Norris was portrayed as well-experienced in handling the operations at CBA, including the continuation of the bank’s strategic program, and overcoming its declining competitiveness in business lending and customer service. This was supported with evidence of his success at his former organisations:
“Murray, who passes the baton to Norris on September 22, has made no secret of the fact that his ambitious three-year ‘Which New Bank’ transformation program borrows heavily from the success of its ASB Bank subsidiary in New Zealand. It was Norris, CEO of ASB for a decade before he headed off to lead an extraordinary, against-all-odds, turnaround at Air New Zealand, who developed the strategies that have underpinned ASB’s success. ASB is operating in a cut-throat environment, with the NZ system engaged in a ferocious price war. Yet it increased net income by 11 per cent and cash earnings by 27 per cent and home lending by 23 per cent. Asset growth was about twice that of its rivals. With a cost-to-income ratio of only 44.8 per cent, it was able to operate successfully with a net interest margin of only 2.17 per cent—about 30 basis points less than the CBA group margin.” (RN2)
In this excerpt, the description of the New Zealand banking sector, marked by a “cut-throat environment”, “ferocious price war” and “rivals”, utilises metaphors of war and battles complementary to descriptions of the competitive Australian banking sector in Norris’s articles, drawing connections between his past and present leadership contexts. The article also compares ASB’s performance with CBA, further highlighting that the two organisations and their respective environments are comparable, and the solution to CBA’s challenges is well within Norris’s knowledge and experience. It underscores the dramatic turnaround instigated by Norris at ASB, casting him as the change agent who is expected to be able to develop similar strategies and produce an equally impressive transformation at CBA.
However, the media data indicates that over the first nine months of Norris’s tenure, the construction of his leadership at the bank was fraught with competing ideas from the media’s apparent expectation of a drastic plan for change, and Norris’s emphasis on taking a more cautious and considered approach. On one hand, having depicted an increasingly competitive external environment, Norris was introduced upon his arrival to the bank as the kind of agentic leader
necessary to defy the prevailing influences of the sector. He was portrayed in the media as a confident change agent needed at CBA, illustrated in Figure 4.2.
Beneath the main headline in Figure 4.2 are three photographs of David Murray, John Schubert, and Ralph Norris. In the right-most photograph, Norris is staged at a press conference while standing at a podium, dressed in a full business suit, and directed in mid-speech with his gaze extending far into the distance. A large projection can be seen in the background, which displays a close-up of his face. Norris’s presence pervades the tall frame and creates the impression of a dominating, larger-than-life figure. Although the three photographs are individually bordered and separated by a narrow space, the portraits are connected with their consistent use of size, costume, composition, and lighting, forming a triptych that details the narrative of the bank as moving from old (David Murray) to new (Norris), bridged by the chairman, John Schubert.
The reading path begins with the set of three photographs, which is then followed by its relatively large and bold headline. The statement “Norris to defy slowing economy” supports the construction of Norris as challenging the powerful external forces of the economic environment, while the tall, imposing visual representations of three ‘giants’ at CBA enhance the sense that Norris is capable of succeeding in that task. This optimism is also echoed in the caption to the photographs, which reads, “Outlook bright: David Murray, chairman John Schubert and Ralph Norris at the AGM yesterday”. The reading path continues to the two articles beneath the photographs with the second largest headlines on the newspaper page. The left-hand article, “Regulator signals end of credit boom”, represents what is already known about the economy, anticipating a downturn in the credit cycle, while the right-hand article presents a new point in the newspaper’s message, “AdBank tracks target, eyes 5pc share in mortgage loans”, signalling to the impending aggressive strategies of CBA’s competitor. The article in the right-margin of the page, “Little raises foreign threat”, features the next largest headline, which reinforces the general message of the article, further painting the economic environment to be one with numerous challenges and threats. As such, the reading path of this newspaper page underscores the sense of a challenging economic environment, highlighting in turn the wider effects in the credit cycle, local industry competition, and global competition and foreign threats.
Finally, the reading path concludes with the two articles located in the bottom margin, “Seven queried on ‘doomed’ NRL bid” and “Hardie plant stands down half”, which report on the corporate failures of these two companies. Their low salience do not contest or undermine the positive message communicated in the main article about Norris, but their presence nevertheless provides a point of contrast that can be interpreted as both accentuating the confidence in Norris’s leadership, yet also offering a caveat for the potential downfalls of business.
The opening statement of the article about Norris in Figure 4.2 sets the scene of the photographs, describing how “Commonwealth Bank chief executive Ralph Norris stood before shareholders for the first time yesterday and promised to deliver on the bank’s 2006 cash earnings per share target, in the face of a slowing economy”. It constructs Norris as the confident leader making an ambitious promise to stand up to the insurmountable forces of the economy at his first public address to shareholders. The article continues to emphasise the downturn in the wider economy through the repetition of “slow” and “slowing”, which further enhances the significance of Norris’s task. In addition to the visual portrayal of confidence, the body of the article also introduces the construction of Norris as thoughtful and meticulous, particularly concerning his strategic priorities of improving customer service and business banking where, “a number of ‘immediate initiatives’, mostly focusing on staff and customer engagement, were being evaluated”, while “business banking was also under the microscope, with Mr Norris saying that a scoping study was under way looking at a ‘number of initiatives’ to lift performance” (RN9).
Other articles supporting the attribution of confidence are frequently seen in references to Norris’s behaviour, such as “Norris demonstrated confidence, perhaps bravery, in facing a room packed with analysts, investors and media with no armoury” (RN22), and Norris’s own admissions to his outlook: “Financial performance in the first quarter had been in line with expectations, giving me every confidence that we will deliver cash earnings per share growth in the 2006 year that equals or exceeds the average of our peers” (RN9) and “I’m heartened to see that the staff position is improving and will, I believe, result in superior or much improved customer service numbers in the coming year” (RN10). The media also makes references to his past success: “Mr Norris’s track record at ASB and Air New Zealand has been widely praised by analysts and investors, as has his ability to overcome the onset of diabetes late in life and re-enter the workforce in a high-profile CEO position” (RN5) and his anticipated future success: “If Mr Norris’s track record is anything to go by, he should be able to imbue some positive changes at CBA” (RN4), to enhance the impression of him as a capable, resilient leader who has, and is, expected to achieve success through change.
The idea that Norris was compelled in certain ways to enact change was also reinforced in the media through the proto-story of development as a natural process. For instance, the articles (RN4) and (RN6) introduce Norris as “the New Zealander […] with a talent for breathing life into a company’s culture and a knack for cutting costs by upgrading to cutting-edge technology”, while (RN2) describes him as being “imbued with a passion for job cuts and cost cutting after a tough final year running the Kiwi national carrier”. In these examples, Norris’s past leadership initiatives are depicted as being borne from inherent traits and inclinations, creating the sense that he is predisposed to transforming the bank.