Leda Writes for Fintech Futures: a banker’s excellent adventure

Every Thursday, Leda Glyptis, CEO of 11:FS Foundry creates #LedaWrites. This week it’s banking...but with added Bill & Ted references. Excellent!

I was having a drink with a friend not so long ago. This is a happy story. And we were chatting. Also a happy story.

But part of the chat was, inevitably, about the state of the industry we both serve. And love. And occasionally despair in.

Not so happy a story.

Because we can both see that the efforts at innovation theatre have not ceased, even though it is clear to everyone in the industry by now that they won’t distract anyone. They won’t magically uncover anything. They are empty calories. That will leave your clients unimpressed, your resources stretched and your teams disillusioned.

Because those teams rarely know their company doesn’t have faith in the exercise they are hired to carry out and strive at each and every day, until it’s too late. And by then, they have worked their hearts out. They have tried. They have believed. Failure is not what hurts them. The harsh realities of resource allocation is not what hurts them.

The fact that you, the organisation that hired and sent them on their mission, never actually believed. That’s what hurts. And doesn’t stop hurting. For the believers amongst us. Because let’s face it, we are not all driven by the same fire.

Does everyone else also think of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure when people mention wild stallions?

Apparently not so long ago an innovation bod at a big bank described himself, in public and within earshot of my friend, as a wild stallion, roaming free, far and wide. Unchecked and unfettered.

Because that is what banks do, right?

They hire people to roam free. Or not.

Or maybe they just hire people with a mandate to be seen to roam free?

Either way, this is not a happy story.

Wyld Stallyns

Is it just me? Or does everyone else also think of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure when people mention wild stallions?

Well if you are like me, Wyld Stallyns mean a lot.

If you are Young or Cultured and have no idea what I am talking about, then let me tell you that the rest of this post will have some entirely obscure inside jokes that you will have no problem decrypting or skipping over. The one thing you can’t know unless you have seen the film is that, according to the movie, in 2688, humanity has built a utopia thanks to the music of the Wyld Stallyns.

So the fact that bank innovation bod does see himself as a wild stallion resonates heavily with me.

Sure, it’s a touch arrogant. But it’s full of hope for the future. Full of hope.

Plus.

If you have seen the film you know that when Bill and Ted, friends, bandmates and future messiahs, when they start playing together for the first time… the supreme being, Rufus, turns to the audience and says reassuringly and conspiratorially “they do get better”.

Read the whole story at Fintech Futures.