CEO Interviews
Interview with Archie McDonnell, Jr.
By Roxanne Emmerich, CSP, CMC

Every once in a while, you meet an extraordinary human who, in spite of a market that doesn’t cooperate, makes miracles happen—because of who he is.

Archie McDonnell is one of those guys. Archie called me a few years ago within days of reading my Profit-Growth Banking book…and he wanted to get started yesterday. That’s just one of the things I learned to love about Archie. He doesn’t let any grass grow under his feet.

And for Archie, it’s not just about starting. It’s about follow through and breakthrough. In a state with the highest poverty rate in the country and minimal growth opportunities, Archie doubled his bank’s asset size AND profits…and never let go of his commitment to be a philanthropist extraordinaire.

Any person I’ve introduced Archie to soon came to respect him immeasurably and call him a friend because of his sincerity and realness. After reading this introduction, there is no doubt you’ll want Archie to be your friend as well.

Archie:  Well, I figured that you wanted to go back to when all this started about five or six years ago when I became President and CEO. It wasn’t too long after that when I saw the article that you wrote. In fact I still have a copy of it on my desk. 

Roxanne:  No kidding! I would have done a better job writing it had I known it would have that kind of staying power.

Archie: Yeah, I don’t know if you even remember it but it was the Strategies of Top Performers, an ABA Bankers News online feature story; January 7, 2003, volume 11, issue 1. 

Roxanne: You really did keep it, didn’t you?

Archie: So my reading of that article is what prompted me to read your book and pick up the phone and track you down one day. 

Roxanne: Would you be willing to share what you’ve been up to?

Archie:  Well the bank has essentially doubled in size…really more than doubled in size in that time period, going from 500 million in 2001, to 1 billion today.  When we started with you, we were what I would have characterized as, at best, an average performer—probably an underperformer.  We also were making somewhere in the neighborhood of less than $7.6 million in net income and now we have grown to $15.6 million in pre-tax net operating income . So we doubled the bank size…more than doubled the bank’s profit. 

Roxanne:  That’s awesome.

Archie:  And we’re right on top of the return on assets for high growth banks at about 1.2 percent. So, we’ve done all our growth organically without sacrificing profitability.

Roxanne:  So, what did you learn and what are you doing differently?

Archie:  I’ve learned that the culture is the main thing.  You have to create not just an environment where you have fun but also one where the fun is directed at winning. It’s not good enough just to play the game—you’ve got to play to go to the championship game. 

Roxanne:  That’s true.  

Archie:  I guess I’ve learned how complex that is. And I learned a whole lot about people through the emotional intelligence testing you do for banks.  We coach to that every month. 

In making the culture advancement, we contracted with The Emmerich Group, then we began to work consciously toward having breakthroughs.

It’s in the mix. It’s the Breakthrough Banking™ which we got from you as the structure for our meetings, the sales meetings combined with the annual meetings you’ve spoken at, and the teleseminar calls when you can get your people together and they can dial up with other banks that are working at the same process that you are.  That’s powerful.  We’ve created the Hoopla Team™ with rotating membership like we talked about.  You know we send as many people as we can to educational events like the Boot Camps.  Terry Slattery coming and spending a couple days with our sales people, that was pretty big.  Gosh, I’d have given anything to have two days with Terry Slattery 20 years ago.

Roxanne:  It really is about coming from all angles at once. If you had to narrow it down, what are the best choices you have made in shifting your culture?

Archie:  Well it’s convincing the leadership that it’s their responsibly to be different and to change first. It’s so simple—but a revelation. How many times have you heard of some organization that says it wants to change? The top leadership encourages that change but then they keep doing things the same way.  When the people see leadership change, they say, “Well, I might be able to do this change too.”

Roxanne: That’s powerful.

Archie:  The other thing that I learned was what a huge deal it is as for the leadership in the bank to be in the field as much as possible and to see people and be with people.  You know, that’s one of the reasons we do the town hall meetings.  We just finished a series of town hall meetings that had to do with our new organizational structure. I wanted to go there and hear what people’s questions were and see them eyeball to eyeball. Make sure they knew that the leadership in the bank cared about them, cared about the change they were going through, that we were going through changes too. 

In the past I thought I needed to bring something of substance to a bank when I did a visit, like bring a customer. That was exactly the opposite of what I needed to be doing.

With my new understanding of my role, when we see somebody who is doing all the right things, we want to reinforce that.  We took your advice. We jump in a car and take a hand full of balloons. Virgie, my executive assistant, has a beautiful voice and sings You Are My Shining Star in front of everybody—bank employees and customers alike. They are looking at this saying, “What kind of place is this?”  And the employees, you can see them leaning over to each other saying, “What is going on here?  What did this person do to get this kind of a response?”

Roxanne:  Goodness, I’m glad you or I didn’t have to sing.

Archie:  There’s something I tell our people at new employee orientation. I tell them, “I know not everybody is going to be in this bank for thirty years like I am, but if there is one thing I would like you to take from your experience here as an employee—whether you stay for six months, six years, or thirty years—it is that you learn some things about being successful, about being a winner in life, over and above just being an employee at the bank.  If you did that, then we will be successful and we will have done our job and will reap the benefits from it—and so will you.”

Roxanne:  Sounds like “enlightened banking.”

Archie:  I don’t expect leadership to be easy.  Don’t expect it to come natural; it’s a job description.  You have to work at it. Your leadership team has to work at it. We have worked hard at it.  I mean, we’ve used the emotional intelligence development programs. And I’ve seen people make dramatic improvements. And people really can’t change who they are, but they can manage their behavior.

I’m convinced they can manage it in a significant way so that it becomes a positive.  I’ve got a couple people here that I just couldn’t tell you how proud I am of them.  You know the people who have to work the hardest at that. They are the ones who sometimes become the most effective just because it doesn’t come naturally to them.

Roxanne: It’s hard to grow into being a leader.

Archie:  Because you’re relating to people—touching their innermost being when you do that—and very few of us, I’ve found, are just natural born gifted leaders.  We just don’t have that kind of a talent pool and probably nobody does. I think it produces a big return for the ones who work at it like that. Big time. 

Roxanne:  What’s most important to educate your people to grow your bank?

Archie:  We tried to educate and excite various people, sort of like what Patti talked about in the last Extraordinary Banker magazine, by sending them to your Boot Camp to build the right kind of culture. The emotional intelligence testing—we tested every one in our bank at the beginning and matched them to the banking benchmarks to make sure we were hiring sales people for sales positions. The teleseminar calls are an important part of that. People being on the Hoopla Team, that’s an important part.

You know, me personally going to the Permission to be Extraordinary Summit™, was very meaningful, so it’s all of it…the mastermind calls…all of that stuff working together with a lot of people.  That’s why it’s so hard to say it’s just one thing.  But I think educating and involving people, that’s a huge thing.

Roxanne: What’s next?

Archie: We’ve still got a long way to go. We’re a long way from where we would like to be.

Roxanne:  That’s what I love about you. You’re always on the journey and never arrive. 

Archie:  I know.