Case Study: Wells Fargo

Crisis:
On September 8, 2016 it was revealed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that Wells Fargo created more than 2 million fake bank accounts or credit cards by inputting real customer information without their consent. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau along with the Los Angeles City Attorney and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, have fined Wells Fargo $185 million dollars. Federal banking regulators state that Wells Fargo has been committing this fraudulent activity since 2011. Since the scandal made headlines, Wells Fargo fired over 5,300 employees that were involved in cross-selling banking practices. This controversial storyline has generated more buzz for the media, given a reason for the government to regulate
The theory is “Establishing a sense of urgency.” The first step out of an eight step process to a leading change. This theory states that new meaningful organizational change must occur within a company but has to start with the stakeholders. Creating a sense of urgency alerts the top management and lower ranking employees to come together and agree upon a solution. Urgency can promote the value and determine the future profitably of the company. Wells Fargo can apply this theory to their situation as long as the C-level executives are willing to make a substantial change to their company culture. Wells Fargo needs to make a rapid change to turn around their public image and gain back trust from investors. Once employees feel the urgency trickling down from their superiors, then the entire team (company) is working in a unified
Wells Fargo can show that the company has made a complete turn around by being a part of a solution to manage and resolve debt. The idea is for Wells Fargo to collaborate and launch a new campaign with Incharge Debt Solutions. Incharge Debt Solutions is a community-service non-profit organization offering confidential and professional credit counseling, housing counseling, debt management, bankruptcy education and general financial education. The purpose of this campaign is to help people in debt manage and eventually pay off their loans, back-taxes, credit cards, etc. Wells Fargo will be financing this entire project as Incharge Debt Solutions facilities the program. Wells Fargo will also provide their own professional financial advisors and analysts to assist in monitoring and settling customer debt. The customers who have been directly effected by the scandal will be the top priority of this campaign. They shall receive full service counseling which includes an assigned personal debt consultant. Another part of this campaign will call for a complete restructuring of banker training. Each new hire and current employee at Wells Fargo will be trained and retrained by specialists from Incharge Debt Solutions. Additionally, 10% of all Wells Fargo profits will be contributed to Incharge Debt Solutions. The hope of this