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Behavior is your Brand
Branding is often seen through the wrong lens. It is often seen as a combination of your logo, promise, voice, font, and color palette. But to leave it there is an injustice to what brand really is. The brand is behavior. The behaviors your members/customers experience when they engage your employees, products, and services. Think…
Read MorePay for Performance and Reputation Risk
An increasing trend in the financial services sector is “pay for performance.” This practice shows up in several formats: Commission – rep is paid a percentage of balances acquired Incentive – rep is paid per closed referral Bonus – rep is paid based on goal performance over a set period (per month, quarter, bi-annually, annually)…
Read MoreA Career Transition Essential – Staying Relevant
Navigating a career is never easy. There will be obstacles and disappointments. There will be joys and celebrations. At times, even new opportunities come to you from “out of the blue.” It is when those obstacles, disappointment, and “out of the blue” situations happen is when the true grit of a leader comes to the…
Read MoreLeadership: Don’t leave it to Amateurs
If you were to describe your leadership style, what would you say? If you were to define the leadership style of your credit union, what adjectives would you use? Like it or not, we all have a leadership style, and if your credit union has not defined their preferred leadership style, you have many varieties,…
Read MoreYour Digital Strategy is Probably Wrong
Competing in the digital space is getting more difficult and more and more essential to the credit union’s sustainability. Chances are, your current digital strategy is missing these five things. Organizational Alignment – most credit unions have all their data in silos. IT is doing one thing, marketing another, branches another, call center another, remote…
Read MoreThe Basics of a Successful Career
We enter the business world with the expectation that we are starting up a trajectory that will always climb to the next promotion, a continual progression of responsibility and authority. This belief is a myth. Rarely is a career path a constant climb up the ladder? A career path is a “hero’s journey,” one beset…
Read MoreLeadership and GPS – “Recalculating”
Life would be great if we had a “life GPS.” You know, “Darn, I missed that exit,” followed by an immediate “recalculating” from a calm voice. It didn’t matter how I failed to follow instructions; the beautiful GPS voice kept me from losing sight of my goal and helped me readjust my tactics with that…
Read MoreTrigger Points = Leadership Fails
Trigger points are those moments when our brain turns off, and our actions and reactions become “instinctive.” You know them, and you have them. Something happens that “sets you off.” It is a response that comes from deep inside, and it happens without you even thinking about what is happening. It is very visceral. Your…
Read MoreGetting Your Ducks in a Row – Strategic Planning
We often think about strategic planning as a one or two-day event that involves some crucial steps: Validating your mission, vision, values Doing a SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats) analysis Thinking BIG about what you want to become Identifying 3-5 vital strategic initiatives that will take you to this future place These four steps are…
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