Business Velocity Evaluation

This is bonus from “A Need for ‘Speed’ (and Direction)” from the September 2015 issue of CU Management.

Business velocity is a comprehensive business metric that relies on all aspects of your organization—leadership, people, and systems. This questionnaire will help you understand how your credit union is doing.

On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being highest, rate each component of your enterprise on how well it contributes to your velocity. If your cumulative score is less than nine, you need to find ways to create greater velocity.

• Leadership. How strong, clear, and focused is your long- and short-term direction? How do you know? Provide evidence.
• People. How much speed are your people creating toward velocity? Are you measuring speed? How?
• Systems. How well do your systems facilitate the speed necessary to propel you toward your goals? How well do your divisions support each other? Do your processes delight members? How do you know?

Now let’s move to hidden profitability. How might you unlock hidden profitability in your company, leveraging leadership, people and systems?

• Leadership

1. Creating a change in direction. What change(s), if any, would be beneficial?
2. Changing your communication. Have your team evaluate your communication and adjust accordingly.
3. Identifying your biases. Your team can help you here, too. Have them be frank about your blind spots. How might infusing more diversity into your decision-making create higher profits?

• People

1. Improving your talent pool. How have your talent needs changed and what return on investment can you achieve by upgrading?
2. Gaining greater buy-in. Having your folks fully supporting you is an awesome thing. Rate your team’s current level of buy-in. How can you improve it?
3. Developing people. What systems do you have in place to develop people to their fullest potential? How effective are they? How much focus is placed on those systems?
4. Creating employee innovation groups. Your company’s new ideas and products are walking around in the minds of your people. List five ways to unleash those ideas.
5. Uniting your teams around each other and common goals. People perform better when they like each other and believe in what they’re doing, but “bad apples” can demoralize a team, even if they are high performers. Do you have any “bad apples” who need to find another home?

• Systems

1.  Investing in the right technology. Inventory your systems and find out what they do, how well they do it, and what else they can do. Compare what you find with what your people and members need, and adjust accordingly.
2. Understanding your members. Who are your best members, and how much time and money are you focusing on them? Consider realigning your marketing expenditures if too much money is being spent on mass marketing and not enough on developing relationships with your best members.
3. Aligning your teams and systems more closely with your direction. You may be in perfect alignment all over your company, but it is worth poking around to find areas of misalignment. How much effort are you making to regularly coach your direct reports to ensure they, their teams, and systems are as closely aligned to your goals as possible?

Scott McClymonds will present a free CUES Webinar on business velocity at 1 p.m. Central on Sept. 22, 2015. Learn more and register at cues.org/webinars.

Scott McClymonds is a veteran leader in the financial services industry and expert at integrating analytics, leadership, and culture to dramatically accelerate growth and profitability. His company, CEO Velocity, works with successful financial services CEOs who are committed to their members and communities. Read his blog; call him at 479.263.0774; and find him at linkedin.com/in/scottmcclymonds.