Robert Reeg knew a lot was riding on the success of this project. The sheer numbers at stake were enough to make even the most calm and cool leader break into a sweat.
MasterCard Worldwide handles more than 25 billion payment card transactions annually and is responsible for the transfer of more than $1 trillion between financial institutions each year. All Reeg had to do was lead the rewrite of the core transaction processing platforms that the 5,000-employee company uses to make all that happen. Oh, and by the way, this wouldn’t be the first shot at making this work.
“MasterCard had initiated programs in the past, three of them, to get to that new platform,” says Reeg, president of MasterCard Worldwide’s Global Technology and Operations headquarters in St. Louis.
“For various reasons, all three of those previous attempts were shut down. You naturally had a lot of skeptics in place to say why would this attempt be any different? The leadership challenge was making sure you had the right people involved at the right time and establishing champions to make sure this effort succeeded.”
Reeg says the Golden Rule is a great place to start when embarking on any kind of change.
“It just gets down to everybody responds to respect and integrity,” Reeg says. “As long as you are treating people the way you would expect to be treated and you’re being honest and open with people and welcoming ideas from all avenues, I think people respond to that.
The effort took five years and cost $160 million. But by encouraging collaboration and working through mistakes, Reeg was able to lead the delivery of the system on schedule and on budget. It gives MasterCard one of the leading payment processing platforms in the industry.
Here are some key strategies to keep in mind when taking on a major change initiative.
