The importance of a values statement
For most companies, the most basic expression of their culture comes through a values statement.
Virtually all banks have such statements, but their significance runs much deeper than a mere check-the-box exercise, BankIowa Marketing Director Josh Fleming told American Banker.
The $821 million-asset BankIowa’s purpose, vision and values statement envisions a “people-centered” organization that inspires growth and serves as the bank of choice for clients and career choice for team members.
The values statement has had a meaningful impact on the bank’s performance since it was rolled out in 2020, according to Fleming.
The 104-year-old Cedar Rapids-based company is enjoying one of its best years in 2025. Net income totaled $5 million during the first half of the year, pushing the bank’s return on assets past 1.2%. Five years earlier, BankIowa’s full-year net income totaled $6.5 million, with a return on assets of 0.93%.
BankIowa “really is one of those places where the purpose, vision and values statement truly aligns with how we conduct ourselves,” Fleming said. “Our retention rate has improved significantly since the rollout of our purpose, vision and values. Our benefits have grown, as well. No one is leaving BankIowa for lack of benefits.”
In a similar way, Peapack’s leaders regularly reinforce the company’s five foundational behaviors.
Those core principles, which include putting clients first, competing to win and operating as one team, are undergirded by a more specific set of what Peapack terms “private banking behaviors.” Chief among them, perhaps, is flexibility. “Don’t start with no,” is how Falk-Drigan puts it.
“We’ve got the whole organization mobilized around this construct of ‘Don’t start with no, keep an open mind and look for an alternative solution,'” Falk-Drigan said. “That has really permeated its way through the business. It didn’t start off that way, but the more you reinforce and talk about these behaviors, the more important it is.”
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