Metro Roundup: BBVA executive talks about learning from pandemic

In 2020, the world dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic, social unrest and natural disasters that included tornados, floods, wildfires and a massive ice storm.

When Rosilyn Houston, chief talent and culture executive at BBVA (now PNC) was tasked with handling the bank’s pandemic response, as well as the response to natural disasters, she leaned on her own life experiences to learn how to manage those situations, she told the crowd at the June 8 Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

Those experiences included almost dying during the birth of her son, Christian, and then learning that Christian had leukemia when he was just 23 months old. She’s been divorced and remarried and lost her mother to colon cancer. So, while the COVID-19 pandemic presented a different challenge, it wasn’t entirely new to Houston, she said.

“It was kind of familiar,” Houston said. “My back had been against the wall before.”

Houston spoke to the crowd about learning from the pandemic, including leveraging their own experiences to help people get through difficult situations, including the pandemic.

“Life experiences don’t just happen to us,” Houston said. “They are meant to stretch us. They are meant to take us to the highest level of capacity and personal development. Therefore, we don’t run and hide from these experiences, nor do we overanalyze them, but we use them as teachable moments, not only for ourselves, but for others.”

Houston recalled walking with her fellow employees as they dealt with COVID-19 at a personal level, something she also experienced. While it was a challenging year for so many, it is now time to walk forward, she said.

“We’re going to focus and honor on what we lost, and who we lost, and we never forget them,” Houston said. “But we’re also going to walk forward with what we have left and be intentional and purposeful every day in how we use the minutes and the moments and interactions with others to make people’s lives better.”

Navigating difficulties like the pandemic takes people with shared vision, shared values and shared beliefs, Houston said, and BBVA had to learn over the past year or so that the right morals and behavior does matter. When they worried about whether their employees would do the right thing when no one was watching due to most work being made remote, they learned that, for most of their employees, they did, and in fact needed to be told to step away from work and have work-life balance, she said.

Houston started her career at the bank as a teller, and said it was the best job she’s ever had.

“I am so proud of that,” Houston said.

That experience helped her get to know people and learn to help fill needs.

“We want people to walk away better,” Houston said.

Houston now works to ensure that not only BBVA’s customers, but also their staff, walks away better at the end of each day, and said leaders in all businesses don’t need to focus on going back to the “old way” of doing things, before COVID-19, but to learn from the pandemic and adapt, so they can be better going forward.

“Don’t get to the new normal; get to your new now,” Houston said.

The “new now” may include changes in operations or personnel, and means being able, flexible and agile when it comes to handling work, Houston said. That means businesses will need to “go with the flow and learn as you grow,” she said.

Business leaders should take time to transform their minds and to challenge themselves and their team, Houston said, and to use those experiences to improve their future, as she has learned to do over the years.

“I used my experiences to get to where I am today,” Houston said. “I used them to tap into a level of greatness I didn’t know existed.”