When new employees show up for work at First Business Bank, they’re given a copy of Patrick Lencioni’s book “The Ideal Team Player.” Three months later, they meet with their manager and discuss its tenets and how they apply to their work.
The book stresses that the ideal team player is “humble, hungry and smart,” traits that the bank has folded into its workplace culture, said Dave Seiler, president and CEO of First Business Financial Services Inc., the bank’s parent company.
“We’re very team focused. It’s not about individuals here. It’s what we accomplish together that’s a real selling point to people,” he said. “The book puts vocabulary and definitions to the behavior we’re looking for. People identify with it, and they want to be part of a company where everyone is striving to be an ideal team player.”
Communication is a way that senior leadership promotes teamwork among its 161 Madison employees.
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“We try to be transparent and open, and we do a lot of manager training to make sure that managers have good communication with their employees in one-on-one meetings,” said Seiler. “And we do employee engagement surveys because we want their feedback.”
Seiler said he often spends days sorting through employee responses to determine whether changes are needed.
“If we make a change because of it, we say it happened as a result of feedback we received. We try to build trust that way. Then, we also do it on a division-by-division level,” Seiler added.
Among the cultural competencies that the bank promotes is valuing diversity. The bank integrates diversity, equity and inclusion into talent development and retention. It’s most recent company engagement survey showed that its employee “belonging score” was 91%.
