National Australia Bank (NAB) – one of the country’s big four financial institutions – is moving its Sydney headquarters. The new home will offer staff the latest in “state-of-the-art offices” – you can read more here.

I bring this up as the bank has had its fair share of reputational woes in recent years; primarily providing customers with what’s been ruled as bad financial planning advice; in fairness, they are not alone here, with the same charges leveled at the Commonwealth Bank (CBA), ANZ and Westpac.

So, it begs the question did the bank – NAB – make its move to address its difficulties? The bank’s problems signal a need to examine the organisation’s culture; the CEO, Andrew Thorburn has, rightly, said as much, commenting that it would take 5-10 years to get “true integrity and consistency”.

Moving office presents businesses the opportunity to change, or reinforce the dominant culture. Smart companies get this; there’s enough smart people at NAB to identify the prospects that’s been afforded by the change, I’m sure.

Management guru, Edgar Schein came up with the idea of ‘cultural artifacts’ which are the tangible manifestations of corporate culture, such as buildings, uniforms and logos. So, in simple terms, the NAB state-of-the-art offices need only be state-of-the-art if the behavioural values sought by the bank, dictate that it be so – an open office arrangement would suggest an open culture, for instance.

However, it has to go further than that; a new building needs to mark the start of a process, not its culmination. The NAB move needs to be the catalyst to evaluate all aspects of the business – from recruitment, to employee benefits. If the process is limited to the seating arrangements, then the bank has already lost.