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Wells Fargo: A Culture of Corruption – A Case Study for Entrepreneurs


Oh everybody Tom Ellsworth and welcome
back to case studies with the biz doc
this week we’re gonna take a look at
Wells Fargo and talk about the
unintended consequences of sales
incentive programs running without
controls and when that becomes part of
your culture what happens that’s what
we’re gonna talk about the two points
that we’re gonna get out of this today
is first sales incentives or performance
incentives are a fact of life and we
need to have them with our sales people
so that they feel incentivized and
rewarded to go out there and make sales
for it but if you don’t have audits or
you have a culture that permits bending
the rules for the sake of sales or so
that a few of those sales people can
make their bonuses since that temptation
is a recipe for disaster and the second
is when that bleeds over to the culture
and if it’s a culture of the end
justifies the means in other words the
end the sales number or making your
targets whatever it is justifies hey we
just do what it takes man that’s just
what we do here you will eventually own
that entire problem as the entrepreneur
because that company will come down upon
you
whether you’re two people or 20 people
and as we saw with thousands and
thousands of employees that’s what
happened to Wells Fargo so let’s take a
look at Wells Fargo I know many of you
may not have followed the story from the
beginning and if he had better things to
do when the story was breaking over a
three-week period I don’t blame you but
let’s recap here so you can see step by
step what was happening you can see how
they reacted to it you can see what was
happening and it’ll make the whole case
that he come to life so it can show you
that if it happened to Wells Fargo it
can happen to you so let’s go it was
September 8th 2016 once upon a time it
was a bright sunny day until the
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and
the Los Angeles City Attorney handed
down a 185 million dollar fine to Wells
Fargo and everybody goes wait that’s a
headline what just happened well over 2
million bank accounts or credit cards
had been opened without customers
knowledge so no burrs a customer had a
checking account or a savings account
also in the
got like a $5,000 visa in the mail said
I don’t remember opening this they stuck
it in their wallet you know and turns
out that somebody at Wells Fargo got
like a little bitty Commission or got a
point or something on a scorecard and
they were doing that to meet their
objectives and we were about to find out
exactly what was going on inside the
bank so when that sort of a headline
breaks all the news starts covering him
and we found out that this had been
going on for four years that this fine
was handed down for what Wells Fargo
been doing between May of 2011 and July
of 2015
four years and two months that this had
been going on well the first response
from Wells Fargo the happy wonderful
Bank with wonderful employees and happy
customers and it loves all of us they
threw the employees under the bus they
announced there were fifty three hundred
bad employees roughly one percent of our
workforce who have been responsible for
these allegations and so they issued
this statement and everybody’s like so
ninety nine percent here people were
good and one percent of people were bad
and nobody else knew it was going on so
people began to smell something was
wrong and we’re saying you know it’s not
what it’s not when it’s not where but
the big question and every complicated
news story or in every big headline is
always why so we’re about to find out
more about that so on September 13th a
few days later the bank announced we’re
going to be ending a sales employee goal
program we were giving people goals of
opening certain amounts of accounts
every month and we’re just going to cut
that off we’re not going to do that
anymore because these employees you know
the bad fifty three hundred people we
just offed or fired offing is a
different kind of business called the
Mafia so we’ll set that aside Wells
Fargo was not offing people so don’t
send me comments that say I was saying
that probably the wrong word to use
where was I oh yeah Wells Fargo so
rather than you know talk about the 5300
employees you know and why they did it
they just said well there was a sales
incentive program and these 5300
employees were bending the rules around
it to be part of it and their CEO a guy
named Stumpf
you know what’s on TV saying you know we
can get over this and quote I think the
best thing I could do right now is lead
this company and lead it forward it’s
like really seriously
where were you for four years in two
months you’re telling me fifty three
hundred people were doing something
wrong you didn’t know about it come on
dude
it sounds so at the beginning I thought
it was cultural and it would later find
out that I was right so in September
14th the FBI announces you know we’re
pretty interested in this if fifty three
hundred people were doing something to
two million citizens were the FBI we
kind of Vesta gate those things and we
we tend times send people the places
called prison for doing things like that
so they wanted to know more about it
September 20th now a week later after
the bank says our cutting this program
nothing to see here
Stumpf appears in front of the Senate
Banking Committee he gets summoned to a
Senate inquiry and Elizabeth Warren was
saying dude you should resign Elizabeth
Warren is a very powerful senator who
usually shows up in a lot of financial
legislation and she’s like dude you
should you should retire you should
resign you shouldn’t take a bonus this
is terrible and it was going on for four
years you’re telling this didn’t bubble
up you didn’t know about it once the
fact that you didn’t know about it is
just irresponsible if you did know about
it it’s criminal either way you should
resign because you’re a bad leader and
you didn’t know or you’re a corrupt
leader and you should be investigated by
the FBI so a week goes by and they were
continuing to say well maybe it was this
other executive this woman who was
responsible for all of the field branch
sales programs so now they’re gonna
throw her under the bus well she gets
linked the stump and you know they’re
talking about both of them a few days
later six senators come up and they say
Wells Fargo Bank
you know they had read the fine print
and it turns out the fine print of all
those visa cards and accounts ur opening
said that if there is ever a dispute you
have to go to arbitration now let me
explain what that is
arbitration is not court court documents
are filed called lawsuit
and anybody can go down to the court and
read what’s in lawsuits those are public
when you file a lawsuit against somebody
you other people like the Press
reporters can go read it but arbitration
is done in private and so these senators
are pointing out wait a minute so if the
American consumer has to go to
arbitration
that means this is kept out of the
public documents in court so the courts
and reporters will never find out about
this
and yet these customers they would have
to go to arbitration because you know
arguing about a Visa Card they didn’t
open and so these senators correctly
pointed out that they said man that’s
evil now you’re even making it so that
this sounds more and more and more like
a cultural issue well I’m gonna tell you
a little side story
I was running a company it was a digital
publishing company way back 2011 and
guess what I got in the mail and I
remembered it I get a Visa card
congratulations your company is
qualified for a Visa card with a $10,000
limit and I’m like I have a company
savings account and a company payroll
account and then a company checking
account why do I get this I know you
have to fill out a form and sign
something so I went into my branch and I
stopped my assets oh by the way I get a
Visa card and the person at the branch
remember I didn’t call the 800 number I
was at the local branch cryed opened my
accounts to begin with and they said oh
yeah that’s it that’s complimentary well
one year later there is an annual fee of
like forty bucks it wasn’t complimentary
so guess what I am 99% certain that my
little tiny publishing company had a
Visa card open for it and they waived
the first year fee or something and then
a year later it was a $40 fee I never
used it
it’s sat in a drawer with my Wells Fargo
statements and so apparently you know I
was one of many consumers that ended up
with something they didn’t ask for now
at least I didn’t get ripped off no one
was using the visa but there’s a perfect
example of somebody at the bank got
credit for opening a credit card for my
accounts and then when I went into the
branch they said it was complimentary
well who do you think was in on this
probably the people in the branch if I’d
call the 800 number and I’d say where’s
the application I didn’t
anything maybe it would have I would
have figured something out but there was
no harm that happened to me I didn’t
lose any money or anything but a year
later it was 40 bucks I’m like or
something like that I’m like that was
shocking but anyway I’ve um I have since
closed every account I had with Wells
Fargo because as we’re about to go into
I think this was a cultural phenomena
not fifty three hundred bad people as a
matter of fact I think that they sent
fifty three hundred people on their way
because they were trying to clean house
and what was really the issue was the
culture of Wells Fargo and sales
performance on September 26th the the
plot thickens as some well fargo
employees gave a whole world into a
glimpse they filed a lawsuit that the
news media followed in red where they
had said for ten years
and remember the original fine of 185
million was for those four years from
2011 2015
they said for ten years we friends and
colleagues who the d’amore demoted
forced to resign are terminated for not
meeting sales quotas so there was a
quota at the bank that you had to open
this many accounts otherwise you lost
your job or you got demoted or passed
over for a promotion interesting well on
September 27th the bank’s Board of
Directors announced that Stumpf was not
going to get his 41 million dollar bonus
and also that the VP that worked for him
a woman named told stet was not going to
get a fifteen million dollar bonus and
what do you bet that those bonuses were
based in no small part on all these
wonderful new accounts that got opened
that they could tell the Board of
Directors look how great leaders we are
and all these happy Wells Fargo
customers are getting all these products
because our people know how to sell them
nope your people knew how to sign them
up had nothing to do with selling them
and they were incentive to do that by a
corrupt system so back to Capitol Hill
in September 29th on October 5th 14
senators sent a letter to the Attorney
General asking them to investigate
Stumpf another senior
executives and one week later on October
12th
Wells Fargo said stump was out he was
retiring
they couldn’t even come to the
microphone and say that the board fired
him and it took him a month of this
going on for them to fire him and if we
think that Wells Fargo and the board
didn’t know before early September that
this was going down that they were being
investigated then we’re not paying
attention because of course they knew
but in fact that it took them a month to
basically fire them with something else
so now why tell you the whole story it’s
because some of you maybe didn’t follow
all the news and you can see that and
what you heard I believe was a story of
cultural failure and whether you’re two
people 20 people or 20,000 sales
incentive programs are a necessary thing
to run your business and so in any sales
compensation system we start here in the
middle there’s a target you sell you get
a commission on it or you sell enough
you get a bonus but we have a target and
reward so there’s an incentive you
perform you hit the target you get
rewarded and it goes around
well there’s ways to cut corners in life
and so you got to be sure that your
salespeople have a system of controls
and audits in place let me give you a
simple real-world example that maybe you
don’t think about you know you go down
the highway it says 65 miles an hour but
every now and then there’ll be a Highway
Patrol state trooper with a radar what
that is that is an audit of how fast
you’re going because he’s trying to
control things and just the presence of
a few state troopers keeps people in the
65 to 75 range hopefully driving safely
at those speeds and that’s really what
they’re trying to do is just make it
safe so similarly in Thai business you
need audit points and controls in other
words if you’re the founder and you have
a salesperson make sure that there’s
somebody if the salespeople on your
right make sure there’s someone you
trust on your left and that person
should check and audit sales orders
check and audit the commission plans and
have controls in place for instance
maybe a commission request has to
go first to that person before it gets
to you and these are little things you
can do because from your first
salesperson you’re gonna have a person
that wants a commission for selling for
you and from the first commission you’re
gonna have somebody that’s hungry for
the next commission and you know greed
is human to be tempted is human so don’t
put them temptation out there make sure
your sales systems that have incentives
and rewards have audits and controls
because if you just say well I’m
buddy-buddy with my sales person which i
think is a mistake always have a limited
personal relationship with your sales
person because there may be a day you
have to look them in the eye and say
we’re gonna audit all the sales orders
and you don’t want him to say wait you
don’t trust me I’m not your friend no I
do trust you and I want you to be here a
long time but I want to know that
everything is happening straight and
honest and you’re gonna be here a long
time and so that’s the purpose of it at
Wells Fargo it’s clear that there were
branch managers that put pressure on
people and do you think those people
could be opening up fake accounts
without a supervisor knowing do you
think that could happen for four years
without a branch manager knowing do you
think that could happen without like a
regional manager in charge of four or
five branches knowing do you think that
could happen without a vice-president
knowing and the answer is no it can’t
and when they do an investigation and
they fire five thousand three hundred
people you know what that says they had
a cultural problem because once they
started turning in those results and
bragging about all they could do if they
suddenly pop the balloon and bring it to
a stop the next thing that the CEO has
to say to Wall Street is well we didn’t
open as many accounts this quarter we
didn’t have as many new customers open
second and third accounts and get Visa
cards and then Wall Street’s gonna say
hey what’s going on
and they will lose faith and the stock
starts to go down then they start to say
you must not be a very good CEO because
a minute ago you had all these things
happening and all this goodness well
guess what so the culture of deceit and
corruption
grew roots and became the tree it wasn’t
one bad apple on the end of a branch it
was the whole damn tree and the
unfortunate thing is it didn’t have to
be that way because some point in some
time had a simple review had been done
so that people wouldn’t cut the corners
and the temptation of upper management
to be hungry for those next numbers
which turned out to be fake cuz they
never made money on my Visa card its sat
in a drawer they make money when I make
purchases and I didn’t use it so
somebody got credit for selling me a new
Visa card from Wells Fargo and nothing
happened and that happened according to
this to two million consumers so the
lesson for your business is as we said
targets incentives and rewards with
controls and audits and then your
culture will be one of performance and
integrity and this won’t be the failed
logo of Wells Fargo it’ll be the logo of
the company you create there we go thank
you very much for watching please
subscribe to value tainment this is the
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topics for entrepreneurs from your host
and founder value tainment Patrick BETT
David until next time I’m Tom Mills Ruth
and I hope I left you better than I
[Music] you
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