What does it mean to be part of your team
I was blessed to facilitate forty strategic planning meetings in 2022, and in those sessions spent more time discussing human resource challenges and opportunities than any other topic. For good reason—successful strategies have always begun and ended with people. But times are changing. Credit union leaders find themselves in a very different human resource climate, […]
Small credit union lenders – kicking ass and taking names
According to CUNA Mutual’s Credit Union Trends Report – December 2021, credit union consumer loan growth peaked at 10.5 percent in 2016. It has decreased annually since then, reaching 5.9 percent in 2021. Drilling down a bit further, the chart below reflects the loan growth challenges smaller credit unions have faced during the past two […]
Being a credit union of substance
I recently had a wonderful conversation with a friend about people we know who are of real substance – those people in our life who we admire and who have made a big difference in the lives of those around them. These people bring more than a set of ideas; they also have the character, […]
Diversity & Inclusion: It’s about culture, leadership, and making your business better
Fostering true diversity and inclusion is about finding out what people are all about and celebrating their differences. The importance of D & I really drills down to the concept that, when you look at things from someone else’s point of view – listening and understanding where they are coming from – you allow yourself […]
Remote work and parenting – employee engagement is key
Every company in the nation should want to help working-parent employees through this particularly difficult time. But the real question is, how? How can we as credit unions step in to support our employees’ increasingly complex lives? For those preparing to return to the office, months of working at home likely revealed, perhaps unexpectedly, that presence at the […]
Balancing act: Remote work and parenting in unprecedented times
Raising children has always been a community endeavor. As they say, “it takes a village”, and suddenly the village many of us have relied on is gone. It’s taking a toll on our careers, our family’s well-being and our children’s education. For many parents, myself included, this leaves us feeling stressed and stranded. If we […]
The Single Must-have Attribute of a Successful Team
Sometimes it feels odd to contemplate the lack of trust that exists in the credit union space. Pre-hire criminal background checks, credit checks, references, and the required insurance bonding – one might assume anyone who could pass these “trust” tests would naturally add to an abundance of trust. But there are different dimensions of trustworthiness. […]
Credit unions- Invest in your emerging leaders!
2018 has been a remarkable year, one that I will never forget. I’ve personally visited 49 credit unions and participated in 17 conference/educational events this year. I’ve learned a lot from very diverse credit union cultures, and been exposed to a wide-range of missions, visions and strategies. I’ve spent time with inspiring credit union leaders […]
The single-must have attribute of a succesful team
Sometimes it feels odd to contemplate the lack of trust that exists in the credit union space. Pre-hire criminal background checks, credit checks, references, and the required insurance bonding – one might assume anyone who could pass these “trust” tests would naturally add to an abundance of trust. But there are different dimensions of trustworthiness. The […]
Who Needs You Today?
The credit union movement was founded on the principle of service. We’ve all heard the phrases: Not for profit, not for charity, but for service. People helping people. The real job of a credit union is to prove, in modest measure, the practicality of the brotherhood of man. Credit union history teaches us that the […]
The Road Less Travelled to Membership Growth
It’s strategic planning season for many of us; a time for reassessing our environment and revisiting our strategic themes to ensure we are heading down the right road. The competition is fierce. Most of us prefer an uncontested market space, but the reality is that many of us operate in hyper-competitive markets, fighting for dominance. […]
Credit Union Soup for the Soul
I was in Connecticut last week to join friends at Members Credit Union and Nutmeg State Financial Credit Union in celebrating their recent National Juntos Avanzamos (Together We Advance) Award (more on that in a minute). I couldn’t help but smile when I noticed via a lobby directory that Members Credit Union shares a building […]
