CUES Podcast: Recent Episodes

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In this episode of the CUES Podcast, guest Lee Wetherington, senior director of corporate strategy at CUES Supplier member Jack Henry, discusses the impact that artificial intelligence is already having on credit unions. Two areas that will be improved by AI are member experience and service and fraud mitigation, he says.

“The top two use cases are member service—specifically, in short to mid-term, generative AI assist technologies to real people in the credit union who are fielding members’ moments of need in real-time through digital channels through the mobile app, etc,” Wetherington says. “The number two use case … is the application of machine learning to fraud detection, fraud prevention and fraud mitigation. Using new generative AI pattern detection technologies is being brought to bear and that space in more new and powerful ways.”

Lee is the senior director of corporate strategy at CUES Supplier member Jack Henry. He directs the development of actionable insights, forecasts and strategy for Jack Henry and the financial services industry at large. To this end, he guides a team of analysts who track the trends and implications of the emerging technologies disrupting and transforming the banking industry. You may have seen Lee at a conference as he delivers keynotes nationwide, focusing on opportunities and challenges in fintech, payments and digital banking.

In the show, Wetherington also discusses:

• What are the top use cases for AI right now?
• Where should credit unions start to dip their toes into using AI?
• What are the potential cost savings and revenue-generating opportunities for credit unions through AI adoption?
• Are credit union employees going to lose their jobs to AI?

“I see generative AI … as more of a leveler of the playing field, between credit unions and the biggest banks in the country,” he says.

Links for this show

• Transcript
• Jack Henry’s 2024 Strategy Benchmark
• Making AI Work for You: 10 Steps for an Organizational Approach
• Lee Wetherington’s LinkedIn profile
• What Is ChatGPT Doing ... and Why Does It Work? by author Stephen Wolfram
• jackhenry.com

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In this episode of the CUES podcast we talk about payment trends and strategies with guest Tede Forman, president of payment solutions at CUES Supplier member Jack Henry. He leads the company’s strategy and solutions for payments and spoke about why Jack Henry actively participated with the Federal Reserve to help develop its real-time payments network, FedNow.

“We wanted to offer this opportunity to all of our community financial institutions (and) specifically credit unions right from the start to give them the horsepower to drive innovation,” Forman says. “We also saw this as the foundation for meeting current needs, but also building future payment solutions.

“There's going to be a lot of innovation and transformation with instant payments, from P2P to business. … (We knew) getting in on the front end would help the credit union understand the operational processes and also (help) think through use cases that could be leveraged in the credit union space with instant payments.

“Probably around 30-33% of all the FIs that are live on the FedNow rail are actually a Jack Henry client,” he adds.

In the show Forman also discusses:

• the most common questions about FedNow;
• common risks or barriers that make credit unions hesitant to implement instant payments;
• data about the use of and demand for instant payments;
• how instant payments can help credit union members improve their financial health;
• a vision for the future of instant payments;
• and much more.

Links for this show:

• Transcript
• Email Tede Forman
• Jack Henry: Payments Trends and Strategies
• The Faster Payments Council’s Operational Considerations for Instant Payments Receive-Side Primer

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In this episode we talk about human-centered leadership. Returning to the show as our guest is CUES’ own VP/Consulting Services Lesley Sears, who heads up our CUES Consulting offerings.

She explains the difference between a business-centered culture and a human-centered one and shares why centering your people will ultimately be better for the business.

“In business-centered leadership, you're primarily focused on the numbers. You're focused on the ways of business that are outside of the people,” Sears says. “Are we strategically aligned? Are we getting our numbers? What is the data showing? What's the profitability?”

“Then the counter to that is digging into and aligning leadership with what's best for the people who are getting the business done,” she adds. “They're the ones that are making the credit union successful. How can we develop our organization to focus on them first, and then let the success of the credit union come from that people focus?”

In the show Sears also discusses:

• the difference between human-centered and business-centered leadership;
• why a human-centered approach to leadership works;
• what human-centered leadership looks like in action;
• signs that your workplace is struggling to be human-centered; and
• ways to evolve your culture.

Links for this show:

• Transcript
• Caveday.org: The resource that is saving Lesley’s life right now by helping her find time to focus on deep work.
• From Fast Company: 7 Qualities of the Human-Centric Workplace for Innovative Leaders
• CUES Consulting
• Purposeful Talent Development blog posts, podcasts and videos by Sears

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Knowledge is key to success in business lending, according to Jim Devine, co-founder, CEO and chairman of Hipereon, a financial training company based in Washington state, and lead faculty member for CUES’ School of Business Lending, which starts April 1.

In this latest episode of the CUES Podcast, Devine says his aim with the school each year is to “make sure ... that everybody going out the back door has the foundational skills that give them confidence that they can take a set of financial statements from a prospective borrower, do a diagnostic assessment of the performance of that business, link it to their debt service coverage policies and guidelines, and determine whether” they’re willing, as a fiduciary, to let their members’ money fund the credit request.

In this show, Devine demonstrates that his own knowledge of business lending runs deep—both in terms of the structures and procedures credit unions need to have in place to do it well and the impacts that the economy and other factors have on credit unions’ success with it.

The show opens with a discussion of the business lending environment and what to look out for in 2024, including interest rates and the repricing of loans. The show also gets into the importance of using analytics well to best determine if credit should be granted to a particular applicant.

“You’re not trying to figure out a way to say, ‘yes,’” Devine says in the show. “You're trying to figure out whether yes is the right answer. And again, in order to do that, you have to have the analytical skills to do it.”

Devine also makes the case that credit unions need to consider how to broaden their business lending portfolios to also include loans for business operations.

“People are going to have to start looking at the feasibility of figuring out how to make more operating loans to operating businesses and not have such a huge concentration risk in a loan portfolio linked to commercial real estate,” he says.

The show also gets into:

• Key fundamentals of business lending, such as “If the cash don’t flow, the loan don’t go” and also the importance of researching whether a business has more than one source of possible repayment.
• More details about what’s covered in the School of Business Lending
• How Devine plans to personalize this year’s school more than ever

Links for this show:

• Transcript
• School of Business Lending
• Goldman Sachs article about business lending at smaller financial institutions

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Fintech, including artificial intelligence, is at the top of many credit union leaders’ worry list for 2024.

The guest in this episode of the CUES Podcast, Scott Snyder, has ideas for how to approach these concerns that should be steadying. A recognized thought leader in technology and innovation, Snyder has more than 30 years of experience in emerging technologies, business strategy and innovation, and digital transformation for Global 1000 companies.

When it comes to emerging and potentially disruptive technology, Snyder says, “the biggest fear of any leader, and I'll throw boards into that as well, is being on either side—either investing too early and too much or being too late and being caught flat-footed and … getting left behind.”

Snyder recommends in the show two approaches leaders can take to best manage this kind of technology. The first is “bottoms up, rapid experimentation.”

“Let certain populations in your company actually play with this technology … so they … (can) see what's possible and actually see, ‘Can it drive the impact we think?’” he says in the show.

“Then we should work future-back, using things like scenarios of how this could play out,” he continues. “How could it fundamentally change the way we operate or make money? Because that will get us thinking about what's possible in the long term.

(The) “bottom line is yeah, you need to do bottoms up, rapid experimentation. You can't just sit around and wait. You've got to play with these technologies,” he summarizes. “But also you need to think future-back of what they could really do to your organization to think of those ‘big I’ innovation opportunities.”

Snyder says credit unions will benefit from considering both short-term and long-term potential of fintech, including AI.

"You have to start with responsible innovation,” he says. “And you've got to have your own responsible innovation framework that includes things like ethics and transparency and fairness.”

He recommends sharing this responsible innovation framework across your organization, “because then that provides the backdrop of like, what do we really care about when we're innovating these solutions and make sure there's clear areas we don't choose to pursue technology use cases that fit.”

He recommends evaluating possible fintech and AI initiatives with “three Rs”: responsibility (such as do no harm), reliability (the need to work right may be different for marketing brainstorming than for a virtual member assistant, for example) and return on investment.

Links:

• Goliath’s Revenge: How Established Companies Turn the Tables on Digital Disruptors
• Gartner hype cycle
• CUES Virtual Classroom: Leading in an AI-First Future
• The Looming Algorithmic Divide: Navigating the Ethics of AI
• European Union Artificial Intelligence Act
• CEO Institute: FinTech
• Transcript

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The 2023 CUES Emerging Leader says the best advice he got about the CUES Emerge program was not to go into it with a preconceived notion about what his business case for the competition phase would be.

In this episode of the CUES Podcast, Jayde DelGado, CCM, branch manager for $1.8 billion Harborstone Credit Union, Lakewood, Washington, tells the story of a 1:1 meeting with his CEO, CUES member Geoff Bullock and the 2017 winner of the challenge, then called Next Top Credit Union Exec. DelGado brought several ideas for problems his business case could help solve.

"Forget about all that,” DelGado recalls Bullock saying. “Don’t go in there with your business plan already done in your mind. Go in there with an open mind. Be open to learning. Be open to hearing. You very well might come out of this program with a completely different concept than you had ever thought, completely different than what you have in mind for your business case now.”

“And I did just that,” DelGado says. “I put it all aside, went in there, was really, really listening to the problem identification lecture that we had on how to ideate what some of the challenges are, how to identify those challenges.

“And it really helped because … I could see … how easy it would be to go in there looking through the lens of, ‘I have one problem. I know how I’m going to solve this problem.’ But to be able to go in there with that open perspective and kind of see everything that came, I think really helped me get to the point where I was able to get the business case that I had.” DelGado’s business case was a transitional housing loan program.

DelGado also recalls Bullock encouraging him to apply for the experience. “What have you got to lose?” Bullock asked him.

If you’re considering applying for CUES Emerge, DelGado would say pretty much the same thing.

"I can’t really think of a reason to not do it,” he says in the show. “It’s professional development. It’s something that needs to be invested in. At times it can be challenging with … the workload, but if it was easy, everyone would do it, and that’s part of professional development … learning how to balance your time and learning how to prioritize.

“If you’ve thought about it, if you’re thinking about it, if you’re considering it, just do it,” he emphasizes.

In the show, DelGado also gets into:

• the three phases of the CUES Emerge program: application, education and competition
• how teamwork is important in all things, credit union work, the CUES Emerge competition and more
• details about his business case for a transitional housing loan
• why DelGado thinks credit unions are such financial services standouts

Links for this show:

• CUES Emerge
• DelGado’s pitch during the CUES Emerge 2023 pitch show
• DelGado won a free registration CUES Advanced Management Program from Cornell University and leadership coaching from Envision Excellence
• The 5-second rule that DelGado describes in the show
• Transcript

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Resilience is “about being tough, but it’s also about being flexible, and truly resilient leaders know when to be which,” Heather McKissick, I-CUDE, says in the latest episode of the CUES Podcast. McKissick is the CEO of CUES.

The decision about when to be tough and when to be flexible, McKissick explains, “depends on the forces that we are up against—because some things you can predict because of wisdom or history or experience, and other things are unpredictable. And there are times when you have no choice but to work with what you’ve got in order to withstand and … keep moving forward.”

Being able to be agile, being able to forecast situations and “respond and test and pivot and change and not hold steadfast” to legacy policies or procedures is important, she says, “because if we hold too strongly to those things, we may get left behind.”

“Some organizations that don’t have that same kind of spirit of experimentation or transformation when it comes to how they serve their members and experience lag, … attrition, … a lack of engagement or satisfaction by their members because the organization that they’re looking to to help them through some of the most challenging times in their careers or in their lives isn’t able to keep up with the challenges and changes all around them.”

In addition to resilient leadership, this show also gets into

• McKissick’s vision for magnifying the good that credit unions and their leaders are doing all the time—and how CUES can support that
• The value of credit union industry players having conversations that would support taking the ongoing cooperative work of credit unions to the next level
• How McKissick applies her ideas about resilience to potentially disruptive technology like generative AI
• The importance of learning about new technology from credible sources
• How CUES can help credit union leaders and their organizations build resilience going forward, which in turn will build CUES’ resilience

Links for this show:

• McKissick’s “banana bread column”
• McKissick is the guest in this video: Resilient Leaders Leverage Dynamic Integration
• CUES Emerge
• CEO Institute: FinTech
• Transcript

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Erica Taylor says her best advice for credit unions on how to best further their DEI journeys is to listen, really listen, to staff and their communities.

“Start with listening and truly listening to hear..., listening to understand people,” says Taylor, VP/communications and community relations for $20 billion Golden 1 Credit Union, headquartered in Sacramento, California, which was named the inaugural John Pembroke Catalyst for Change Award winner in 2023. “It’s powerful stuff. It builds trust. It empowers everyone that is listened to. … It’s good all around.”

Like all credit unions, Golden 1 CU was founded on ideas of equity and helping one another. More recently, the organization has formalized its DEI journey, starting with assessments of staff and leadership to really listen to what credit union team members had to say about their sense of workplace belonging.

“We know that diversity of backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, life makes us a stronger credit union and really makes us a stronger community,” explains Taylor, a CUES member, in the show. “That’s something that’s been a big part of our history.

“But we want to ensure that we’re acting on that right? It’s not just a belief; we need to take actions, to make sure that we are fostering an inclusive culture that ... our tagline of ‘stronger together’ is more than just a tagline, it’s an ethos. It’s something that we live every day.”

Internally, Golden 1 CU has launched a podcast featuring the lived experiences of employees, formed six employee resource groups and undertaken unconscious bias training.

“Being open to a history of background that’s different than yours can really open doors to growth, to rich and honest conversations and help us be better leaders help us be better employees and help us be a better credit union,” Taylor says of the unconscious bias training.

Externally, the CU listened to the needs of the Del Paso Heights area of Sacramento to find out what leaders thought was needed to address community needs, which include a safe park for birthday parties, an eyeglasses shop and a financial institution. The CU has dedicated $10 million over five to 10 years to the community and opens a financial resource center there this month.

“These communities know what they need. We just have to listen. We have to ask and see where we can plug in and help,” Taylor says. “And I’m thrilled that we were able to do that. I really love how we designed this, and I can’t wait to see it succeed.”

Links for this show:

• John Pembroke Catalyst for Change Award application information and list of winners
• CUES Net ERG Community, a benefit of CUESmembership
• CU Management magazine’s DEI content collection
• CUES’ DEI Resource Center
• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Cornell Certificate Program (starts March 27, 2024)
• Transcript

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In this episode, Lesley Sears talks about the implications of research showing that newly promoted employees are more likely to leave your organization—and what you can do to mitigate their flight risk.

“When we promote somebody, we’re assuming we’re building loyalty,” says Sears, CUES’ VP/consulting. “We’re … really feeding into and developing this person. But statistics have shown us that that’s not always the case.

“ADP has come out with a research study that shows 29% of the people that were newly promoted left, transitioned out versus 18% that normally would have.”

Spoiler alert: Sears says successfully fixing the problem comes down to strengthening your organizational climate.

“The culture … is really … the byproduct of how everything in the credit union is working,” she explains. Whatever the challenges are at the credit union will show up in the climate and culture. “So, address the culture,” she asserts, “and thereby you can address a lot of your challenges in the credit union itself.”

In the show Sears also discusses:

• Specific elements of climate/culture that might be leveraged to mitigate the flight risk of newly promoted employees
• How the nine elements of culture are highly intertwined
• Why it’s important for credit unions to have the kind of climate/culture that makes newly promoted—and other—employees want to stay
• What results a credit union can get from doing a climate assessment
• How a credit union’s climate ultimately impacts its members
• How CUES Consulting’s Burn Bright offering can help develop resilent leaders at a credit union

Links for this show:

Sponsor: GoCo

Transcript

CUES Consulting

Purposeful Talent Development blogs by Sears:

• A Culture of Learning Builds Resilience
• 5 (of 9) Dimensions of Organizational Climate
• Four More Dimensions of Organizational Climate

Podcast: The Nine Dimensions of Climate

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Terrance Williams says it was his dad who taught him to be a leader who listens, an intern who asked him how he knows insurance is still the right career for him and his parents together who instilled in him his mantra of “paying it forward.”

In this episode of the CUES Podcast, Williams, the new president/CEO of CUESolutions provider TruStage®, illustrates his leadership style by describing his approach to having lunch.

“I want to make sure that everyone’s comfortable engaging with me,” says Williams. “When I go get lunch, I talk to everyone in the cafeteria, regardless of their role, and regardless of what they do, and I want them to view and see me as someone that's approachable as someone that they can talk to and engage with—and give me feedback, give me a suggestion, give me a thought. (That) doesn’t mean we’re going to do everything that comes my way, but I always want to maintain that open forum, so that people are comfortable coming to me and approaching me."

Williams explains in the show how he was able to respond to an intern’s question about whether Williams had made the right decision to pursue a career in insurance. He is certain that he has.

“I … believe what we do genuinely matters,” he says. “When you think about the ability to transfer risk, the ability for me to live my life without the worry of being able to take care of the unexpected, without having to worry about what might happen with the loss of a loved one, … our role, when you boil it all down … is really to ensure that we can help rebuild lives to the degree money and caring can. That’s what we do. And I would like us to talk about that more as an industry.”

Williams adds that one of TruStage’s strengths is its mutual structure. “This belief in this notion of people helping people, the ability for us to make long-term decisions that really are centered around the member, the ability to ensure that we can invest today with the recognition that we will benefit someone tomorrow.”

The show also gets into:

• Williams’ mantra, paying it forward, and how he wears that idea on his arm (see photo)
• How Williams won a national award for chief marketing officers without being a CMO
• The job during Williams’ career that was most formative for him as a leader
• Diversity, equity and inclusion

Links for this show:

• TruStage
• TruStage’s CUESolutions provider page
• Key Strategies for Setting Up a Diversity & Inclusion Program with Angela Russell from TruStage
• CUESolutions providers are trusted credit union suppliers
• Transcript

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Chris Jones and his team have formed a new company named to represent well what they do. Jones is a senior benefits consultant and partner in PARC Street Partners. PARC stands for plan, attract, retain and compensate—all key elements of the company’s work to help credit unions create a succession plan, attract, retain and compensate key executives so that both the executives and the credit union “win the financial game.”

In the end, he says in the show, the credit union’s members win too.

“If the credit union is winning the financial game, the executive should win the financial game,” he says. “And as the result of those two, ultimately, keeping the member in the center, … the member is winning the financial game. When the organization is healthy and moving forward, the member is winning.”

PARC Street Partners specializes in helping credit unions, executives and boards put in place supplemental executive retirement plans so that everyone can win the financial game together. But in the show, Jones emphasizes that SERPs are just part of the larger succession planning picture.

“Succession planning is a process,” he explains. “It’s not a SERP. The SERP is a tool that is used to support the process. The succession plan should stand in and of itself, on its own. … And then the question is, do we need a SERP to support that? We think often you do, but the plan should stand on its own.”

The show also gets into:

• How SERPs play into today’s recruiting processes
• How having conversations about succession planning and SERPs can help clarify details about executives’ retirement plans that have previously not be discussed
• What will change and what will not change for Jones' team and clients of PARC Street Partners
• The difference between the two main kinds of SERPs—457(f) and split-dollar plans—and examples of situations when each might work best

Links for this show:

• PARC Street Partners
• Article Bruce Smith of PARC Street Partners: Turn Your Credit Union’s SERP Liability Into Net Income
• CUES Unlimited+ member video featuring Chris Jones: A Myth Boards Hold About Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans
• Become a CUES Supplier member
• Download a transcript

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Hybrid, remote and in-person work gets talked about a lot these days. The conversations are often about which companies are staying remote, which are calling every employee back to the office, and which jobs can truly be done effectively from someplace other than a physical location.

But a topic that’s been less talked about so far is the impact of our new choices about where we work in terms of career development. And this is the topic Deedee Myers, Ph.D., delves into deeply in this episode of the CUES Podcast. Myers is the president of DDJ Myers, an ALM First Company, the CUESolutions provider for succession planning and the sponsor of CUES’ Advancing Women publication.

In this show, Myers emphasizes the need to both slow down and focus on people in a variety of areas related to people strategy and career development.

For example, Myers says executives are exhausted from having to manage several groups of people—those who are in the office all the time, those who are in the office part of the time and those who are in the office none of the time—and not having the training to lead in this way.

“It’s going to take some courage and commitment for us to slow down and relearn how to ... be effective leaders” in this environment, she asserts.

She cites recent research that says people who are in the office a few days a week are more likely to get promoted than people who are fully remote “because they’re seen, they’re there, they’re in the meetings, it’s easier to have conversations.”

Because of this, she recommends figuring out “how to be seen on those two, three days that you’re in the office, or how you can keep connecting with others in a meaningful way.”

The show also gets into:

• What kind of person is now needed to lead the people development and talent strategy parts of what was traditionally called “HR”
• How to connect more effectively with young employees
• What aspiring CEOs need to know about the impact of hybrid work on their careers

Links for this show:

• DDJ Myers, an ALM First Company
• Recent CUES videos featuring Deedee Myers:
  • Considerations for Women Who Want to Be CEO
  • How CEOs Can Design Organizations of the Future (Unlimited+ membership required)
• Become a CUESolutions provider

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From a past episode of the CUES Podcast, we already know that Scott Hackworth is an able data guy. In this show, he talks about the compensation data and corresponding trends that stand out in this year’s CUES Executive Compensation Survey and CUES Employee Salary Survey.

He also describes the suite of data analysis tools included in the CUES compensation surveys and how they may be helpful to both credit unions and their team members.

“The year-over-year comparisons are still very high,” in the latest survey data, Hackworth says in the show. He is a CPA and president of Industry Insights, CUES’ partner in producing the annual surveys. This year’s increases are in the “high single digits, whereas in ‘21, it had been the low double digits. But we’re still in that 7, 8, 9% year-over-year change—and that’s on a same-sample basis. So, looking at the same groupings of companies, same employees largely, we are seeing 7, 8, 9% pay increases. That’s significant."

In addition to the overall upward trend, Hackworth talks about significant increases for CEOs and chief member solutions officers. Then he describes how to use the data analysis tools included in the CUES survey offerings.

Listen in to get all the details.

Links for this show:

• CUES Executive Compensation Survey
• CUES Employee Salary Survey
• Industry Insights
• CUES’ CU Management magazine’s coverage of the surveys in its October 2023 issue

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Peter Glyman finds it fun to say “yes” to a fintech integration with a Jack Henry product.

Glyman is managing director of corporate strategy at Jack Henry, a CUES Supplier member and the sponsor of this episode. In the show, he talks about his fintech experience as the co-founder in 2006 of personal financial management tool Geezeo, which Jack Henry acquired in 2019 and subsequently integrated with its Banno Digital Platform.

In the show, Glyman says a best practice for credit unions when it comes to fintech might be “getting involved.” This could be watching fintechs directly; starting a credit union service organization to work together with other CUs in monitoring the environment; or partnering with a larger group like Jack Henry that’s vetting fintechs and choosing which to integrate into its products.

Glyman also talks about application programming interfaces—or APIs—what they are,
why they’re important and the value of knowing a fintech has published theirs. And in addition to talking about Jack Henry-fintech integrations he thinks are particularly excellent, he also describes financial technology he’s been following.

“I spent a fair amount of time the last couple of years looking at blockchain and crypto for Jack Henry and how that is relevant for our credit union clients,” he says in the show. “… We're looking at wealth tech as an area of interest, allowing credit union members to be able to buy fractional shares of stocks or create portfolios. I think that's a missing piece in the member experience with their credit.”

He also invited credit union leaders to reach out to him via LinkedIn about the technology they’re interested in—or just to talk fintech in general. “What areas are you interested in?” he asked. “What new technologies interest you? I'd love to hear that."

Links for this show:

• Jack Henry
• Jack Henry's Banno Digital Platform
• Peter Glyman on LinkedIn
• Three Important Findings From Jack Henry's 2023 Strategic Priorities Benchmark Study
• Four Ways Technology Can Improve Efficiency for Credit Unions and Members
• CEO Institute: FinTech
• Transcript

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In the latest episode of the CUES Podcast, Lesley Sears defines the differences between climate and culture and explains how they together create the workplace your staff members experience every day.

VP/consulting for CUES, Sears then rises to the challenges of describing each of the nine elements of climate in two minutes or less. In that short span, she defines each, explains what to look for if they’re healthy or unhealthy dimensions, and what to do to bring each along toward health.

The nine dimensions of culture Sears highlights are:

1. Challenge and engagement
2. Freedom
3. Trust and openness
4. Idea time
5. Playfulness and humor
6. Conflict
7. Idea support
8. Debate
9. Risk-taking

Credit unions want high numbers for every dimension except conflict, Sears says..

“Debate is different than conflict,” she explains. “Debate is healthy conversation. Conflict is not healthy. So, it's the sniping. It happens when people genuinely don't like each other. There's a dislike in the climate. So again, as much as playfulness and humor ... can be a good representation of a healthy climate, conflict can often be a very good representation of a not very healthy climate.”

What are some things you can do to promote low conflict at your credit union? Sears suggests identifying common goals. “Distract the attention from the conflict itself and focus on the healthy stuff,” she advises. “How are we all moving toward the same goals? How are we doing that? What dimensions around conflict can we do better at?”

Listen to the full show for more about each dimension.

“I love how a climate is made up,” Sears summarizes. “And I love that behavioral psychologists have really been able to bring these dimensions together. So, I'm passionate about them. I think they are truly a way of measuring who you are as a credit union.

Sears advises using the results of a climate assessment to help you focus your talent development efforts. “Like we've got ‘x’ number of resources,” she says. “How can we get the most that we possibly can out of those resources? And I think these dimensions help us really do that well.”

Links for this show:

• Transcript
• More content from Lesley Sears
• CUES Consulting
• From new CUES CEO Heather McKissick, I-CUDE: Addressing Talent Challenges Requires a Holistic and Innovative Approach

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According to Deedee Myers, Ph.D., in this latest episode of the CUES Podcast, more and more CEOs are looking at their organizations and asking themselves, “What does it need to be in the future?” The answer to that question, she says, has to be put in the context of unprecedented times with the hybrid remote work environment taking hold and the need for leadership skills really changing.

“As humans, we need to ‘North Star’ right now,” says Myers, CEO of DDJ Myers, an ALM First company, a CUESolutions provider and the sponsor of CUES’ Advancing Women publication. “We need a reason to come to work. We need to come together with one voice and have a place to go. Call it a vision or North Star organizing principle, we need to know why we matter every day. That’s lost right now in a lot of organizations. That's why a lot of CEOs are looking at the organization of the future. What is that compelling reason?”

Myers suggests that when CEOs are designing the organization of the future, they should talk with many stakeholders about “three time zones.” That is, they should have conversations about the credit union’s past, where it has been, what it has done; the credit union’s present, where it is, what is working, what is not working, what has stayed the same, what is changing; and of course, the credit union’s future, what it could be.

Myers suggests CEOs listen to not only what board members have to say but also executives, middle-level leaders, front-line staff and trusted vendors, including fintechs.

Going on such a “listening tour,” Myers emphasizes in the show, requires CEOs to look to remove their biases so they can get a fresh perspective and practice really good listening skills.

“I think the CEO has to shape themselves in a way that people will want to share and go below the surface,” she says. For example, it might seem simpler to have this conversation with the whole board at once. “But when we pick up the phone and talk to each board member, we get to hear really what they care about, and what they’re concerned about.”

The show also gets into:

• How to set the ground rules to support a successful listening tour
• The value of CEOs having a personal centering practice to help them listen to all feedback, even the difficult-to-hear feedback
• The value of intention and awareness in being a good listener
• Special considerations for new CEOs and female CEOs
• What to do with the information collection on a listening tour
• Identifying both low-hanging fruit leaders can address readily and deeper work the organization needs to do

Links

• DDJ Myers, an ALM First company
• Become a CUESolutions provider
• DDJ Myers sponsors Advancing Women
• Podcast 73: How to Smash a CEO Interview, with guests Deedee and Peter Myers

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Omar Jordan says a mantra he lives by personally and professionally is, this one from Tony Robbins: "Stop being afraid of what could go wrong, and start being excited of what could go right."

As founder/CEO of the credit union service organization Coviance, Des Moines, Iowa, Jordan believes that credit unions would benefit from not being afraid to take a risk to see what good could come of it—especially a calculated risk related to home equity lending, lending automation and working with fintechs.

“In this industry, as you know, … we're good at managing risk,” Jordan says in the show. “And that's primarily what I hear. ‘We manage risk, we manage risk.’ And to that I say, … 'Everything is scary until it's not.’ And so, it's okay to take risks every now and then as long as we're not putting one out of business. Let's … continue along the path of innovation.”

In this episode of the CUES Podcast, Jordan talks about trends in the HELOC market.

“We've been actually predicting home equity lending demand to rise, and our predictions became reality,” he says. “We're seeing industry headwinds such as high interest rates, home values being on the rise [and] lack of demand for refinance and purchase mortgage turn into opportunity or tailwinds for credit unions, and especially credit unions who are looking to expand on their TAM, their total addressable market and their member share of wallet.”

In addition to describing Coviance’s lending automation offering and its potential to bring a credit union a return on its investment, Jordan also offers his thoughts about partnering with fintechs that will enhance your core business versus compete with it.

“There are competing fintechs, and they … are going after our credit union members—and not just on the lending side but nearly every product that credit union offers,” he says in the show. "And there are fintechs, such as Coviance, [that] … are primarily focused on providing credit unions the technology solutions, the product … they need ... to lend at ... the speed of today's borrower—because your members’ expectations today aren't what your members’ expectations were five years ago.”

The show also gets into:

• the difference between lending automation tools and loan origination systems—and how credit unions can benefit from having both.
• what the Coviance system offers
• Jordan’s big-picture thoughts about how credit unions can best partner with fintechs
• ideas worth considering regarding digital transformation, digital optimization and innovation.

Links for this show:

• Coviance
• Transcript

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In this episode of the CUES Podcast, Lesley Sears says she loves the commercial in which “Polly Pratz wore many hats.” While the commercial is for an online university, Sears loves the many hats idea as it relates to having an organization-wide skills taxonomy—a system for deeply understanding the skills of each employee and the organization overall.

Having a skills taxonomy can help an organization not just think about their people within the boundaries of their position or role (such as teller or chief marketer) but rather think broadly about what they can or could do—their current and developable skills (such as accuracy or setting marketing strategy), explains Sears, , CUES’ VP/consulting services who heads up CUES Consulting.

In the commercial, the female protagonist “has on a firefighter’s hat and the coach’s hat and … all of these different things that she has done in the past,” Sears says. “The skills taxonomy really begins to identify that for the organization … , so people really understand who their workforce is and what they’re bringing to the table on any given day.”

In the show, Sears says a skills taxonomy is like a biological taxonomy that classifies plants or animals into kingdom, phylum, class and so on. The difference, of course, is that a skills taxonomy organizes people’s skills.

Having an organizational skills taxonomy opens the door to being better able to address skills gaps both in the organization overall and in individual employees; understand the skills big picture when hiring new team members (eg, what additional skills would we like in the new loan officer to fill out our organizational taxonomy?); and knowing how to build better cross-departmental teams, Sears explains. Skills-based talent strategy built on a skills taxonomy can help streamline people processes, saving both time and money.

“So, you, the CEO, the CFO, … everybody within the credit union, understands what the objectives are, … the mission, the vision, … the objectives and anything that the people strategy can do to make that work better, … make your resources go further,” she says. “You've got a team of people that want to move toward that objective.” In other words, focusing on skills helps to align the organization and move it toward its overall goals.

Sears acknowledges that developing a skills taxonomy might seem overwhelming at first. But fortunately, talent development research has illuminated a set of common skills that your organization might have—or might want to have. So, it’s just a matter of finding out. And again, research has helped refine effective ways to dig in and find out, Sears says.

Links for this show:

• Transcript
• CUES Consulting
• More content from Sears, including her monthly Purposeful Talent Development blogs
• TalentNEXT, for HR, talent and people execs

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A decade before CUES member Dana DeFilippis, CCE, became CEO of Merck, Sharp & Dohme Federal Credit Union in Chalfont, Pennsylvania, she decided she wanted the job.

Coming to credit unions from public accounting, DeFilippis prepared for the CEO role by adding leadership of the IT department to her duties as VP/finance of the $825 million institution, excelling at opportunities her CEO gave her to present to the board, attending CUES’ CEO Institute and earning her certified chief executive designation, and getting to know every part of the organization.

Now CEO for two years, DeFilippis has leveraged the knowledge she gathered to help her use technology and teamwork to promote staff innovation and better serve members.

“So, our ultimate goal is that we free up our employees’ time (from) doing mundane things, so that they can be more innovative; they can think about how things are being done and how do we, you know, continue to improve our processes, improve our products and services that we’re offering to our men members,” DeFilippis explains, noting that automating month-end close by implementing SkyStem’s ART month-end close system was one way that’s been done. “So yes, the ultimate goal is because we’re … pretty lean … to be able to really free up people's time so that they can be more innovative and think about ways to be more productive."

CUES thanks SkyStem for sponsoring this show and for being a CUES Supplier member at the supporting level.

The episode also gets into DeFilippis’ advice for aspiring CEOs, including strategies for learning; the benefits she got from attending CUES' CEO Institute; her deep-seated belief in teams with representation from across the organization; Merck, Sharp and Dohme FCU’s recent mobile banking implementation; and inspiration for taking on new challenges.

Links for this show:

• Merck, Sharp & Dohme Federal Credit Union
• SkyStem and ART, its month-end close system
• CUES’ CEO Institute
• Five Signs It’s Time for Your Credit Union to Automate Month-End Close
• Why Every Credit Union Should Value and Optimize Flux Analysis
• Podcast: Easing the Pain of Month-End Close
• Transcript

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Tyler Leet takes credit union cybersecurity very seriously. For him, it’s not just a job. It’s a duty.

“We have an obligation,” says Leet, director of risk and compliance services for the regulatory compliance group at CSI, Paducah, Kentucky, the sponsor of the latest episode of the CUES Podcast. “Businesses have an obligation, credit unions have an obligation to keep their members secure, their data secure, their money secure.”

In this show, Leet shares his 20 years of experience in information security, risk and compliance by describing best practices in “going on offense” to defend your credit union and the data it generates against hackers. These best practices include knowing:

• The key differences between “vulnerability assessments” and “penetration testing” as well as between “compliance” and “security”
• The value of assessments and tests—and how to put each in context
• How to build a well-balanced cybersecurity program

Leet urges credit unions to not be afraid of the results they might get from doing vulnerability assessments and penetration tests—even though it might be disappointing to find holes in your defenses against cyberattacks.

“It’s a learning exercise,” he explains. “I mean you’re looking to improve. It's not about just making the document to make examiners happy. It’s: ‘What are we figuring out along the way? What insights are we gaining into our organization?’”

Leet also reminds every listener that they contribute to overall organizational security, even if they’re not in IT:

“You are an end user, whether you’re a teller or a loan officer or an executive,” he says. “You have access to systems, and you are a potential target. You are a potential avenue into that network and can make a mistake that could cost your organization. So, while you’re not expected to be a security expert, you can learn basics about good security hygiene and to avoid being one of the reasons your organization gets compromised.”

Links for this show:

• CSI
• More great content on cybersecurity from CU Management magazine
• Transcript

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The 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations are central to the corporate social responsibility program for $8 billion United Nations Federal Credit Union, New York.

These goals such things as living wages, clean water, ending poverty and empowering women and girls, explains Yma Gordon in this episode of the CUES Podcast. Gordon is VP/Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact for UNFCU and the Executive Director of the UNFCU Foundation.

“Credit unions are known to have purpose,” Gordon says. “And so for us, it's about really living that value to put people, planet and prosperity ahead of profit.”

Gordon makes an important distinction between “CSR” and another common buzzword, “ESG”—or environmental, social, governance.

To Gordon, CSR has to do with the work of delivering on the mission of its members—employees of the United Nations—to leave the world a better place. So that includes “our collective action, our policy, our investments,” work done both internally and externally.

“Corporate social responsibility is an extension for us of our mission to serve the people who serve the world, and that we first of all hold up sustainability, for example, as a value,” she explains. “And so for us, that means really conducting business as a good corporate citizen. That's important to us.”

In contrast, Gordon says, ESG is more about measuring the work of CSR.

“It is how we see that our stakeholders can understand, rate and score our risk and value of the work … that we're doing in terms of CSR,” she says. “Increasing in our ESG journey makes total sense in terms of the (overall) journey that we're on.”

The show also gets into:

• the history of UNFCU’s CSR program
• the work of the UNFCU Foundation
• how the United in Sustainability Network supports other credit unions in their efforts
• UNFCU’s sustainability-minded product offerings
• what’s next for UNFCU’s CSR work

Links for this show:

• Transcript
• United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
• UN Global Compact Action Manager (free assessment tool)
• United in Sustainability Network
• United in Sustainability Summit
• Get added to the United in Sustainability email list or ask a question about UIS
• United in Sustainability on LinkedIn
• ABCs of ESG whitepaper

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In this episode of the CUES Podcast, Alex Johnson underscores the idea that knowledge is power when it comes to credit unions' success in understanding and making decisions about fintech. The creator and author of the Fintech Takes newsletter, Johnson describes ways credit union leaders can track trends in fintech and even recommends several of his favorite fintech resources.

In the show, Johnson also emphasizes the importance of credit unions staying strategic as they contemplate fintech and how to engage with it.

“I think when you’re trying to decide … what’s hyped or overhyped or maybe not hyped up enough, … it needs to be done through the lens of … who are members or customers and what problems are we trying to solve for them? And how does this technology contribute to that goal?” he says.

“We don’t have unlimited resources to throw at this stuff,” he adds. “We don’t have an unlimitedly large technology staff or sometimes any technology staff at all. We don’t have a huge budget for this stuff. And so you do have to pick your spots very carefully."

In the show, Johnson uses P2P, digital account opening and chatbots like ChatGPT as examples of technology that might be super interesting to credit union leaders. And yet, he says, sorting out where to spend your time in fintech must be driven more by member needs than by a keen interest in any particular technology or a desire to keep up with a competitor.

“If you ever find yourself making a decision around technology or fintech that is in any way motivated by a feeling of, ‘We’re missing out, oh, it’s embarrassing that we don’t have this and our peers do,’ that’s just a terrible motivation,” he says in the show. “And I would try almost to sort of train your brain to recognize that motivation because it’s very natural, and it creeps in that drives all of our decision-making all the time. But to the degree you can identify and sort of stamp out that motivation when making these decisions, I think that’ll help in focusing on the things that really are strategically the most important.”

The show also gets into

• Fintech trends Johnson recommends credit unions follow most closely
• The value of looking to solve members problems in “financial services-adjacent” spaces
• Whether credit unions should be partnering with fintech companies

Links for this show

• Transcript
• Fintech Takes by Alex Johnson
• What 4 Wildly Optimistic Visions of P2P Tell Us About the Future of Moving Money
• CUESolutions provider Cornerstone Advisors‘ report, “What’s Going on in Banking?”
• Andreeson Horowitz fintech newsletter
• Fintech Business Weekly podcast by Jason Mikula
• This Week in Fintech newsletter
• CEO Institute: Fintech, prework due March 21, in-person event April 17-20 in New York
• CEO Dialogue, a place to get perspective on financial service-adjacent spaces

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This episode of the CUES Podcast covers the key connection between skilled and authentic leadership and management and organizational and employee well-being.

“This is really what we need to focus on ... as leaders and as organizations,” says guest Laurie Maddalena, MBA, CSP, CPCC, CEO of Envision Excellence. “How do we support the well-being of our cultures and create cultures that cultivate well-being and also well-being for our employees in their personal lives?

In the show, Maddalena offers these concrete steps to take:

• Audit your culture. Is what’s in practice what you say it should be?
• Assess the quality of the work of your leaders and managers. Are they modeling the behaviors you want to be part of your culture? (eg, Are they constantly connected?)
• Know your business model. This will help you determine which ways you can offer flexible work and to which employees.
• Root out such traditional and unhealthy leadership practices. Micromanaging, not giving feedback, reprimanding rather than coaching, and not investing in an employee’s growth may have worked 30 years ago, but they don’t anymore, Maddalena says.
• Stop promoting people into managerial and leadership roles based on excellent technical skills and/or tenure. Also, prepare potential managers and leaders for managing and leading long before you promote them into such a role.

Maddalena says making sure the right people are managing and leading “is a place that executives and CEOs can really shift your culture.”

“It doesn't happen overnight, obviously, and it's really a slow shift, but (you) can accelerate it if you make sure that you're evaluating your management quality,” Maddalena explains. “That is the biggest piece in my mind of creating a great culture, keeping your employees engaged, keeping your talent and creating this sense of well-being.

“And all of these challenges and the complexities that come with leadership will become easier because you have people in place who ... really understand it at the fundamental level of why this is important,” she adds.

The show also gets into:

• how to know which of your team members can develop into good leaders and managers
• whether leadership and management ability is innate or whether it can be taught
• The constant evolution of leadership

Links for this episode:

• Laurie Maddalena has hosted CUES’ RealTalk! Programs
• Maddalena and her team have provided coaching for the CUES Emerge program
• Get Maddalena's Beware of Compare Reframing Tool (free with registration)
• Find Maddalena on LinkedIn
• In the episode, Maddalena recommended all of Ryan Holiday's books, especially Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave and Discipline Is Destiny
• Check out a related CUES video: Level-Setting Expectations for Yourself and Others

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Bruce Bauer understands how credit unions sometimes push establishing a charitable donation account down on their list of priorities. But Bauer, an executive benefits specialist with CUESolutions provider Cuna Mutual Group, rather wishes they wouldn’t.

In this episode, Bauer explains that credit unions that have charitable donation accounts can get additional revenue from the same budget line item for their philanthropy. That’s because CDAs allow them more investment flexibility (and potentially more return) both on the dollars they plan to donate plus a specific amount of additional funds.

In the show, Bauer details the rules and regulations the National Credit Union Administration has in place to govern credit unions’ use of CDAs. He also talks about some cool successes in charitable giving that have been facilitated by the use of one of these accounts.

In all, Bauer thinks using a charitable donation account is something every credit union should at least consider, as it can set them up for a triple win—to “help charities in their communities, help the credit union brand and help credit unions dominate the community banking space.”

Links for this episode:

• Transcript
• How to Make Charitable Donation Dollars Work Harder by Cuna Mutual Group
• Charitable donation accounts through Cuna Mutual Group
• CUES Symposium

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CUES member Jeff Disterhoft became passionate about advancing diversity, equity and inclusion after his son took a class about race at the University of Iowa and started asking his dad questions about DEI.

“A few things became clear over the course of the semester,” Disterhoft says in the show. “One, I didn't have it all figured out in terms of the systemic oppression of people of color in our country for hundreds of years. Two, I had a lot of unconscious biases that had not been properly addressed. And three, I could do more as an individual, and I felt like GreenState could do more as an organization.”

DIsterhoft is president/CEO of $11 billion GreenState Credit Union, North Liberty, Iowa, the recipient of CUES’ 2022 DEI: Catalyst for Change Award.

With its CEO and board both passionate about DEI, GreenState CU launched last year a 10-year initiative to help close Iowa's racial homeownership gap, which ranks sixth largest in the nation. The goal is to fund more than a billion dollars in mortgage loans to people of color in the communities GreenState CU serves. The CU also has committed 10% of its assets over the next decade to support home lending to people of color in the state of Iowa.

“To date, we're about $275 million in not quite the first two years and so we're in a good spot today,” Disterhoft says. “But I don't want to just rest on those laurels. We're actually encouraging other credit unions, at least right now anyway, in the state of Iowa, to join us in that effort."

GreenState CU established its emergent bilingual strategy back in 2020. The goal at that time was to address financial disparities and earn the trust of bilingual communities.

“Taking better care of the Latino community is, I think one of those rare intersections where doing right also intersects with doing with good business,” Disterhoft says. “In other words, it's, it's right for those communities that may have been historically marginalized. But those are also growing communities, and so that's good for our business.”

Listen to the episode for the full story about why Disterhoft is passionate about DEI, plus more details of his credit union’s programs and his advice for other credit unions on their DEI journeys.

Links for this episode:

• Transcript
• CUES awards
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Cornell Certificate Program
• DEI content on CUmanagement.com
• CUES DEI Resource Center

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If you're building a team, you want players who are humble, hungry and people-smart. Zachary Churchill says this is not his idea—it's from Patrick Lencioni, founder of The Table Group—but Churchill seems not only to espouse it but embody it.

The winner of the 2022 CUES Emerge competition, Churchill is not afraid to say he previously entered the competition in 2013 and didn't advance. So that's pretty humble.

“For me, ego is the obstacle to personal progress,” says Churchill, CUDE, CMA, CFE, CCM, in the show. “I tend to think my way is good enough, so why change? But the truth is, we’re not going to change unless we want something bad enough or the pain of doing things the way it is now, that status quo, hurts enough. ... I desperately wanted to do a great job in this year’s competition. And that meant I had to let go of my ego ... and just do things the way that the experts advised me.”

Churchill is hungry, too, interested in learning and growing—to the point where he would like to become a credit union CEO one day. He's already been sharing everything he learns about leadership with other leaders and staffers at his credit union.

As for people smart? There are lots of examples of this in the show, including how Churchill showed how his business case about building an analytics team was really all about people.

“A key learning that I took away from the CUES Emerge program came from one of our speakers who said, ‘Humans are wired for story,’” he says. “... as someone on the finance side of the business, I just figured that data and facts will win the day. ... But that just isn’t how we're hardwired as a species. And so, if telling stories matters, then we need to find the story. ... And so, I really had to think about, ‘How could I translate this sort of abstract concept into something concrete?’

“I'm like, ‘How do I bring this alive?’ ... And then finally, I stumbled across the example of our member, Mrs. Rose ... the idea of her situation and how we could help her ... What is more powerful, if I said, ‘There's strong financial and member benefits to implementing my proposal,’ or ‘We can transform the lives of our members through data? Let me tell you about Mrs. Rose’?”

Churchill gets into lots of other great topics in this episode, including his experience with the CUES Emerge program; a sketch of his CUES Emerge business case; advice for writing a solid business case and building a winning online presentation; ideas on how to be more receptive to feedback.

He also offers advice for up-and-coming credit union leaders.

“I’d say step out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself. ... The great things in life, they just don’t come easy. And you don't know how much potential you have until you test yourself and see what are you capable of. What are your limits? So, give things a shot, try and get involved.”

Links for this show:

• CUESolutions provider Strategic Resource Management (SRM), show sponsor
• CUES Emerge program: finalists, pitches and more
• CUES Virtual Classroom, free to members
• Churchill’s prize is an educational package that includes registration to CUES Advanced Management Program

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Episode 137 of the CUES Podcast tells a story of CEO succession that includes two leaders splitting the president and CEO roles for about six months; doing additional planning for the expected retirements of the longtime CFO and CIO; consideration of several merger options; and a merger.

This is the story of Charlotte Metro Credit Union, which just as we were about to publish this episode announced its new name will be Skyla Credit Union. Our guests for this episode are CUES member Bob Bruns, retiring president/CEO, and Eric Gelly, incoming president/CEO for the $1 billion institution in North Carolina.

“It was quite a learning experience for our board to be very open-minded about what the options were,” in terms of choosing a new CEO and leadership team through either a recruitment process or a merger, Bruns says in the show. In the end, the board decided to hire Gelly and merge with a credit union of similar size, Premier Federal Credit Union, Greensboro, North Carolina.

Gelly describes the handoff from Bruns as very well done.

“I've compared it before to it’s almost like he had a dimmer switch,” Gelly says. “And he was making the light brighter on me and reducing the light on him and doing it in such a well-orchestrated way that I didn't really notice until we got through the process that he had handed everything essentially over to me.”

Gelly talks in the show about how all these big changes were communicated to staff in a way that helped secure their buy-in.

“We drove home what we were trying to build with, we call it, the new credit union,” he explains. “And the whys of bringing our two very healthy and strong, thriving credit unions together. And what we would have with that achieved scale.

"The staff really bought into what we were building and the rationale for why we were doing," he adds. "Both shops, being in that 300 million to 500 million size, know the frustrations of that no-man's land. So, the concept of being larger, more robust, eliminating some redundant expenses, and in turn, just … serving our members to the best way that we possibly can.

“They bought into it, and they believed in it,” he says. "And they’re very excited about the credit union that we've put together.”

The show also gets into:

• The impact the pandemic had on this transition
• Why and how having co-leaders worked so well in this transition
• How leaders can leave a legacy by facilitating succession planning
• The economy of scale that can be gained from merging
• The value of open-mindedness about big decisions as part of the learning process
• The value of dialog among leaders, such as at CUES Symposium

Links for this show:

• Transcript
• CUES Symposium
• Our commercial sponsor CSI
• Podcast 130: Mergers Have ‘Roots and Wings’
• Podcast 117: Merge for the Right Reasons

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Sponsored by SkyStem

Closing the books at the end of the month can be a lot of work. Doing it month after month can be grueling. And when the organization is growing and adding new technology, well, that can just make an already tough job that much more difficult, says our guest in this episode of the CUES Podcast.

Jennifer Stein, CPA, CGMA, is senior project manager for SkyStem, a CUES Supplier member based in New York City and the sponsor of this show. A former corporate controller, Stein has been through the ups and downs of the month-end close many times, and that experience has driven her passion for making the process easier for accounting teams.

Her top tip? Standardize the process. This is especially helpful during this era of turnover caused by the Great Resignation, she says.

“By standardizing your processes and your reconciliation templates, for example, you’re helping new people learn the exact same way that other people are doing things,” she says in the show. “So, by having standardization in process and templates or forms, not only are you … teaching these people the best way to do what you’re doing, but also helping on the flip side, the reviewer who’s reviewing these things, because they’re used to the same format. If you were to give three new employees three different blank spreadsheets and say here, go reconcile … prepaid insurance, you’re going to get three different-looking reconciliations back. So, it helps on both sides.”

In the show, Stein also talks about the importance of leaders setting the pathway then designing and fine-tuning the process and aligning technology that can assist.

What does Stein think the future looks like for accounting professionals? Her answer is about digitization and digital skills.

She recommends accountants be willing to grow their skill set in the digital area, how it “can complement and amplify what you’re already doing.”

“It just goes beyond debits and credits,” she says. “It’s about being able to maximize and leverage what you have to make your job easier and less stressful.”

Links for this show:

• CUES Supplier member SkyStem
• CUES Supplier Member Directory
• Accounting Teams: Effectively Handle the Growing Demands of Month-End Close by Ally Mason
• SkyStem’s Month-End Close Solution: ART
• SkyStem CPE webinars (free with registration)

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Got grit?

According to the guest in this episode of the CUES Podcast, getting grit is about having passion and perseverance in pursuit of long-term goals. It’s about going outside of your comfort zone and taking risks to live your best life. As a bonus, the process of getting grit will likely inspire other people to want to behave that way as well.

“Grit is really defined also by the fact that these are your goals, your unique goals that you want to accomplish,” explains Caroline Adams Miller, author of the books Getting Grit and Creating Your Best Life. “And why is that? Because it's this passion, this inner passion that keeps you going when the going gets tough. And if it's someone else's goal, you're not going to have that. So it has to be your why not someone else's why.

“People have what I call authentic grit simply by virtue of how they live and how they do hard things,” continues Miller, who will present a keynote about grit at Directors Conference, slated for Dec. 4-7 in Las Vegas. On the other hand, it’s a good idea to try to avoid having what Miller dubs “stupid” grit.

“Stupid grit is marked by arrogance and a lack of humility,” Miller explains in the show. “Stupid grit is when conditions have changed and you refuse to take in information or data from the environment or other people that would caution you to change course or think a little bit differently about how to behave.”

Fortunately, authentic grit is contagious. Miller tells in the show about how West Point roomed cadets with somewhat lower grit scores with cadets with higher grit scores. Over time, the overall grit scores went up.

It’s a great idea to embed people with the qualities of authentic grit “into your organization, on your team, in your school environment, in your family because we know that simply observing and being around it .. has that effect of elevating and uplifting other people's behaviors,” she says.

The show also gets into:

• Selfie grit and faux grit
• The dangers of having raised a “self-esteem” generation
• Who does not need to develop more grit

Links for this show:

• Directors Conference
• Books by Caroline Adams Miller, including Getting Grit
• More content from Directors Conference speakers
  • Video: Five Things Boards Need to Know About Data Governance
  • If You’re Not Thinking About Next-Generation Board Leadership, You Should Be

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James Hunter, CCM, not only has deep knowledge of credit union lending best practices but also a passion for diversity, equity and inclusion. In fact, Hunter says in this episode of the CUES podcast that he strives to put the two together every day—to be an “equity injector” that helps all members of his credit union be more able to live their best financial lives.

“I want to be the equity injector,” Hunter says in the show. “I want to find ways that we can creatively come up with the resources and tools to help individuals get what they need so they can stop worrying, but also have peace of mind and live their best financial life.”

A CUES member, the CUES Emerge runner-up in 2020, and a CUES Emerge mastermind in 2021 and this year, Hunter is chief diversity officer for $243 million New Orleans Fireman's Federal Credit Union. He comes to that role having previously served as a credit union chief lending officer and a senior vice president of mortgage lending, as well as a board member for Inclusiv.

In the show, Hunter talks about the importance of listening to members as a way to learn how best to serve them.

“We talk to people at different grassroots organizations,” he says of his work at New Orleans Fireman’s FCU, and ask key and sometimes difficult questions, such as, “What's hindering you? What is this impeding you from being your best financial person, your best financial future?”

Even though these can be uncomfortable conversations, Hunter says, “We ask the questions readily, and we listen for the common ground, the common themes resonate from that. We go into religious organizations, and we ask questions about … what the members want. We take every opportunity we can to find out what it is that makes a person tick. If we understand what they value, if we understand what motivates them, we understand what they are trying to achieve, we can help because we listen.

“You know, diversity is the one thing that we all share,” Hunter says. “We need to celebrate it.”

The show also gets into:

• Hunter’s experiences both as a participant in and a mastermind for the CUES Emerge program
• Products and services offered by New Orleans Fireman’s Federal Credit Union in response to diverse member needs
• How credit unions can get started with looking at member service through a DEI lens—whether or not they have community development financial institution status or a low-income credit union designation
• How to connect with diverse members through community groups and nonprofit organizations in your market
• Hunter’s advice about how to start a DEI team at your credit union

Links for this show

• Hunter's CUES Emerge presentation recording and slides
• Transcript of this show
• Diversity Insight: Addressing Racial Bias in the Home Appraisal Industry
• Diversity Insight: 3 Financial Challenges LGBTQ+ Community Members Face
• Secondary Capital Helps Boost Financial Well-Being for Credit Union Members, Communities

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Sponsored by Fiserv

Want to compete better with fintechs? Reduce friction. Want to make more loans? Reduce friction? Want to become more appealing to young people? Reduce friction.

The opportunity that lies in reducing friction across the credit union is a key theme in this episode of the CUES Podcast. Our guest is Bill Handel, general manager and chief economist at Raddon, a Fiserv company. Fiserv, based in Brookfield, Wisconsin, is a CUES supplier member and the sponsor of the show.

“How do we build that relevancy within those younger generations?” he asks. “It's not just mortgages. It's everything.

“We have this historical mantra of 'Do business on my time, in my place and with my processes,'” he explains. “The older generation says, ‘Okay, the bank hours are here, and the bank locations are here, or credit union locations are here, and (I) have to go through these steps to get this process done. (The) younger generation says ‘no,’ and they want to do it differently. … And that's the thing that the credit unions need to spend more time on is how do we reduce friction?”

In the show, Handel lends his expertise in analytics and the economy to identify some specific areas in which credit unions might benefit most from reducing friction. The first is the purchase mortgage market. Another is home equity lines of credit, including hybrid HELOCs, which give consumers more choices about how they borrow.

Buy now, pay later is a great illustration of this notion of reducing friction, Handel adds. “… Merchants are willing to fund to BNPL because it makes people more likely to buy today as opposed to tomorrow, right? In some ways, it's very akin to indirect lending in the sense that if you create that incentive and put that incentive in front of the consumer, then they might buy it today as opposed to walking out and then maybe coming back tomorrow to buy. That's what indirect lending does.

“I would argue that the hybrid lending, the hybrid HELOC, can potentially serve that same process here on the consumer lending side because what it does is it helps you to eliminate friction,” he explains. “The idea is that if you've got a home equity line of credit, which is essentially your way to buy everything, and then you can carve off pieces of that and treat them like that fixed-rate loan.

“This is not a new product, but it really has never taken off in significant ways,” he adds. “We do think that there's more opportunity in that space.”

The show also gets into the impact of the pandemic and the long tail of COVID, including:

• How Main Street has suffered
• Growth in the nonresidential real estate market
• The impact of hybrid work
• The Great Retirement
• Mobile deposit acceptance
• Branch network optimization

Links for this show:

• Fiserv
• CUES Supplier membership
• More recent content by Fiserv
  • How Future-Ready Technology Helps Credit Unions Pivot in a Changing Market
  • Managing the Risk of Real-Time Fraud in Real-Time Payments
  • The Strategic Cryptocurrency Opportunity for Credit Unions

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When considering a core conversion, Tami Webb, who is VP/sales for CUES Supplier member United Solutions Company, Tallahassee, Florida, suggests first asking:

Why do we want to change? What's the objective? What's driving all this work?

Webb is our guest for this episode of the CUES Podcast. She has helped about 30 credit unions convert to a hosted core or remote data processing system. At USC, Webb works with clients to convert and use XP2 or DataSafe. She also has experience working with other Fiserv core solutions as well as Jack Henry’s Symitar Episys and Ease solutions.

No matter what core system you are converting to, the first step is building the right conversion team, she says, starting with the project lead who will serve as the liaison between the internal team and the vendor.

In addition to the project lead, the core conversion team should include an IT lead and subject matter experts for each area of the credit union.

Take care to select the right SMEs for this project, someone who can rally their coworkers to be excited about the change. “I call them like a cheerleader, or the go-getter person,” says Webb. They are frequently someone who “doesn't mind change and that wants to be in that leader role. [They] can help encourage the team and get them to be excited about what's going to be happening.”

When deciding on the project lead, someone who knows the system intimately will be better able to guide the team and stay organized, says Webb, as long as they have the full confidence and support of the top leadership team.

“I truly believe by building the right conversion team and being prepared and working closely with a new core provider, credit unions can't help but have a successful conversion,” she says.

Links for this show:

Transcript

United Solutions Company

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When G&F Financial and Aldergrove Credit Union merged, they started with a cultural assessment to see if the combination was a right fit. And they followed up with “roots and wings” sessions designed to honor the history of both credit unions and to create alignment around their joint future.

“We did some reads to see exactly where individual employees were at, what were their values, what was important to them, and try to align what they liked about their previous organizations and what they hoped for the new organization,” explains CUES member Bill Kiss, CCD, co-CEO of G&F Financial, a $5 billion credit union in Burnaby, British Columbia, and a guest on the show. “So that was a fascinating exercise to go through. And after the merger, we went into ‘roots and wings’ sessions. So those were, from the root side, you’re honoring your past. You’re recognizing the great things where you’ve come from, and all of the accomplishments of the organization. And then the wing side is the future about where you can go, what you can benefit from doing together.”

This process aligns with the professional mantra of CUES member Jeff Shewfelt, CCD, co-CEO of G&F Financial, who says in the show that his organization strives to do things for and with people, not to them.

The show gets into more depth about how G&F Financial and Aldergrove determined a merger would be a good thing for the members of both organizations, insight into how to handle the “merger” of two boards and how the 2021 flooding in British Columbia gave the continuing credit union, G&F Financial, an opportunity to show it really does take care of its members and its communities.

Tune in and you’ll also get to hear Shewfelt discuss the four lenses through which he views every merger and Kiss talk about how consumer needs are speeding up in ways that impact credit union member service.

Links for this show:

Transcript

Canadian CUs Think Big About Collaboration

Podcast: Merge for the Right Reasons

Mergers Shouldn’t Be Your Organization’s Primary Tool for Growth

Six Steps for Evaluating Merger Opportunities Early On

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During this episode of the CUES Podcast, Matthew Bidwell, Ph.D., talks about the employee engagement at NASA leading up to the lunar landing.

If you asked an employee who was sweeping the floor what they were doing, they would have said, “I’m putting a man on the moon,” notes Bidwell, associate professor of management at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and a speaker at TalentNEXT in May in Austin, Texas.

Sharing the vision and how each job played into larger organizational achievement was clearly successful at NASA during that time. And it can be a useful tool to leaders working to boost or sustain employee engagement today.

During the episode, Bidwell talks not only about what employee engagement is, but also some do’s and don’ts for creating and sustaining it. He also talks about the importance of keeping people at the forefront of business efforts.

“If we're going to be very process-centric, how do we engage people in actually creating these processes rather than having them as something alien that comes from outside that's imposed on people?” he says in the show.

Some organizations say, “We'll make the most profit by driving our payroll costs down the furthest in terms of how we schedule people, in terms of how much we pay them, and so on” while other organizations say, “We’re going to pay more, and we’re going to expect more of our people in return,” Bidwell explains. “I tend to think that latter strategy tends to drive much higher engagement.”

Bidwell also shares insights into how leaders can impact their teams’ engagement, as well as what they can do to boost their own engagement.

Listen to the show for more on:

• The PERMA acronym for factors affecting employee engagement
• Do’s and don’ts of employee engagement
• How “job crafting” may help leaders when they apply it to their own work, but be detrimental if leaders apply it to the work of the people they supervise

Links for this show:

• Transcript of the audio
• TalentNEXT, a gathering for teams of credit union talent strategy leaders in May in Austin, Texas
• CEO Institute I: Strategic Planning is held at Wharton, University of Pennsylvania
• CUES Consulting for talent development solutions including improving organizational alignment, fostering stronger leadership and creating more cohesive teams

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“Learn and earn” has proven to be a great strategy for getting the attention of Gen Z, according to Bolun Li, CEO of the financial education app Zogo.

In this episode, Li describes the incredible growth his company has seen from creating hundreds of bite-sized financial education modules, getting them out to Gen Z on an app for their phones, and then rewarding them with pineapple points that are redeemable for gift cards and donations to charity.

According to Li, this “learn and earn” strategy has taken Zogo from launch to half a million users in just two years.

In this latest episode of the CUES Podcast, Li describes the company’s growth and how credit unions can get Zogo in the works for their members He also gives some very practical advice about how to better understand Gen Z—and how to reach them.

A member of Gen Z himself, Li suggests that working with parents to become their children’s first financial institution is a great way in. He also recommends becoming active on college campuses.

The show also gets into:

• How Li and Zogo define “Gen Z” and the characteristics of members of this generation
• Li's belief that credit unions and Gen Z can "grow together"
• How cryptocurrency is Zogo’s newest “reward” and Gen Z’s response to that
• The most popular bite-sized learning modules in the app

Links for this show:

• Zogo
• Podcast 110 with Bolun Li: Personal Finance App’s ‘Pineapple Points’ Connect Credit Unions to Gen Z
• Here’s How to Bring Gen Z Into the Credit Union Movement
• Three Actionable Ideas From Gen Zers on How to Reach Their Peers

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In the latest episode of the CUES Podcast, Kimberly Wright says she feels like she has made it past the proverbial glass ceiling that’s long been a metaphor for a system that holds women back from rising to top leadership roles.

Senior vice president and executive director of the American Heart Association in Atlanta, Wright says, “I feel like I have busted through the glass ceiling in my current position. And I will say that I have opened it up for others.”

But all is not rosy.

“Now, whether or not they patch up the ceiling again afterwards? I don't know. They might,” Wright adds. “They may not like my style of kicking through or busting through the glass ceiling. But I think I have. Hopefully, it stays open.”

Wright and a second guest on the show, Andrea Brown, share the stories of how they have become top Black female leaders and what helped them along the way. Brown is executive director of the Black Mental Health Alliance for Education and Consultation in Baltimore.

Both women say that while they have arrived, the playing field at the top is far from level.

“Whether that's on our boards, whether that's in our board rooms, whether that's in our cubicles, some of what we see (is unfair), and so no, the playing field has not been leveled,” Brown says. Plus, Black women face racism as well as sexism, Wright and Brown point out. Both say they have to be two or three times as good as their white male counterparts.

Brown and Wright also say the time is now to take action to keep opportunities open for female leaders of color and to work on leveling the playing field. Their suggestions include having a think tank to make recommendations and setting up great coaching programs.

“We’ve got to move with intentionality, and we’ve got to be quick,” Brown says.

The two say things have improved for Black female leaders who aspire to top roles, but still have a way eye on the situation.

“I just hope that I don't end up being the token and this isn't a fad or a phase,” Wright says.

Links for this show:

• Black Girls Lead
• Building Bold, Effective Black Leadership at PSCU
• Simply Increasing Staff Diversity Doesn’t Equal More Top Black Leaders
• When You’re the ‘First’ or the ‘Only' at the Leadership Table

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Marvin York was watching videos with his granddaughter when a clip came on of graduation ceremonies at historically Black colleges and universities.

“And I saw all of these professionals getting ready to launch,” says York, VP, contact center member engagement for CUESolutions provider PSCU, a credit union service organization based in St. Petersburg, Florida. The video York and his granddaughter watched showed Black engineers, doctors, lawyers and others celebrating the completion of their degrees and getting ready to enter the world of work.

“And I said, ‘Wow, that is impressive,” York recalls. “And what struck me was in this industry..., it was always told to me we just cannot find people of color to be in these leadership roles, in these key positions. And I'm watching this video and I said, ‘We got to do better.’”

From this experience, PSCU Bold, Effective Leadership, a CUES Strategic Leadership Development Program, was born.

In this episode of the CUES Podcast, York describes how the program went from idea to action, the experience of the 12 participants and the impact it has had.

York says in the show that the PSCU-CUES partnership worked well because CUES was listening to PSCU participants’ needs with an aim for meeting them. He notes that the eCornell and Harvard ManageMentor courses that were part of the program were exceptional, as were the opportunities afforded to program participants to interact with top PSCU leadership.

“You got employees that want to shine. They want to help. They want to be a part of the difference, to actually broaden their horizon, their education, their knowledge and grow,” York says in the show. “And if they can do that, then guess what? The company grows.

“And having that mindset of ‘I can help the company and the company helps me grow,’ … it's a win-win. It's amazing.”

Links for this show:

• PSCU
• CUES Consulting
• CUESolutions
• Transcript

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CUES member Steve Bugg is very clear that the diversity, equity and inclusion journey that his credit union is on makes his organization stand out in the competitive financial services market and for talent as well.

“We know today everybody says they deliver great number service or customer service, have to have competitive products or services, and have to have a great technology plan,” says Bugg, president/CEO of $1 billion Great Lakes Credit Union in Illinois, which was recently named the first-ever CUES DEI: Catalyst for Change Award winner. “But if everybody else can say the same thing, and a lot of institutions that we compete against ... can outspend us, what’s the one thing that makes us unique and different? This is what it is: It’s our initiatives and our efforts under DEI.

“We all know there’s a war for talent right now as well,” Bugg adds in this episode of the CUES Podcast. “And where we sit in the suburbs of Chicago … our employees can look at ... other financial institutions or other companies. … So we’ve got to tie what we do into a cause. … And if we can then appeal to those that are out there looking for opportunities ... and can see the greater good, they’re going to be more loyal employees, because they have that in their heart.”

While the formal business reasons for embarking on a DEI journey are clear, Bugg says it’s actually the DEI lens’ positive impact on his CU's members and communities that most motivates him.

“So certainly we’ve helped a lot of individuals and small businesses throughout GLCUs field of membership gain access to additional products and services, education, and in some cases, even basic resources through COVID," he says in the show. "We really helped with the three most vulnerable needs that we were seeing our community, which were housing relief, food relief, and then also support of minority-owned businesses.

“And an initiative that percolated out of that was an opportunity to work on an incubator project ... We were the only financial institution that came to the table ... to help in this incubator project. ... Now those business owners are up and running. … Even though bringing all these initiatives together is recent for us at Great Lakes, we can already see the impact that that’s made in a very short time.”

In the show, Bugg also suggests that starting your DEI journey may not be so scary as you think. Many CUs have a long history of serving a variety of members well. Bugg says GLCU has been doing its best to meet the unique needs of each of its members for the eight decades since its founding. Its current DEI journey simply formalizes and centralizes something that already existed.

Another interesting outcome of the DEI journey for GLCU has been its new view of partnerships. The CU now asks about a company's commitment to DEI to see if it aligns well with the CU's. It also has established mutually beneficial partnerships with community organizations.

Learn more about all this, plus hear about the great tie Bugg wore when accepting the award when you tune in to the show.

Links for this show:

• Subscribe to CUES’ DEI e-newsletter
• CUES 2021 Member Appreciation and Awards Event
• CUES Recognition Programs
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Cornell Certificate Program
• Transcript

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Innovation is that flash of an idea—and it’s happening all the time. Disruption, on the other hand, might stem from innovation, slowly making changes in a marketplace until the whole landscape is different, according to Steve Hewins, senior vice president of CU Members Mortgage, a CUESolutions Bronze provider based in Texas.

“A disruptor eliminates something that’s in the market today,” Hewins explains on this episode of the CUES Podcast. “And it normally comes in a phase.

“Typically, it'll start off with initial disruption,” he continues. “And then you'll have very quickly some rapid or sequential evolution of that. And then … everything kind of starts coming together because people recognize it; they try to copy it; the status quo tries to adapt. And then basically, the status quo typically doesn’t adapt and then gets replaced with the ‘new normal’.

“And so disruption does have innovation in it,” he adds. “But it’s more about the market dynamics of how it impacts the rest of the market.”

During the episode, Hewins walks through each step of the mortgage lending process, talking about shifts in the marketplace that are happening right now—plus what credit unions might be able to do to compete with them—or to join them!

Importantly, he emphasizes that credit unions should think about more strategically hiring lending staff going forward—that they should look to hire people who are natural innovators and ready to be part of marketplace changes.

Currently, credit unions aren’t hiring for lending innovation or disruption, he notes. “We don't have credit unions that are out there hiring disruptors. … if you start hiring those people, you have to have a culture in the organization to retain them.”

The show also gets into:

• Changes in home buying and how they are affecting mortgage lending
• Changes in how appraisals are done
• Changes in the closing process
• Changes in the post-closing phase of mortgage lending

Links for this show

• CU Members Mortgage
• Transcript of this show
• The New Normal of Mortgage Lending by Steve Hewins
• More content by Steve Hewins
• Become a CUESolutions provider
• Sponsor the CUES Podcast
• Plansmith

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In a speech prepared for John F. Kennedy to be given on that fateful day in Dallas in 1963, we were to be reminded that “leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”

In this episode of the CUES Podcast, the 2021 CUES Emerging Leader, CUES member Alex Hsu, CCM, cites this quote as among his favorites. And he lives it.

“When I completed my Gallup Strengths Assessment, for instance, my top strength was achiever, which is great for someone who leads projects, right?” says Hsu, VP/strategy and change management for $25 billion SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union outside of Los Angeles. “And my second top strength was learner. So really, throughout my career, I’ve sought to blend learning into everything that I do, which included going to grad school while working full-time and also pursuing these certificates” in everything from IT to change management to diversity.

Hsu won the CUES Emerge challenge with a project about how to establish a “Center of Innovation” at a credit union. He says he designed his project for his own credit union to consider but also built it to be flexible so that other credit unions, including small ones, could use the same template.

Hsu seems happy to have won a seat to continue learning for CUES Advanced Management Program from Cornell University as part of the CUES Emerge program. In the show he also describes how the 2021 CUES Emerge cohort interacted during the learning and competition phases of the competition, as well as what they’re doing now to stay in touch.

The show also gets into:

• Hsu’s thoughts on how to best manage change;
• The value of having a structure to support innovation at your credit union
• The challenge of staying ahead of members’ needs in an Amazon world; and
• Hsu’s readiness to talk with other credit union leaders about building a Center for Innovation and change management.

Links for this show:

• Transcript
• CUES Emerge overview (with pitch show video toward the bottom of the page)
• More about Hsu’s business case
• Become a CUESolutions provider
• Become a CUES Supplier member

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Andy Saner lives by the idea that asking questions is important. 

In this episode of the CUES Podcast, Saner, senior vice president of product engineering and data services at CUES Supplier member Harland Clarke, a Vericast business, describes the value of applying such curiosity to help match members with appropriate credit union offerings during the moment when they’re opening an account.

“When you’ve got employees that during the time of account opening ..., you’re asking questions, you’re learning more about that member’s needs and what they have to have,” he says in the show. “You understand … through those questions … insight into the member’s needs. Maybe they’re open to trying something different in managing their money or a different vehicle for payments and the like.”

Being curious, asking good questions and applying the data you have on the new account opener has two main purposes, Saner explains. 

“It helps you match up better the products and services,” he says. “But it also deepens that relationship. That’s really what we’re all after. … It creates a deepening, long-lasting engagement that really becomes not only profitable for the credit union—let’s be honest, that’s part of it—but the other extent is that you really feel good about helping your members serve their needs.

“It’s a noble profession, financial institutions, you know, in the work that we provide,” he continues. “You’re getting people into … their first home, (helping them) the first time that they buy a car, (providing) student college loans…. Maybe they’re taking a … trip for the first time and they’re needing just a little bit of help getting through that. It’s really kind of a unique opportunity where you meet people at the point they may need you most.”

In the show, Saner also gets into:

• The role of credit union staff in helping members connect with appropriate products and services
• How to re-engage with members after the moment of account opening
• The balance of digital delivery with high-touch personal service

Links for this show:

• Transcript
• Guest sponsor: CUES Supplier member Harland Clarke, a Vericast business
• Recent related content from Harland Clarke
• Commercial sponsor: CUES Supplier member Plansmith
• Become a CUES Supplier member
• Become a CUESolutions provider
• Become a sponsor of CUES content

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In recent times, such high-profile sports figures as tennis player Naomi Osaka and gymnast Simone Biles have made headlines by announcing they were stepping back from competition to take care of themselves and their mental health.

In this episode of the CUES Podcast, guest Dee Baker Amos applauds these actions. VP/marketing and communications for Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, Amos also points out that taking care of your mental health isn’t—and shouldn’t be—reserved for world-class athletes.

“We all have to work on it, famous or not,” she says. “And I want to actually repeat that because I think that it's something that people have to hear: We all have to work on our mental well-being, famous or not.”

In the show, which is hosted by Tony Covington, CUES VP/new markets and a former pro football player for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Seattle Seahawks, Amos describes the importance of leaders sharing their own vulnerabilities since this helps create a safe space for employees.

“Leaders must be willing to share and personalize their own journey and what they're going through,” says Amos, whose role includes communications to all airport employees as well as the members of her own team. “What I have found is when I am willing to be vulnerable and to share, ... they (team members) will always come back to me via text or individually and say, ‘Thank you. I'm feeling the same way.’ And so, leaders must decide that it's not just about leading people for the work but it's leading people for the lives that they live.”

The show also gets into:

• How Amos developed new self-care routines during the pandemic—and continues to keep an open mind about what she might need going forward
• How perspective helps people get through life, told through an airplane analogy

Links for this show:

• Transcript
• Selected mental health resources from CU Management magazine
  • Video: Why Leaders Need to Manage Their Energy
  • Video: Why Managers Need to Sometimes Say: 'Keep It Real; Tell Me How You Feel'
  • HR Answers: Why Leaders Need to Model Good Mental Health Practices
  • The Value of Valuing Mental Health

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A new ebook from Experian, Navigating in a New Era of Credit Risk Decisioning, suggests that one out of three consumers remain concerned about their finances at this stage of the pandemic, while at the same time, some individuals have more cash than they had when the pandemic started—and now they’re ready to spend. 

In this episode of the CUES Podcast, Harry Singh talks about how credit unions might best serve their members with loans and other products considering this “two-lane” economy. SVP/decisioning products and solutions for CUESolutions provider Experian, Singh says this situation may get even more pronounced as government stimulus aid ends. He says financial institutions need to consider three areas in their response:

1.      Data and advanced analytics: Credit unions need to create a “comprehensive understanding” of members to be able to best serve them. Singh suggests they need to ask: “What are what are consumers doing differently? What are they adopting differently, such as in digital channels for lending? Are they are they shopping in different ways?”

2.     Personalizing offers to members to boost their engagement: “People always think it’s about buying something new or obtaining credit to do something,” he explains. “We’re thinking about the needs of that consumer at point in time. And it may be they’re getting married and maybe they need to buy a car but it may be they’re in financial difficulty and they need a different type of offer or treatment that helps them through a difficult period, such as the pandemic. But as they come out the back end of it, you know, they become a very, they become a very profitable customer for the lender. So we’re really encouraging our clients to proactively engage their customers.”

3.     Prepare for a wave of delinquency: Some consumers have been taking payment holidays and relying on government stimulus to help them get through the pandemic. As government aid ends, some people will be more challenged to keep up with their credit commitments, Singh points out.

Singh emphasizes that helping members move forward financially will be more reliant on digital delivery than ever before simply because necessity drove more people than ever to use remote service options during the height of the pandemic.

The show also gets into:

• What digital delivery needs to look like going forward
• Why using both traditional and nontraditional data—including synthetic data—is becoming important
• The roles of subscription services and cryptocurrency
• The difference between digital self-service and a true digital experience
• What the next trend in consumer finance and payments might be

Links for this show:

• Transcript
• CUESolutions provider Experian
• Navigating in a New Era of Credit Risk Decisioning
• Become a CUESolutions provider

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Pay increases found in the CUES Executive Compensation Survey this year range from 3% to 7%, depending on the position. Scott Hackworth says in this episode of the CUES Podcast that these figures are significant considering how much uncertainty is present in the overall economy right now. 

Even though no one knows what’s going to happen next, “this urge or this need to maintain consistency, especially amongst the top executives, that need has really risen and become more prominent than ever,” explains Hackworth, president of Industry Insights Inc., CUES’ partner in doing both the CUES Executive Compensation Survey and CUES Employee Salary Survey. “And because of that, there’s the increase in compensation.”

Hackworth said that the pandemic has shown many employees and executives that working from home works for them, at least some of the time. He says credit unions that want to attract and keep top talent will need to consider flexible work in their offering compensation programs.

“Some of those pieces, the wellness packages, along with the overall compensation will win in the long run,” he says in the show. “The power of the employee has become larger than it has been in a really long time. And definitely (consider) the shakeup that happened, where anytime there’s change, there’s new thoughts, there’s new developments. And so certainly having the employee now feel empowered, and being able to say, “Hey, you know what, I’ve been working from home five days a week. I think I can still work from home three days a week and get, you know, I’ll be in the office, can we make that work? Can we do this flexibility?” And those are all parts of that discussion that were they would have been laughed at five years ago.”

CUES products and services manager, Laura Lynch, explains in the show how both CUES member and non-member credit unions can get access to customized compensation data.

“Our credit unions can go online to pull reports,” Lynch says. “It’s a nice tool that allows you to cut your data as you want it—so, choosing your own peer group, whether that be by asset by region, things like that. 

“Any credit union that is a CUES Unlimited+ member gets complimentary access to the executive compensation reports as well as the employee compensation report, so they can go to the CUES website to find that. 

“Anyone who’s not a CUES Unlimited+ member can purchase access. And they can also do that via our website. And those subscriptions that are purchased are good for 12 months, and the credit unions can run as many reports as they need throughout that year.”

The show also gets into:

• Adding a new diversity, equity and inclusion executive position to the survey
• How the two surveys are conducted
• The value of using data to help make compensation decisions

Links for this show

• Transcript
• Thank you to our sponsors, CUES Supplier member Plansmith and CUESolutions provider SRM
• CUES Executive Compensation Survey
• CUES Employee Salary Survey
• CUES membership

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Ancin Cooley, CIA, CISA, is originally from New Orleans and likes to think that he’s a decent gumbo cook. He even distributes his mom’s gumbo recipe to audience members when he speaks, which he will do at CUES’ Directors Conference in Florida this December.

Principal of Synergy Credit Union Consulting, Chicago, Cooley says in this episode of the CUES Podcast that “one of the things that's unique about gumbo is that you combine a lot of different ingredients to make an amazing, flavorful dish.”

Similarly, he notes, governance isn't just composed of any one ingredient.

“It's made up of enterprise risk management,” Cooley explains. “It's made up of board relations. It's made up of interactions that happen between the board and the CEO. It's comprised of different ingredients. But when combined together and seasoned properly, it makes for an amazing credit union.”

In this show, Cooley touches briefly on some top “ingredients” for a great dish of governance. These key considerations include the relationship between the board and supervisory committee, the value of having an enterprise view of risk, the difference between process optimization and strategy, the connection between good governance and strong executive compensation programs, and when and how mergers might fit in the context of a cooperative credit union movement.

Knowing more about which of these ingredients would help your credit union improve the flavor of its governance gumbo? Listen to the whole show, sponsored by CUES Supplier member Plansmith, for more on each or download the show transcript to find timestamps for the start of particular sections.

Links for this show:

• Show transcript
• CUES Supplier member Plansmith
• Ancin Cooley on LinkedIn
• Synergy Credit Union Consulting
• Directors Conference, Dec. 5-8, 2021, Marco Island, Florida
• Other CUES content by Ancin Cooley

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What do you say when you hear from another credit union interested in talking about a merger?

Hopefully, you don’t say “Yeah, we’ll talk so long as our chair and our CEO are the surviving leaders after the merger.”

To Deedee Myers, Ph.D., MSC, PCC, the fate of the chair and CEO is the wrong thing to think about first when considering joining up with another credit union.

“We shouldn't be talking about who the survivor is, you know, the CEO or the board chair,” says Myers, CEO of CUESolutions provider DDJ Myers, Phoenix. “It should really be about the synergies between the two organizations to unlock parallel value for the membership. It really should be what is the membership going to see in terms of additional value, what's going to go on in the community, not just about the chair and the CEO. It has to be about how we're going to add more value.”

Myers and her business partner, Peter Myers, share lots of ideas about mergers in this episode of the CUES Podcast, including:

• tips for paving the way to a merger conversation
• what needs to be done after a merger to truly complete the process and enable the emerging new organization to truly take shape and
• what to be cautious about when considering a merger

The two also discuss how they stay in forward-thinking mode, focused on future possibilities, both within DDJ Myers and with their credit union clients.

“Just because we can't touch that future in this moment, because I don't understand it, doesn't mean that we couldn't, we shouldn't simmer in it, and really see what could come out of it,” Peter Myers says in the show.

Be sure to tune in!

Links for this show:

Show transcript
CUESolutions provider DDJ Myers
Whitepaper series: Credit Union Leaders Plan Post-Pandemic Merger & Acquisition Strategies
CUES content from DDJ Myers:

• If You’re Ready to Be CEO, It Will Show, Plus A Lot More on CEO Succession for Both Boards and Candidates
• Three Execution Elements Your Strategic Planning Likely Overlooks
• Start Your Board Assessment With a ‘BOP’
• How to Smash a CEO Interview

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Emerging leaders have a great opportunity to impact organizational cultures in a way that supports the evolution to modern leadership, says Laurie Maddalena, MBA, CPCC, PHR, in this episode.

“They bring in these expectations and these values that I think are more modern,” says Maddalena,a certified executive coach, leadership consultant and founder of CUES Supplier member Envision Excellence LLC in the Washington, D.C., area, which provides coaching to participants in the CUES Emerge program. “We need more of this modern type of leader” who is focused on getting results through people rather than on just getting results at all costs.

During the show, Maddalena talks about how generational, technological and family trends are pushing the evolution of leadership.

“The reason … I bring those up is because those impact our workplaces … our cultures and what people expect now compared to 25-30 years ago,” she says. “And that type of leader doesn't work anymore, the traditional command and control, more results-focused, very little empathy, check your personal life at the door. It doesn't resonate with today's generations and what people's expectations aren't work today.”

Despite all the changes, Maddalena emphasizes the importance of leaders building trust with employees.

“Trust is built over time,” she explains, “and it's the small actions we take or sometimes don't … that build trust and cohesion or break trust and cohesion down …. The first way you develop trust is to get to know each individual on your team and understand that they have their own goals, their own preferences and needs beyond the workplace, and get to know them as people and what's important to them and then learn to adjust your management style to be able to ignite ownership in them and bring out their best.

“Another (way to build trust) is to model great leadership,” she continues. “If we're expecting our employees to follow through and be on time and serve our members exceptionally, we also need to be modeling that behavior for employees.

“A huge way to build trust to make sure that we're developing them, coaching them, taking an interest in our employees, investing our time and energy in them,” she adds, noting that young people in particular want meaningful work.

Maddalena says most organizations aren’t making the shift to modern leadership fast enough to be exceptional workplaces. In the show, she gives several suggestions for evolving your leadership, including letting go of promoting people into leadership based on technical ability rather than leadership ability and making sure to teach leaders how to lead.

The show also gets into:

• How Maddalena identified the key shift toward modern leadership
• Why some credit union employees were actually more satisfied with their work during the pandemic than before
• The pandemic's silver lining for the evolution of leadership

Links for this show:

• Laurie Maddalena on LinkedIn
• Envision Excellence LLC
• CUES Emerge
• Maddalena’s video on kind leadership and podcast on how modern leaders must be facilitators, not fixers
• Show transcript

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When you can help members avoid being scammed—or at least help them overcome it, they’ll be grateful for your actions in the long run.

In this episode of the CUES Podcast, Andy Shank talks about things credit unions need to keep in mind when it comes to preventing and mitigating fraud. Shank is VP/fraud and risk management for CUES Supplier member Harland Clarke, San Antonio, Texas, the sponsor of this show.

“A lot of folks in the banking world kind of treat fraud as this, you know, scary little animal that we just try to shut in the closet and not talk about,” Shank says in the episode. “But if you don’t talk about it, and you don’t approach it, and you don’t, you know, really attack it head-on, you allow it to win.”

In the show, Shank spells out his definition of payments fraud: “anytime a bad guy electronically finds a way to move funds from point A to point B without authorization and without setting foot in a branch.” This could include contact center fraud, social engineering, wire transfer fraud, account takeovers and card skimming. “Basically, it’s the bank robbery of the 21st century,” he says.

Shank says everyone loses when someone gets scammed—the financial institution, the member, even society.  A former task force officer with the FBI and state police detective, he talks about his passion for stopping bad guys from stealing other people’s money. To him, helping a member avoid a fraud attempt or overcome being scammed is a true act of service.

“There are surveys and studies out there that say, … digital detection of fraud on accounts is one of the bigger factors for acquisition and retention of customers,” he explains in the show. “So, they may not appreciate it at the moment when you’ve told them that they’re being defrauded—and that the money may be gone forever. But at the end of the day, they will appreciate or at least they should appreciate the fact that their credit union was looking out for them and that they use they got that kind of personal attention to hopefully stop them from losing any more money.”

The show also gets into:

• Shank’s background in criminal justice and law enforcement as it applies to his work today for Harland Clarke
• The value of cooperation among law enforcement agencies and among credit unions in the fight against fraud
• The impact of the pandemic and remote work on fraud
• The financial institutions most targeted by fraudsters
• Shank’s most eye-opening experience while working to fight fraud

Links for this show: 

• CUES Supplier member Harland Clarke
• CU Management magazine feature about collaboration as an aid to fighting fraud
• Transcript of this show

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Michael Bach lives in Toronto, a diverse city, which has as one of its mottos, “Diversity is our strength.”

Bach, CEO of the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion, added onto the city’s slogan. He made it: “If diversity is our strength, inclusion is our superpower” to illustrate that it’s not enough to have diversity.

“We have to create spaces where people can not only exist but can be welcomed,” he says in Episode 114 of the CUES Podcast. “They won't face racism, violence, sexism, homophobia, etc.—and I think that … to make sure that our spaces are welcoming, we need inclusion as our superpower. It's our special strength, this thing we can do that will get the most out of our people, that will create higher levels of engagement and productivity. It is the secret sauce, if you will, on top of diversity … .”

Bach defines “diversity” as being about difference and “inclusion” as being about creating a space where differences are welcome.

Diversity “is about all of the things that make a person unique,” he says. “We tend to historically look at underrepresented or marginalized groups: women, people of color, people with disabilities, Indigenous people or Native Americans, LGBT people. But the truth is, the word diversity is about difference of all kinds. And that includes straightway, able-bodied men, not to say that they're marginalized or underrepresented. That's not the point. It is to say that they are different from me. As a gay man who lives with a disability, they are different from me. And so, diversity is about all the things that make you different.”

In contrast, inclusion is about creating a place “where people can come to work or go to a community center or a school or a credit union and be welcomed and be embraced for who they are,” with all of their differences, from everyone else.

Bach cites talent as the No. 1 reason organizations need to focus on diversity and inclusion.

“If you look at the numbers, and I'm going to do these off the top of my head … people of color in the United States make up roughly about 40-42% of the available workforce, and in Canada, it's about 23%,” he explains. “If you look at the number of women who have graduated with undergraduate degrees, it's now 60% of undergraduate degrees are taken home by women … . If you just look at the sheer numbers, you cannot tell me that if you look at an executive team that is predominantly or exclusively straight, white, able-bodied men, that you actually have the best and the brightest. You don't. Statistically, you don't because you don't have a representative amount of talent. So, the No. 1 reason (for diversity and inclusion) is about talent. It's about making sure that you are in fact hiring and promoting the best and the brightest.”

The show also gets into:

• Bach’s other top reasons for focusing on diversity and inclusion
• The services provided by the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion
• Answering the question of CUES member Russ Siemens, director at Innovation Credit Union in Saskatchewan about systemic racism

Links

• Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion
• Birds of All Feathers Doing Diversity and Inclusion Rightby Michael Bach
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Cornell Certificate Program
• CUES Advanced Management Program From Cornell University
• Transcript of this show

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The U.S. economy may soon be poised for takeoff, according to Dan Berger, our guest on episode 113 of the CUES Podcast.

The efforts of credit unions to serve members at a time of need will continue to be a key factor, says Berger, president/CEO of the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions, Washington, D.C.

“I think that we got some more stuff to get through in 2021 in regards to COVID and cranking up the economy and getting more people and to be financially inclusive with the economy,” he explains. “I equate it to laying the runway in 2021 so you can really take off in 2022. But I'm so pleased with this industry, in the CEOs I speak to across the country, in the jobs that they're doing. I mean, it's really been an incredible effort across the board, and I don't see it stopping.

“The stories I hear from across the country with, you know, skip-a-pay programs and workout loans and things along those lines,” he continues, “ … that’s the difference between us and the big banks. When people were helping folks even before Congress said they had to do it …. and, in terms of forbearance, this industry has really responded to their members as well as their communities.

“Credit unions have come up with very innovative programs to help their members through this,” he says. “And that's where, in the long run, people are going to remember that institution that was there that did a workout loan for them or did some loan modifications for them. They're going to remember that. You can't buy a full-page ad like when Wells Fargo does to try to re-establish trust. You have to build that over time.

"And that's what credit unions have," he underscores. "They have this incredible amount of trust, and it's even built upon even further through 2020. And you'll see it throughout 2021 as well.”

Berger also says in the show that continued vaccine distribution and targeted stimulus to people who need it will play key roles in getting the economy back on track.

The show also gets into:

• The unemployment situation in 2020, now and going forward
• The importance of taking care of employee so they, in turn, take care of members
• The likely impact of remote work as the world reopens
• The increasingly important role of community development financial institutions
• How increased liquidity from deposits of federal stimulus program funds and increased savings due to the pandemic might impact credit union operations and financials

Links for this show

• B. Dan Berger on LinkedIn
• National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions
• Show transcript
• Two other recent episodes about the economy: 111 with Steve Rick of CUNA Mutual Group and 112 with Bryan Yu of Central 1
• High Performing Boards Digital Series
• Strategy and Digital Marketing Cornell Certificate Program

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Governments around the world have spent more than $14 trillion to try to offset the economic damage of the pandemic, says Bryan Yu, in the latest episode of the CUES Podcast.

“In Canada, I think we moved pretty quick,” says Yu, director and chief economist with Central 1 in Vancouver, British Columbia, which leverages its scale, strength and expertise to power progress for more than 250 credit unions and other financial institutions. “We had seen the implementation of the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit, which was largely providing funds for households who were negatively impacted by the pandemic and lost jobs, about $500 per week. So, a significant amount.

“We also, of course, see the wage subsidy programs in Canada as well,” he adds in the show. “So employers who lost substantial amounts of business were able to tap the subsidy in order to keep individuals employed.”

He estimates that the Canadian government will now have to deal with a $380 billion deficit after the outlay. “But we're also, of course, recognizing that without these measures, we could be in a much worse state at this point,” he says. “We'd have the pandemic plus we'd have a lot of individuals without income, and that would have led to more foreclosures, bankruptcies, etc.”

Yu also thinks the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine in Canada will have a significant impact on the economic recovery.

“The vaccine will in fact, provide a huge boost for Canada. One of the big differences I think, between the US and Canada right now is that rate of deployment,” he explains. In Canada, “only about 3% of our population has been vaccinated .. and that's really a reflection partly of the countries which are making the vaccines. The US and the UK, of course, are producers. So they are able to deploy much quicker.

“But as those vaccines do roll out, I do expect to see that that will finally be able to reopen some of our borders more towards tourism. People will be more willing to go into into more restaurants, really moving back that service-oriented economy back to full capacity.

“So that's my hope at this point,” he says. “I think that's going to be driving our move back to a pre-pandemic type of levels within the next two years. I would think there is still going to be a lot of challenges … going forward.”

The show also gets into:

• Unemployment trends in Canada
• What shifts caused by the pandemic will continue into the future
• Ideas managing the coronavirus mutations that have been identified
• The strengths credit unions have that will help them weather the pandemic
• The question of inflation in these times

Links for this show

• Central 1
• Bryan Yu, director and chief economist at Central 1
• Episode 111 with guest Steve Rick, director and chief economist at CUNA Mutual Group
• High Performing Board Digital Series
• Strategy and Digital Marketing Cornell Certificate Program (all online)
• Episode 112 transcript

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As is always true with the economy, there is both good and bad news at once.

On episode 111 of the CUES Podcast, Steve Rick says some of the good news is that the jobless rate has dropped back to a rate of 6.3%, after spiking to 14.7% at the height of the pandemic shutdown last year.

Director and chief economist at CUESolutions Platinum provider for executive benefits CUNA Mutual Group, Madison, Wisconsin, Rick says economists believe that 4.5% is the “long-run natural employment rate” in the U.S. He is forecasting reaching that rate again by the end of 2022.

“We do believe we will reach herd immunity, probably by the fourth quarter of this year … where … 75 to 80% of our population has been vaccinated and is … immune,” he says. “So, we're hoping by the end of this year to have the unemployment rate down to 5.5%.”

Some of the bad news Rick cites includes the hard hit taken by retail businesses during the government-mandated shutdowns early in 2020. Many stores, restaurants and movie theaters have been severely disrupted or even permanently shut down in what Rick calls a “retail apocalypse.”

While those that closed may never reopen, there is a glimmer of hope here, too. In the January retail sales report, Rick says, “We saw sales pick up 5.3% compared to December. Now, that's a huge jump. … if we can compare this January of 2021 … to January 2020 … before the pandemic, we're up 7.4%. Now, that is a huge increase, 7.4% in spending. … So we're actually seeing a nice recovery already.”

Rick projects a jump in gross domestic product this year of about 4.5 percentage points. “So we're going to be making 4.5% more stuff, if you will, then we did last year,” he says. “And last year … we dropped 3.5% in the production of goods and services. So, a nice recovery for 2021.

“… if we get another $1,400 stimulus check sometime this spring, you know, if President Biden gets his 1.9 trillion stimulus,” he adds, “we could see a really strong economy going into the second half of this year.”

The show also gets into:

• More on the potential impact of any additional federal stimulus checks
• Ideas about retraining workers to help counteract unemployment
• The huge surge in member deposits
• The answer to a question from CUES member Cynthia Ryan, EVP/COO of Connect Credit Union, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, about how to handle the boost in liquidity from the increase in member deposits
• The mortgage refi boom and how many loans to sell on the secondary market in these times
• The potential impact of any forgiveness of federal student loan debt
• The importance of cost control and managing net interest margin right now

Links for this show:

• Email Steve Rick
• CUESolutions Platinum provider for executive benefits CUNA Mutual Group, Madison, Wisconsin
• CU Management magazine’s monthly CFO Focus columns
• CUES Advanced Management Program from Cornell University
• Partial transcript for Episode 111

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“For some reason, people just love pineapples,” says Bolun Li in this episode of the CUES Podcast. As a result, pineapple emojis are the points in Zogo, the gamified smartphone app that Li co-launched in 2019 to better teach personal finance to members of Gen Z.

CEO of CUES Supplier member Zogo Finance, the sponsor of this show, Li says that pineapples tested extremely well during the app’s development.

“We tested so many different emojis for the points,” he explains. “We have no idea why people love pineapples, but they love pineapples. So, we’re like, we’re going to use pineapples” for the point system.

A 2019 graduate of Duke University, Li first learned about personal finance through a high school program that was delivered by a bank. He describes that offering as “boring” and “inadequate.”

In contrast, the app he and his co-founders (all members of Gen Z themselves) have launched aims to teach members of Gen Z about personal finance in a way they find fun. Zogo offers more than 300 bite-sized learning modules and awards pineapple points for module completion that can be redeemed for gift cards or deposits in accounts at partnering financial institutions—such as credit unions.

During the show, Li tells the story of his introduction to credit unions. Since then, Zogo has partnered with more than 75 CUs to help them attract Gen Zers—members CUs need to connect with now to ensure a bright tomorrow.

When users first log into Zogo, they are invited to put in a code from a financial institution. Once they enter a CU's code, the app becomes co-branded with the CU’s colors and logo. In addition, a CU has access to a dashboard of information about app users. Partnering CUs can also create custom learning modules about their product offerings, community commitment or whatever topics they wish.

This year Zogo is rolling out a unique approach to offering financial education in schools. It reaches out to students, not teachers, to be ambassadors for the app and the CU partner.

“These students will be going out there with the Zogo app and spreading the credit union’s name within their generation, their friends," he says. Young people are much more likely to use something “when it’s recommended by their friends than if it’s being enforced by their teachers. We want all the Gen Zers to think personal finance is very fun and their local credit union is very cool.”

The show also gets into:

• how pleased Li was to learn that Zogo appeals to people of all ages, not just Gen Zers
• the national awards Zogo has won
• the 24-hour process for a CU to sign up for Zogo
• what Li thinks CUs need to have in their strategic plans to better attract younger members
• what Li learned from surveying Duke students about CUs
• what board members need to know about Gen Z and the future
• Li’s rallying cry for Financial Literacy Month in April

Links for this show:

• CUES Supplier member Zogo
• Two CUES articles by Zogo: here and here
• More on generational strategy and marketing

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There’s a growing trend of credit unions hiring chief diversity officers, says Renee Sattiewhite, CUDE, CDP, president/CEO of the African American Credit Union Coalition.

“It is amazing that so many credit unions are calling or asking about what should they do, what should they be looking for,” Sattiewhite says in this episode. “I’m happy to report that the credit unions that are larger are doing that. And then some of the credit unions are calling us because they don’t have a chief diversity officer (wondering), ‘What can they do in lieu of that?’”

Why is this trend good news? “I think that it’s a good sign with the industry that they’re looking at having someone who is certified, who’s got the information, who’s got the intellect and the skill to help lead the organization in their DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) journey,” Sattiewhite explained.

Hiring a chief diversity officer that isn’t certified is troubling, she explained. “It’s quite important to have the knowledge behind you so that you can talk about the unconscious biases, that you can talk about the DEI-specific things so you can help the organization move past that,” Sattiewhite emphasizes. “You need to really vet the people that you’re looking at for candidates, making sure that the organization is not just checking a box.

“It’s not a project. It’s a journey. It is not a sprint. It is a marathon,” she adds. “And I think people need to see it that way. They think that, ‘We came up with a DEI plan, so we’re good.’ No, that does not make you good. Can you execute on that plan? Can you change that plan when it needs to be changed? Are you open to making sure that everyone is included in that plan? … DEI is not just a race issue; it’s more than just that.”

What should credit unions look for in a chief diversity officer? Sattiewhite says the key lies in “making sure that that person has the right spirit—the spirit of change, a spirit of helping, a spirit of openness, preferably someone who has experience and understands the needs of a multicultural membership or a multicultural staff and employees. I think that to think that just because you have a plan that you’re done is an unrealistic expectation,” she says. 

“The organization didn’t get to where it is overnight. So the DEI journey, it’s going to be … unfortunately sometimes painful. You have to have a lot of grit, a lot of gumption. You have to have someone who is fearless and really wants to effect change not just in the organization but in the community that they serve.”

The show also gets into:

• The idea that the African American Credit Union Coalition is inclusive and anyone can join
• More about AACUC’s work and educational offerings
• The connection between credit unions, the motto “people helping people” and eradicating racism
• How to set your chief diversity officer up for success

Links for this show:

• African American Credit Union Coalition
• AACUC’s Commitment to Change, Credit Unions Unite Against Racism program
• Sattiewhite’s CUES article, Diversity Insight: Red Versus Blue
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Cornell Certificate Program

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When people join a board, they don't always get the opportunity to understand what exactly the job entails—and what a board is really for, says Matt Fullbrook in this show.

Manager of the David and Sharon Johnston Centre for Corporate Governance Innovation at the University of Toronto and a board effectiveness researcher and consultant for Fullbrook Board Effectiveness, Fullbrook says providing an opportunity for better understanding of those two things is at the root of board education.

Fullbook explains that board education also goes a step further to answer the question, “How do we take that role as a director and turn it into something that has the potential to create something of tremendous value for the organization?”

It’s very difficult for anyone to create good answers to these key questions themselves, says Fullbrook, who will serve as academic director for the new High Performing Board Digital Series from CUES that starts April 13.

The reality of director education, he explains, “is it gives directors an opportunity on the one hand to be ... with other people who are going through something like what they’re going through, so you feel like you’re not alone. But second of all, you get to learn from their successes and mistakes.

“Also, you get access to people, educators and so on who have been thinking about this and have created and explored solutions that you may never have thought about."

Director education “gives you a whole new toolkit to bring back to your board and ask, ‘How are we going to implement this in a way that is going to empower our credit union to be better for its members on an ongoing basis?’” he says. “It opens up a whole universe of new tools and insights and opportunities for your board to do things in new and better ways.”

Fullbrook emphasizes the importance of applying director education. “The potential value of education ... is really undermined if you don’t go back ... and make an effort to ensure that it has an impact. That takes discipline.”

Putting board education into practice can’t just be a book report, where the director who attended the education says, “I learned a, b, c and d.” Instead, Fullbrook suggests the director should say something like, “I’d like to have a conversation about how we can take what I learned and use it to make our board better. Here are my ideas.”

The show also gets into:

• Why Fullbrook rejects the term “best practice” for governance
• Fullbrook’s short definition of what governance is
• Why board education must be ongoing
• The value of being curious about how you might improve your current board practices
• Details about the High Performing Board Digital Series
• Fullbrook’s new podcast, One Minute Governance

Links for this show:

• Fullbrook Board Effectiveness
• David and Sharon Johnston Centre for Corporate Governance Innovation
• High Performing Board Digital Series
• Matt Fulbrook in the CUES Podcast episodes 24 and 85
• Most recent Matt Fullbrook video for Unlimited+ members: Provocative Considerations for Board Chairs

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It’s interesting that as the unpredicted, unprecedented year of 2020 was closing, Rodney E. Hood identifies this quote as a professional mantra he lives by: “Proper preparation and planning can prevent poor performance.”

Chairman of the National Credit Union Administration Board, Hood says in this show, taped Dec. 8, that this quote he learned in high school helps him remember to always put his best foot forward and get “things done with professionalism, duty and integrity.”

“As long as I stay focused on those Ps … it gets me through,” he says.

For 2020, putting the best foot forward meant helping the federal agency he leads support credit unions on two important fronts: the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to boost diversity, equity and inclusion in the credit union industry after the killing of George Floyd in May.

Hood talks in the show about key things the National Credit Union Administration did in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including:

• Staying open, even though the staff is working from home for safety
• Allowing remote board meetings and annual membership meetings
• Continuing offsite regulatory examinations
• Recognizing the challenges of lending in these times and supported the making of small-dollar loans, loan modifications and forbearances
• Supporting small and low-income-designated credit unions that are on the front lines in serving people who have been marginalized or underserved

He also expresses his vision for the inception and next steps of NCUA’s Advancing Communities through Credit, Education, Stability and Support program, also known as ACCESS.

The show also gets into:

• Why Hood loved studying Latin and what modern language he’d like to speak fluently (and why)
• How the pandemic-impacted economy compares to the Great Recession in 2008 and why Hood thinks credit unions are better positioned for success now than they were then
• What Hood thinks would be good next steps for NCUA to take as credit unions ride out the pandemic
• Examples of real people who have been impacted by credit unions during these unprecedented times

Links for this show:

• NCUA’s COVID-19 response
• Chairman Hood’s statement in response to the killing of George Floyd
• African American Credit Union Coalition
• NCUA’s ACCESS program
• NCUA’s voluntary diversity assessment

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What does it mean to be CEO-ready? How can candidates know when they’re ready? How can boards know a candidate is ready for the top slot?

Some key things candidates should have if they’re really ready to lead an organization include a deep understanding of cross-functional leadership, solid knowledge of the business and how to work with people; and experience with effective board governance, explains Deedee Myers, Ph.D., MSC, PCC, president/CEO of DDJ Myers Inc., a CUESolutions provider based in Phoenix.

“Cultivation (of a CEO) … is not an overnight phenomenon,” she explains in the show. “So we want to set it up and have these different milestones and testing places along the way to test our internal candidates and to test ourselves. Are we ready?”

DDJ Myers SVP Peter Myers adds that he wants to distinguish between being ready to get the CEO job and being ready to do the job exceptionally well. “Make sure you self-assess,” he advises, “why you want to get this job…. Find someone you trust to give you unvarnished feedback. Ask them, ‘What do you think are the primary and secondary reason I’m vying for this job?’ … Boards and members and staff want someone that is going to put their needs far above and beyond (the executive’s) own self-interest needs. One of the primary jobs of the CEO is to get the best out of their staff.”

The show also gets into

• How candidates can become more CEO ready
• Must-dos for candidates interviewing for the CEO slot with a credit union board
• No-nos for candidates interviewing for the CEO slot with a credit union board
• The current CEO’s role in the CEO succession planning process
• What boards can expect from the CEO succession planning process
• The value of having a specific structure and process to follow when undergoing CEO succession planning
• The answers to two questions from CUES Podcast listeners

Links for this episode

• CUESolutions Silver provider DDJ Myers Inc.
• Episode sponsor CUESolutions Bronze provider Strategic Resource Management
• DDJ Myers’ previous episode of the CUES Podcast, How to Smash a CEO Interview
• 2020 CUES Outstanding Chief Executive profile of Garth Warner, CCD, president/CEO of Servus Credit Union, Edmonton, Alberta
• CEO Institutes hosted by CUES
• CUES Executive Compensation Survey

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The pandemic came to the fore while CUES and Industry Insights were fielding this year’s compensation and salary surveys. But fortunately, great data was still collected that can form an excellent foundation for credit unions making decisions about executive compensation and staff salaries.

“It provides us a great base for moving forward, for understanding the true impact of COVID, says Michael Becher, vice president of Industry Insights, CUES' partner in producing CUES Executive Compensation Survey and the CUES Employee Salary Survey. “This data is very, very relevant” and can support decision-making about pay levels now and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Becher says the increases in pay for staff and executives highlighted by the CUES surveys are bigger than those reported across all industries in the U.S. WorldatWork has reported increases for staff and executives of 3% to 3.3% for the last few years. “CU increases have been more in the 5% to 8% range,” he adds. CUES Executive Compensation Survey reports increases on all of the 22 positions it covers, including increases in base salary, bonuses and total compensation.

“It shows the strength of the credit union and financial services industry,” Becher says, “ … and it’s just a nice thing if you’re in the credit union space.”

During the show, which is supported by a commercial from CUES Supplier member Harland Clarke, Becher also describes how the CUES survey has been looking at the pay situation for women since 2018. The survey finds that 47% of credit unions with less than a billion dollars in assets employ a female CEO compared with 39% of credit unions with more than a billion dollars in assets. Not surprisingly, the pay for CEOs at smaller credit unions is typically lower than the pay for CEOs at larger credit unions.

Becher also says eight positions covered by the survey have a higher rate of women: HR executive, chief member solutions officer, marketing executive, retail branch executive, compliance exec, chief operations officer, regional branch management executive and chief operating officer.

“We’re still pretty early in collecting this type of information,” Becher says. “We’re looking forward to continuing to collect this information.”

Laura Lynch, products and services manager at CUES, says in the show that the surveys provide important data to help credit unions see if they’re competitive with their peers. Only with the data can they choose to pay executives and employees at a particular level, whether that’s at market, above market or below market.

“A lot that goes into compensation package and the data is an important part of that,” Lynch says. “We’ve been known for providing that competitive data for many years.

“There are lots of tools where they can create that peer group,” she adds, referring to the reporting tools included with both surveys that allow credit unions to “slice and dice” the data to help them make decisions.

Links for this episode:

• Michael Becher at Industry Insights
• CUES Executive Compensation Survey
• CUES Employee Salary Survey
• Commercial sponsor: CUES Supplier member Harland Clarke
• 2019 compensation podcast

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Even before the pandemic, credit unions were the most empathetic collectors around. While credit unions clearly need members to pay their loans and credit cards, they have always approached collections with an eye for helping the member through financial difficulty and educating them about personal finance.

Enter the pandemic and many members were suddenly unemployed. Credit unions were on the financial front lines, working on ways to help, says Jeff Mortenson, VP/client services for the Financial Institution Group at CUES Supplier member SWBC, San Antonio, Texas. SWBC is the sponsor of this show.

“They clearly understood up front that they need to figure out how to help their members,” Mortenson says in the show. But they quickly discovered that calling their members every couple of days wasn’t helping them. “So they took a step backwards … and said, “Wait a minute. What’s best for our memberships and how can we help them?’ …

“They were proactive with it,” he adds. “Being proactive with it has been very successful for them. What they end up doing is creating loyal membership.

“The pandemic is an event none of us has experienced before,” Mortenson says. “Delinquency is something many of the members have never experienced before, either.” As a result, some members might feel embarrassed about getting a collections call. This can make self-service options like text or email great ways to communicate with members during delinquency.

But how can a credit union determine which communication channel a member really prefers? Mortenson says that can happen in one of two ways. The first is during member onboarding if a member specifically notes a preference for texts. The second is by watching member behavior. If a member more often responds to email, that is probably that person’s preferred method.

In the show, Mortenson talks about a new SWBC offering made possible by a partnership with FICO. This system helps track collections communications and, over time, discern members’ preferred channels.

“There’s no crystal ballt hat will tell us where delinquency is headed in the next few months. CUs need to be prepared at least on a temp basis to handle increased delinquency. They should consider adding multiple comm strategies for collecting delinquent accounts, including IVR, text and email with self-service capability. Omnichannel, along with the traditional collection models, will maximize their results.”

The show also gets into:

• Three things to do to prepare for the future of collections, no matter what the pandemic and the economy bring
• Statistics supporting the value of offering texting as a collections communication channel
• More details about the partnership SWBC has forged with FICO to provide members collections communications using their preferred channels
• Plans for using the FICO platform for early, mid- and late-stage collections
• The value of automation when volume is high

Links for this episode of the CUES Podcast

• CUES Supplier member SWBC, the sponsor of this show
• SWBC outsourced collections
• More CUES content on collections from SWBC
  • Three Ways to Manage Delinquencies with Indirect Borrowers
  • Five Qualities of a Well-Rounded Collection Agent
  • A Guide to Auditing Your In-House Collections

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Laurie Maddalena’s vision is to create a place where people love to come to work. Gallup has found in its most recent workforce study, she says, that only about 34% of American employees feel engaged at work.

“Most people don’t enjoy their work and I think a lot of that has to do with leadership, the quality of leadership we have in our organizations,” says Maddalena, CEO of Envision Excellence, a leadership consulting firm that provides leadership development programs for managers and executives, keynote speeches, team building and leadership assessments.

As antidote, Maddalena recommends leaders look to be “modern” leaders, focused on facilitating people doing the work, not fixing problems themselves. Modern leaders get to know their employees and place high value on the people side of the business, she says. 

New leaders sometimes struggle with taking a modern leadership approach because they have been promoted because they are technically adept—not because they have leadership skills. So instead of leading in the modern, they are more likely to lead as they were led, in a more traditional, directive rather than facilitating way.

According to Maddalena, new leaders often struggle with: 

• Getting focused. This could be because they haven’t had the necessary leadership training or aren’t getting enough guidance from their leader.
• Delegation. New leaders might think their technical skills are most important, when in fact their job as leader is to facilitate other people’s work.
• Supporting their staff’s engagement. Engagement comes when leaders step back and facilitate solutions rather than fixing things themselves, she says.

To overcome these challenges, Maddalena recommends that new leaders:

• Ask for training and other help preparing for their new role.
• Look deeply at their leadership style and constantly develop themselves.
• Shift their mentality about leadership. “Leadership is a privilege and it’s a responsibility,” she explains. “It’s not a hat we wear. True leadership is service.”

“I often say, ‘If it weren’t for the people, leadership would be easy,’” Maddalena adds. “Preparing yourself to be of service to people” is a key part of the job. 

In the show, Maddalena says it’s hard for people to lead in a modern way. Leadership training is important both for new and experienced leaders to continue to evolve.

“We need active leadership” more than ever during the pandemic, she says, “meaning reaching out and checking in. People are really stressed. It’s going to take more energy and effort” than ever.

“Our job as leaders is to focus on the people and facilitate the people side of the business,” she underscores. “The technical side will get done. But the people are who put the effort in to get the results, so we need to make sure that’s a big focus.”

The show also gets into:

• How Laurie Maddalena fell in love with credit unions
• Laurie’s favorite quote from Zig Ziglar and how that applies to leadership
• Perspective on how leadership is the same or different during a crisis like the pandemic
• Maddalena’s assessment of leadership readiness at credit unions during the pandemic and beyond
• The value of modeling leadership
• The CUES Emerge program and how Laurie Maddalena and her consultancy supported it

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In the Tampa Bay, Florida, region, migration from Spanish-speaking countries has increased more than 200% in the last two decades and that number continues to rise, creating social and economic change in the area, according to Lindsey Walker, executive assistant with $259 million/32,000-member Tampa Bay Federal Credit Union, Tampa Bay, Florida, and the 2020 CUES Emerging Leader, the first-ever winner.

That growth was driven by part by Tampa being a top destination for people from Puerto Rico escaping Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Other Spanish speakers have come to the Tampa area from Columbia, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.

According to Walker, a national survey found these individuals prefer having documents available in their native language. “There’s always room for misinterpretation when you speak dual languages,” Walker explains in the show. “This is especially true for older Spanish speakers. They often bring a grandchild or friend with strong English skills to help them.” If they don’t, they sometimes sign without fully understanding the terms, which can become a real problem.

In the Tampa Bay region 24.3% of the unbanked and underbanked population rely on payday lenders, Walker points out in the show. These organizations prey heavily on minorities who lack access to mainstream financial products, she says.

Getting their business at the credit union instead can be as simple as letting a consumer “know they can become a member of a credit union or that we will accept their identification. They actually can get access to products.

“Since 2015, Tampa Bay Federal Credit Union has begun changing the narrative in our community and helping get the word out that we are there and we can support” Spanish speakers, she explains. “We make it known that we accept alternative types of identification for membership and loans. We have staffed our front line with over 74% being bilingual. Our branches are strategically built in Hispanic communities. We facilitate financial literacy classes in Spanish. We have bilingual branch leaders who have undergone” … financial literacy education courses.

In all, “with completion of the Spanish outreach program … we’ve been able to provide materials to our Spanish speaking community such as member applications, loan documents, website, marketing materials,” she adds. “It’s a huge leap for the credit union. The feedback that we have received as each segment of the program has gone live” has been very positive. “They’ve been so grateful that we are listening to their needs and responding.”

The credit union invested $56,000 and now anticipates 1% growth annually. With 8,200 Spanish-speaking members now, that’s 1,900 new members in the next five years “that we’ll be able to help,” Walker says. “We also anticipate an on-balance loan sheet increase of $128 million. Of that, we anticipate $6.4 million being deployed to our Hispanic communities. I think it’s a huge win-win.”

The show also gets into:

• Walker’s professional mantra, “Seize every opportunity available,” and her favorite quote
• Tips for credit unions that want to do this in their own shops
• Grant writing and the National Credit Union Administration’s community development financial institution program
• The CUES Emerge program

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In this show, Patrick Donohue tells the story about going to Home Depot to buy a power drill. He emphasizes that he didn’t really want a power drill. But rather he wanted to make a hole in his wall. And actually, his purpose wasn’t truly the hole. Instead it was to install his family’s new Ring doorbell. At bottom, it wasn’t that Donohue wanted to buy a power drill. It was his wife who wanted a better system for making sure delivered groceries got brought inside in a timely manner.

Product manager, Data Solutions Group at CUES Supplier member FIS, headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, and the sponsor of this show, Donohue tells this story to underscore the idea that behind every data point is an intention, an intrinsic desire of an individual member.

“The more we can use data to understand our customers’ stories—what’s going on in their life and what’s likely to happen next for them—the greater the chance we have to delight them and retain our members,” he explains.

During the show, Donohue also talks about key trends impacting credit unions’ use of data today, including fintechs—both startups and big tech companies—and the uncertainty associated with the coronavirus pandemic and what that means for members’ transaction patterns.

Next, Donohue provides specific tips on how to better use data that’s currently “left behind” and not leveraged to credit unions’ advantages. He suggests looking to the transaction ledger for the rich information contained there about members.

He describes an example transaction that credit unions could mine.

“We can spot that a user has made a purchase—let’s say at a golf shop,” he says. “The merchant name is a little bit cryptic. We think it’s a golf shop but we can use a merchant name database and know that it’s Golf Mart. Then we can look at the whole landscape. Is this a one-time purchase? Is it a present for his cousin Larry? No, this is someone that also has a subscription to a green fee app. We can also see that their college tuition expenses are increasing. We might be seeing some signals in the data that his life is changing a bit. He wants to keep his golf going but he also has some additional expenses he has to pay.

“You begin to layer on data to better understand that unique customer’s story,” he adds. “It allows everyone in the value chain for that member to customize that experience from the personal banker who’s standing in front of John inside the branch to the digital experience that’s serving up insights in mobile banking … all the way to the customer service rep who’s talking to them via phone. We know more about John and what’s important to him.”

The show also gets into:

• The backstory behind Donohue’s professional mantra: “Move the authority to where the information is”
• What is meant by “single-threaded” apps created by fintechs, and how credit unions’ more holistic strategy can be a competitive advantage
• The top tough questions that credit unions should be asking themselves when it comes to making the most of their data to serve members on a personal level
• How FIS helps its clients with their data efforts

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For this milestone episode, CUES Podcast listeners submitted their questions for experts to answer. So instead of featuring one or two experts, this show features seven! Instead of being centered on just one idea, this show covers three areas of major interest to credit unions and their leaders: reopening physical branches in light of the pandemic, reaching and engaging young members, and the future of credit unions 25 years out.

Our first question about when credit unions might reopen fully comes at the 5:12 mark from CUES member Ron Kraus, chair of the board of $2 billion Together Credit Union in the St. Louis area. Kraus’s question is first answered by Mike Carter, EVP of CUESolutions Bronze provider Strategic Resources Management, Memphis, Tennessee. A second response is given by Steve Reider, president of CUES Supplier member Bancography, Birmingham, Alabama. Neither expert expects 100% reopening across the country by Thanksgiving and each has ideas about the larger implications of the pandemic on the financial services.

The show’s second question is from CUES member Karen Bruce, associate board member at $1.7 billion America’s First Credit Union, Birmingham, Alabama. It's about how credit unions can best reach and engage young members and comes at 12:04.

Bruce’s question is answered by three experts: Ben Stangland, president/COO of CUES Supplier member Strum, Seattle; Keith Brannan, chief marketing officer for Kasasa, Austin, Texas; and Jeff Fromm, author of four books and the president of Futurecast, a subsidiary of Barkley, New York. The three say young members are a great opportunity for credit unions and offer ideas for connecting with them.

The third and final question in the show comes from CUES member Mary Gray, director of member engagement and programs at $1.8 billion A+ Federal Credit Union, Austin, Texas. It's about what credit unions will look like in 25 years and comes in at 25:06.

Two experts with vision provide answers to Gray’s forward-thinking question: Steve Williams, principal with CUES Supplier member and strategic provider for technology and planning services, Cornerstone Advisors, Scottsdale, Arizona, and Chris Skinner, an independent technology commentator at The Finaser blog, the author of several books and chair of the Financial Services Club.

Williams says in 25 years there is great opportunity for both large banks and grassroots financial services. He notes four words that come to mind about qualities that credit unions that can stay the course will have—purpose, talent, technology and scale—then elaborates on each. Skinner suggests not trying to compete with big banks but rather standing for something other than shareholders and profit. He believes credit unions have a great opportunity to deliver on this idea.

The show also gets into:

• What listeners whose questions are featured in the show have appreciated about the CUES Podcast
• A favorite memory of CUES Podcast founder and host James Lenz from the first 100 episodes
• How to submit your question for possible use on a future show
• The great story about how Jeff Fromm ended up studying young consumers

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In the best of times, it’s a big job for leaders to demonstrate the kind of empathy that builds trust with their followers. Showing the kind of empathy that builds trust is even harder in this era of remote work and social distancing brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, says episode 99 guest Sean Martin, Ph.D., associate professor of business administration at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, which hosts CUES’ CEO Institute III: Strategic Leadership Development.

“People will choose to trust you to the extent that they believe that a) you have the skills to do a job (they can trust your abilities you have the technical know-how to do things), b) that you have the integrity that they can trust that you’re not going to tell them a lie; you’re not going to misrepresent things; you’re not going to ignore the truth and then c) trust in your benevolence, really trust that you actually have a sense of caring and concern and empathy for them,” explains Martin, who is among three highly-rated speakers presenting at Knowledge and Networking in November.

“To the extent that you have those three dimensions, … then we can say you are a trusted leader. That’s really hard to do virtually. It’s not impossible. But when we’re in a virtual environment, when people are not able to interact face to face or when we’re having interactions over the phone and all we can hear is each other’s voices, or we have to stay six feet apart or we’re all wearing masks … that presents a lot of challenges for how to we express empathy effectively; how do we show people how much we care. … Are we taking the time to really build relationships when people are distanced?”

Martin’s research involved how organizational and societal contexts affect leader-follower dynamics. He says COVID-19 has had “big general effects on leadership,” but also speaks to social class dynamics.

“I think we’re waking up to the fact that a lot of the jobs that we rely on societally and even within an organization is done by people that we frequently—and I don’t think intentionally—… take for granted,” he explains. “We frequently assume that people will be there to bag our groceries. We assume that people will be there to work on manufacturing lines. We assume and take for granted that people will show up to do the actual production of goods and services that make our economy run. When something is taken for granted, I think we tend to not value it as highly.

“For a long time, we haven’t had a reason to as a society to wake up and realize the incredible value, skills, abilities and critically important roles that people (have) who often are not sitting at the very high end of an organizational hierarchy,” he continues. “When COVID hit and exposed a lot of these things, we are starting to realize that the people we really can’t afford to lose are the people who are making things and the people who are performing the face-to-face service. That’s the essential work. We need to start valuing that differently."

The show also gets into:

• Leadership lessons that can be learned from sports
• Why Dr. Martin likes to use sports in teaching leadership
• What is Dr. Martin’s favorite sport
• What Dr. Martin will present at his Knowledge and Networking in November session, titled “Organizational Values: A Beacon in a Storm of Uncertainty”
• Dr. Martin’s paper that was featured on Comedy Central

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The pandemic has accelerated trends that have long been underway, including consumer adoption of mobile services. That means that credit union leaders need to shift their thinking, possibly shifting their strategy for meeting and supporting digital demand.

“In order for them to manage and go forward with their physical and digital relationships, they’re going to need to change,” Kevin Blair says in this episode of the CUES Podcast. “Nothing will be quite the same as it was before the pandemic.”

In this show, Blair, president/CEO of CUES Supplier member NewGround, says that before the pandemic, surveys showed that 60% to 70% of consumers preferred coming to the branch to do their financial business. Now, a similar proportion says they prefer to interact with their financial services provider digitally.

“What the pandemic did was accelerated it—it pushed the industry to the tipping point,” Blair emphasizes. (Learn more in the company's new whitepaper.

Interestingly though, this doesn’t mean credit union members will never want to enter a branch. On the contrary, research Blair cites in this episode says the first thing that consumers wanted to reopen was manufacturing. The second was their financial services provider. Blair thinks this means their top priority is jobs and then after that they want to attend to their financial business.

In the show, Blair provides a host of practical suggestions for how to make sure that your credit union’s physical locations respond to consumers’ concerns about sanitation and the prevention of disease transmission. These include sneeze guards, automatic door openers and motion-activated faucets.

Blair emphasizes in the episode that credit union leaders need to keep their organization’s long-term strategy in mind.

“This too shall pass,” he says. “It’s not forever.” Physical sites are designed and implemented with a 20 to 30-year vision. They have some flex but they aren’t something you replace two years after establishing them.

In addition to working on their actual digital delivery systems, credit unions need to be thinking about how to staff the support for digital delivery—he says it’s not unreasonable to think that teams doing digital delivery support could double or triple in size. And that begs the question about what kind of physical space will best help employees do this work.

The show also gets into:

• The member experience center of the future
• How members are more patient with branch service than with digital delivery
• Rebalancing delivery channels going forward
• Alignment of brand, place and culture
• Resetting strategy in the wake of the pandemic

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“The cloud brings a lot to the table when it comes to what you can offer your members,” Steve Comer says in this show.

That’s a key reason that credit unions are embracing the use of the cloud these days, explains Comer, director of financial services & insurance sales at Hyland Software Inc. Hyland OnBase is a CUESolutions provider for enterprise information systems and the sponsor of episode 97. Another key reason that credit unions are increasingly using the cloud is that the technology has matured and been proven over the years.

To clarify what is meant by the buzzword “cloud,” Comer provides a very succinct definition: It’s “somebody else’s computer.”

“You’re referring to servers, databases applications that are housed somewhere and accessed over the internet,” he explains, “so it’s just relieving an institution of the burden of carrying all that infrastructure in house.”

Credit unions are adopting the cloud in many applications now, he says, because “they are very strategic in their thinking” and the cloud can help them make strategic moves.

For example, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused many credit unions to send their staff members home to work, credit unions that already were using the cloud found themselves with an advantage.

“Credit unions had to learn to operate with the remote workforce,” Comer explains in the show. “The ability to keep work processes going was suddenly reliant on mutual accessibility points that didn’t exist if you had a completely on-premise infrastructure.

“You have to be able to work with your co-workers” even when you’re working from home, Comer adds. “You have to be able to communicate with your members. You have to be able to share information. And, because of COVID, people were everywhere.”

This show also gets into:

• How cloud-based applications helped credit unions, especially those that were ready with cloud technology, participate in Paycheck Protection Program lending—by allowing them to share and access application materials, evaluate and distribute loans, and manage compliance requirements
• How cloud-based applications help with compliance monitoring and execution on new rules not just for PPP but in general
• How the cloud can help a credit union capture information that’s coming in and make its data processes more efficient
• What’s next for the cloud, which Comer says is likely to be part of practically every new technology

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The job of board liaisons today is multi-faceted and evolving—and it’s a good idea for organizations to foster their development, according to Julia Patrick and Michael G. Daignealt, CCD, in episode 96 of the CUES Podcast.

“It really is proving to be a pivotal position, more so than I think a lot of people realize,” says Daigneault, CEO and co-founder of CUES strategic partner for governance, Quantum Governance, Vienna, Virginia. “The primary purpose of it is often thought of to support the board and support the committee. But I think it’s also to guide them … and make governance more effective.”

That guidance may be a factor in a credit union board becoming high performing rather than mediocre.

“Michael and I share a passion for how internal leadership can really help move an organization forward,” explains Patrick, CEO/co-founder of the American Nonprofit Academy, Phoenix. “That board liaison is oftentimes the centerpiece of an effective board versus maybe a not-so-effective board.”

What are some key responsibilities of board liaisons?

“There’s a lot of issues that go from compliance to recording to all of the different things that have to be stored during official meetings,” Patrick answers. “They’re tracking things through their board portals. They’re actually navigating things that have a fiduciary responsibility as well as keeping the culture of the organization and … (supporting) communication.”

Daigneault echoes those thoughts, noting that because board liaisons are so connected to the board chair, the CEO, directors, committee chairs and committee members, they’re often good glue for holding everything together. They also provide a really important resource for the continuing education of board and committee members, he adds.

Patrick and Daigneault will co-lead Board Liaison Workshop this September. When the two led a previous CUES in-person event for board liaisons, they asked what participants most wanted to learn. The board liaisons cited such things as:

• How do we support board member engagement?
• How do we facilitate the board packets more effectively?
• How do we do the minutes right, rather than just taking down everything that is said?
• How do we help the senior team and the board shepherd the strategy process even more effectively?

Attendees also expressed a desire to continue evolving the role of board liaison.

“There is a desire for the board liaison to have a stronger voice and to be seen in the C-suite as a very important part of a successful operation and not just a clerical role,” Patrick explains in the show. “To understand that this is a trained, professional piece of someone’s job description, that’s somewhat of a new conversation.”

Daigneault adds that the job of the board liaison is “a multi-faceted role, which is morphing and evolving and becoming more professional day by day.”

The show also gets into:

• What surprises executives and board liaisons themselves about the evolving role of the board liaison
• Why board liaisons sometimes feel alone in their jobs
• The special role of board liaisons when governance is being conducted virtually
• How the Board Liaison Workshop and other CUES board liaison offerings are fostering a network of these professionals who can connect with and learn from each other
• What Daigneault and Patrick bring to their presentations at the Board Liaison Workshop—high-level perspective on strategic governance plus tools for succeeding with the nuts and bolts of&

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In this episode, James Robert Lay tells the story of how the CEO of Tower Records once said that kids “would always” want to come into the stores and listen to music.

But Tower Records went out of business in 2006.

“Music was digitized,” explains Lay, the author of a new book, Banking on Digital Growth and an instructor for CUES School of Strategic Marketing, slated for September. “We went from the record to the eight-track to the cassette, to the CD, to mp3, but we’re not done yet. Because what is music now? Music is now streaming with Spotify and Pandora.”

Financial institutions are seeing a parallel shift. “What we’re seeing is the explosion of fintech and what fintech is focused on is—like music—micro niche markets, or micro problems and, for credit unions, it’s like death by a thousand cuts,” Lay explains.

In the show, Lay gives a formal definition for digital growth as “a systematic process centered around the modern consumer journey” and notes that digital growth is built on three goals:

1. Increasing traffic to a financial brand’s website
2. Generating leads from the website traffic
3. Converting those leads into loans and deposits

“The way we have to do this is by positioning the credit union beyond the commoditized great rates and amazing service and look-alike laundry list of amazing features that every other financial brand promotes,” he emphasizes.

Lay explains that digital growth is not about mobile banking, remote deposit capture or social media—those are tactics.

“Digital growth is about acquisition,” he says.

The show also gets into:

• How the pandemic has impacted digital delivery
• How the pandemic has impacted credit unions’ digital growth strategies
• Roadblocks to digital growth
• Exiting the circle of chaos to move onto your next great opportunity
• The shift from digital delivery supporting a branch-first strategy to branches supporting a digital-first strategy
• How training and education build clarity around the digital consumer buying journey
• An update on the CUES School of Strategic Marketing

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It’s OK for credit unions to be strategically planning for growth during these uncertain times, Sarah Szilagyi says during episode 94 of the CUES Podcast.

“We as humans as maybe even … as women, we tend to think when we’re in a time of needing to help people, it’s not a time to think about growth or opportunity,” explains Szilagyi, SVP/experience and chief of staff for CUES Supplier member CO-OP Financial Services, Rancho Cucamonga, California. “Actually, that’s one of the beautiful things about credit unions. Credit unions are meant to help people, that’s why we are here. But it is also OK to say, ‘There’s opportunity right now—opportunity to help people, which would lead to growth.’”

“It is a time of change, which means a time of opportunity,” she continues. “As consumer behavior shifts and needs change, what credit unions can offer members also shifts and opens up new doors. A lot of shoppers are buying online now. A good portion … are buying online in the last 10 weeks for the very first time. That alone is an opportunity to explore, that member behavior, that shift. What cards are they using? Are they protected properly, etc.? There’s an opportunity to broaden services right now and to better serve members. They go together. It’s OK.”

Szilagyi notes that the situation credit unions and their members are in right now is “all-new territory,” and totally unique from anything that’s been experienced before. Because of this, the process of strategic planning is shifting.

“The pace of decision-making has increased drastically,” she notes. “We’re working cross-functionally more than ever to get things done. We’re looking at our members and asking, ‘What do they need?’ and really working quickly to serve those needs. We’re trying to plan and re-plan while many of us are at home watching children.”

Szilagyi notes a Gallup poll that found credit union members were hit harder than the average American with regard to the COVID experience. “Thinking about that is a credit union priority,” both in their immediate response and in longer-term planning, she says. Credit unions need to be offering “financial wellness and products that help their members be financially well, as well as digital and contactless type of products.

“Building trust is really one of the most important things a credit union can do right now,” she adds. “Being an ally will increase loyalty long term and members definitely need a financial partner right now they can trust.”

These days, credit unions’ planning cycles are addressing immediate issues and looking forward to 2021, Szilagyi notes. To support credit unions in this effort, CO-OP Financial Services is offering its Credit Union Strategic Investment Assessment in partnership with EY through July 2.

The show also gets into:

• How the impact of people—both employees and members—on strategic and growth planning is bigger than ever
• Why data is an important foundation for growth
• More about the development of CO-OP Financial Services’ Credit Union Strategic Investment Assessment
• More about what a credit union receives when it does the Credit Union Strategic Investment Assessment
• Strategies for applying in the real world the results of the Credit Union Strategic Investment Assessment

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Connie Miller recalls an episode of late-night TV when the house band didn’t have a drummer. The host appealed to the audience asking, “Hey, do we have any drummers in the audience?” One man raised his hand, came up on stage, played really well and so launched his career as a professional musician.

“I often wonder how many other drummers were in the audience that talked themselves out of raising their hand rather than stepping into an amazing opportunity,” says Miller, president/CEO of $342 million Icon Credit Union, in the Boise, Idaho, area, and author of Don’t Sabotage Your Career: 11 Power-Filled Steps to Succeed.

In this episode, Miller says her passion is helping people grow. She wrote her book at the encouragement of friends and people in her professional network who had come to her as a 22-year veteran of credit union leadership for advice on their own careers. Miller says some of the advice she gives has to do with helping people change their bad habits.

“I have seen people grow from teller to executive,” Miller explains. “I’ve also seen many employees with expertise, smarts and education but they get passed up for a promotion or other leadership responsibilities because it would be a poor decision to move them into a leadership role” because of poor behavior traits or lack of communication skills.

In this episode, Miller describes several unconscious habits people have that can get in the way of career growth. Here are just two of them:

They’re not fully committed to the organization’s mission. Instead, people who want to grow their careers need to live and breathe what the company stands for. “Unless it is something that is unethical, illegal or immoral,” she says, “you have an obligation to your company to both fulfill its mission and truly be in alignment with your supervisor or your board. When employees try to dig their heels in … because of their personal preferences, it doesn’t bode well in building trust with the leadership and building your career. I am talking about trying to reach the North Star, the same ‘why’ as your leadership. It really sabotages yourself when you’re not striving to be in alignment.”

They avoid difficult but needed conversations. “When you can … build your leadership mantra of creating a culture of open communication, it truly does build trust and accountable teams,” she explains in the show. “And you become very respected, however, most people avoid this. Those same people will the ones who pair off with another employee and gossip. What they don’t realize is that it really hurts their personal brand and it really breaks down trust. You will make a terrible supervisor if you don’t have the courage to talk to your employees about how they can grow.”

The show also gets into:

• Miller’s career growth in the credit union industry
• How the pandemic has shown people how resilient they can be
• The value of reflection for leaders—and prospective book authors
• Tips to help organizational leaders think of you when considering who to choose for a promotion

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The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act or “SECURE” Act that became law on Dec. 20, 2019, includes “many provisions to encourage employers to adopt new (retirement) plans or enhance their current plans and to provide more savings opportunities for employees,” according to Sharon Severson, CPC, consultant with CUESolutions Platinum provider CUNA Mutual Group, Madison, Wisconsin. The act is the largest package of retirement system changes in more than a decade.

Severson says she’s most excited about some of the changes to individual retirement accounts that became effective Jan. 1, 2020, and open multiple-employer plans options that will become effective Jan. 1, 2021.

“The rules governing IRAs impact most individuals at one time or another during their careers,” Severson explains. “Most of us have heard along the way about the age 70.5 or the required minimum distributions. Now those distributions must begin at age 72 instead of age 70.5 if the individual has not already turned 70.5 by 12/31/2019.” 

The upshot is that people who want to can save longer—and that’s a big benefit to people who keep working even in retirement. “This may be helpful for credit unions when assisting their members with their questions about IRAs or for credit unions that offer investment services to members,” Severson notes.

Multiple-employer plans have been around for a long time, but the act creates the opportunity to form a new kind of MEP. “The Act allows for the formation of a 401(k) plan that includes two or more unrelated employers and this plan type is now being referred to as a ‘PEP’, a pooled employer plan,” Severson says, “and hopefully this will allow smaller employers to obtain an economy of scale that can lower both employer and employee costs.”

In the show, Severson says she is glad that the Act expands retirement savings options for certain long-term part-time employees. She also thinks credit unions will also want to learn more about the Act’s changes to the minimum employer contributions for safe harbor plans.

The new Act also provides a pathway for plan participants to receive an annual disclosure of projected monthly income from their retirement savings plan. According to Severson, this disclosure has “been on the Department of Labor’s to-do list” since 2006 and will still take some time to implement. The Department of Labor needs to provide a model disclosure and a set of uniform assumptions that can be used to generate these projections “so that if you move from a plan provider to another plan provider, those projections are relatively stable.”

“Many people don’t know how much (money) they need” for retirement, she explains in the show. “They’re surprised when they get to retirement that their nest egg isn’t really what they needed after they stopped working. The illustration would help participants make adjustments in that savings plan with this information in hand.” 

The show also gets into:

• More details about the new pooled employer plans
• More details about what long-term part-time employees may now participate in retirement savings plans
• More details about the changes to the rules for employer contributions and other aspects of safe harbor 401(k) plans
• Increases in retirement plan penalties
• Suggestions for how to learn more about the SECURE Act
• More details about when the various changes take effect

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When people think about marketing departments, they often think about a group of people that create ads and brochures. But, according to Amy Herbig, the marketing department is, at its core, the “key communicator” for a credit union. And that is a very central and very important role as credit unions respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Everything that is going on right now is being channeled through marketing,” says Herbig, CEO of The BA Group, Northfield, Minnesota, in the show. While every role at the credit union is especially busy right now, “marketing is the catalyst for all that information to be disseminated to the member and to the community at large.”

What’s the key message marketers need to be promoting to the credit union’s stakeholders at present? “We are still a strong, solid financial institution.”

Marketers are also becoming de facto public relations reps, Herbig says, as they manage all of a credit union’s communications channels—from email to social media to the website.

Marketing is always important but it’s currently more critical than ever she says, as it takes care to ensure your information is perceived correctly and to manage any misinformation that is presented to your audience.

Most marketing plans and budgets were approved in December 2019 or January 2020. Then marketing had “two good months of really starting to get off the ground” before everything came to a halt due to the pandemic, Herbig says.

Rather than following their original plan, marketers are “having to now act more on the fly,” she explains. “A good marketer is more proactive than reactive but ready to be reactive when called upon. Currently we’re in a constant state of reactive.”

Indeed, she says that whatever was planned for the marketing focus for a particular month may have to change based on the new landscape. Herbig cites the example of a $210 million credit union that’s managing $7 million coming in from federal stimulus checks. How will that impact its upcoming audit? How will that affect its lending?

A credit union’s top marketers need to be brought into the high-level meetings that consider all of these kinds of issues so they are best positioned to get appropriate messages out to members and the community, Herbig emphasizes.

The show also gets into:

• Considerations for copyrighting during this uncertain time
• The importance of making sure the credit union is prepared to deliver on any messages put out to members or the community
• Examples of what credit unions are currently doing to reach out to members
• The current effectiveness of the CU philosophy “people helping people”

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When Tim Green first heard—back in January—the news about the spread of COVID-19 overseas, he decided to lead his credit union to prepare for a scenario in which the disease would shut down the whole county where his credit union is located.

He says he thought at the time that if the situation turned out to be less dire, his team would still benefit from the exercise. When Los Angeles County, California, did in fact close down, Tim and his team at $1.8 billion F&A Federal Credit Union in Monterey Park were more ready than most businesses.

Having antennae out to market signals and being open to responding to them is a hallmark of great leadership. And yet Green is most humble in this show. CEO for just about 13 months, he is grateful to his board for their support of this initiative. He’s grateful to other financial institutions for the ideas he “stole” from them and adapted to best suit his credit union.

Green explains in the show that one of the first things he started working on when he joined the credit union was operational readiness—determining what was effective and what wasn’t in terms of people, systems and processes. A key thing he found was that “we were very adept at disaster recovery, but what also became pretty apparent was that our business continuity planning was not where we wanted it to be.”

In January, when the focus narrowed to preparing for the closure scenario, “we really went through it in a sequential way. We ordered a bunch of equipment. … The processes were tested. We tested in our training environment, then we moved people remotely. By the time we got to the first week in March, we were really ready to handle this and operate 90% of the core credit union functions remotely.

“Once we had operational readiness,” he continues, “… the first thing we needed to do was think, ‘How are we doing to take care of our members?’” Among other programs, the CU offers members financially affected by COVID-19 enhanced skip-a-pay and a short-term assistance loan.

A third leg of the stool was employees. “We were able to move about 75% of our back-office staff out of the building (the CU has two branches) and about 70%” of all staff, he explains. “We gave everybody on the team below vice president a free week of PTO … and immediately the goodwill started to flow back from our employees."

The CU closed its headquarters branch to walk-in traffic to better protect staff. The other branch has a bandit barrier between staff and members. The credit union also is paying branch workers a short-term 30% raise and catering lunch daily, so staff don’t have to leave the building to pick up food.

“Because we were ready to serve operationally, we were then able to really reach out and provide tangible benefit to our membership, simultaneously demonstrating a commitment to our employees that had carried us through thus far.”

The show also gets into:

• How Green’s risk management background informed his credit union’s response
• The thing that has worked best for F&A FCU in its pandemic response
• How F&A FCU’s response reflected its values--what its leadership thought was the right thing to do
• What F&A FCU might do next in its pandemic response effort
• Green’s concerns about the economic recovery and helping members through that

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Early on in this show, Nick Coleman explains why he’s passionate about his work as the director of strategic relationships for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. He also describes the longtime support credit unions have offered CMNH. While those stories alone are compelling enough reasons to listen to this show, this episode of the CUES Podcast also goes on to talk very practically “cause marketing” and how charitable donation accounts can support it.

Coleman defines “cause marketing” as the way an organization directs its marketing efforts both to ramp up and to highlight the good it’s doing in its community. As an example, he tells a story about a credit union in the Midwest that’s rallying youth hockey players in its community to do fundraising to support kids with disabilities and complex medical needs.

Cause marketing “is a great strategy to build affinity with both members and employees,” Coleman says. “Plus, it showcases to non-members and your community the value that a credit union brings.” He cites a figure that 79% of consumers expect an organization they do business with to actively strive to do more to support their local communities. In addition, he says, 74% of people say their job is more fulfilling when they are provided an opportunity to make a positive impact. 

In this episode, Bruce Bauer, executive benefits specialist from CUESolutions provider CUNA Mutual Group, describes his participation in an advisory committee meeting for Credit Unions for Kids, a credit union industry organization that supports Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. He presented to that group’s Orange County, California, chapter about how charitable donation accounts could be used by each of the participating credit unions to possibly add additional donations to their efforts.

More specifically, Bauer told the advisory group, and explains in the show, the National Credit Union Administration allows credit unions to expand their investment opportunities to help their charitable giving when they use charitable donation accounts as the vehicle. CUs can invest up to 5% of their net worth into a wide range of investments that are permissible with a CDA. 

“When they do that investment and they get earnings from that investment, 51% of those earnings, of that total return, have to go back into a 501(c)3 charity,” Bauer says. “That’s where CUs for Kids falls into place. The remaining 49% of that investment’s earnings can stay right with the credit union.

“We’ve seen enormous growth with this opportunity—about 127% growth in the last year in investments into CDAs. Interestingly enough … more than half the contributions of those earnings from CDAs we have out there go to CUs for Kids. … So if we can find a way to enhance their investment portfolio to earn some additional dollars through this regulation it’s going to provide additional dollars that CUs for Kids and other charitable organizations can benefit from.”

The show also gets into:

• What credit unions are eligible to do CDAs (all federal credit unions and state-chartered organizations; some need approval from the state)
• The kinds of investments credit unions can use with a CDA
• Some examples of how CDAs have been used by credit unions
• The impact of current market volatility due to coronavirus on CDAs
• How supporting 501(c)3 organizations will be increasingly important as the world tries to find a new normal in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic
• Tips for doing cause marketing

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Being able to demonstrate a member-centric culture at your credit union during a crisis like the current coronavirus pandemic is evidence that you are customer-centric, Carrie Stapp says to lead off this episode.

It’s “not just 'Are we friendly?' and 'Do we have the right technology?' but 'Are we really set up as an industry to help our members and to help our communities adapt in these times of uncertainty and to be able to do as much of their business as usual?'” says Stapp, SVP/product management for the marketing services division of CUES Supplier member Harland Clarke, San Antonio, Texas, the sponsor of this show.

Stapp’s colleague, Jeff Hassemer, SVP/marketing, adds: “If we define being member-centric as 1) being always on, 2) staying at the top of your members’ minds and 3) delivering a positive personalized experience everywhere every time, in a sense, the thing that changes in a crisis like this is the message. It’s not necessarily about how you contact them or what you say or what apps you use…, it really is about you being able to understand what the mindset of the member is right now and delivering the right message to them and the right story that needs to be told.”

Crises aside, Hassemer recommends taking using data-driven techniques to deploy information across all of a credit union’s channels to enable speaking to members in a relevant and meaningful way.

Stapp reminds listeners in this episode that a truly holistic approach to customer experience looks at consumers even before they ever become members. This is “not just about the account opening experience but really breaking it down and looking at the consumer and bringing that holistic view” into everything the credit union does.

There’s a lot of buzz about customer and member experience in the financial services world today. Hassemer says that’s because we’re entering a world in which customer experience is the only true differentiator.

“You can try and compete on products and services, although I think it’s very difficult in the financial services industry to do that. Most of that becomes very commoditized. There’s only so much free checking or toasters that you can give away to get people in the door. Your product differentiation is kind of gone.

“We’re also facing an unprecedented amount of competition in financial services. Not only are we getting competition from … the mortgage lenders or the auto lenders, … but we also have just as much competition coming in from the technology organizations, these new fintech startups that are coming through.

“The only way to stave that off is to have a uniquely strong customer experience to your members and make sure that relationship you’ve built with them withstands that test of all these other organizations trying to come in and steal them away from you.”

The show also gets into:

• Examples of what a person’s first interaction with a credit union might look like
• What expectations other companies are setting for customer experience
• Steps for putting a superior customer experience in place
• How credit unions can assess where they are with their customer experience efforts
• Areas of customer experience in which credit unions excel—plus where they can improve
• How to measure the “return on experience”
• The future of customer experience

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$4.8 billion MSU Federal Credit Union, E. Lansing, Michigan, hires about 10 new staff members a month. The first question these employees tend to ask the organization’s president/CEO is, “When is everyone going to stop saying ‘hi’ to me?” or “When is it going to be real?”

That president/CEO, CUES member April Clobes, explains in this episode of the CUES Podcast how she responds to such questions: “I tell them, ‘Nope, that’s the daily real. It continues if you continue it. How will you greet the next group of new employees?”

Clobes says the credit union makes a concerted effort to have a stand-out culture—one that will both attract and retain employees. Something must be working because, in February, MSU FCU was named as one of the top 100 workplaces for women by Fortune magazine for the third consecutive year. It also has received numerous other awards for being a great place to work and its community involvement.

“I get a lot of questions from employees about our culture and worrying that it’s going to change,” Clobes says in this episode. “Our culture continues to exist because we all add value to it. My role isn’t to be the full owner of the culture. But my role is to ensure that the culture and the values we set for our organization remain intact. I may have the hard job of saying, ‘We can’t do this,’ because it doesn’t reflect on our values and add to our culture. I have to ensure that we don’t let the edges erode.”

In the episode, Clobes emphasizes that she believes MSU FCU is a great workplace for women because it is—by design—a great workplace for everyone.

For example, MSU FCU supports resource groups for various populations among the staff, including African-Americans, members of the LGBTQIA community and working moms.

“Those groups come together under employee leadership to make sure that we have programs and processes that are supportive of every person at the organization—so make sure we’re using clarifying language that is not skewed for one gender or another or one background or another or one ethnic group or another,” Clobes explains. “We really work with the employees to have diversity and inclusion be very important to our organization.

“I think that translates in terms of being recognized as a great place to work for women,” she adds. “In my time working at the credit union, there’s always been more women employees here. I think the nature of the credit union industry attracts women for employment. Maybe what’s different at our organization … is that we have for a large credit union a reasonably high number of women in leadership positions. That comes from a philosophy of the board and my predecessor and myself that each person has an equal opportunity to be successful, so women have always been included. They’ve always been elevated to leadership. They’ve always been promoted. I think that translates to having more women in leadership and visibly shows employees that you also can achieve that role and success.”

The show also gets into:

• The work involved in continuously cultivating a great culture
• MSU FCU’s attractive-to-employees compensation and benefits programs
• Why Clobes thinks the credit union industry as a whole is a great place to work
• A book Clobes recommends
• The value of reflection in leadership

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CUES partnered with CUES Supplier member Currency to offer the annual CUES Next Top Credit Union Exec contest for almost a decade.

But last year CUES and Currency took a year-long pause to make sure the program was keeping pace with CUES and how the organization is living out its mission to educate and develop credit union CEOs, executives, directors and future leaders.

“We had a fantastic nine-year run,” says Tim McAlpine, president and creative director of Currency, Chilliwack, British Columbia of the Next Top Credit Union Exec contest. “But just like any good business…, it’s worthwhile to stop and say, ‘What could we improve?’ And rather than doing a minor tweak we, including CUES, Currency and especially John Pembroke your CEO, said … ‘We’ve changed so much at CUES this program should keep step with what we’re doing.’”

McAlpine describes in this podcast how some participants in the Next Top Credit Union Exec contest would say they were looking forward to taking advantage of CUES professional development offerings after the contest was over—they were just too busy with contest items to do so right away. In their revamping of the offering, CUES and Currency looked to put education and development up front—and CUES Emerge does just that.

CUES Emerge will be accepting applications through March 10, McAlpine notes. From those applications, 30 participants will be chosen. Participants will be signed up for three CUES Elite Access courses and three “mastermind” sessions, through which they’ll develop a business case submission and become eligible to earn the Certified Credit Union Manager (CCM) designation.

If they wish, participants can ask to enter their developed cases into the competition phase of the program—which comes after this education phase, McAlpine explains. Five finalists will be selected, given coaching and mentorship. Three will be selected to win the prize of attendance at CUES School of Applied Strategic Management™, April 27-30 in Orlando, which awards the Certified Senior Executive (CSE) designation to its graduates. Finally, the ultimate winner will be selected and will win the prize of attendance at CEO/Executive Team Network Nov. 2-4 in Austin, Texas.

The show also gets into:

• Specifics of the highly relevant topics and the outstanding instructors that will lead the CUES Elite Access courses that are part of the CUES Emerge program
• Details about the mastermind courses included in the CUES Emerge program
• How participation in the CUES Emerge program is not limited by age
• Currency’s “It’s a Money Thing” offering
• The history of the Next Top Credit Union Exec contest, the precursor to CUES Emerge

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Credit union boards are becoming more interested in whether their composition mirrors that of their memberships. And their memberships are becoming more diverse with time.

So, it’s not surprising that more than half of the respondents to the survey for the new State of Credit Union Governance 2020 report said they’re looking for demographic diversity. This and many other governance topics are discussed in this most recent episode of the CUES Podcast.

“This signals a bit of a shift,” says Michael Daigneault, CCD, founder and president of CUES strategic provider for governance Quantum Governance, Herndon, Virginia, and a co-author of the study. “Traditionally, we’d often hear financial literacy, ability to understand the financials …. Of course, some kind of specific operational expertise and financial expertise or professional services expertise can be quite handy. But this year we heard something that we think is very important ... the No. 1 response from folks all across the country was that they were looking for demographic diversity. Fifty-three percent of folks said when they’re looking for board members that’s what they’re looking for. And 51% said that they’re looking for the ability to focus on the future.”

“Both of these were higher than financial literacy and the various different types of specific operational or professional services expertise that people traditionally look for,” adds Daigneault, who will present at the 2020 Execu/Summit, March 8-13, Park City, Utah, and at the 2020 Director Development Seminar, July 15-17, Montreal, QC.

Report co-author Matt Fullbrook, manager of the David & Sharon Johnston Centre for Corporate Governance Innovation at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management underscored this idea that boards are now looking for a new set of skills in their new directors.

“When we look at, on the one hand, the question of ‘What are credit union boards focusing on when recruiting,’ we often find … ‘resume skills,’” says Fullbrook, a faculty member at CUES Governance Leadership Institute™, June 7-10, Toronto, and lead presenter for Board Chair Development Seminar, July 13-14, Montreal, QC. By “resume skills,” Fullbrook means hard, measurable abilities. “But when we compare those to what actually make a director useful or valuable once they step in the board room, the skills look a little bit different.

“In fact, we see a much stronger focus on soft skills or interpersonal skills,” he explains. “So, what floated to the top was, in fact, an ability to focus on the future. Following that was independent-mindedness that we defined as ‘not being afraid to go against the crowd, a lack of groupthink.’

“Behind that, we have financial literacy and a strong understanding of the membership, both of which, of course, are not surprising to anyone who would sit in a credit union board room,” he notes. “Following that we have consensus-building.

“So, it’s a really strong emphasis when we’re asking about what makes directors effective. The emphasis is on soft interpersonal skills and the ability to help lead your team toward effective decision-making.”

The show also gets into:

• Elements of renewal your board may be getting wrong
• The role of the chair and the spectrum of training chairs undertake
• Confidence the CEO and the board have in the board’s work

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The National Credit Union Administration allows credit unions to make certain “otherwise impermissible,” potentially higher-yielding investments that carry additional risk when credit unions set up certain kinds of programs, including the following:

• total benefits pre-funding—which helps credit unions offset the rising cost of staff benefits;
• charitable donation accounts—which require that 51% of the earnings on an investment of up to 5% of the CU’s net worth go to 501(c)3 charities;
• and 457(f) plans—which are retirement programs than can help CUs recruit, incent and retain key employees.

“When we build those plans, open those … accounts, we need funding vehicles,” says Bruce Bauer, executive benefits specialist with CUESolutions platinum provider CUNA Mutual Group, Madison, Wisconsin, in the early part of this show. “One of the funding vehicles we use is City National Rochdale and their managed portfolios.” The company has become “a very strong partner for us. I believe we have over $1.2 billion with them right now.”

Matthew Peron, chief investment officer, City National Rochdale, New York, says his firm is a boutique investment manager known for handling specialized and complex cases for high net worth investors and institutions. The firm manages assets of more than $40 billion. 

“Our investment posture is a little different, Peron says in the show. “We’re very attuned to crafting investment allocations, solutions if you will, for the needs of our clients who can be very different. … Our solutions that we provide … are able to tailor to the specific needs of clients.”

When City National Rochdale works with a credit union, it starts by understanding the plan that CUNA Mutual has put in place and also partners with the credit union’s executive team and sometimes its board to understand how they’re running the business and what might be unique to that credit union’s situation.

“All of our portfolios are customized,” explains Russell Martin, portfolio manager with City National Rochdale. “We do not use model portfolios. Each asset allocation or the individual instruments that we use in those portfolios may vary across all of the credit unions that we manage money for.” 

But generally speaking, these plans can be grouped into two broad categories, Martin adds: 

1. Total benefit prefunding accounts and the charitable donation accounts tend to be a little more conservative in their investment strategies, with fewer equity investments (stocks) and more fixed-income investments (bonds). The stock component tends to include more conservative, less volatile, high dividend stocks that get their return through cash flow and don’t rely as heavily on price appreciation as do many of the growth stocks in the market.

2. Investments for 457 plans tend to be more balanced between equity and fixed income. These tend to have a blend of the high dividend stocks and the growth stocks.

“The overlay on all of this is understanding the financial statements and the accounting methods that each credit union uses,” he notes. 

The show also gets into: 

• How credit unions are working with the new accounting rules regarding how their investment portfolios impact their income statements and balance sheets
• The state of the current economy in the United States
• What credit unions might be able to do to expand investment options in this low interest-rate environment

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Creativity is a skill that can be taught, asserts Beta Mannix, Ph.D., in the latest episode of the CUES Podcast.

“There are techniques that we can use to teach people how to be more creative,” explains Mannix, Ann Whitney Olin professor of management at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, and a lead faculty member for CEO Institute II. For example, teaching team members how to do “structured brainstorming” can help foster creativity.

Overall company culture also plays a role in team creativity, Mannix emphasizes. More specifically, to promote creativity, a company’s culture needs to embrace generating lots of possibilities rather than finding that one right answer.

In addition, supporting innovation supports creativity. In the episode, Mannix defines both creativity and innovation and explains the link between them. 

The simplest way to define creativity is as generating the idea itself, she says. “As an example, [think of] the first person who came up with the drive-up window or the ATM. That person was creative.” Innovation, she continues, the implementation of that creative idea.

“So, when people come up with new and creative ideas,” she continues, “it’s important to actually be willing to implement or experiment with them. We have to be willing to have both things happening—creativity and innovation at the same time.”

Not surprisingly, to foster creativity, it has to be recognized by team members as a priority in the organization. That means that as leaders, “we have to make time for it,” Mannix says in the show. “We have to reward it and recognize it.” 

The show also gets into:

• Companies that do a good job of fostering creativity
• The best model for creativity
• The link between creativity and strategy
• Other factors that support creativity, such as the physical environment

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As new generations continue to mature into the financial services marketplace, the demand for a digital-first customer experience has risen to the forefront. But there is still room at the table for direct mail. 

One of our guests—Robert Dudacek, president/CEO of CUES Supplier member Franklin Madison based in Franklin, Tennessee—elaborates early on about the top reason credit unions should use direct mail.

“When you think about physical mail, it creates a type of engagement that is uniquely different than what a member would experience through digital,” he says. “It’s something that’s tangible. It’s tactile. It’s something they can hold. … It’s just such a great way to reinforce that brand loyalty. They see the logo in a form that they can recognize. I think a high percentage of members actually read their mail every day compared to email.

Dudacek says good direct mail has some key features: It’s personalized and relevant to the recipient. It’s got brand affinity and respects the recipient as a member of that brand’s affinity group. It also gets right to the point.

Michael Brooks adds that, as a professional in this arena, he appreciates direct mail that follows up with a digital. Brooks is senior market strategy analyst for Franklin Madison, which builds member security by delivering industry-leading insurance products and marketing services through its brand partners—and is the sponsor of this show.

“If I see something come through my front door … tailored to me … then they also follow up that messaging with something that … is consistent with that messaging in the digital space, I appreciate that.”

Another reason the show identifies for using direct mail is that people of all ages read it. 

“We send out millions of pieces of mail each month,” Dudacek explains, “and have very sophisticated analytics … so we know not only who we’ve been able to send mail out to but who responds. … when we look at the data, we don’t see big difference in engagement across the age ranges and the demographics. … about two-thirds of all of all direct mail is opened and that’s across all segments … millennials tend to have about the same rate as other generations do. … We found that 84% of millennials look through their mail on a regular basis … and 64% actually prefer physical mail to digital.”

The show also gets into:

• How direct mail and other channels can work together
• Four key elements of successful direct mail that brings a return on your investment
• Suggestions for credit unions starting out in direct mail
• Direct mail in 2020 and beyond

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Almost 40 years ago, Susan Fowler saw something on TV that made her become a vegetarian overnight. This was significant, because at the time Fowler loved meat and had a pot of fat on her stove because “everything tasted better with animal fat.”

After her switch, people would say to her, “You are so disciplined about being vegetarian.” But Fowler said becoming and staying vegetarian didn’t require any discipline at all.

“I thought, ‘Why is that?’” she says in episode 81 of the CUES Podcast. “There were other things in my life that I couldn’t change that I wanted to change. I realized that motivation is at the heart of everything we do and don’t do but wish we did. I went on a quest for understanding motivation.”

Today Fowler, who will speak at CUES Symposium: A CEO/Chairman Exchange, Feb. 9-13, 2020, in Hawaii, is a world-renowned expert in the science of motivation. She’s the author of the best-selling book, Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work and What Does, and most recently released Master Your Motivation: Three Scientific Truths for Achieving Your Goals. She’s also co-author with Ken Blanchard of Self Leadership and One-Minute Manager.

During the episode, Fowler explains why she thinks motivation is a skill. She describes how leaders can help their teams find their own motivational outlooks during change initiatives or projects. And, she defines the spectrum of motivation outlooks, from three that are suboptimal to three that are better.

On the optimal side of the spectrum is the “aligned motivational outlook”—a key one for organizations because it involves helping employees connect their own values to the goals they’re being asked to achieve at work or the changes they’re being asked to implement.

“People can align really important values that they have, not just the values of the organization, to the changes that are taking place or the goals they’re being asked to achieve,” Fowler explains in the show. “Leaders can facilitate that understanding by having values conversations with people. Most credit unions have values (that they put on plaques or cards). But then they stop there and don’t ask the individuals working in the credit union, “What are your values?” “How do your values align to our values?” and “How do your values align to what we’re asking you to do?”

The show also gets into:

• How leaders can facilitate a shift to optimal motivation
• The integrated motivational outlook and the inherent motivational outlooks
• How transformational leadership makes the difference in connecting employees’ values with organizational values
• How to have motivation conversations
• The importance to motivation of recognizing you have choices
• The importance to motivation of connections with other people
• The importance to motivation of being open to learning

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When it comes to funding an executive benefits plan, choosing the right investment for the right person and your credit union means knowing both the needs of your executive and your organization’s risk tolerance, says Ramsay Ellis, executive benefits specialist with CUESolutions Platinum provider CUNA Mutual Group, Madison, Wisconsin.

Knowing your executive and your organization might be the easy part. Comparing various plans and funding sources can be tricky because various providers represent rates and returns in somewhat different ways, Ellis explains.

Rates and returns are key things to try to compare benefits plans and funding investments “apple to-apples.” A second key consideration for making a good comparison of plans on an equal basis is overall expenses associated with a particular investment account.

“The fee that’s being charged in a managed account is charged quarterly and is very transparent,” Ellis explained. “You see it coming out of the account and know exactly what the charge is, down to the penny.

“Where it can get fuzzy is the use of mutual funds, exchange traded funds,” he continues. “Those are types of investments that have internal fees and costs that are not transparent. … If the mutual fund charges 1% a year, they’ll take 1/365th of 1% out of the value of the account every day.”

Ellis says he has seen credit unions mutual funds and exchange traded funds inside of a managed account with a 1% wrap fee. “When you look at a managed account charging a wrap fee that also holds investments that have internal expenses—such as an exchange traded fund or other type of mutual fund, in reality you’re paying two levels of expense.”

The show also gets into:

• What permanent whole life insurance is, and why it's commonly used for split-dollar life insurance plan
• How providers illustrate their executive benefits plans
• Who at a credit union gets most involved in sorting out the finer details of executive benefits plans
• What other expenses credit unions might want to look for when setting up an executive benefits plans
• What executives besides the CEO a CU might want to put an executive benefits plan in place for—and why they might want to do this
• How plans for a CEO and other executives might be different
• When to use a split-dollar plan and when to use a 457(f) plan

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True or false? The asset size of a credit union largely dictates the success of a security and education awareness program.

According to CUES podcast guest Ray Murphy, CRISC, this statement is definitely false. “Regardless of size, each credit union can have a world-class information security program,” he says in this episode.

Chief information security officer and cyber security advisor for LEO Cyber Security, a CUES strategic provider, Murphy previously built out the information security program at $106 billion Navy Federal Credit Union, Vienna, Virginia. Before working at Navy FCU, Murphy’s tenure at Mobile Oil exposed him to every facet of information security—from desktop and mainframe to PCs, voice operations and even executive support.

In the show, Murphy identifies some of the biggest challenges credit unions face every day: ransomware, which holds an organization’s system hostage in expectation of a ransom payment, and business email compromise, a particular type of phishing attack that tries to trick employees into clicking on a link to release malware that will take over a company’s network. 

“One of the things that organizations need to be focused on is to make sure they have a very robust incident response plan so they’re prepared … so they know what to do,” Murphy says. “If you have a threat that comes to fruition within your organization, time is of the essence.”

In this episode, Murphy also talks about the importance of securing cloud computing, having a good insider threat program and managing the regulatory environment—especially as it relates to protecting member privacy.

The show also gets into:

• Steps organizations can take to educate employees and increase their level of awareness
• The reasons why every credit union needs an incident response plan
• The risks of not having an incident response plan
• Key elements of an incident response plan
• Why all employees need to be involved in securing members’ data
• The role of communication and leadership in cybersecurity

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Stephen Comer believes simplifying the work of his company’s credit union clients so those client CUs can, in turn, make life easier for their members.

Director of financial services and insurance sales at Hyland Software Inc., Westlake, Ohio, Steve Comer talks in this episode about how to better connect all the “core systems” in a credit union to all the “content” needed to use those systems to do a good job for members. Hyland Onbase is a CUESolutions provider for enterprise information platforms and the sponsor of this podcast.

In the show, Comer defines “core system” as the core technology tool used by each credit union business area. For example, the “core system” in lending would likely be the loan origination system.

Comer defines content as “all of the information that makes it possible to do your business and do it effectively.” So, in the case of lending, the content could include an appraisal, the loan application, all the standard mortgage process documents, all the documents provided by the member plus data that lives in other business systems.

“A really good content services provider is going to be able to connect all these different siloes of information and bring them all together to one central point,” he says. The aim of enterprise content management is to “have this holistic view of the entire transaction and all the people that are involved in the transaction, and find the most effective way to bring these, we’ll say, ‘broken’ pieces of information into one cohesive place.”

Comer says connecting core and content creates an “immediate uptick in overall satisfaction with the transaction.”

“Anywhere in a process that you can connect information faster, the end result is that you are able to be more responsive to your member,” Comer explains. He says this idea is popularly applied to lending processes—for example, to make the time to decision shorter—but can be used to improve many other processes that impact member service at the credit union as well.

Having an enterprise content management system is another layer of technology, Comer says, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, most small to mid-size organizations have 300 to 1,000 different software applications to drive their businesses. Any one of those applications can be to generate data and documents, but when all these pieces of information live in disconnected, disjointed systems, “it becomes very hard to make effective decisions in a timely matter,” he explains. “It becomes very hard to get access to all the information that’s required to drive in order the business forward.

“A tool like a content service platform is designed to be … the glue that connects the systems together … so that you can have a more cohesive view of what your business is doing in its entirety.”

The show also gets into:

• More details on the day-to-day application of an enterprise content management system
• What credit unions can do to support efforts to integrate information across the organization
• Best practices used by Hyland client credit unions
• What’s next in the ECM arena (not surprisingly, it has to do with artificial intelligence!)

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Using data from the CUES Executive Compensation Survey is a great way to benchmark your credit union’s base salary and bonus packages—and make sure you’re paying within the strategy your organization has set forth, says Michael Becher, CPA. 

Some credit unions decide to pay at the market average, explains Becher, vice president of Industry Insights, Dublin, Ohio, which works with CUES to produce the survey. Other credit unions choose to be market leaders in compensation to help them attract and retain the best talent available.

“With the way the economy is now, with job surpluses and the like, having this information (market compensation data) is just vital in terms of putting together a compensation package that’s competitive in today’s environment,” Becher says in the show. 

Becher and Industry Insights started working with CUES on both the CUES Executive Compensation Survey and the CUES Employee Salary Survey in 2014, working to improve the surveys year over year to provide the best possible data to credit unions.

This year, the key trend in the CUES Executive Compensation Survey is that compensation grew, but at a somewhat lesser pace than in previous years.

“For the past few years, we’ve seen really, really strong growth in terms of compensation levels in the credit union industry,” Becher explains. “What we have seen this year is just a slight drawback.”

Whereas typical increases for the various positions included in the survey in previous years might have increased 6, 7 or 8%, he says, this year the increases might have been only 5, 6 or 7%. That’s “not necessarily a bad thing,” he notes, especially since credit union compensation is “still outpacing a lot of compensation increases in other industries.”

There’s not an exact reason for this trend, Becher adds, noting that it most likely has to do with the uncertainty in the economy. Economists keep saying “‘next year we’re going to see a dip,’ ‘next year we’re going to see a dip,’ ‘next year we’re going to see a dip,’ but that dip hasn’t happened yet.” 

“We’re in a weird spot right now because there are these indicators saying … things are going to go down, but then we have seen historic unemployment rates being lower than anything we’ve seen since 1969 … and job surpluses that reach new highs,” he continues. “There’s these other signs saying … there’s a lot of room to grow. So, there’s a lot of uncertainty … Are we going to go up? Are we going to go down? … People don’t want to get caught with not being prepared.”

In the episode Becher also weighs in on:

• Base salary vs. bonus compensation and how uncertainty in the economy impacts the decision about which to increase in a given year and by how much
• Notable data for CEOs and other executives (top mortgage and business lending executives) from this year’s survey
• New data being collected on the survey about gender
• Turnover trends and the importance of succession planning
• How to effectively use compensation data
• How to discern whether you have good data

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2018 CUES Distinguished Director James Sackett joins the show to discuss his own onboarding as a millennial director at $1.3 billion Firefly Credit Union, Burnsville, Minnesota—and to offer additional ideas you can use for your own efforts.

Now vice chair of the board at Firefly CU, Sackett’s interest in credit unions started early. His father was a credit union director while Sackett was growing up—and still is to this day. “There was always CUES swag and credit union swag around the house,” he quips. “I’ve always known about them (credit unions) and loved them. Taking next steps in my career, I knew I wanted to be involved in some way and also thought I had a lot to offer. When I moved to Minneapolis, I joined Firefly Credit Union … reached out and inquired about the board and started the process.”

In the episode, Sackett shares quite a few reasons CUs can get by having younger board members: 

·       Diversity of perspective—diverse thought generates more robust strategies

·       Bench strength—longer tenured board starts to move on

·       Future leadership—companies that really have success in the long term bring future leaders in a level or two below where they want them to ultimately to be working

·       Other value: representation of a target market—the millennial demographic is a very large group!

He also shares his thoughts about the value of board members with a great deal of experience, like his father: things they’ve seen during their tenure such as the impact of the economic cycle.

What else does Sackett recommend when it comes to recruiting younger board members?

·       Do something!

·       Begin with the end in mind—know what skills and perspective you’re looking for

·       Use tools like LinkedIn and local universities to locate people

·       Contemplate what it’s like to volunteer for your credit union’s board—is it conducive to younger board members?

·       Re-examine your meeting materials—are they online? Should they be?

·       Get the message out that people can get involved in volunteerism at your credit union

·       Talk about the mutually beneficial nature of the role—the credit union benefits from good leadership, the community benefits from a strong credit union and the leadership experience can aid a younger director’s career development as well

Interestingly, being a millennial is not on Sackett’s list of critical traits for directors. If a credit union is recruiting young people just to check a box, it’s not worth the effort. Having life experience, being able to do critical thinking and having perspective that a person is ready to offer up at the board meeting are fair more important. Intellectual curiosity is also helpful, he notes. 

“You need to be … willing to learn and see what’s coming down the pipe,” he explains. “It ties in with the perspective piece in having that interest in looking ahead and learning.”

The show also gets into:

·       Where to find younger board members

·       Biggest challenge credit unions face in recruiting younger board members

·       Board assessments

·       Board orientation and retention

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This episode’s guest has a professional mantra that aligns well with CUES’ mission of developing credit union CEOs, executives, board members and future leaders. Eric Earle, executive benefits advisor for CUESolutions provider CUNA Mutual Group, Madison, Wisconsin, says the idea he lives by in his work is: “People make good decisions when they’re well informed.”

In this episode, Earle talks about how more credit unions are establishing benefits plans to help retain existing CEOs and C-suite executives—and to recruit new ones when necessary.

“Competition for executive talent has intensified in recent years and as a result we have seen a number of credit unions put executive benefit plans in place,” he says in the show.

During the episode, Earle describes board oversight of a credit union’s executive benefits.

“A credit union’s board of directors is ultimately responsible for the establishment of an executive benefit plan,” he notes. “However, many boards will task their personnel committee with the responsibility of designing the benefit plan to be mutually beneficial for the executive and the credit union membership as a whole.

“It’s usually more efficient for a subset of the board to evaluate the benefit plans, determine the right mix of benefits and make a recommendation to the full board for approval—rather than having all of the board members involved in the process," he adds.

Earle is sensitive to the fact that some credit union board members don’t have experience with benefits plans or investments and that can make it challenging for them to take on learning about or implementing these plans. In the show, Earle identifies some key questions he gets asked, including:

· Why should we provide additional benefits to our CEO when she already earns way more than our average member? How do we know if an executive benefit plan is really right for our credit union?

· Are we paying our senior leaders appropriately?

· Can my credit union afford to provide additional benefits for our CEO?

Listen to the show to hear his answers! The episode also gets into:

· Two specific examples of how executive benefits plans might not be so expensive as credit union leaders might initially anticipate

· Several best practices for boards that want to learn about executive benefits and, ultimately, make a prudent decision

“There’s a lot of great resources out there to help credit union boards do their due diligence,” Earle says. “But the most important thing is that they actually do it—that they actually take their time to evaluate their options. And, going back to my mantra, when people are well-informed, they make good decisions.”

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Jimese Harkley, CUDE, CUES’ VP/membership, previously our guest on episode 67, returns to the show to talk about the 90-day free trial of CUES Unlimited membership that’s available through Oct. 31 to HR and training professionals. The free trial is designed to boost knowledge about what CUES membership benefits can do for your credit union

CUES’ 2013 Next Top Credit Union Exec, Harkley is passionate about the new CUES membership structure and how it helps credit unions and professionals in the industry. In the show she talks about why $2.5 billion Provident Credit Union, Redwood City, California, added 400 people to its roster of CUES members.

“CUES and what we have to offer for our membership just stood out” to the CU’s VP/training, Harkley says. The CU made “CUES U a benefit for staff, just like retirement benefits and health care benefits.” It also is making CUES benefits and learning and development “a huge part” of its onboarding process.

In all, “it’s been extremely enlightening to see how orgs are excited about leveraging the benefits for their development needs,” Harkley says.

She’s equally passionate about the value of the free trial so more credit unions can come on board with CUES membership. “Everyone deserves to hear and learn about these wonderful changes that we’ve made,” she emphasizes.

In the show, she details the answers to key questions about the offer, including:

· Who is eligible? (HR or training leaders whose credit unions have no current membership relationship with CUES)

· How long does it last? (90 days)

· What’s included? (all the benefits of CUES Unlimited membership, including access to CUES Learning Portal and exclusive CUES members-only guides, including Director Onboarding Toolkit)

· How long will the trials be offered? (through Oct. 31)

· How hard is it to sign up for the free trial? (It’s easy! Simply visit our website. One the right side, click the orange box that says, “HR Professionals—Try CUES membership FREE for 90 days, submit the form and someone from membership at CUES will contact you)

“I’ve grown up in the CU industry with CUES being closely by my side,” Harkley adds. “I was the 2013 NTCUE and through that process I’ve learned so much and gained access to so many new benefits. In joining CUEs last year as an employee, really listening about what CUES expected to do with the member benefits. … I wish I’d had this tool to help me sharpen my skills in certain areas of the business world.”

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A lot of work and preparation goes on before a credit union board interviews a candidate it is considering as a possible next CEO.

The board has considered multiple resumes, decided what questions to ask (and which director will ask them), and oftentimes spent time consulting with an executive search consultant. The candidate has gathered a wealth of experience, gone through such key development opportunities as CEO Institute, and committed to taking his or her career to a whole new level.

If you are the interviewee, how can you hit the ball out of the park in your interview for the top job? In this episode, you’ll get guidance from Deedee Myers, Ph.D., and Peter Myers. They are CEO and SVP, respectively, of DDJ Myers, Phoenix, CUESolutions provider for succession planning, executive recruitment, leadership coaching. Both Deedee and Peter have supported many CEO searches.

Deedee emphasizes early in the show that the point of a first-round interview is to get the second-round interview. “It’s not to get the job, it’s to get through the gate,” she says.

Peter says preparing for the interview should include a deep dive into the organization conducting the interview. Looking at that CU’s National Credit Union Administration past and current call reports is a good step.

“What really high-caliber candidates do is they paint a picture of where [the organization has] come from leading up to the current state,” he explains. He also suggests asking any executive search consultant involved in the process about the board members, their hot buttons and the CU’s business model.

Lastly, have some open-ended questions you want to ask the board, like what they are afraid of, he advises. “You want to ask questions that the board might have to think about or even talk about among themselves.”

The show also gets into:

• Insights about how a CEO interview will likely flow
• The role of the executive search consultant during the interview
• Tips for candidates giving a presentation during an interview
• Why internal candidates should prepare as if they were external candidates
• How to handle awkward silences that might occur during an interview
• Signs an interview is going well

Links:
DDJ Myers
CUESolutions
CUES Leadership Development Guide
CEO Institute

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Many mainstream credit unions have long thought that community development financial institution status wasn’t something they could or should consider. Our guest, Jamie Strayer, ICUDE, would beg to differ.

Founder of CU Strategic Planning, Tacoma, Washington, Strayer says CDFI status is a great thing for CUs’ ROA, members and communities, as well as for U.S. taxpayers. Strayer knows a lot about it because she has helped CUs get $103 million in CDFI funding in the last 10 years.

“That funding produced $5 billion in loans that the credit unions otherwise would not have done,” she explains. “High-yield lending with every penny covered by loan loss reserves drives ROA. 

“And this is where is gets really good,” she adds. “That ROA allows them to grow faster. They can accept more deposits while preserving their net worth. When they approve those loans, people tell their friends and family, ‘That credit union gave me a loan. You should go there.’ The organic growth occurs without spending more money on marketing. This program is rocket fuel for growth for credit unions.”

Strayer also says that the CDFI program reduces the number of people on federal entitlements. If a CU can make a car loan to a low-income worker, for example, that person may be able to stay off unemployment.

“CDFI status is the carrot for trying something new and even inventing new financial products,” Stayer adds. “What’s to prevent a credit union from trying something new when they’re not going to lose even a penny?”

The show also gets into:

·       The difference between CDFI status and a low-income designation 

·       The seven criteria for CDFI status—and how CUs almost always automatically qualify on six of them

·       Statistics about how much CDFI status boosts CU ROA

·       What to consider before applying for CDFI status

·       The current political situation around the CDFI fund

·       The most inspiring CDFI project Strayer has worked on in her career

·       What you’ll get if you attend Strayer’s session at Execu/Net in August in Big Sky, Montana

Links:

·       U.S. Treasury CDFI status

·       NCUA low-income designation

·       CU Strategic Planning

·       Execu/Net

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Our guest, organizational scientist Jerlando F. L. Jackson, Ph.D., lives by the mantra, “Organizations are made up of people. It is the people and their decision-making that we want to change.”

The Vilas distinguished professor of higher education and the director and chief research scientist of Wisconsin’s Equity and Inclusion Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jackson starts off the show by defining the difference between “diversity” and “inclusion.”

Diversity, he says, includes the full spectrum of human differences, such as race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic situation and political beliefs. He also says it’s valuable to consider lifestyles, family composition and education level.

“Inclusion is very different,” he explains. “It is not simply compiling a list of diverse characteristics, but rather an ability to cultivate a sense of community. An inclusive organization promotes and sustains a sense of belonging. It values and practices respect for the talents, beliefs and backgrounds as well as the ways of living” of its customers and staff members.

The magic comes from committing to both diversity and inclusion, according to Jackson. “When an organization commits to diversity and inclusion, it manifests itself through a bold mission, strategic priorities and high impact practices to support a diverse workplace and leverage the effects of diversity to achieve a competitive advantage with a highly skilled workforce and a capacity to relate to the full spectrum of customer.”

What’s the first step if you’re thinking of launching a D&I program at your CU? Jackson recommends an assessment of your culture and readiness.

In the show, Jackson also provides: five ways you’ll benefit from prioritizing D&I five roadblocks you’re likely to encounter when launching a D&I initiative; and three powerful statements worth considering about D&I.

Links:

• JCF LLC
• Email Jerlando F. L. Jackson, Ph.D.
• Coming soon: Organizational Disparity Institute
• Inaugural Diversity Insight column, “Not Intentionally Inclusive = Unintentionally Exclusive”
• Subscribe to CUES content emails to get a link to our monthly Diversity Insight column delivered to your inbox

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The focus of credit union contact centers has changed a lot in 20 years. While once they emphasized helping members perform transactions, today they focus on helping members deepen their relationships with their credit unions. Our guest in this episode is Terri Panhans, VP/contact center solutions for CUES Supplier member Harland Clarke based in San Antonio, Texas. Panhans talks about how things have changed and what the changes mean in terms of the skills contact center agents now need, how to measure call center performance, and more. Special thanks to our episode sponsor, Harland Clarke.

In the show, Panhans says the contact center of the past was “more transactional in nature, really more viewed as a back-office function—one that was necessary, but it wasn’t perhaps driving value or being a part of the strategy of the credit union. Now I see that it is evolving into an engagement center and members’ expectations really drive that. … Many times, they will define their impression of the credit union by the experience they have when the contact the call center.”

Panhans provides two great checklists in the show—one for the skills credit unions should look for when hiring contact center agents and another about things to consider regarding contact centers when setting a credit union’s overall strategy.

The show also busts the myth that younger members don’t ever want to use the phone to talk with their financial institutions. Panhans says, “The desire among all generations of a personal interaction with their financial institution … has never been higher, especially in the event of an emergency or an issue or needing to specify a problem outside of the self-service channels.

“You need to offer the channel of choice and your members are going to decide which one that is,” she adds. “You can’t pigeon-hole or put members into one channel and expect that just because that’s what you think they should use, they will.”

In the show, Panhans also describes key performance measures that work well for today’s contact center and how to collect those measures.

Be sure to tune in to the full episode!

Links:

CUES Podcast

CU Management

Harland Clarke

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The lead faculty of the 2019 CUES School of Strategic Marketing joined the CUES Podcast recently to discuss marketing through the lens of their specialties. In this episode, Amy Herbig, Anthony Burnett and James Robert Lay talk about everything from paper brochures to physical branches to digital delivery. They respond to host James Lenz’s “outrageous” statements; offer up best practices grounded in many years of experience; and give a preview of what they’ll cover during the school, slated for July 15-18 in Cleveland. Herbig is CEO of The BA Group; Burnett is customer experience director with Level5; and James Robert Lay is founder/CEO of the Digital Growth Institute.

To pique your interest for listening to the full show, here is an excerpt of the discussion surrounding the first exaggerated statement: “Transformation at credit unions is only possible through technology delivery.”Listen to episode 69 to hear the rest.

Herbig says that for a CU to successfully transform, it must have technology delivery capabilities. In working with credit unions of all sizes, she has found many that are struggling to get a handle on their technology.

“Credit unions have to always remember their members have the option to bank not just elsewhere, but pretty much anywhere they want these days,” she says. “If we cannot leverage the loyalty in those relationships from a data standpoint, … we will be even more significantly behind other financial institutions who are stealing our members away.”

Burnett responds next. “Right up there at the top is that convenience of a digital channels,” he notes. “You just can’t put branches … in every location. There’s a scalability in digital that you just can’t get with the branch … . There’s also a big business case around mobile transaction cost,” 10 cents per digital transaction versus $4 every time a member comes to the branch.

Lay says technology is only a part of the entire digital transformation equation when used correctly and in proper context within the consumer buying journey.

“I believe technology should be one of the last things we talk about when discussing digital transformation because it’s so easy to get lost and overwhelmed and lose sight of where we’re going with all of this technology talk. … what good is the latest tech when we lack the most important element of digital transformation—and that is a digital growth mindset?”

And that’s just the first bit of this awesome show. Tune in to hear more, including:

• The three guests’ responses to Lenz’s two other outrageous statements: “Credit unions should never print another paper brochure” and “Credit union marketers will never be able to truly measure the results of their efforts.
• Each guest’s reflection on a best practice that they’ve seen borne out in their work with credit unions.
• The guests’ one-minute run-down of what will be covered in the sessions at School of Strategic Marketing.

Links

• CUES School of Strategic Marketing
• The CUES Podcast
• CUES’ CU Management magazine
• Amy Herbig, The BA Group and search for “thebagroup” on social media
• Anthony Burnett, Level5 and search for “level5” and “anthony burnett” on social media
• James Robert Lay, Digital Growth Institute

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Jen Kuhn, CEO of Servistar Consulting, Franklin, Tennessee, describes how the good behavior of leaders and managers is key to employee engagement, which in turn is key to the success of credit unions. In this episode, she describes leadership behaviors that promote engagement—and those that promote disengagement. 

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Why did CUES restructure its memberships for 2019? According to Jimese Harkley, CUDE, the change was made for two key reasons: to simplify membership and to enable more credit union leaders and potential leaders to benefit from CUES membership. Learn all about it in this episode of the CUES Podcast, also available on CU Management magazine’s podcasts page. 

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In this show, Lynette Cupps, CIE, VP/organizational Development with $1.3 billion MAX Credit Union in Montgomery, Alabama, describes her excitement at being named 2018 CUES Next Top Credit Union Exec. Cupps also talks about her project—how to support non-profit organizations by partnering to provide training for their staff and volunteers; this year’s competition process; and where to go for information on participating in next year’s contest.

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In this show, Kathleen O’Connor, Ph.D., defines what employee engagement really means. An associate professor of management at the S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University and a visiting faculty member at London Business School, O’Connor also defines a framework for how to think about engagement. She explains why engagement is worth pursuing and ways credit union leaders can boost engagement among their team members. O’Connor will present a related session at CUES Symposium: A CEO/Chairman Exchange, Jan. 27-31 in the Bahamas.  

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A charitable donation account is a tool some credit unions use to be more strategic with their charitable giving. These accounts can help credit unions have more funds available to donate while also strengthening the credit union’s financial situation. In this episode, CUNA Mutual Group Executive Benefits Specialist Andy Roquet describes two steps to setting up a CDA, best practices for CDA programs, and how and when to talk with your board about these accounts.

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To use analytics to create an exceptional member experience, credit unions need to know the potential impact of using descriptive, predictive and prescriptive data. SVP/Sales and Solutions Consulting for CUES Supplier member PSCU, Brian Scott talks in this episode about how data forms the foundation of the member experience —and can guide CUs on their next steps in using data to help members.

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If you chase perfection in something, you might just catch excellence. John Pembroke describes how the newly restructured CUES memberships will help CUES members--and therefore their credit unions--reach their full potential. He also talks about three key CUES events coming up in the next few months.

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Due diligence is a good idea before any credit union purchase. But the National Credit Union Administration actually requires a formal pre-purchase analysis before you buy investments to fund your employee and executive benefits plans. How is this best done? In this podcast, CUNA Mutual Group’s Greg Smyth gives insights and guidance.

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In this episode, we will discuss what talent hoarding is, what it occurs, and how a successful talent succession program can stop it. Annette is CEO and Founder of Aspen Edge Consulting.

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In this episode, we will define what BOLI is, the benefits and risks of investing, and the potential BOLI has for various credit unions. Fred is an executive benefits specialist with CUESolutions Platinum provider CUNA Mutual Group.

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In this episode, we will discover the importance of engagement across generations, knowledge of the consumer, and securing millennial loyalty. Jeff is president of FutureCast, author and Forbes contributor and featured speaker at CUES Execu/Net, August 19-22, Sedona, AZ.

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In this episode, we will discuss how credit unions can gain trust by providing solutions, the value of research, and the best practices to follow when it comes to your credit unions reputation and building business. Lisa is CUES’ Senior Editor. Sharon is Public Relations Manager at Delta Community Credit Union.

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In this episode we’ll hear how David and Andy lead two institutions to come together to provide enhanced value and service to their members, enhance career opportunities for their coworkers, and bring economic strength to their communities. David Leusink is CEO of 4Front Credit Union. Andy Kempf is President of 4Front Credit Union.

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In this episode, we will discuss strategic planning, the importance of the core elements of strategy, and staying true to them. Bryn is principal at BC Consulting and speaker at CUES 2018 Directors Conference, December 2-5, Waikoloa Village in Waikoloa, Big Island of Hawaii.

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In this episode, we discuss branding, common brand misconceptions and how to avoid them, and how to overcome brand gaps. Taylor is communications director at On the Mark Strategies and speaker at CUES School of Strategic Marketing I & II.

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In this episode, we will discuss the basic scope and applicability of the new ASU 2016-01 rule, Impacted investments and investment alternatives, and what this means for your CU. Bryan is principal of financial institutions at CliftonLarsonAllen. John is director of executive benefits at CUNA Mutual Group.

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In this episode, we will review the key takeaways of the State of Digital Growth report, discuss how credit unions can best prepare for digital growth, and the biggest opportunities for credit unions. James is the CEO of Digital Growth Institute and speaker at CUES School of Strategic Marketing I & II.

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In this episode, we will discover the keys to any successful program, types of training and resources needed to succeed, and the learning opportunities offered in the CUES School of Business Lending series and Business Lending for Directors Seminar. Jim is co-founder, chairman and CEO of Hipereon Inc., and speaker for CUES’ business lending offerings along with, Bob co-founder, president, and COO of Hipereon Inc.

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In this episode, we will discuss how to influence decision-making in the boardroom, understand the issues that arise when making decisions, and how to combat an underperforming board. John is associate professor, teaching stream at Rotman School of Management, at the University of Toronto as well as faculty at CUES Governance Leadership Institute.

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In this episode we will examine the roles of the board, the cost of poor leadership, the current executive benefit trends, and an example of what it looks like when “things go right” and “when things go wrong”. Chris is an executive benefits consultant at O.M. Financial Group.

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In this interview, we will discuss the value of mentorship, the challenges that mentorship may bring, and the different types of mentorship for you to consider. Kathy is the senior vice president of service operations at Golden 1 Credit Union.

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In this episode, we will discuss the State of CU Governance, 2018 Report, the findings by CUES’ Board Governance Assessment data and Quantum Governance, L3C, and what it all means for today’s credit union. Michael is founder and CEO of Quantum Governance, L3C.

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In this episode, we will discover how the provision of the excise tax can greatly impact credit union organizations, considerations for reviewing and implementing compensation programs, and an industry perspective on what credit unions are doing to curtail this tax. John is director of executive benefits at CUNA Mutual Group.

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In this episode, we will explore the steps to easily incorporate positive, organization-wide efforts on strategy and member services. Jeff is president of Rising Above Enterprises and a highly sought after and accomplished speaker.

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In this episode, we will identify the five modes of communication, discuss phrasing statements to bring out the best in your communication, and identify the qualities of highly effective communicators. Rieger is a communication expert and director of The Artistry of Change Training Inc.

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As part of a quarterly series, in this episode, we will discover the unique, onsite professional development opportunity in CUES Symposium, upholding a good relationship with the board and highlight topics and trends within the credit union industry. Pembroke is president and CEO of CUES.

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In this episode, we will discuss why succession planning so critical to the future success and sustainability of credit unions, how to successfully involve senior leadership and boards in effective succession planning, and strategies for simplifying succession planning and leadership development practices for success. Robinson is principal of Interchange Consulting Group.

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In this episode, after doing more than 1,000 episodes of his show, Lawson shares his insights into top credit union industry trends and why, in a digital world, it is still important to have the face-to-face connections. Lawson is creator and host of CUBroadcast.

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In this episode, we will discuss if your choices are driven by your own personal preferences and opinions and why influence is like a magnet. Berger is an expert on word of mouth, social influence, consumer behavior, and how products, ideas, and behaviors catch on and bestselling author of both Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces That Shape Behavior and Contagious: Why Things Catch On.

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In this episode, we will highlight one of the five Finalists of CUES Next Top Credit Union Executive (NTCUE) competition. Join us as we learn more about their projects and how they impact the credit union industry and beyond. Gelser is strategic project manager at DuPont Community Credit Union, Waynesboro, Va., and one of five NTCUE Finalists.

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In this episode, we will highlight one of the five Finalists of CUES Next Top Credit Union Executive (NTCUE) competition. Join us as we learn more about their projects and how they impact the credit union industry and beyond. Bullock is financial education specialist at Firefly Credit Union, Burnsville, Minn., and one of five NTCUE Finalists.

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In this episode, we will highlight one of the five Finalists of CUES Next Top Credit Union Executive (NTCUE) competition. Join us as we learn more about their projects and how they impact the credit union industry and beyond. McMillen is business systems analyst at Y-12 Federal Credit Union, Oak Ridge, Tenn., and one of five NTCUE Finalists.

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In this episode, we will highlight one of the five Finalists of CUES Next Top Credit Union Executive (NTCUE) competition. Join us as we learn more about their projects and how they impact the credit union industry and beyond. Vartanian is the vice president project implementation and impact at Red Rocks CU, Littleton, Colo., and one of five NTCUE Finalists.

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In this episode, we will highlight one of the five Finalists of CUES Next Top Credit Union Executive (NTCUE) competition. Join us as we learn more about their projects and how they impact the credit union industry and beyond. Fuzzell is vice president of finance at Northwest Federal Credit Union, Herndon, Va., and one of five NTCUE Finalists.

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Join us as we discuss the trend toward mobile, key questions boards need to ask their executive teams about technology spending, and a big-picture overview of card income. Roche is principal of Cornerstone Advisors Inc., Scottsdale, Ariz., CUES’ strategic provider of technology and ERM services.

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In this episode, we will gather a world perspective on digital adoption and digital innovation, understand what stimulates innovation for the financial services market, and discover the distinction between leaders, learners, and laggarts. Nicols is a former financial services executive, managing director of the FinTech Forge, chairman of Next Money, and speaker at CUES CEO/Executive Team Network, Oct. 10-12, 2017, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.

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In this episode, we will discuss the different types of search firms and how they work, the various roles that executive search firms play, and the advantages and disadvantages they offer. Kirschner is partner at Davies Park Executive Search, a leading Canadian executive search firm with offices in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and Toronto.

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In this episode, we will discuss the purpose of salary surveys, trends in credit union executive compensation, and how to obtain and best use survey results. Becher is vice president of Industry Insights, Inc.

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In this episode, we will define brand as a business, the changes in brand building strategies, and some of the biggest challenges organizations face to communicate their brand effectively. Lee Yohn is a brand-building expert and author of the bestselling book, What Great Brands Do: The Seven Brand-Building Principles that Separate the Best from the Rest.

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In this episode, we will discuss why credit unions should develop risk appetite statements, what are the risks and benefits, and what is needed to implement them at your credit union. Cooley is principal at Synergy Credit Union Consulting, Inc.

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In this episode, we will discover what it takes to be more effective negotiators from former FBI kidnapping and hostage negotiator, Chris Voss. Voss is the author of Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as If Your Life Depended on It and featured speaker at the 2017 CUES CEO/Executive Team Network.

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Join us as we discover the attributes and responsibilities of lending managers, loan growth strategies, and loan product features and rate design suggestions. As the owner of CU Lending Advice, LLC, Christensen works directly with credit unions in the U.S and Canada as a consultant and teacher specializing in various lending topics. He is also the instructor at CUES School of Consumer Lending.

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In this episode, we will explore considerations for retail experience as part of the overall branding and marketing efforts and targeting on what branding means for an organization. Kapcia is the director of retail experience for Weber Marketing Group and serves as one of the faculty members at the CUES School of Strategic Marketing II.

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In this episode, we will identify your return on marketing efforts, defining brand, and the driving forces behind branding. Mathes is the director of brand strategy for Weber Marketing Group and serves as one of the faculty members at the CUES School of Strategic Marketing.

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Join us as we discuss the roles and responsibilities of credit union boards today, compensation for the board and the risks and benefits they face. Fullbrook is the manager of the Clarkson Centre for Board Effectiveness at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto and faculty member at CUES Governance Leadership Institute™.

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Join us as we dive deeper into the NTCUE experience. We will discuss the NTCUE process, tips for those looking to join the challenge and the benefits that come from the competition. Cahoon is the community outreach coordinator at Fibre Federal Credit Union and the 2016 NTCUE Winner.

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In this episode, we’ll define and explore scaling up excellence, the most common mistakes organizations make in scaling and get an insider take on the Strategic Innovation Institute. Rao is Atholl McBean professor of organizational behavior and human resources, director of the managing talent for Strategic Advantage Executive Program and the co-director of the Customer-Focused Innovation Executive Program.

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Join us as we discuss the critical drivers of member experience, how to excel and identify areas of improvement. Neill is the president and founder of Michael Neill & Associates, Inc. and creator of ServiStar as well as one of the instructors at the CUES School of Member Experience.

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In this episode we will discuss the training and teaching at CUES Strategic Growth Institute at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Join us as we uncover merger trends both inside and outside the industry, challenges CU’s face and outline Strategic Growth Institute. Morrissette is the adjunct associate professor of strategic management at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

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As part of CUES on CUSO’s month-long focus on credit union service organizations, in this episode we speak to Linda Bodie, CEO and chief innovator at Element Federal Credit Union. Linda works with several CUSOs to make her small credit union act big. We will learn more about CUSO’s, their impact on the industry and what partnering can mean for your CU.

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In this episode, we will explore the role of social media within branding strategy; consider utilizing social media to drive engagement and culture building; discover tips for managing and resourcing social media from a tactical level; and discuss the value of revisiting your current policies and training. Boutz is the director of client experience and the social media strategist for Weber Marketing Group.

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In this episode, we will learn how to improve member experience through the development of an innovation pipeline, learn how to implement it throughout your entire organization and identify your organizations’ pain points. Leonardson is a recognized information technology leader and heads Cornerstone Advisors Inc.

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In this episode we will identify the factors that may breakdown decision making by the board, the maintaining of ethics and the role they play in CEO compensation planning. Powers is lead instructor for the CUES Governance Leadership Institute.

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CUES 15: Professional Development, an interview with Christopher Stevenson

Join us as we explore a brief history of online learning and its evolution as well as the emerging delivery methods for education. Stevenson is the SVP/Chief Learning Officer here at CUES.

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CUES14: Digital Payments, an interview with Sundeep Kapur.

In this episode, we will explore the world of digital payments and identify what credit unions can do to compete against companies like Pay Pal and fintech. Kapur is the consultant and founder

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Join us as we identify the areas of biggest risk for cybersecurity attacks; assess the role of credit union directors in relation to fraud and cybersecurity; and discuss what steps you can take to reduce the risk of threats. Our guest is the is CEO of Stickley on Security.

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CUES 12: Book Recommendations for Strategy Development, an Interview with John Oliver This is part of a continued interview with John Oliver. In this episode we will discover book recommendations and how strategy gives you a competitive advantage. Oliver is the faculty lead and curriculum designer of the CUES School of Applied Strategic Management.

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CUES 11: Strategy Development, an Interview with John Oliver Join us as we explore the meaning of strategy, the major components in strategic developments and who should be involved in this process at your organization. Oliver is the faculty lead and curriculum designer of the CUES School of Applied Strategic Management.

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Into the Mind of a CU Market Researcher, an Interview with Ben Stangland In a continued interview with Ben Stangland, we will learn more about market research and what questions to consider in branching opportunities.

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Thinking of opening a new branch? Join us as Ben Stangland, principal and vice president of operations at Weber Marketing Group, examines the process, identifies where to start and how to create and utilize a toolkit for leadership.

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Join us as we examine the terms of effective constructive partnerships with you board and executive team. Discover what makes a good board member, the value in board assessment and the importance of professional development. Michael Daigneault is the CEO and cofounder of Quantum Governance L3C.

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Discover why member business services are the most leverageable thing a credit union can do to improve their performance. Jim Devine is founder, chairman and CEO of Hipereon Inc.

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What are the biggest mistakes in the merger process that credit unions should avoid? Join us as David Ritter, strategic M&A advisor at Doeren Mayhew, shares his thoughts.

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Discover how mixing unconventional strategies with a culture of high accountability can lead to a transformed and strengthened organization. Doug Samuels is president and CEO of Space Coast Credit Union.

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Why should credit unions consider enterprise risk management (ERM)? Explore ERM with Vincent Hui, senior director of Cornerstone Advisors, Inc.

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Unleash the heroes in your credit union by cultivating the behaviors needed for your organization to achieve success. Jim Bearden is a decorated Vietnam veteran, former corporate executive, and now serves others as a leadership and accountability speaker.

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Explore strategy and strategic planning for CUs. Discover easy and practical ways to add excitement and more dialogue to your credit union board meetings. Les Wallace is the founder of Signature Resources.

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Welcome to the CUES Podcast! This brief episode provides context for the show and takes a look at upcoming episodes.

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Welcome! This is the preview for the CUES Podcast. Thanks for joining us! You’re choosing the CUES podcast, where we’ll talk to credit union industry leaders and cross-industry experts for a wide-range of perspectives on trends and topics relevant to you. I’m your host, James Lenz, CUES’ professional development manager.