Five Steps to Creating a Digital Culture

When asked “In the past year, which method did you use most often to manage your bank account(s)?” consumers responded as follows: Mobile (apps on smartphone or tablet) – 45% Internet/Online (Laptop or PC) – 27% Branches – 14% (Oct 31, 2022 – American Bankers Association) This statistic says a lot! Mobile utilization is the preferred method…

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Make your Strategic Plan a Hero’s Story

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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Five Strategic Questions for the Board and Senior Management

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

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Air Travel, Leading and Stress

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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Strategic Planning is Like Running a Half-Marathon

Strategic planning for a lot of companies is an annual exercise in thinking big, dreaming of possibilities. Unfortunately, for a lot of these organizations, strategic planning stops there and this annual ritual that when the ritual is done, everyone returns back to business as usual. Let’s stop for a minute to really understand what strategic…

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Strategic Planning is the Easy Part

Working with organizations across the country, I see a familiar process when doing their strategic planning. A typical process I’ve observed is loosely following these steps: Once a year a strategic planning event is scheduled with the Board and a few key executives The event starts with a “state of the industry today” presentation, typically…

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Pay 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)…

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A 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…

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