EP 134 Human-Centric Selling and Risk-Aware Growth with Jack Haworth

Speaker A: M this is Mental Selling, the sales podcast for people who are dedicated to making a difference in customers lives. We're here to help you unlock sales talent, win more relationships and transform your business with integrity. I'm your host, Haley Parr. Let's get right into it. Welcome back to Mental Selling. I'm Haley Parr and this is part two of our series on compliance with Jack Hayworth, financial services executive compliance consultant and one of the most pragmatic thinkers I know when it comes to the intersection of growth and ethics. If you missed part one, please go back and start there. We really set the stage for why compliance alone does not guarantee ethical behavior and what the warning signs look like for banking organizations today. So in part two, in this episode we're going to be getting into the how. How do you actually close the gap between policy and practice? How do you build a banking culture where the frontline staff consistently know and do what's right even when no one's watching? We're talking about human centric selling as a framework, the role AI should and shouldn't play in judgment heavy decisions, and the practices Jack and I believe every banking leader should be putting into place. Jack also shares a real world example from his consulting practice that perfectly illustrates what it looks like to actually live these values in leadership. Let's pick right back where we left off. We got into a conversation around boards and the focus on, um, culture as a risk driver. From their perspective, they set their expectations. From their oversight, they're setting expectations that feeds into the norms of the culture that should, you know, this kind of is the ideal state. Right. And that flows into employee behavior and that flows into customer outcomes. But ultimately there are signals that this is actually working. And one that you mentioned, and as a marketer, this kind of slapped me in the face was that if your culture is doing what it's supposed to do, it's not anything that you have to print on a wall or post on your website or do anything externally. It's your customers are going to communicate that back to you in an accurate way. Could you double click into that? Because again, as a marketer I was like, uh, yes, absolutely. I want my customers to have this authentic, accurate representation and I want to do everything I can to ensure that I'm enabling that for.

Speaker B: I guess I can go into a little more detail on that. So it probably stemmed from, uh, a gentleman that was a CEO that I learned something from and he was talking to me about a strategy that we were trying to go digital and he said it so many times that it made me kind of throw up. I heard it so often. And I was able to repeat all of his words. And I finally confronted him. I said, yeah, I don't understand why you keep bringing this up. I just. I don't get it. I've heard it from you a thousand times. He goes, well, you know, Jack, you have 400 people reporting to you. Do you think the person on the front line has heard the same thing? And I go, well, yeah, they've heard it. And he goes, but have they internalized it? I go, I don't know what you mean. He goes, do they want to throw up yet? And I go, okay, so we're talking clarity, right? We're talking consistency. So from that perspective, I took that away and said, it's more than that. It's more than that. It's more than the front line. Because if it doesn't permeate over to the customer, uh, then your culture stopped there. And who should understand your culture? I know, like my wife, for example, she loves. As a marketer, she loves certain attention to detail. The Virgin brand has certain attention to detail. And for her, she knows as a customer what that stands for, what it means for. But as a frontline person, you might not ever get that to the customer. But I know when we took our cruise, we saw people cleaning all day, every day, and they were in the background. But that attention to detail shows what that culture is, right? There is that attention. It's just not the brand. It's just not what we say we are. It's what someone that buys from us consistently is saying that we are. It's. And that's where I feel our culture really hits within an organization. If it hasn't got there, then you need to keep doing it until you throw up, until the front line throws up. Right? I mean, that's how it has to get.

Speaker A: All right, so takeaways from this slide is make your customers throw up and go book a cruise. Got it. Check and check. No, I couldn't agree more, Jack.

Speaker B: Most recently, I would tell you, around this particular question, with all the different banks and financial institutions I work with, I'm seeing one of two things really kind of fall out. We really want to incentivize our team, because where we're at from a total comp, we can only do so much on salary. But we have high incentive, and therefore, that's how we attract people. But if we have incentive, then is that training the right behavior, or is that actually going down a path that we don't want to go down. So how do I retain employees and be competitive in the marketplace and giving them, um, what they want to be able to control bonuses and so forth, at the same time not having issues that other institutions have had when they have incentive compensation places in place to obtain these high goals that then leads to, am I doing the right thing? I've seen people actually throw their incentive compensation program out the window because of the risk that it takes on the other side that it could cause a behavior issue.

Speaker A: Absolutely. I'm glad you brought that up.

Speaker B: A lot of people will say that, that it's this control function on the backside, right. To make sure that we don't get in trouble. But if you're doing, I guess you got to as a marketer, kind of flip that around and go, well, what if. I always like to look at it from a maximizer. What if we were doing the right thing all the time? What would that look like to our customer base? What would that look like to our employee base? How would that then allow us to gain market share? I don't think we look at it from a growth enabler. Yeah, we put the gas down on this and we really did it more proactively than anyone else. What would that look like for us?

Speaker A: You're absolutely crushing all of my segues here, Jack. Like, now what? Let's move this from rule awareness to ethical application. What if. What does that look like? This is the shift from awareness to application and going from knowing the rules to actually making sound decisions in context. So we'll start talking now what it means to go from knowing versus doing. And like, we know that's not the same and how does that play out? Right. This is the critical distinction. Again, we've hit on this quite a few times. But it's important. Knowing what's expected is not the same as doing what's right. And that gap is where the inconsistency and ultimately the risk lives. So with that, we're going to jump into human centric selling. This is another key theme. It's right in the title of the webinar. This is something we talk about at Integrity Solutions quite a bit because it's a principle that we feel very strongly that helps bridge this gap that we've been talking about all day long for a few reasons. It enables people to align with customer needs. It enables folks to navigate gray areas, you know, make those trusted judgment calls and make sound decisions. And these are all things that play within these risky compliance based situations. Because ultimately, when Values guide behavior, that compliance that becomes easier to apply. So you and I talked about what human centric selling means to you and how that shows up. And I think you had some really awesome examples, Jack. I'd love for you to share that today.

Speaker B: This one is one that just really hits me very close to home. And I believe you put the customer in the middle of every decision you make, whether you're the executive, whether you're frontline staff. And if you truly do that, will you ever make a bad decision? And you just got to think about that for a minute. If that is. My sole purpose is to put the customer first. What does that look like? In my day to day, they're in the middle of all the decisions I make. And for me, I always think about how would I like my mother to be treated, right? And she's been a customer and a member of every institution I've been at. And there's a certain way you think of someone that you want to be treated that way, right? And that's how I align that. And once you start putting that into concept and people can actually understand what you mean, why would you make this loan to that customer? Because you have an incentive comp. But is that the right thing to do? Right. Is that the right decision to make? Do I make this change in my overall strategy in our organization, but I don't even have an idea of how it affects our customer yet and really have that as the customer alignment area. I could talk about this all day because especially when you're interviewing someone and you start talking about your culture, which I've been conducting interviews all day today, you talk about your culture. If they don't align that way, it's really hard to have someone change their spots, right? A leopard changing their spots. So you should be able to feel that if they're customer centric early within your conversations, and if they're not, your decision on hiring should be pretty simple. You got to go with the next person that has that alignment, even if they don't have all the skills you might be looking for. The skills can be trained. The customer alignment piece is not an easy one to be trained on. It's got to be centric to you. So this is an area that, if you can really digest it as a team and as an executive group, to really say, we're here for the member, we're here for the customer every day. And then say, well, what does that mean? Right? So just for an example, I was doing some consulting and they were saying, hey, I have this career path. All right, well, do you? Yeah. And then when you ask what the career path is, they don't know. I think I have one. Well, that's very similar. Here you say your customer, uh, eccentric. Well, then what's that mean to you? Give me those examples on a daily basis.

Speaker A: Yeah. I think the power of articulation goes a long way. And if it's not top of mind, I think that is a flag that there might be some work to be done there.

Speaker B: I know this slide has those four boxes, but when you're really looking at that one customer alignment, the rest of them kind, um, of circle around it and take care of itself for the most part. Because you're going to have your compliance training. Right. You're going to have your inspection part of this. And if you don't have that person in the middle, that's really customer centric, the rest of it is like window dressing. Right. That's the main part of it.

Speaker A: I want to reiterate something Jack said, because I think it's one of the most important takeaways from this entire conversation. And that was if you truly put the customer in the middle of every decision, I'm talking every single one. Will you ever truly make a bad decision? Think about that for a second. Not what does compliance allow, not what gets me to my number, but genuinely what is right for the person that's right in front of me. That's not a compliance question. That's a values question. And it requires something training alone can't fully deliver. It requires the kind of character that shows up automatically under pressure because it's been practiced, reinforced, embedded in a culture, and modeled from the top down. So in the next section, Jack and I discuss a core methodology at, uh, Integrity Solutions. Then we walk through specific practices. You can start building into your organization right now. And he shares what he told a banking leader just that week when they were asked where to even begin with it all. You're not going to want to miss it. I would be remiss as, uh, the head of marketing at Integrity Solutions. Not to mention another core methodology that doesn't play really well into this conversation, which is all of our solutions have elements of mindset, skillset, and ongoing reinforcement. And ultimately, sustainable behavior change requires all of these things. The mindset to be customer first and own ethics and understand and believe in why this behavior matters, the skill set to ask better questions, to handle that pressure ethically, to use your judgment in complex decisions, and then reinforcement to continue to grow and learn. And iterate on how this needs to play out the field for leadership to model these behaviors long term. That actually gets embedded into a culture through repetition by building in systems that reward the right behaviors. You miss any one of these things and it starts to break down. So just wanted to call out that this plays in really nicely here.

Speaker B: The one halo that I think on that slide that most people think that they're doing and they're not. Again, a lot of experience in this area. Mindset. Yeah. Kind of got the right person. Great skill set. Yep. Check. Got the resume. This reinforcement piece, that's when you point the finger at someone, three of them are pointing back at you. That's where we fall short as leaders most of the time. Is that reinforcement piece. Because people learn in so many different ways too. And we might be reinforcing one way and not reinforcing in two and three different areas. It's this reinforcement piece that completely. I see. Missed over and over and over again. And that's why this compliance loop keeps occurring. It's just almost the same thing as a sales cycle. Right. You load your funnel really high and all of a sudden you close everything and your funnel's really low. Why? Because you didn't continue selling through that process and you take the loop out. Same thing on this compliance side. Well, I was reinforcing it. Oh. Then I stopped. Oh. Now I got to reinforce it again. And then you see those breakdowns and that's where your fines and your customers leaving and your employees leaving because you haven't stayed consistent throughout it. And it's maybe because you didn't believe in it to begin with.

Speaker A: And you mentioned reinforcement. I think this plays really well into these risk aware growth actions that show up every. Like the signals. Right. What are we seeing every day that tell us we're doing it? We're making progress here. The so what of it all? What to look out for in everyday customer interactions to to show that there's progress. You know, you have your phrase, you inspect what you expect. That's a good marching order to get to this point that there's things to be looking out for. Like you mentioned earlier, your process for regular check ins with your folks, Jack site visits, customer feedback, NPS surveys, that type of a thing. It really is those everyday actions to understand context, make recommendations and use that sound judgment to not only define the behaviors that you expect you want to inspect, but then you can take down the line and reinforce through observation in a consistent way.

Speaker B: What I see in this one in this slide and Hayley you and I talked about this a little bit. A lot of people do check ins, a lot of people do site visits, but it's kind of hit or miss. But the piece that I find that has been missing is really developing. This is who we are as an organization, this is how we conduct things here. When you come here, this is now the team that you're involved in. And the team has certain ways, uh, in which we do things. A playbook mentality, everyone understands that, right? I can read a playbook, I can run a play and if I have a problem, I can go back to my playbook and it's still sitting there. I know how to run that play again until it becomes so ingrained that I just know it. Right? You're going to go run this route and I'm going to hit you with the pass. And that's just how it is. But these items here normally get extracted and become part of a playbook mentality that says this is how we do business here, this is how we conduct ourselves and that everyone's aware of it. So then there's an accountability piece that goes both ways. Well, I can't say I didn't know that because you had the playbook, you read through it, we went through it together. This is how this works. And I think that's where fraud, you get that fraud taken out of it. Right?

Speaker A: We touched on the AI of it all a, uh, few slides ago. But I think what's important to hit here is that idea around the fact that AI should be a partner, not a replacement for judgment. Because technology can inform decisions, but it should not own them. This really is just reinforcing that need for strong human decision making. AI can improve decisions, it should not own them. Especially in the context of banking, in the context of compliance, it really is just that thought partner to help support, prep and speed, find patterns, improve access to information and serve as a partner to the human, especially in those big decision areas.

Speaker B: You know, I do a lot of different things. One of the things, I'm a part owner in an AI firm and in this firm we're using AI, agentic AI. So everyone says AI, there's differences, right? Large language models and what do we own, what do we not own? We actually, in the company that I'm part owner in, we have an agentic framework that then allows us to be that thought partner. So, so that in a commercial loan perspective, you can turn a decision around in a day versus 90 days, for example, and in doing so it actually is a check for Compliance. So you build in your opportunity within AI technology. Let technology do what technology does, right? Let people do what people do. People do great at, uh, relationships. Technology can't really do that. Right. But technology can make you more efficient to allow you to build that relationship and what it does on the compliance side, at least in this particular software, and I know a lot of software will do this, it will give you your out of compliance, you're out of policy. But what it won't do is it won't allow you to go find that other way to get it within policy. That's what the human still has to do. Right? You try to find a way to put the customer in the middle of everything you're doing. And that's not letting AI do all the work. You really have to know that person, that customer. And that's where the relationship piece comes in. I played football in college and my coach always said, you know, adversity is going to happen sometime in this football game. And I said, yeah, yeah, quarterbacks, I play defense. Quarterbacks are going to throw an interception and then defense has to come out there and stop them from scoring. The same thing in business, right? When you're talking about your culture and when something does occur, that's where character really comes out. As an organization, what do you do about it? Right? Do you coach that person? Do you let them go and everyone else is looking for you? On how you respond to that.

Speaker A: Yeah, I like that. I like how you called out that character comes out in those decisions. I think you could swap that for integrity as well. The word integrity, how you show up and maybe you don't know until you're in that moment, but you like to think you know how you're going to react in those.

Speaker B: I had an example of that just this week. I told one of my lenders to make sure that we were giving the customer all the solutions that they could have. And when it came down to give the decision to the customer, there was only one decision on the plate. And I said, this is that moment, right? You know, those coaching moments, when they happen, that means I'm customer centric. And customer centric means we put all the solutions and we give them the opportunity to then make the best solution. And I said, you're not doing that. What's wrong here? Now I could have got on them really hard. I said, let's make sure we're doing what we say we are. And what we are is member centric. We got to give all those solutions. And that's where that integrity piece, you got to back it up in those hard situations when it comes time, you could have, I could have glossed over it and said, okay, great, well, you know, we're moving forward. No, take the minute. And just because it lives, right. Your culture is living and breathing.

Speaker A: Yeah. I've never known you to gloss over anything like that, Jack. So I don't doubt that for a second. That's great.

Speaker B: When you're speaking the right language and your team feels your culture, all these things are being done, it's consistent. Right. When it's not, and I get the phone call and it's, hey, can you help us? Like, sure. What's going on? Well, the regulators were just here and we have an issue. Yep. That's gone too far at that point. Right. I mean, you're like, yeah, I can help you, but what I'm going to help you with is these key indicators. Right. Let's dig into your turnover. Let's dig into your exit interviews. Well, we're not doing them. Okay, I'm going to go do them for you. I'm going to give you that information back going forward. Let's set up this process. But more importantly, how about we do career pathing? Because what we're finding, the exit interviews is that they don't feel like they have a career and understanding that whole holistic view of the same way that you put the customer in the middle of everything. I think on this side, if you are able to put the employee in the middle and understand what they're dealing with consistently, then a lot of these things aren't happening. You're having one offs. Right. It's not a trend, there's not a pattern because it's a one off situation. But I would tell you the turnover trend is what I'm seeing the most from the regulators today.

Speaker A: Interesting.

Speaker B: That's where I get the most phone calls. And the teams that I deal with, they don't know why they're not putting time into that piece as much as they are trying to go get another business. And you know as well as I do, taking care of the customer you have is a lot easier and going to get a new one. Taking care of the employee you have is a lot better than going to get a new one because as soon as you get a new one, you have to retrain them in your timeline. Right. You don't have that much. So now you're getting to your sales takes even longer because you're constantly going people in and out the door from a turnover Perspective, it's impossible, I would

Speaker A: have guessed would be the hot topic for regulators, but it makes a lot of sense, right?

Speaker B: Yeah. They're feeling like there might be too much span of control is how I continue to put it. Where leadership is reaching too far down and they're trying to control too many items. And therefore that leads to turnover patterns. You know, know your lane. Enable management to do what they do best. Right. Do the only things that you can do. And that's the themes that come out of that turnover trend analysis.

Speaker A: I think this kind of ties into the fact that these healthy cultures that is visible both in system and outcomes, the leadership systems, the incentive plans, but also the employee experience, the career paths, the development, the reviews and bonuses that are timely, the behaviors, not just the numbers on a scorecard or how KPIs are measured, but the actual behaviors. Again, this shows up in people metrics and business results.

Speaker B: I bet if you went around and you talked to top sales leaders at financial institutions, this doesn't come up. It's not top of mind. It is something that when you ask them more pointed, oh, of course we do that. And again, it's. Then give me examples of how you go about doing that as a sales leader or how your team has that shown up. And if they can't say that, then it's not. It's again, words on the wall. And like you said, it's this umbrella that really protects the rest of these other items. If this is happening, those raindrops, they're falling off, right? Because you've embedded it in your development program. That means you've had the expected behaviors, the decision principles, the incentives. All these things under the umbrella are occurring because you've handled it at the top of the house with this very strong ethical on the flip. Whenever I meet with an institution and they give me their incentive program and I read through it and then all of a sudden I uncover things like, we have a stay bonus, we have retention bonuses. I really start to pull on the thread and I scratch that itch a little bit and go, tell me why you have to have that. What's the issue? What's the cause of that? And that's typically when I see an unhealthy incentive program, well, that's the only way I can make employees stay. It's so competitive. I have to offer these things. Your culture isn't there. So there's a different way to fight that battle than constantly having trying to handcuff everybody into your organization. Do you really want people handcuffed to the organization. If they don't want to be there, they shouldn't be there. Right. So that's that incentive piece that I've seen on a misalignment. And a lot of people say, well, no, that's what I have to do. Challenge yourself and say, is that truly what I have to do?

Speaker A: Absolutely. I have this question that came through and I think it's a really, really good one to really drive it home and make it tactical for folks who might want a little bit more day to day practical advice. If a banking leader wants to address this tomorrow, where should they begin? So, Jack, what's one step they could do or take tomorrow to address an issue in this area?

Speaker B: I believe everything starts with people. People are your key. I can have the greatest plan in the world, the most training modules, but at the end of the day, if I don't have the right people, that's the systemic issue. So I would do that, look in the mirror and make sure that I'm saying what I'm supposed to be saying and doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And then do my inventory check with my key leadership across the table. Because if there's a gap, that's where that gap is. If you're leading with integrity and ethics, yet you feel like there's a gap somewhere, then that very next gap is in your next level of leadership. And that's where I would do my catalog check in with my team. And I wouldn't necessarily go directly to them. I would go to their people underneath and ask. I would go to my customer, ask what our culture is. If I want to know. Haley has 25 people reporting to her. What's that culture? I'm going to go ask those people what the culture is not Haley, because Hayden's going to tell me what it is. But it's not real unless the employees can feel it. And I think if you don't have the right people, that's where this all hits.

Speaker A: And there you have it, folks, the full conversation, the full picture of what it means to move beyond compliance. Not just following the rules, not just training your team, actually building a culture where ethical judgment is so embedded in how people work that it just shows up automatically in the loan decisions, in the customer conversations, and the coaching moments everywhere. Jack left us with something really simple and powerful. Start with a mirror. Make sure what you are saying and what you're doing are the same thing. I mean, some people say that's the definition of integrity right there. From there, you work outward your leadership team to your frontline, to your customers, who, by the way, are the ones who will ultimately tell you exactly what your culture really is. I want to say a huge thank you to Jack Hayworth for bringing his decades of real world experience to this conversation. If you'd like to connect with Jack or continue the conversation, you can find him on LinkedIn. And if your organization is looking for a training partner to help bridge the gap between compliance awareness and ethical execution, that's exactly what we do here at, uh, Integrity Solutions. Reach out. I love to talk or visit integritysolutions.com now if today's conversation sparked something for you, if you're sitting there thinking, I know we have a gap, I just have no idea where to start. First of all, don't panic. You're not alone. I want to point you to two things that we've built here at Integrity, specifically for moments just like this. First is our sales performance roadmap. It's designed to help you align your training and development strategy to your actual goals, curated to close skill gaps, strengthen customer trust, and build toward measurable growth. And the second? If you're thinking about how to make make the sales training actually stick, not just in the room, but for the long run, you need to check out Elevate Selling. This has been built around the idea of sustainment using AI, where it genuinely adds value, all while keeping the human element at the center. Think AI enabled but human always. And you can learn more@integritysolutions.com Elevate so this two part series resonated with you. Please share it or the entire podcast at large for with someone on your team or a leader in your organization who needs to hear it. If you haven't already, leave us a review. It just helps more people find these conversations and we are eternally grateful. Again, I'm Hailey Parr with Mental Selling. Thanks for tuning in. Thank you for joining us on Mental Selling. If today's conversation resonated with you, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with your network. For more insights on how to go beyond winning deals and build real customer relationships, visit integritysolutions.com See you next time.