#keeppurposeconstant Archives

Are We Family? Should We Be?

September 19, 2023/2 Comments/in Blog/by Kevin Smith

There is a long history of credit union staff taking pride in being more than a financial institution and more like a family to colleagues and members. While this may feel right, it is an attitude that can challenge the productivity of organizations that have become extremely complex. It is often not effective to behave like a mom-and-pop shop anymore.

By Kevin Smith

This may not be a very popular post. But I hope you’ll hear me out and consider the perspective that I’m bringing. Too be absolutely clear, this is not a clear-cut issue with easy sides to be on. It is a complicated tight-rope walk for credit unions. Those who figure out how to navigate this balancing act my lock onto a great differentiator and market advantage.

During my recent travels, during a keynote session I was giving I asked about some of the concerns the board members were having. Someone spoke up from the crowd with a troubled look on his face. He said something to the effect of, “We’re always talking about how we’re ‘family.’ But I have a problem with that. We’re NOT a family. We are a business, and we need to act like it.” This took me off guard, precisely because in the credit union movement, particularly in smaller and midsized credit unions, we talk like this all the time. It was a minor stir in the room, with some chatter. Some looked thoughtful, some concerned, and some puzzled. The gentleman spoke up again to say sometimes acting like family is getting in the way of us getting things done, because we are not acting professionally enough in an industry that demands it in order to keep up, much less thrive.

He’s got a point. I don’t love it, but he does have a point.

Two (Or More) Sides

We credit union people love to be something other than bank-like and other than corporate. It’s a way for us to set ourselves apart and differentiate ourselves from cold, profit-driven businesses that don’t care about us as humans, who only want our dollars. There’s a lot to be said for this human approach to members and colleagues.

But there’s a difficult side to this approach as well. Often when we treat people like family rather than colleagues we don’t take the rational and pragmatic approach to getting things accomplished. We all know that we’d generally give family more chances at redemption than we would others. Blood is thicker than water, as the saying goes. And you can’t choose your family; you’re just stuck with them. (I know it’s more nuanced and complicated than this, but there’s a point here.)

With as much consolidation as there is and as many mergers as there are, we know that there are some that are not making it. It is a challenging and complex industry that does not look like it did ten years ago much less than its inception a hundred years ago. I’m not saying that this is all due to this family approach. But are we evolving as much as we need to?

Can We Balance This?

I have to tell you that I’m really uncomfortable with the direction this blog post is going. I don’t like it. No sir. Not one bit. The family aspects of this industry are a draw for me. At the same time, the change that I’ve seen over my 18 years here are jaw dropping.

Perhaps there are ways to walk this tightrope between family and business. Maybe you know how to do this or have examples of this done right. I’m eager to hear. Send them along. The right balance might just be the magic approach. And I’ll say very quickly – some of you think you’re doing this already. I’m not sure I agree.

Family Versus Humans

There’s a distinction necessary here: it’s two different approaches between treating people like family and treating people compassionately as humans, with some serious overlap. Simon Sinek and Gary Vaynerchuk (and others) are proponents of the empathetic human approach to business. It’s distinct from a family approach.

Kevin Isn’t Sharing Any Advice

Surly you’ve noticed that I’m not doling out any advice as to how to navigate this. (Yes. And don’t call me Shirly.) The truth is that I’m not sure how to handle this. It was a thoughtful, thought-provoking comment from a board member at a conference. Hurray for that. Kudos to him for bringing a challenging idea to the table. I certainly hope that happens as often as possible, because I see an awful lot of opportunity to collaborate on these difficult ideas.

Sometimes I’m thrown off. I’m sure I need to think about this one more. But it’s been weighing on my mind for a bit and needed to get it out there for you smart people to work on. Let’s face it: some families are dysfunctional.

What do you think?

What do you see?

If you think you’re doing this balancing act well, what makes you so sure?

I want to hear from you.

Playing the Dandelion Card, or Keeping Meetings Out of the Weeds

November 22, 2022/0 Comments/in Blog/by Kevin Smith

Staying at the strategic level and avoiding operational micromanaging is a significant challenge for most boards. This can and should be addressed with systems to prevent it from happening and wasting valuable meeting time.

By Kevin Smith

Some of you have heard me talk about the E.L.M.O. card. If you haven’t, you can go here to catch up. But essentially the acronym is for: Enough. Let’s Move On. It’s a way to stop conversations that are repeating and no longer useful, that are simply taking up time. By playing a card with our furry red friend’s picture on it, you inject some humor into the process and (hopefully) not hurt anyone’s feelings. It keeps things moving.

I’ve been thinking about this and I think it’s time to add another card to our repertoire, and to our board packets: the dandelion card. You see where this is going, don’t you?

An Issue for Most

A significant issue that many (most?, all?) boards face is the slippery slope where conversations migrate from the strategic and the big picture to the operational and into the “weeds.” I’ve been to my share of board meetings and I facilitate a lot of strategic planning sessions as well as board training sessions. And I’ve yet to attend one that didn’t drift into the weeds at some point. Some dramatically worse than others, but every one of them at some point or another. It takes a great deal of diplomacy and gentle directing to keep things on track. It’s not easy, because board members head that direction very quickly.

Board members and CEOs, and committee members, and staff members, and board liaisons all warn me about it ahead of time, and complain about it during breaks. And some groups are more self-aware of it than others, acknowledging that they have this tendency “on occasion.” I can respect that and work with it. It’s the groups that tell me that they never get into the weeds that I watch out for, because they are usually the worst offenders. They don’t recognize when they’re doing it.

Playing a Card

That’s where the Dandelion Card comes in. Much like the E.L.M.O. card, everyone on the board would get one laminated card with a picture of a dandelion on it to go in their board packet. When the conversation takes its slide into operations, a member can throw the card to call that out. And I’m going to make a controversial addition to this by saying that the CEO should have one (or six) to throw as well. Why is this controversial? Because many CEOs I work with tread lightly on this territory, never wanting to step on any director’s toes with this, even though they desperately want to. It takes a lot of trust in the room for the CEO to be able to do this.

If there’s an issue, then the people involved need to do something to address it. Things don’t just go away on their own. Most that I deal with take this slide into the weeds as just something to grit their teeth and suffer through, taking it as inevitable and the cost of doing business with a weird group known as a “board of directors.” But it shouldn’t, and doesn’t have to be that way. I’m encouraging YOU to do something about it. Put systems in place to address the circumstances.

No Magical Solutions – But Progress

Now, a laminated card with a dandelion on it is not a magical solution that will make these conversations dissipate and go away. I’m not that naïve. But what it does is bring the topic to the table for discussion. It gives you permission to talk about this as something that can be or is a problem. You push for agreement about what the parameters are for strategic versus operational. Write this agreement down and use it for reference. This goes a long way towards improvement. And hopefully, using a silly card will bring some levity that makes it easier to deal with. I see too many people who are unwilling to say anything about topics like these for fear of hurting the feelings of their colleagues, which is very nice and noble, but not very helpful for the efficiency of the organization.

It also won’t go away overnight. It will take some time. But it moves you forward.

(BTW – I had to stick with the word “dandelion” here rather than weed. You can guess what happened when I did an image search for “weed.” 😉 )

Now, let’s do a poll to see how we rate on this topic!

Aligning your Purpose

August 24, 2021/0 Comments/in Blog/by Kevin Smith

Remember the little guy!

Organizations driven by a clear purpose enjoy many benefits over those that don’t. Credit unions have this kind of purpose baked into our DNA but often it’s not clear enough, or it doesn’t reach everyone. Aligning towards the purpose of changing people’s lives through is a powerful engine that can move mountains.

By Kevin Smith

Last week I got to do one of my all-time favorite activities. A credit union invited me in to kick off their strategic planning process by talking about purpose. I love talking about this. Tim and I have been talking about organizational purpose for years in our own planning sessions. And we’ve seen dramatic changes when an organization embraces this approach.

It’s all too easy for credit unions to think about their “purpose” in very corporate terms. We take deposits, make loans and help people with their money. (*buzzer sound*) Thanks for playing but that’s not the correct answer (IMHO). A purpose-driven organization is one that has a mission beyond making a profit. It’s a beacon guiding people in all of their decisions and motivating their actions. A clear and worthwhile purpose inspires people giving meaning to their work and lives.

Shoes, Socks and Purpose

Now, this might be a bit harder if you’re selling shoes and socks, but look at Toms and Bombas. They figured it out. But we’re credit union people. This is baked into our DNA, in our history. Too often it gets lost in the day-to-day, in the bank-like nature of how we compete these days. It’s there though, bubbling underneath. It’s time to let it out to do its magic!

The “Good Old Days” and our DNA

Over the course of my years working with credit unions, I’ve had the pleasure of hearing hundreds of stories about the “good old days” of credit unions: children delivering deposits or loan payments to credit unions open on Saturdays at a kitchen table. Some run from converted broom closets on the factory floor. And these credit unions started because a group of people got together to help one another when they couldn’t get a loan elsewhere. This is our driving purpose: to change lives for the better. Doesn’t that sound better than “taking deposits and making loans”?

Benefits

Leading with purpose has many benefits.

Higher staff engagement
Lower turnover
Better recruiting
Higher organizational performance
Among others

And get this, research conducted during the pandemic indicated that those living their purpose at work reported:

Five times (5X!) higher levels of well-being
Being four times as likely to report higher engagement levels
2 ½ times as likely to be free of dementia
52% less likely to have experienced a stroke.

It has health benefits to boot!

Leading with a purpose that is higher than profit drives engagement. You have to pay people enough, for sure. But pay raises aren’t enough to drive engagement and give meaning to their lives. If you communicate how the credit union changes lives and connect people to how their roles move the needle towards changing more lives, they will be sparked to do more. It’s jet fuel.

This was all true before Covid but recent research (see links below) has shown that the pandemic has caused broad swaths of the working population to reconsider what they do and why. People are now more determined to have their work have positive impact and meaning. This is our “in” for getting the right people who share our passion.

Credit union leaders:

You have access to this. But are you doing enough with it? Creating this kind of culture is messy. There’s no straight line or timelines. It has to be constant and it starts with demonstrating what drives you and simple conversations. All. The. Time! There’s no room for lip service, for “do what I say, not what I do.” You have to walk the walk and people will follow you.

Make sure your purpose is clear everywhere!

Here’s your next caveat leaders: Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you’re already doing this enough. The McKinseyresearch says that 85% of leadership feel like they’re living their purpose at work. But only 15% of frontline employees say that’s true. Just because everyone around you says it doesn’t mean it’s happening everywhere. Mind the Gap. Close the gap. Communicate and follow through.

This is why many of us are in the credit union movement. But we need to make sure it’s true for every person in every corner of the organization. This is our true differentiator.

Here are all of my sources:

There are lots more too! I dare you to Google it. (Kevin)

Posts

Are We Family? Should We Be?

By Kevin Smith

Two (Or More) Sides