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This week, how people with resources and networks (or just the will to change things) can give back. Plus, an interview with Morgan Stanley chairman and CEO James Gorman, and the plentiful picks on McKinsey’s annual summer reading list.

Mindset is crucial. Maybe all the disturbing news out there is making you feel you can’t change anything. But it’s possible to reframe the root causes of mindsets that block change. It also helps to recognize that you have more influence on other people than you may think. In a 2021 Author Talks interview, the social psychologist Vanessa Bohns discusses why failing to recognize our ability to influence can lead us to miss opportunities. “We walk through our lives, and we don’t realize how many people notice us and, because they notice us, how many people might imitate our behavior, or change their behavior because of something we did or said,” Bohns notes. “And so we also have this sense of obliviousness at times about the trail of chaos or trail of positivity that we leave behind us.” A trail of positivity sounds a lot nicer.

In 2021, more than 40 percent of core retail banking sales originated digitally, representing a new high. At the same time, a 4 percent increase in digital sales was not enough to compensate for a 15 percent decline in the still-larger branch channel when facilities became inaccessible early in the pandemic. Accelerating digital and upgrading the physical experience to “phygital” offers a viable solution to the problem of banking distribution. But questions remain: Can digital channels replace branches as the dominant sales channel for financial services? Did COVID-19 really accelerate a permanent channel shift, or will customer behavior trend back toward historical habits when the pandemic recedes? The responses to McKinsey’s Retail Banking Survey offers banks some guidance on how to answer these questions.

In a recent episode of McKinsey’s Inside the Strategy Room podcast, James Gorman, chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley, explains how he reshaped the firm in the wake of the 2008–09 financial crisis by relying on his fundamental views of where the financial-services industry was heading. He also talks about reshaping Morgan Stanley’s strategy, why a company’s culture needs a stable foundation, and how to balance the chances of catastrophic risk with confidence in natural strengths. “It’s like playing poker,” Gorman notes. “When you’ve got the cards, you’re aggressive. You never know if you’re going to win, but if the odds are way in your favor, you get aggressive. It’s a combination of being extremely conservative managing against catastrophic risk and extremely aggressive when you’ve got the cards.”

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