ING invests in some daring learning

Empowerment goes hand in hand with training

Output-oriented managers and double-digit improvements

In the face of disappearing boundaries between EU countries and migration to low-cost and
internet banking, The Netherlands-based global bank ING – advertising campaign slogan
‘‘Be good at money’’ – decided that it ought also to be extremely good at training and
performance management.
The result was the use of a rather daring method of learning for a large management
development project that ultimately led to tangible business results. About 170 team leaders
in an office environment took park in the project, which was designed and executed by the
bank’s HRD department and Vergouwen Overduin, a Dutch training and consultancy firm.
The bank’s board was initially hesitant about whether the managers would be able to make
the necessary changes to the work processes. Could they really become output-oriented
managers who achieve double-digit business improvements? And, would they be able to do
this while at the same time empowering staff traditionally obliging to orders and procedures?
The desire to create such a transformation in addition to the urgency of it made the board
realize that a classical approach to training and development would leave too much risk of
not attaining.
An important trend to improve efficiency in the financial services sector in The Netherlands
has been to copy the Japanese operational management method, lean/Six Sigma. The key
to success is its unique combination between rational measurement and staff engagement.
Make sure that results of the work process are non-negotiable (a fact is a fact), but
encourage everybody in the workplace to collaborate on how to continuously be doing a
better job.

Stimulating staff engagement in a formal and hierarchical environment

There is a challenge in ‘‘copying’’: incorporating measurement techniques is one thing and
can be achieved if a company has the right people for that job. However, to copy a rather
new corporate culture is something else – particularly in the financial services sector, which
has always put high emphasis on control. In other words, how does management stimulate
staff engagement in a historically formal and hierarchical environment?
Right from the start it was clear that the learning project should not be about learning skills
and seeing for oneself whether they could be put to use. It should be about achieving
measurable results, using the management skills that fit the new culture of staff
empowerment.

DOI 10.1108/14777281111125408 VOL. 25 NO. 3 2011, pp. 31-33, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1477-7282 j DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING IN ORGANIZATIONS j PAGE 31
 Like other banks, ING decided to make use of lean principles to improve efficiency and
quality. Pilot introductions by ING indicated promising results. Implementation would require
lean experts (‘‘black belts’’) to initially aid direct line managers to assess their work
processes as they were, while simultaneously teaching them how to use the measurement
tools and how to interpret their outcomes.
A radical approach to development was needed, rather than the classic approach of
training, hoping that this would lead to change itself. A synergy between learning and
achieving results was needed and four means of leveraging outcomes were established.
Some of them are unusual compared to the common approach in the world of development
and training and the combination is unique:
B Setting measurable objectives within the development project – not only on skills and
behavior, but also on real business performance and staff engagement.
B Creating accountability for development goals. Make them conditional to further career
development.
B Compensating high standards of accountability with support from external coaches, lean
‘‘black belt’’ consultants, peers and manager. Coach the team leaders with their real-life
challenges, instead of formatted training programs.
B Engaging all management layers in the change to be realized.
Strong focus on objectives would not be very valuable if there were ‘‘no strings attached.’’
The company would only benefit if there was a firm incentive to make it happen. This is why
the board decided to make the objectives for each team leader conditional to a further
(operational) management career within ING. If you could not make it, then another kind of
job would be more appropriate. Each team leader had to ‘‘certify’’ (attaining all objectives) to
become an operational team leader for the future.

Peer-to-peer pièce de resistance of the learning sessions

Challenging objectives and their conditionality would only work if compensated with a great
offer of support – not the kind of formal support by compulsory following training sessions,
but by giving a lot of room and attention for individual learning and concerns. Apart from
some training, the ‘‘pièce de resistance’’ of the learning sessions would be ‘‘supervision’’:
sessions of small groups of (peer-to-peer) team leaders who can share their developmental
needs and are helped on the spot by an experienced trainer. So, not a learning method that
instructs and worries later about transferring it to practice, but just the other way around: see
where you stand with your performance objectives and how can we help you specifically in
achieving them.
Next to supervision, team leaders would be intensely supported by ‘‘black belt’’ consultants,
to master the technical skills of Lean management. And support should not only come from
peers and coaches. The managers of the team leaders and even their managers should help
too. After all, this is a profound change of culture. No need to restrict the development to only
the direct line managers.
A system in which the team leader would be monitored and coached by his/her own
manager was set up – both the process of agreeing on (business) objectives and support
during the eight-month period of the development project. The manager of these managers
would be functioning as a ‘‘referee’’: are the objectives set challenging enough and is the

‘‘ Right from the start it was clear that the learning project
should not be about learning skills and see for yourself if you
can put them to use. ’’

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PAGE 32 DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING IN ORGANIZATIONS VOL. 25 NO. 3 2011
 ‘‘ Training demand is usually presented in a fairly
straightforward manner. In that case, to prove added value
afterwards, is usually a pretty hard job. ’’

manager of the team leader offering adequate support to the team leader? In this way, all
managers would be involved as committed stakeholders in the change process.

‘‘We really have to change things here’’

The learning project, ending as it did in satisfactory business results, indicates that in a
development project, measuring operational business goals and making participants
accountable for it can strongly lever results. An open and direct culture seems to increase
performance levels. In this case they were fortified by conditions such as:
B a high sense of urgency in the company (‘‘We really have to change things here’’);
B a learning method of ‘‘free formatted’’ peer-to-peer and expert coaching, not just
standardised training programs; and
B a more than average level of management involvement.
Training demand is usually presented in a fairly straightforward manner. In that case, to
prove added value afterwards is usually a pretty hard job. The method described bears a
lower threshold for leveraging business results.

Keywords:
Comment
Operations management,
Lean production, This review is based on ‘‘Training for results: innovative synergy between learning and
Financial services, business performance,’’ by Roald Pool. The case study describes a result-oriented method
Performance management, of management training at Netherlands bank ING, demonstrating that measuring results in a
The Netherlands management development program is both feasible and productive.

Reference
Pool, R. (2011), ‘‘Training for results: innovative synergy between learning and business performance’’,
Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 43 No. 1, pp. 31-40.

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