A lot of efforts have been made in the training of bankers area. They did not always reach all the expected success. Short seminars are often considered as not being concrete (practical) enough to help solve today’s problem*.
After having analysed the changing situation and defined the best logical ways to realise the expected changes, the project leader has to set-up the concrete and material conditions for the implementation of the change.
Any change process is made of successive steps that should be followed carefully. In a concrete fashion, to proceed by logical progression, any change project has to be broken down into phases.
This third part of the handbook is meant to suggest a coherent overall approach of the management of the changes that have to be completed in the C.I.S. banks, suggesting improvements to be implemented, as much as possible in terms of ways to do things: how to manage to achieve efficiently the required changes?
Another point is the underestimation of the necessity of modern personnel management and human resources development techniques for selection, training, motivation, promotion, of staff. C.I.S. bankers still have to be convinced that it is a key factor in today’s banking.
« The difficulties of C.I.S. banks come from their insufficient management know-how » (Hans Martens). In fact, we found there out-dated management practices which are incompatible with the requirements of effectiveness, efficiency and productivity. This, for instance, appeals for a necessary change of the traditional, either autocratic or bureaucratic leadership style.
(the reasons why changes can be difficult and the conditions for their successful achievement) The economic, technological and methodological changes of C.I.S. banks necessitate a human resources change in the behaviours, but also in knowledge’s, skills, competences and qualifications of employees.
A model for the understanding of reactions to change Let us start by some universal observations, showing, first, a conceptual frame that is currently used in western enterprises to deal with the difficulties of change.
In an EBTRA survey carried out by the Irish Management Institute, it turned out that in most CIS countries banks do consider competitive pressure non-existing or of secondary order. This is a bad sign for the banking sector as such and again highlights that most banks still function on behalf of government.
In the CIS, there are three kinds of firms: SOE’s, privatized firms and private small and medium sized enterprises (SME’s). As pointed out before, large SOE’s and many privatized firms that are controlled by entrenched management receive preferred treatment by those banks that have emerged through spin-offs of former state banks.
