T

ony Costa finds that the tactics he learned playing soccer in college also help him reach his goals in the international banking industry.

“There are similarities between my experience in a football team and what I am doing now, especially with respect to the leadership quality that is needed. This is done not on purpose but comes naturally,” said Costa, whose full name is Antonio Da Silva Costa. He is president director of Commonwealth Bank, a subsidiary of Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

“How players of a football team or team members of a bank will respect you or not will entirely depend on how you behave as a leader,” said Costa, who played as an attacker in his college years and keeps up with the sport’s goings-on although he no longer plays.

He uses the analogy of a player who hogs the ball because he wants to be the star, and the attendant loss of respect among his teammates.

“It is the same when you work in a bank. If you accomplish your job well but you try to take all of the credit rather than thanking the team, people will not respect you,” the 57-year-old said in a soft but convincing tone.

“Don’t keep the ball to yourself but give it to others. Learn to delegate and give credit. Of course, because you give credit, you should give responsibility. People have to take responsibility for what they are doing, including when they make a mistake. So, it works both ways.”

Commonwealth culture

Armed with his marketing and MBA education, the Portuguese Costa kicked off his banking career at Bank of Montreal in 1979. He has worked at three international banks operating in Indonesia, with periods at Citibank and Rabobank Indonesia prior to joining Commonwealth Bank in his present position in June 2010.

He says managing people at Commonwealth Bank gives him unique, exciting and challenging experiences. He also brings to the experience the knowledge and understanding about Indonesians gained by living here for 18 years, which has helped him solve problems pertaining to culture.

Costa’s is tasked with making sure that all employees understand and adhere to bank’s culture and values, namely transparency, respect for others, open communication and honesty.

He said that he was pleased to work in the bank because its employees were from varied backgrounds with respective cultures. Indonesian culture contributes positively as far as customer service is concerned, especially in terms of people’s readiness to smile. But he admitted that there was sometimes a challenge emanating from the culture, especially when it came to internal matters.

“Javanese are apt to keep bad news hidden because Javanese don’t want to hurt someone’s feeling, which,
in some ways, is irrelevant, especially when it comes to making an employee performance appraisal. And therefore, I always try to convince them [employees] that it is better to be open and straightforward and if there is a problem, we can solve it right away rather than keeping it until it gets worse,” he said.

On the whole, he said, he did not find any difficulties in cultivating the bank’s values among the employees because there were commonalities between Australia and Indonesia.

He highlights the importance of maintaining the bank’s good reputation, saying his institution implements zero tolerance for dishonesty and violations of the code of conduct.

“A bad case that hits a bank can affect the reputation of the bank. Therefore, all employees should be aware of this,” he said.

“Acquiring a new employee is easy but if customers leave the bank because they are not happy with the service, they will never come back. So, everybody in the bank should know if you provide good service to customers, they will come back. That’s our philosophy.”

Risk awareness among employees is very important. “We cannot avoid risk but we should be able to identify, analyze and try to manage it. I always tell my staff the originator of the risk is the owner of the risk!”

Young generation

According to Costa, one of the challenges facing Indonesia’s banking industry as far as the workforce is concerned in recent years is that the industry has been growing quite fast at about 20 percent each year. It puts a lot of pressure on the industry because there is an insufficient supply of middle and senior managers, which has led to banks hiring one another’s employees.

“The turnover of employees in the banking industry is still very high. If you want to survive and be competitive in the banking industry, you have to be able to attract, develop and retain good people. That’s why we put a lot of effort in this regard by holding training, making sure that we hire good people, that we provide them with a lot of development in that career both in terms of training and opportunities in different sections of the banks and then we can retain our top people. This is something that we focus a lot on,” he said.

To ensure that Commonwealth Bank in Indonesia gets good people, the bank collaborates with several universities in Indonesia, such as from University of Indonesia, Bina Nusantara University, University of Surabaya and the Bandung Institute of Technology.

“We can find good graduates from local schools and our medium-term challenge is how to attract them, develop them and retain them,” he said.

But the hijacking of employees in the banking industry remains common. “Sometimes retaining them is not about money. We try to keep someone but we try to convince them not only about the money but about a career path,” he said.

“But I think the key to keeping good people is to provide them with an opportunity to grow. If they see a very good future, they will take that into account, not just the money.”

Banking was the right choice for him, although not the first profession he considered.

“I wanted to be many things, from a doctor to a pilot, but not a banker,” he said. “But then I like working in an international bank because it gave me the opportunity to be posted overseas, which allows me to meet different people and cultures.”

He has spent 32 years in banking, and is happy to be in Indonesia. Additional ingredients that make him feel at home here include his Indonesian wife and his fondness for Indonesian cuisine. “I like Balinese duck served at Bebek Bengil,” he said.