over 90% of participants reported a breakthrough upon the program’s completion. The majority reported significant improvements in specific skills and behaviors defined by the 5s2 framework. More importantly, all participants agreed that they now feel more confident as senior leaders and that they can now more effectively lead the dual transformation challenge for the organization.

From an organizational perspective, Bank Mandiri executives were more cognizant of the importance of ambidexterity in defining and executing the organization’s growth strategy. In line with people and culture being one of Bank Mandiri’s core transformation anchors, participants involved in hiring practices reported not just a better ability to transform the dynamics of talent management but also coaching their teams to adopt a similar mindset.