Membership Minute: Get or Grow the ‘Human Skills’ You Need for 2024 and Beyond

Human skills like effective communication and emotional intelligence don’t always come naturally, but there’s great news in that they can be learned! Developing your skills for interacting well with others can have all kinds of benefits, including: 

• Boosting your ability to engage effectively with colleagues, supervisors and peers—and thereby grow your career;
• Enhancing your ability to provide great service to your members;
• Helping you identify and solve problems well; and even
• Supporting better communication with your family and friends. 

In contrast, a lack of human skills can limit your potential and negatively influence your ability to interact effectively with others. 

During the fall, many credit unions look to the new year and reinvest in access to development resources for their staff and board members. Plan to leverage your 2024 CUES membership benefits to help you manage yourself, others and processes effectively in the new year. 

Kickstart Your Development Journey With an Assessment

Personal reflection and introspection are powerful when assessing your personal strengths and weaknesses. Your assessment of your development needs should include gathering feedback from a variety of colleagues and friends, looking at your performance evaluations and taking time for private reflection on your activities and thoughts. 

What are your identified opportunities and strengths?

Know Your CUES Membership Benefits

Now that you know what you’d most benefit from learning, take a moment to log into your myCUES dashboard. Then consider the following ways to use your CUES membership to up your skills: 

1. Connect with a mentor who can model appropriate behavior and give you constructive feedback. (Look under the “exclusive member resources” tab.)
2. Plan to take two or more Harvard ManageMentor courses to enhance the way that you manage yourself, lead people or manage processes. (Look under the “key benefits” tab.) 
3. Talk to your supervisor and colleagues about what you have learned. Ask them to give you feedback on your new way of executing—and invite them to join you in getting a mentor or taking a course!
4. Expand your network to learn what your peers in other states and countries are leveraging to develop their careers. You can do that in many ways—including by participating in CUESNet, attending a regional CUES Council meeting in your area and attending a CUES learning event at a special member rate.

Human skills are invaluable to your career—and to your credit union’s success. Make sure that you make the most of your CUES membership in 2024. Log into cues.org to explore all your benefits and put them to work for you. 

Jimese Harkley, JD, CUDE, SPP, CCE, is VP/membership for CUES.