Spotlight on Financial Services: Building empathy for dispersed teams in a competitive world

Global organizations like banks, insurers, and investment funds typically contain hundreds of teams. Maximizing their effectiveness is a vital and often untapped competitive advantage: poor teamwork leads to inefficient capital allocation, decreased profitability, attrition, lack of inclusion, ESG (Environmental, Social, and corporate Governance) failure, and groupthink – a phenomenon where the pressure to conform leads to unchallenged decision-making. 

Drawing on research interviews with financial services (FS) leaders, as well as my executive and team coaching experience, I analyze the dynamics that challenge team cohesion and performance in the FS industry to illustrate how teams can learn to understand and manage their behavior for the better. 

For most of history, humans have worked in localized, tribal, and family groupings, building deep, long-term bonds of stability. The more distanced nature of 21st-century workplaces – communicating on virtual platforms, across borders, in often rapidly changing teams – can significantly reduce and decondition our experiences of bonding and psychological safety. Without such safety, we become less likely to volunteer different opinions or handle conflicting views in our teams effectively. 

The high stakes and volatility of financial systems can also mean 'strong' behaviors become culturally preferred. Facing unpredictability, humans seek stability, gravitating towards those who project certainty. We learn to hide our personal doubts and vulnerabilities, creating unchallenged groupthink and stifled innovation. As one interviewee in the FS industry said: "Displaying vulnerability or doubt is rare. There's protectionism: if I show weakness, I'll get hurt." 

Large organizations challenge our concept of belonging. Unlike our social groups, many FS institutions require hard work and commitment to maintain our place – being reachable late into the evening, doing 'what it takes', absorbing psychologically complex reorganizations. High standards can espouse an ethos of needing to continually 'prove yourself', with the knowledge that poor performers will be let go. Such dynamics provoke underlying, unspoken fears of inadequacy and shame and can lead people to prioritize ‘self’ over ‘team’.  

Conversely, certain investment professionals are also subject to hyperbolic expectations. The media hypes financial 'geniuses'; investors hope for spectacular returns; society creates financial 'heroes and villains'. The more they are seen as a source of brilliance and mastery, the more likely a culture of competitiveness and anxiety will be embedded in the organization. 

The psychologist Wilfred Bion saw how groups operating under such pressures often move into conflict or internal competition, further fracturing team cohesion and individual well-being.  

Full inclusion and representation in the FS industry remains challenging. For example, the 2016 Social Mobility Commission found banks recruit for “familiarity, similarity and perceived 'fit'”. Notably, the 2021 Women in Banking & Finance report highlighted how differently women feel treated compared to their male counterparts.   

Why do these legacy behaviors endure? Efforts to enforce inclusion can leave employees feeling anxious; cultural changes may threaten status and position. Lacking a clear vision of what they can move toward, they remain inert, passive, or silently resistant. Inclusion efforts fail to achieve their aims without full allyship.