Entrepreneurial Secrets – How the Beach Boys saved a bank
August 22, 2017
By Jerry Bellune
The Beach Boys we’re talking about were bankers.
Hard-nosed Frank Cahouet recruited them.
Their goal was to help him save a failing bank.
Frank was tough. He lost his dad in his teens.
He drove trucks to put himself through school.
He worked and earned a BS at Harvard.
He worked and earned an MBA at Wharton.
These are not easy or inexpensive schools.
But their degrees on your resume open doors.
He went to work in banking in California.
Many in banking were fat, dumb and happy.
They had drivers, assistants and corporate jets.
That left their balance sheets in financial messes.
As CFO he helped salvage more than one bank.
His toughest challenge came at Mellon.
He was the first outsider hired as chairman and CEO.
Mellon was suffering heavy losses on bad loans.
“I was truly scared,” he said of taking over.
“Had the company been drifting too long?
“Could we move it out of this lethargy?”
He brought in a team of bankers he knew.
They were disparaged privately as the Beach Boys.
But they knew Frank and what they had to do.
They cut 3,700 jobs (18% of the company) in a year.
They held 7:30 a.m. staff meetings.
They clamped down on travel and office supplies.
They tolerated no one who did not work hard.
He gave them the OK to be impolite when necessary.
They shuffled bad loans into a separate company.
They hired managers from fee-generating businesses.
They merged Mellon with Bank of New York.
What they did turned a failure into a success.
You can do it too, if you are ready to:
1. Cut the fat but not the muscle.
2. Get rid of dead wood and hire real race horses
3. Inspire your people do to more with less
Next: The “Hit by a Bus” Strategy
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Copyright 2017 The Bellune Company Inc.
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