'Can't you call it Simple talking heads Of all the reluctant Talking Heads we have had in the past, APFTs Niek Streefkerk is perhaps the most reticent.'Why would anyone want or have to know about me as a person or about my private life? I'd rather talk about the team...' What'sNewS Issue 8-August 1998 The first time this reporter ever saw Niek Streefkerk, he was making a presentation on APFT to general managers. Rather than piecharts and overheads, his props included a baseball cap showing the logo of Dutch rock group Normaal and background music - lyrics in Dutch dialect - provided by the same band. Normaal produces the kind of rural pop that relies greatly on heavy base lines, simple, pounding rhythms but also energizing guitar licks. Asked why Normaal after the presentation, he shrugged in characteristic style, replying: 'they've just sat through three days of presentations. I wanted to make sure they wouldn't forget us, a very small and new team in the bank.' At the time, he wasn't joking. Today, the 40-strong APFT is often held up as a blueprint for the kind of successful matrix structure crucial to full implementation of the customer focus strategy. Only five years ago, Streefkerk was pretty much a new kid on the F&A bloc and his team was less than a handful of people who spent much of their time travelling to far away developing countries. A far cry front the marbled halls of the IMF which had lent Streefkerk to Rabobank to support Third World debt restructuring. 'In the end,' he says, 'I opted to stay at Rabo bank because though the IMF is a very professional organization, it was also very hierarchical and bureaucratie. My feeling was that it could not reach its full potential because it was too rigid. Definitely too rigid for me.' Streefkerk had come to believe that a different type of structure - flexible and flat with a healthy influx of partnering - was the way ahead. What Rabobank was offering after the debt work out period was a chance to start a project finance team from scratch and put that or- ganizational structure into practice on a global scale. 'I have strong views on what makes for a healthy and performing or ganization,' he says. 'It involves a complex of elements - personal leader ship, creativity, personal and group learning, responsible entrepreneurship, knowledge, experience, discipline, trust, willingness to support each other and commitment, all in the context of clear and dynamic strategie and business planning.' Add to this the creation of best practice and the application of smart knowledge management tools and excellent interpersonal Communications, an intolerance of functional silos and knowledge monopolization and the interview threatens to become an object lesson in organizational theory. If APFT wasn't actively, consistently and most importantly profitably applying all of these tenets, you could easily dismiss them as no more than the latest management fad. But talk to any of the team and they will explain there is nothing faddish about breaking down the barriers of vested interests, entering new markets and developing new knowledge nuggets. While it may sound Bolshie, it is seen by Streefkerk and his people as a means of creating something that resembles more a commonality of purpose, a sense of community that makes for a better work environment. All centred around the team concept, which in his view is the type of organization in which most people would like to work if they had the choice and the opportunity. If that sounds even more Bolshie, then let us disabuse you immediately: the under- lying thinking is quite capitalist. 'A commonality of purpose comes from your own culture, your identity as an or ganization that evolves around a good business strategy,' he says. 'After all, we want to do profitable business around the globe and to improve our profile and competitive strength in the market.' It is perhaps this belief that has given him what appears to be a passion for food and agribusiness. However, contrary to what many people think, this interest is a relatively new one. 'Yes, I am fascinated by F&A on an intellectual level because of its dynamics and Rabobanks international position in this sector,' he explains. 'But may 1 just state for the record here that I am not an F&A fundamentalist; I'd never worked in this sector before I joined the bank.' What he is, he says, is a focus hard liner. 'Within RI, my dedication has more to do with a conviction that you have to be focused in order to survive and thrive. Put it this way, I don't mind if we decide tomorrow to focus on Martian landing equipment. I don't mind as long as we make sure we give it everything we've m got, all the knowledge, all the commitment, all the creativity, all the necessary investment and make it profitable. To be frank, we've yet to put the full force of our commitment behind the focus. We're still too product focused - just look at the names we give to our organizational units: investment and commercial banking, corporate finance instead of health care, F&A and international corporates. The current organization allows substantial scope for lack of alignment. That has to change to make i^j the ong run. A modest Niek Streefkerk With his colleagues in APFT, Streefkerk is trying to support that change. Sharing knowledge and facilitating access to know how are both key to how the team operates. By year end, they will have added a new and powerful element in the collective learning and knowledge management so close to his heart. 'Working with Renaissance Consulting Worldwide, we're building a desk-top based knowledge management learning tooi that will minimize waste and help joint learning around the team,' he explains. It should roll out early 1999. Streefkerk claims he currently has no plans to support the roll out with either special headgear or pop music. However, his parting shot is typically tongue in cheek: 'But if we do, and because many things are less complex than they appear at first sight, it would be Simple Minds, rather than Talking Heads...'

Rabobank Bronnenarchief

blad 'What's news' (EN) | 1998 | | pagina 12