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If Grant James was one thing in the late 2000s, it was comfortable.
Over the previous 30 years, James had built up an entire career’s worth of experience in the Fort Worth banking industry. After all, it was in his blood. His family was an integral part of a major bank in Oklahoma City, and when he graduated from TCU in 1980, he immediately launched into his banking career at a local bank. Over the next 30 years, he stayed in Fort Worth and found himself with Bank of Texas in 2007 after it bought out Worth National Bank.
James was happy and comfortable at Bank of Texas. It was a big enough organization to support the things he wanted to do as well as the goals he had for the bank’s future. But when a relatively unknown bank to James named Community Trust Bank came calling in 2009, he was intrigued.
The task that lay before James was whether to take this leap of faith with a new, exciting community banking venture, or stay in his comfort zone. This was James’s run-toward-the-roar moment, and after some thought, he planned to meet it head on.
“I had enough input from people I trusted to really take a pretty big chance,” says James, Tarrant County regional president of the bank, which renamed itself Origin Bank in 2015. “I didn’t know whether I’d land on my feet or not, but I knew that I had enough support from people that, whether it was folks I worked with in the community or customers former or future, I knew I was willing to take that chance.”
Sometimes the safest place to be is the one that feels the scariest. Humans sometimes have an instinctive desire to shy away from pursuits that look and sound scary. But often, running toward those challenges and conflicts is the best (or only) way to grow and meet our goals. In business, those who run from the deafening noise never reach their full potential, while those who turn and face the fear thrive.
This is what James did in the summer of 2009. He left an enticing offer from Bank of Texas to be regional president of Community Trust’s Fort Worth location in 2009, and he’s never looked back. Origin Bank has its headquarters in Ruston, Louisiana, and it has 20 Texas locations, three in Fort Worth. At the time, the bank had little profile in North Texas, and James was the tip of the spear in starting up the Fort Worth branch. There would be sleepless nights, growing pains and all the expected difficulties that go along with starting something new.
And yet now, looking back at the last seven years, James can’t help but marvel at what his team has been able to accomplish. They’ve met their lofty revenue goals five of seven years, and James chalks that up to good hiring and a wholehearted willingness to run toward the roar.
“No question it builds confidence when you learn lessons about your ability, when you accomplish things that reaffirm your skill set or your style,” James says. “You have these little successes along the way; not only is it reaffirming to me that what we’re doing is right, but it’s reaffirming to other people. It’s so rewarding because it’s scary to ask somebody to leave whatever it is that might be safe to them. And you convince them that this is going to work. You’ll be glad you did this, and I won’t let you down; I’ve got your back. To be able to execute on that and actually achieve it, it just makes it all worthwhile.”
The culture James and his team built up around the bank played no small part in Origin Bank’s success in one of their newer markets. Origin Bank was named No. 3 on the FW Inc. Best Companies to Work For small business list in 2017. Employees love things like the company’s wellness programs, team outings, lucrative incentive bonuses and tuition reimbursement.
But the real joy for James has been the bank’s impact on the community. What’s he most proud of?
“The impact we’ve made on some individuals and companies that are customers of ours [and] that we’ve been able to save and take them off life support and get them back in the game,” James says.
Banking is in James’ blood, and it shows. Whether he’s talking about the culture he’s helped shape or the thousands of people Origin Bank helped along the way, James can’t hide his excitement around what they’ve built in Fort Worth in a short seven years. If there’s anything his career has taught him, it’s that sprinting toward the unknown reaps way more benefits than running from the roar.
“To think that I might not have done the things I’ve done when I left the comfort of some big institutional operation, or to stay some place where other people are making all the decisions, to look back and think I might not have done those things, it’s a relief that I did,” James says. “I don’t want to end this career and look back thinking, I could’ve done a lot more and had a lot more fun and had a much bigger impact. I look back and I think that I’ve done a lot, and I’ve helped a lot of people do things they never thought they would be able to do. And that’s rewarding.”