Like many who read this story, my thoughts go to all those facing the turmoil of redundancy in a week when we're supposed to be giving thanks and 5 weeks from displaying festive Christmas spirit. Those involved in all aspects of these events know the anxieties and the sad resignation there is never any obvious winner.
What this story reinforces is that big is not always beautiful and being present in everything and everywhere leaves you vulnerable to being average at lots and excellent at little. More than anything, it reminds us that the bigger you choose to be - the smarter the people must be leading the organization.
Sports kindly gift us a scoreboard or leaderboard to measure performance. As legendary NFL coach Bill Parcels always correctly said "you are what your record says you are". Equity markets give us an equivalent with a stock price and relevant indices to track underlying performance of a company. Since the inception of the Sandy Weill created Citigroup, the C.N stock price has generated a near 88% destruction in shareholder value. Post the GFC low in March 2009, the Citi stock price is up 48% versus the 210% gain for the KBW Bank Index whilst, over the past 10 years, Citigroup stock price has fallen 10% compared to the 20% KBW Bank Index gain. The underperformance is real, consistent, and jarring.
History shows that throughout that period the bank has been led by a myriad of investment bankers and consumer bankers. Some have risen up through the bank, others recruited in. One was not even a banker, but a lawyer. All reviewed the organizational structure - then restructured. Many leveraged the balance sheet into investment banking, and then withdrew. Some dedicated the bank to wealth management, then sold out. Many committed to a global footprint, then retreated back to the U.S. Most targeted revenue expansion, then switched to operational efficiency. All achieved little.
Citigroup is a wonderful case study of the risks when you fail to identify what 'right size" looks like, and the costs when you fail to transform core competence into sustainable points of differentiation. Most importantly, it highlights to employees, investors, and stakeholders that when you appoint weak, ineffective leaders - weak ineffective results will follow. It's a sad story of a brand that "could have been" - but was not.