99% goal adoption: How First Business Bank made goals the way culture shows up in daily work

A people-first bank where culture shows up in how work gets done

First Business Bank is a US financial services organization with just under 400 employees, operating across remote and hybrid teams. The company runs a simple cultural model inspired by Patrick Lencioni’s Ideal Team Player framework: every employee is expected to be humble, hungry, and smart.

At First Business Bank, those values are made real through behaviors that are defined and measurable. Employees and managers set goals that reflect how they work, how they collaborate, and how they contribute. And then they make it a habit to evaluate themselves against those goals.

That is why 99% goal adoption is only the beginning of the story. What matters is that those goals are followed. Read on to learn how First Business Bank implemented a system that creates, tracks and measures accountability from goal set to completed.

The challenge: Cultural values weren’t consistently visible in daily work

Before implementing a more connected system, First Business Bank had already invested in structured learning. Employees were actively building skills and engaging with content. But connecting that learning to day-to-day work, team priorities, and measurable outcomes remained a challenge.

Goal setting and check-ins existed, but they were disconnected from daily work. Goals sat in one system. Conversation notes lived somewhere else,. Feedback was harder to follow up on, and nearly impossible to build on over time.

Managers had to piece together context from scattered sources before every review, which made it harder to lead consistently and evaluate performance with confidence. For employees, that lack of visibility made it easy to lose sight of goals between formal reviews, easier to delay, deprioritize, or forget entirely.

As a result, the behaviors First Business Bank cared about – the humble, hungry, smart model – were present in pockets but not reliably visible across the whole organization.

Key results

• 99% of employees entered goals across the company
• 5,550 documented manager–employee conversations in one year
• 5,905 feedback notes from employees to managers
• 5,883 employee-created goals in a single year, vs. 1,479 created by managers
• 7,843 total goals created since launch

Putting employees in charge of goals and turning culture into action

Instead of adding extra processes, First Business Bank built on what employees were already doing. Learning remained an important part of how employees developed, but now it was directly connected to goals, conversations, and feedback.

Zensai brought these elements into Microsoft Teams, where employees already spend time every day. That way, goal tracking became part of everyday work, rather than an extra task. “The employee is the one who initiates. They bring goals to their manager to refine together,” Kaitlin explains.

This was the most significant shift: ownership. Previously, managers drove the goal-setting process. With Zensai, employees initiate. They create their own goals, then bring them to their managers to refine together. That shift in ownership changes what goals represent. They move from assigned tasks to personal commitments.

In one year, their employees created 5,883 goals.

When employees define their goals, they are more likely to follow through on them. Accountability feels shared rather than imposed, which reflects the humble, hungry, and smart model in practice.

This is where culture and outcomes connect. Learning builds capability. Goals turn that capability into clear expectations. Completion shows those expectations are met.

At scale, that two-way dynamic shows up in the data: 5,905 feedback notes from employees to their managers in a single year. Goals are actively discussed, adjusted, and progressed. The result last year was a goal completion rate of 100%.

From scattered inputs to clear, data-backed performance decisions

Once goals, conversations, and feedback are connected in one place, performance decisions stop relying on memory or end-of-year recall.

At First Business Bank, goal progress and manager notes now feed directly into performance reviews, promotion discussions, and bonus decisions. As Kaitlin puts it: “If someone is doing really well, we look to their goals and manager notes to support that. If someone is struggling, it’s the first place we go to understand what’s happening”.

Because goals, notes, and feedback are all in one place, managers walk into conversations already knowing where things stand, so they can focus on supporting employees and teams rather than asking people to re-explain their progress.

When a manager can see that an employee is falling behind on goals in month three, they can step in, remove blockers, and course-correct, rather than discovering the gap at year-end when it’s too late to do anything about it. That’s not just better for the organization. It’s better for the employee, and it reflects what a genuinely hungry and smart team culture looks like in practice.

For certain senior leaders, consistency in meeting with employees is also tied directly to bonus expectations. That reinforces that performance conversations are not an optional exercise. They’re part of how the company leads.

How accountability changed the way First Business Bank’s culture works

First Business Bank did not change its culture. It changed how culture is applied. Goals are written down. Conversations are documented. Feedback flows both ways.

The humble, hungry, smart model is now reflected in goals that employees commit to and complete.

“When I talk to new managers, I say that the minute this platform doesn’t feel integrated or useful and feels like one more thing to do, we need to pause and look at how you’re using it.” Kaitlin explained.  “It should be a tool, not a checklist item.”

Culture becomes consistent through visibility and follow-through. When employees know what they’re accountable for, managers follow up, and progress is tracked in one place, behavior aligns. Not because it’s mandated, but because the system makes it easy and worthwhile.