Dead Man Banking

(Frankfurt, Germany The Cheeky Post) How would you like to try to do your job while your boss brazenly interviews candidates to replace you? How would you like to try to do your job while your boss brazenly interviews candidates to replace you, and have your humiliation play out worldwide in the business press? How would you feel if a number of people who were offered your job turned it down? Welcome to the tortured world of Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan, the poor soul at the helm of Deutsche Bank, the bank often confused with Germany's central bank, but is in fact a regular bank and one of London England's largest employers.

Deutsche Bank has been around a long time. 148 years to be exact. Its imperial eagle logo from the 1870's looked menacing, like something you'd see on a uniform in a black-and-white Spielberg movie. Today Deutsche's logo is a simple forward slash encased in a square.

The logo is intended to depict dynamic growth within a stable environment, but looks like the square of an incomplete form as someone pauses mid-slash to reconsider the wisdom of agreeing with the statement, “I relinquish all rights to sue my employer.”

Belying the upward trajectory of its logo, Deutsche Bank's stock is down 30 percent so far this year with a market capitalization that's 40 percent of its book value, a concept that's hard to wrap your head around. It's kinda like owning a house that's well-appointed with upscale appliances--you know, Miele, Liebherr, Gaggenau--but it's selling for only 40 percent of the sum of its parts because everyone thinks there's a big fat fault line running beneath the hot tub.

John Cryan became Deutsche Bank's Chief Executive Officer in July 2015 inheriting a mess from previous co-CEO's Anshu Jain and Juergen Fitschen who presided over police raids and assorted monkey business that resulted in a €2.5 billion fine for LIBOR monkeying. He is currently locked in mortal conflict with his boss, Chairman Paul Achleitner over the company's direction, especially the fate of its investment banking unit. Cryan and his finance director would like a radical overhaul of investment banking, whereas Achleitner would like to leave the hot tub alone. Cryan and Achleitner are also fighting over Deutsche's largest shareholders with Achleitner wanting to draw them closer, and Cryan wishing China's HNA Group would just mind their own opaque conglomerate and leave the big banking to him.

Adding fuel to the dumpster fire, Deutsche Bank COO Kim Hammonds recently attended a conference and told someone with blabbermouth that Deutsche Bank is the most dysfunctional company she has ever worked for.

Headhunters and part-time ventriloquist act Heidrick & Struggles are leading external recruitment efforts to replace John Cryan, but it isn't easy to find a CEO who must have fluency in both German and German companies, a proven track record of turnaround artistry, and a willingness to work for someone who will happily throw them under a bus if he disagrees with them. John Cryan is the perfect candidate for his job. Like many marriages in turmoil, Deutsche has forgotten that the person they long for is the person they already have, the Englishman born in Sunderland who speaks German like a journal entry...

...the man who came to Deutsche Bank from a spectacular turnaround at UBS, the man who is stymied at every turn by the chairman who won't leave him alone to do his job, yet will soldier on, even in the face of global humiliation.

Cryan says he is “absolutely committed to serving our bank” even though his boss is trying to serve up his bank to someone else. According to the Financial Times, Achleitner has said that Cryan's firing is not a forgone conclusion and that searching for a replacement is merely a “warning shot”--a bullet that whizzes past Cryan's ear while the executive search continues, but will hit him square between the eyes if a replacement is actually found.

For non-bankers like me John Cryan is a dream banker, a man who says he is paid too much, that bonuses are too automatic that titles are too inflated. He cut bonuses in December 2015 decrying the power of money to motivate. Then he raised bonuses again because that's how bankers do business. But at least he tried. John Cryan is the kind of banker the world needs more of, not less.

“Many people in the sector still believe they should be paid entrepreneurial wages for turning up to work with a regular salary, a pension and probably a health-care scheme and playing with other people’s money. There doesn’t seem to be anything entrepreneurial about that except the compensation structures.” ~ John Cryan

John Cryan deserves a stay of execution. It is his judge and eager executioner, the man who presided over the mess John Cryan is trying to clean up, the man who is chairman but acts like a co-CEO, the man of so little compassion that he would publicly and spectacularly shame his CEO and expose his company to market-cap-destroying ridicule to win an argument, who should have his headcount chopped.

But the most troubling aspect of this entire episode has absolutely nothing to do with banking. Paul Achleitner's treatment of John Cryan seems to indicate that the Trumpian approach to human resource management appears to be catching on.

#SaveBankerCryan