(US & Canada) | Leaders Must Know How to Convince People to Adopt Change — Fifth Third Bank, Chief Technology Strategy Officer

Tracie Wichman, Chief Technology Strategy Officer, Fifth Third Bank, speaks with Channie Mize, General Manager, Slalom Consulting, in a video interview about how technology makes human lives easier, having and retaining the best talent to drive best customer service, success factors in organizational change management, citizen development, and the impact of GenAI.

Fifth Third Bank is one of the largest consumer banks in the Midwestern United States. The bank’s client base spans retail, corporate, investment, and small business.

Wichman shares her ethos around humans and technology, stating that Fifth Third is dedicated to ensuring accurate digitally-enabled solutions for customers and the best human interactions. She adds that the bank uses technology to improve service accessibility, reduce business friction, and reduce mundane tasks that do not demonstrate the best use of human talent.

Expanding, Wichman says that Fifth Third makes sure that the employees can pivot towards the interaction experiences that require human touch to create the best customer experience. She believes that this has been a key enabler in making Fifth Third the most trusted bank.

Moving forward, Wichman states that having the best talent drives the best customer experience. She elaborates that as people’s expectations around services go up, it becomes necessary to have and retain the right talent to derive a fantastic employee experience.

One of the ways to retain the best talent is by making the best use of their time by utilizing technology to reduce high friction or routine tasks, says Wichman. Also, the bank ensures that people understand the evolutions, technologies, and processes from a change management perspective.

Further, Wichman states that if employees are unaware of the changing environment, it can lead to a negative employee experience. Therefore, giving people the right information they need to be successful ensures talent retention.

When asked about the critical success factors in organizational change management, Wichman reveals that executives must know how to convince people to adopt the change from the beginning, not immediately before deployment.

Some of it is understanding the human process of adopting change and thinking about it from a responsible product management perspective. One must comprehend that the product will not deliver value unless the customers use it as intended and consistently.

In addition, Wichman maintains that the mindset shift is critical to determining a successful approach to change management and adoption.

Building on this, she discusses citizen development, wherein she says there are tools at her disposal that end up making the work lives of employees easier. For instance, Wichman notes that one does not have to be an application developer to be able to use Microsoft Power Apps tools.

She maintains that citizen development must be introduced with the right guardrails around security and making sure that no sensitive customer information is exposed to the broader internet.

Shedding light on GenAI, Wichman states that this technology allows to free up some of the human attention and decision-making to where it matters. Coming up with an instant answer from a wide variety of disciplines is promising in the corporate environment.

When it comes to deciding whether or not to accept the results of GenAI, human intervention is necessary. When such powerful technologies are deployed in high-stakes environments like financial services, humans must be there to validate the analysis and decisions.

In conclusion, Wichman notes that this creates a space for humans to do what is uniquely human. She adds that with GenAI, certain responsibilities will no longer require a human, but there are new possibilities that have to be handled by the human.

CDO Magazine appreciates Tracie Wichman for sharing her insights with our global data community.