Terrific Techniques, Applied

In 2013, half of our six-member senior management team retired: our CEO, SVP/human resources and SVP/information technology. Last year was spent finding their replacements. Today, the senior leadership team is back to full strength, ready to tackle projects that were placed on hold in anticipation of the new hires.

But that’s not to say that everything is coming together perfectly or easily.

The three of us who did not retire last year had been there for 21+ years each. As a result, we have really strong institutional knowledge, historical perspective, and plenty of “bad” habits. We’re in the throes of re-forming our team, figuring out how we work together and who needs to do what. It’s been a challenge.

So it felt like kismet that I was able to attend CUES’ CEO Institute II: Organizational Effectiveness this spring. I’ll use what I learned about decision-making, negotiation and styles of persuasion to help our newly forged senior leadership team move our credit union forward effectively.

I had a lot of takeaways from my five days at the second segment of CEO Institute, held at Cornell University’s Samuel Curtis Johnson School of Management in Ithaca, N.Y. However three strategies stand out in my mind, and I want to share them with you.

1. We can simplify complex decisions by focusing first on common goals, and attending to other details later.

A key takeaway from the session about decision-making, led by J. Edward Russo, Ph.D., S.C. Johnson family professor of management and professor of marketing, was that each person brings a different perspective. Identifying our team members’ different vantage points (called “frames”) will help us figure out which steps to take first on complex initiatives—and avoid the ready aim, aim, aim, aim (but no fire) problem.

Russo emphasized that commonalities among the various perspectives can point out where to start—especially when there doesn’t appear to be an obvious starting point.

One place this applies at my credit union is in our now-in-progress decision about a new online banking system.

I may come at this decision with the idea that we need to use the system to get more data/info about our members so we can market smarter, and that it needs to be easy for members to log in so they have a good experience. Our new IT leader may come to the table with the ideas that the new system needs to be easy to maintain, flexible, and provide a good member experience. Our CFO may be thinking that the solution we choose must be cost effective and scalable, plus provide a good member experience. Notice that all three of us are concerned with the member experience. This needs to be an early priority in our decision. Other needs that don’t span everyone’s perspective may be considered later.

2. If we share our needs when negotiating, we get better outcomes.

During the session on negotiation, Kathleen O’Connor, Ph.D., associate professor of management and organizations, told a story about an orange to get to the heart of what she was teaching. If two people have one orange, the classic negotiation is to split it and each person gets half. Both people are happy then, right? Maybe. Maybe not.

If what you need is the pulp for making juice and what I need is zest from the peel to make a cake, having half an orange might not have been the best outcome for our negotiation. If we talk about what each person needs, both parties can come out ahead.

In the example of choosing an online banking solution, the needs each team member has stem from their individual perspectives. My need to get more member data and identify member needs based on how they use the system really isn’t in conflict with IT’s need to have a flexible system. If my need to do more targeted marketing based on good system data is met, the CFO’s need to keep the CU’s overall expenses down may also be served.

3. Know your preferred style of influencing, and be ready to move outside your comfort zone to help get agreement.

During the institute, we did an assessment of our sources of power and preferred persuasion style. My preference is for impact management, which is telling a story and bringing everybody on board with the outcome.

For example, I love the story Professor O’Connor told about the orange as it relates to negotiation. I’d summarize it as, “Everyone’s going to get what they want. You’re going to get juice and I’m going to get cake.”

But not everyone prefers storytelling as a way to win people over. Some people prefer to influence (and be influenced) by numbers and data. Others prefer to see how the action being promoted would fulfill a common vision.

According to the presentation by Beta Manix, Ph.D.—associate dean for executive education, Ann Whitney Olin professor of management, and professor of management and organizations—I need to be able to recognize the style colleagues prefer and then shift my presentation to meet their needs, which also incidentally meets my need. It sounds like manipulation in the worst way, but that’s not the idea. The idea is to use our power to persuade people to go after the greater good.

I’m having a hard time deciding which current initiative at my credit union will be the focus of my between-segments project, designed to have me actually use the tools I’ve been learning, and helping to qualify me to earn the Certified Chief Executive designation (Learn more in the “Resources’ box on this page.). I suspect I’ll be using these tools on more initiatives than just the one I end up selecting for my project. And I suspect you’ll find the three ideas above about decision-making, negotiation and persuasion can be applied to more than one project at your CU, too.

Jonelle S. “Joni” Walker, CME, is senior vice president of $383 million Missoula Federal Credit Union, Missoula, Mont., and the recipient of the Fred Johnson CEO Institute Scholarship for 2014.