Are you a resolutions person? I’m not a big fan of resolutions. It seems they are just another way to procrastinate what you should have done days, weeks, months, or even years ago. What I prefer to do to celebrate a new year is to evaluate, reinvent, and re-energize my focus and attention. How do…

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When doing a strategic plan, most organizations really are good at thinking with aspiration, hope, and promise. Where the “failure” happens is on the execution of the plan. If you think about engaging movies, they all seem to be stories that include a variation of the hero’s journey. “Lord of the Rings”, “Star Wars”, and…

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Historically branches are seen as transaction channels. Today, this view of branches has changed and continues to evolve. Members and potential members like the convenience of brick and mortar, they like the demonstration of financial strength and security, but the truth is, they rely less on branches for their daily, weekly and monthly transaction business…

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For marketers today, it was essential to bring to light how the Marketing team will provide offers to members as it’s a significant change to our traditional methodology. The new approach is designed to provide improved, more consistent and more relevant product offers using the wealth of data from our core and your ancillary systems…

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Stress is part of our lives. Outside forces can cause us stress, and we can cause stress for others and ourselves. Air travel is a source of stress; that’s what makes it a good metaphor for stress management behaviors. Many people find air travel very stressful. The stress surrounding air travel is not unlike the…

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It’s a strange time for credit unions. Credit unions are facing unprecedented pressures from regulators and examiners, and capital pressures for net interest margins and fee income. Often they don’t have the benefit of “economies of scale” or the resources, people, and capital, to invest in the infrastructure demands of vendor due diligence, regulatory compliance…

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A consistent issue most credit unions have is the lack of consistency from one report to the next. To diagnose why this inconsistency exists we should look first at these three elements of the report: Timing – two reports run at two different end times or interval times will tell different stories. But it’s not…

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One of the biggest frustrations found in most credit unions is the numbers between two or more departments don’t jive. The conversation almost always leans toward trying to figure out which data set is correct, which one to believe. The ultimate goal for these organizations is to find that elusive “one source of truth.” So,…

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When most of us think about data, we think about numbers, charts, graphs, and reports. However, we need to talk about CULTURE. Collecting, aggregating, normalizing, manipulating, and presenting data seems to consume the conversation. However, here is the question we need to ask ourselves, “Is our culture ready to become truly data-driven?” Too often organizations…

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