The Times, Aug 2009
For most people, most of the time, structural process is boring. It’s the product that counts. This is true of government. And it’s true of business. In normal circumstances consumers are far more interested in the end point – the policies, the goods - than they are in how they’re made.
There are two ways to change this. One is to proactively change the way you do business into a positive talking point. Fair trade is a great example. This works best when the process is easy to grasp and the product is easy to understand. How a banana gets from its growers to the grocers. It doesn’t work so well when the process is complex and the product is too. Think politics and financial services. For disengagement to turn to interest in these cases, it’s almost always a disaster that does it.
So we have seen with the expenses scandal and the dramatic failings of the banks. All of a sudden, consumers are much more interested in the back stage. Because their trust has been so fundamentally shaken they do not believe they will do the right thing.
While the situation of both government and banks was similar, their responses have been very different. The government purged, then changed. It set out clear structural changes to how it would run expenses differently. Trust will slowly return. And the default lack of interest in process will return.
The banks purged, to a point. But they have made no attempt to set out how they will change (in this month’s survey many consumers want fundamental changes such as 60% calling for investment banking to be completely separate to retail banking). They seem to be waiting for the government to do it. They need to take responsibility for themselves, and currently no one is taking the lead. This means laying out a clear and very different path forward. And fast. The window of engagement in process following a crisis is relatively short. Disinterest will return soon. But if consumers have not been convinced banks have changed structurally, trust will never return.
