2 minutes
From our editor
Setting a credit union’s strategic direction is a clean, elegant process, compared to executing that strategy, which can be like a dirty minefield, according to Doug Sundheim, leadership and strategy consultant and author of “Closing the Chasm Between Strategy and Execution,” a Harvard Business Review article.
While there will always be gaps between what a CU’s leaders set forth to accomplish and what is actually implemented, the real execution nightmares happen when the line between strategists (read thinkers) and doers is drawn too rigidly, he writes. When parts of the plan aren’t coming together, market conditions are shifting, or a new regulation comes down the pike, fingers should not be pointing.
Instead, Sundheim writes, “The best strategists, executors, and leaders stand up and say, ‘I’m responsible for it’ even if it isn’t in their (strategist or executor) job description.” They meet in the “messy middle” to figure out how to keep strategy implementation on track.
Sometimes, strategists are their strategies’ own worst enemies. Rather than focusing their ongoing decision-making on the chosen direction, boards and leadership teams veer off after the proverbial “shiny objects,” splintering implementation resources and putting their goals at risk.
“We find it pretty common that a board will say, ‘This opportunity came up’ or ‘If we don’t build it there, someone else will,’” says Rob Johnson, EVP/principal at C Myers Corp., Phoenix. “They end up actually fighting against their strategy.”
While it’s always good to evaluate different options, boards should look at those choices in terms of their impact on current strategy and considering the opportunity cost of putting resources in that new direction, Johnson advises in “Making it Work: How boards can acquire tools and strategies for financial decision-making.” Check it out.
Also for boards in this issue is “People and Legal,” in which Jim Warren, CCD, CCE, CEO of $1.17 billion Tyndall Federal Credit Union, Panama City, Fla., and three Tyndall FCU directors, Mindy Rankin, CPA, CCD; Richard Millett, CCD; and Tommy Ford, CCD, share their “top takeaways from this summer’s CUES Governance Leadership Institute™: the role of the chair and two ways to find success in court.” Find it here.
Mary Auestad Arnold
Editor and Publisher
