You are María López, an executive coach in Bogotá. You are six sessions into twelve with Javier Ruiz, head of operations at Banco Montaña, and he still answers in single words. Session seven is on Tuesday: you have to decide how you will start to diagnose where his resistance comes from. On Monday, the bank's chief executive wants to know whether this is going to work.
The situation
Banco Montaña is a mid-sized Colombian bank lending to small and medium firms: 42 branches in four departments and about 1,850 employees. Digital wallets and fintechs are taking the clients who do business online, and its chief executive, Fernando Castillo, tells every committee that the culture has to move from control to autonomy.
Javier Ruiz, 42, spent eight years as head of credit risk and cut past-due loans from 4.8% to 2.9%. A year ago he was promoted to head of operations, over 180 people. He started well: loan approval time fell from five days to two and a half, and costs fell by about COP 850 million a year. Then the area stalled. Turnover rose from 8% to 18%, two branch managers asked to be moved away from him, and in the climate survey 72% describe him as controlling and 65% say they are not listened to.
Castillo bought the coaching instead of disciplinary action: twelve sessions over six months for COP 45 million, of which 22.5 million has been paid. Your notebook holds three of Javier's lines: "Why am I in coaching? My results are good", "I'm too busy for reflection" and "My team needs to change, not me". When you showed him the survey, he dismissed it: "One mistake here can cost 500 million in fraud. Control isn't micromanagement, it's responsibility." Nobody said in the first session what success would mean. Your process log reads openness to change 20%, coaching relationship 30%, the chief executive's confidence 60% and team morale 30%.
In session six, Javier checked his phone eleven times. As you left, a message arrived from Castillo: "Can we talk on Monday? I need to know if this is going to work." He had already said it out loud: "Maybe we should just replace him."