“A passion to perform” Group 0011
Table of contents
1. Introduction______3 2. General information about Deutsche Bank______4 2.1 Company culture______4 2.2 Communication______5 2.3 Employees______5 2.4 Taking care of the world______5 3. Interview______6 3.1 Corporate structure (hierarchy and communication lines)______7 3.2 Managers role/ style______7 3.3 Decision making process______7 3.4 Dealing with initiatives and mistakes______7 3.5 How to implement one global company culture all over the world______8 3.6 Recruitment & Training______8 3.7 Ralf Rudolf______8 4. Conclusion______9 5. Teamwork reflection______10 5.1. Introduction______10 5.2 The first impressions______10 5.3. How the process has been developping…______11 5.4. … and where we are now______12 5.5. To Conclude______12 Attachments______13 Attachment 1. History of Deutsche Bank______14 Attachment 2. Corporate structure______16
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1. Introduction
In this report there will be given an overview of the Deutsche Bank and an interview with Ralf Rudolf, Director; Head of Graduate Recruitment & Training Germany.
This report focuses on the cultural aspect of the Deutsche Bank. The company works all over the world, so the students were lucky to have been given the opportunity to visit such a multinational.
We would like to give our regards to all the teachers whom have given us a marvellous time in Aschaffenburg. This experience is an experience for a life time.
Members of the team 0011 are:
Karttunen Janne Koster Robin Pauwaert Joke Seifried Mario Wertheim-Huszár Zoltán
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2. General information about Deutsche Bank
In this chapter their will be given some general information about the Deutsche Bank.
2.1 Company culture
The Deutsche Bank thinks very highly about culture in general. The company strongly believes in corporate values and they think culture stands for the commitment to the society. A slogan from the Deutsche Bank is “learning from cultures”, so they want to show everyone that they are open and care about other cultures and individuals.
The culture is also shown in the mission of the cooperation, which is:
“We compete to be the leading global provider of financial solutions for demanding clients creating exceptional value for our shareholders and people.“
The following corporate values are related with the mission of the Deutsche Bank:
Performance The Deutsche Bank is committed to a result oriented culture; Innovation The Deutsche Bank is constantly challenging conventional wisdom and developing new solutions to meet customer requirements; Customer focus The Deutsche Bank places customers at the centre of their activities and they drive all what has to been done; Teamwork The Deutsche Bank benefits from the diversity of their people and their business by working together to achieve success; Trust The Deutsche Bank behaves reliably, fairly and honestly.
(source: http://career.deutsche-bank.com)
It is the aim of the company to earn the trust of the customers by working according to the above standing values. With these beliefs the Deutsche Bank is trying to create a long-term relationships with the customers. Mutual understanding is very important in this process and understanding each other is all about communication
The culture of the company developed over the years, for an overview of the history please take a look at attachment 1.
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2.2 Communication
Because communication is very important we will shortly describe it.
The definition of communication is:
“Exchange of information”
(source: www.vandale.nl)
In this report we will focus on exchange of information on interpersonal level. An important part of communicating is non verbal communication. A person can never, not communicate, because body language always speaks.
Communication skills can be Intra-personal, Inter-personal and Intercultural. An example of Intra-personal skills is how a person presents and thinks about other people and nations. Inter- personal skills are between people and Intercultural is about understanding other nations.
2.3 Employees
The Deutsche Bank has approximately 66.000 employees all over the world. The bank serves more than 13 million customers in more than 74 countries (more than 50% of the staff work outside Germany). So the company has to deal with many different points of view and other ways of behaviour. This is one of the main reasons the Bank invests a lot of time and money in education for their employees. They believe that if you want to keep up with the fast moving current global society, education is a must.
There will be more information about the employees and education on the next pages.
2.4 Taking care of the world
Usually banks are seen as money making machines. Deutsche Bank tries to make the company image softer for all interest groups. Personnel has an opportunity to get services e.g. kindergartens near the company facilities or the opportunity to work more comfortable (job sharing). This is also an example of a creative way to lead peoples.
They support culture and take part in a social environment. They want to be seen as a good corporate citizen. They have established several foundations all over the world. Their idea is to give some money back to the people.
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3. Interview
The interview took place in Frankfurt at the headquarters of the Deutsche Bank, with Mister Ralf Rudolf, Director; Head of Graduate Recruitment & Training Germany. After getting acquainted and a soft drink, Mister Rudolf started a presentation. During the presentation it was possible to interrupt and ask questions. So, more or less the interview was held during the presentation. Mister Rudolf had a very inspiring and convincing way of speaking. Also because of this, the group asked a lot of questions during and after the presentation. The interviewers had really good and open discussions with Mister Rudolf, and because of the good atmosphere Mister Rudolf invited the group to a bar after the presentation/ interview. This was very good for the development and the network of the students. To talk with someone who has the experience like Mister Rudolf is a very good education.
During the presentation and the questioning, answers with regard to the following subjects were found: Corporate structure (hierarchy and communication lines); Managers role/ style; Decision making process; Dealing with initiatives and with mistakes; How to implement one global company culture all over the world; Recruitment & Training.
One the next page the point above will be described.
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3.1 Corporate structure (hierarchy and communication lines)
The corporate structure is combined by tree committees, the group executive committee, the divisional committees, the regional management committee and several functional committees. The group executive committee is the leading committee for the others. Relations are shown in attachment 2 (corporate structure). The same table shows also the responsibilities of the operational level and of the strategically thinking level.
This way of thinking and working has made the communication among the employees easier. Communication in corporation could be described to be transparent. So that everyone is able to reach all required information on all times. Their ideology is to be open for every employee.
3.2 Managers role/ style
The main role of the manager is to take care of the people whom he is responsible for. He has to be a mentor and he has to motivate the employees. The manager is also responsible for the development of individuals. He has to recognise the needs for development. At the Deutsche Bank they try to realise this by an individual mentor system. A manager chooses persons whom he will guide during a couple of years. Deutsche Bank has chosen this method, because they want a close feeling with all employees. Everyone is important and should feel important.
3.3 Decision making process
Decision making process depends on who and what decision concerns. Most important decisions are made in committees on their own special area of expertise. (see attachment 2 on corporate structure) Mostly, decisions at least the most important ones, are made in consensus inside the committee. There also is a lot of freedom for decision making. The responsibilities are low in the structure, so everyone feels that they are important and have a meaning.
3.4 Dealing with initiatives and mistakes
At the current point it is very normal that employees think before they do. It is alright if a person makes a mistake.
In the old days there was no space for mistakes. This period was before Deutsche Bank was operating in the multinational environment. Nowadays they have imported the ideology from the USA, that mistakes are allowed. This is a remarkable improvement. Employees are now showing more initiative and are not afraid anymore to be punished when they make a mistake.
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3.5 How to implement one global company culture all over the world
When the Deutsche Bank tries to conquer a new market in a new country, they simply buy a part of the market. So they buy a company that already works on the market. They buy a company with an own culture and own values. You can imagine that it is hard to implement one company culture and the same values all over the world. Deutsche Bank tries to create one culture through exchanging experience and educating the employees all over the world. Before they take over a company in an unknown country, they gain information about the company and especially the companies’ culture from local people/ experts. So, they try to get inside information. In conclusion there can be said that Deutsche Bank implements one culture all over the world by listening and learning from each other and by educating all employees in a similar way.
3.6 Recruitment & Training
The Deutsche Bank has a very clear point of view about the people they want to recruit.
Skills that are required to work in Deutsche Bank can be divided in tree categories. Those are experience (work, education, international), interpersonal skills (soft skills, mobility, specialized qualities) and language skills. Official language of Deutsche Bank is English, but local languages are mostly required as well to operate e.g. in Germany.
Because Deutsche Bank is operating in an international environment that is changing rapidly, training is an important way to adjust. Training and learning start from day one (or even before) and continues through the whole career. In the first few years it is a very hard, active part of the job. Employees must get experience with operating in other cultures and they have to learn how to adjust as a person. In relation with this, language skills are also very important.
3.7 Ralf Rudolf
We would like to give our regard to Mister Ralf Rudolf and thank him for sharing personal experiences. We would also like to thank the Deutsche Bank and the time they gave us.
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4. Conclusion
In this report Deutsche Bank is described as a very modern company, which takes care of employees as well as the social environment which they are part of. Also in many occasions, Deutsche Bank can be seen as very creative, international company. The Deutsche Bank considers itself only as a brand, as a mix of banking cultures. They are trying to do this by listening and learning from each other. They are trying to create a common known company image all over the world, by their slogan “A passion to perform”.
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5. Teamwork reflection
5.1. Introduction
To give you a sense about how our group process was, we decided to give you an impression about how we felt about our first meetings, how we started to meet, and everybody realized how our process can continue and how it finally continued.
5.2 The first impressions
Joke (Belgium): At first she was very curious to get to know the others. She already met Janne the day before, so getting to know each other was not a problem. She wanted to talk to the others from the first moment on because she is quite social. Her first impression was very positive, and she was happy with ´her´ boys.
Mario (Germany): He was the only German who came from Aschaffenburg, so he neither knew the Germans, nor the others. His feeling was a little bit uncertain and he also thought that his English was not that good. We can say that he felt a bit anxious about what this programme would be like, and especially how the team would be. After having met the others, he realized that they are really communicative and that they tried to speak with him and showed interest. Moreover he found out that the others might have a good character.
Zoli ( Hungary): He thought that his English would be the worst in the team, and he was afraid to speak. He felt a little bit bad, because he found it hard to get into the discussion at the first time and a part of his culture was that you must not disturb others while speaking. He had the impression that the rest were nice persons.
Robin (Netherlands): His first impression was that we were all different personalities. Although we did not know each other yet, but he felt like this could be a good team. Robin considered Joke as being spontaneous, but that Zoli was rather shy. He knew Janne already from the day before and he thinks Janne is an open and relaxed person. Despite the fact that he did not know Mario yet, he had the impression that he is a well-organised, structured, typical German.
Janne (Finland): Janne felt quite lucky the first day, because he had already met Robin, Joke and Mario, so half of the team was not new for him anymore. He was a bit afraid that he would have all the ´leftovers´ in his team, because we were almost the last team. He certainly did not have bad feelings after the first meeting. He felt mostly comfortable, but at first he was rather slient. He thinks that this is rather cultural. He always tries to listen first and to speak afterwards, although this has changed by now.
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5 .3. How the process has been developping…
At the first meeting we had to work together, Robin and Joke talked a lot, the rest of the group was rather quiet. While doing the task about cultural dimensions we were chatting a lot. At the beginning we didn´t realize that there were cultural differences, and it seemed like we were all the same. With testing our cultural assumptions we came more and more in discussion, without answering all the questions.
For example the statement nr. 9 „Employees should not disagree openly with their boss“, we found out that especially the Fins do not interrupt others before somebody finishes his speech. So we now understand why Janne didn´t say so much and that Zoli had quite the same feeling. We noticed that we would have to keep in mind this difference, so that everybody could join the discussion. Because Robin tries to get everybody into the discussion, and Joke is quite social, everybody found that he could bring something into the discussion, speak up his mind and was not afraid to say something.
We enjoyed the session about Team Roles a lot, because we found out that all of us are great team players. We have all kind of different ´team role´s´ in one group, it´s like the perfect match! More and more it seemed that we would have a great time together. Everybody likes to work, no lazy-bones in our team. We got the feeling that we could trust and rely on each other, so we enjoy working together.
The film we saw in the lesson „Communication between Culture“ brought us again into lively discussions. It was really good to think more about our differences, and about differences between other cultures that are not represented here. So we got a keen sense of other cultures. It was again a great opportunity to get to know each other better.
Mario had at the beginning a bit problems with Robin that was to talkative and to extrovert. He didn´t want to talk all the time and Robin understood that. Mario talked more, Robin a little bit less. Our Finish fellow now realised that he had to interrupt us, so he tried to did it more and could better join the conversation. As soon as our Hungarian realized that Fins are able to interrupt, he also decided to give it a try. He became more social and talkative and our discussions lasted even longer. Let´s say that there was no time left to sleep because we discussed day and night. Everybody wants to talk a lot and share his ideas with the others, so we had great conversations.
How good our team worked could also be seen during the survival game. We had a lot of fun (and snow) and good ideas to solve the problems. Again we realized that we were great teamplayers. We wanted to prolong our sessions and discussions, so we decided to go out. Our German and Finish boys had a great time and talked for hours, drinking beer and talked about everything and nothing. Our Hungarian friend started to train for his beautiful headache and the Fin told us some Finish jokes.
Very important for our group was task to create a flag. It was interesting that we decided to make a flag that does not emphasize our national aspects, but the idea of being open-minded. That was the basis that all of us got a lot of ideas. It was very important for all the group
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members that we had something in common, an own new culture. It was the first that Zoli felt that his opinion was really constructive and we could state that this idea of ´being open to others´ really brought us together as a team.
The country presentations were another opportunity to get a deeper knowledge of every country. They also helped us to understand each other better.
Because we trust each other and know each other good, our strategy during the negotiations exercise worked quite well. We took the right decision in what order we would take part in the negiation process. In the discussion we could see that the negotiation happened as we expected it before.
5.4. … and where we are now
A good example of how good we understand each other was the trip to Frankfurt to prepare our presentation about the Deutsche Bank.
Instead of only going there to work, we decided to go to the city before the interview, for sight seeing, drinking coffee and spending time together. After the appointment we went to a bar to drink something and to chat. It was an advantage that Mario knows the city very well, so we had a perfect tourist guide. We enjoyed our stay so much that we even went to eat something, and had a very nice evening at an Italian restaurant. We all feel that we had a very nice day.
5.5. To Conclude
None of us ever had the feeling that he (she) was not integrated in the group. We think that this is a good proof that we had a really good team and we are proud that we were able to manage a combination of five different cultures in such a good way. Although we started with different nationalities, we found a way to speak the same language.
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Attachments
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Attachment 1. History of Deutsche Bank
Under the Empire (1870-1918)
1870 Deutsche Bank founded in Berlin 1873 Branch in London 1886 Opening of Frankfurt branch 1892 Opening of Munich branch 1901 Branches in Leipzig and Dresden 1905/06 Branches in Nuremberg and Augsburg 1909/10 Branches in Istanbul and Brussels 1914 Merger with Bergisch Märkische Bank
In the Weimar Republic (1919-1932)
1920 Merger with Hannoversche Bank, Braunschweigische Bank and Privatbank zu Gotha. 1924/25 Merger with further regional banks 1926 Participation in the founding of Lufthansa and Daimler-Benz 1929 Merger with Disconto-Gesellschaft 1931/32 Banking crisis in Germany
Under the third reich (1933-1945)
1937 The company's name reverts to "Deutsche Bank" 1941 Participation in South east European banking 1942 Majority holding in Creditanstalt-Bankverein, Vienna 1942/43 Closure of branches due to war (82 branches and 54 sub-branches) 1945 Closure of head office in Berlin and of all branches in the Soviet- occupied zone. Deutsche Bank is run by its Hamburg management
Reconstruction (1946-1957)
1946/47 The American military government (OMGUS) investigates Deutsche Bank 1947/48 In the Western zones of occupation, Deutsche Bank is split into ten autonomous institutions 1949 In Berlin, Berliner Disconto Bank AG is established as successor institution to Deutsche Bank. 1952 The ten successor institutions are combined to form three joint-stock companies 1957 Deutsche Bank reconstituted
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Internationalisation (1958-1988)
1958 First foreign bond since 1918 1959 Deutsche Bank gets into retail banking 1963 Start of club-banking 1967/68 The member banks of the European Advisory Committee set up Banque Européenne de Crédit à Moyen Terme in Brussels as well as European- American Banking Corporation and European-American Bank & Trust Company in New York. 1970 Foundation of Compagnie Financière de la Deutsche Bank in Luxembourg, the precursor of today's Deutsche Bank Luxembourg S.A. 1973 Representative offices opened in London and Moscow 1976/77 Branches in London, Tokyo and Paris 1978/79 Investment banking in New York 1985 Foundation of investment banks in London and Hong Kong 1986/87 Acquisition of Banca d'America e d'Italia. 1988 Branches are opened in 12 more countries in Asian-Pacific region.
Becoming a global player (1989-2004)
1989 Acquisition of Morgan Grenfell Group 1990 Deutsche Bank operates in East Germany 1991 All U.S. activities merged under the holding company Deutsche Bank North America Holding Corp 1992 Majority acquired in Deutscher Herold insurance group. 1993 Acquisition of banks in Spain and Italy 1994 Acquisition of Sharps Pixley Group (metal trading) 1995 Deutsche Bank Polska S.A. opens in Warsaw 1996 First banking shops introduced in supermarkets 1997 Acquisition of a trust bank in Japan 1998 Acquisition of Crédit Lyonnais Belgium 1999 Acquisition of Bankers Trust 2000 Deutsche Bank invests vigorously in e-commerce. Cancellation of the planned merger with Dresdner Bank. 2001 On October 3, trading in the Deutsche Bank share starts on the New York Stock Exchange In November, the three large German banks Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank and Commerzbank merge their mortage bank subsidiaries Eurohypo, Rheinhyp and Deutsche Hyp into Eurohypo AG to become the largest mortgage bank in Germany. 2002 With the acquisition of Scudder, Deutsche Bank becomes the fourth- largest asset manager in the world with leading positions in Europe, Asia and America 2003 Deutsche Bank acquires the Swiss Private Bank Rued Blass & Cie from Zurich Financial Services
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Attachment 2. Corporate structure
Functional Committees
Alternative Assets Asset/Liability Compliance Finance
Human Resources Investment IT & Operations Risk
Group Executive Committee
Group Board Business Heads / Regions
Divisional Committees
Corporate and Private Clients and Corporate Investments Investment Bank Asset Management
Regional Management Committees
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