By Jeff Rendel, CSP
I’ve heard it; perhaps you’ve heard it; maybe you’ve whispered it: “My board of directors has a mind of its own.” So, why not capture the mind of your board--through mind mapping--and develop strategies and tactics that allow your management team to deliver the class of results your board believes is appropriate for your credit union?
Developed by UK researcher Tony Buzan in his 1972 book Use Your Head, mind mapping is a graphical technique for visualizing connections between several ideas or pieces of information. Each idea or fact is written down and then linked by lines or curves to its major or minor (or following or previous) idea or fact, thus creating a web of relationships.
Ideally, when I help a board with mind mapping, I'm searching for one to three main drivers of a board's strategic thinking. These end up in the center of the mind map as the most important elements of the board’s mind. Relevance, permanence, and sustainability are all single thoughts that could be at the center of a board's mind.
Through the process, we make one huge map. For practical purposes, the big map is a cluster of many maps--the facilitator’s job is to make some sense of the mess driving all toward the center of the hub.
The illustration for this post is a generic mind map. You can view other mind maps here, and email me to get one that was developed at a credit union strategy session.
At your next strategic planning session, consider setting aside the first day to co-create and develop a map of the mind of your board. It’s an engaging, change-of-pace exercise that strengthens the reciprocal relationship between your board and CEO. Here’s how:
- Use mind mapping software. Get rid of the flip charts, vibrantly colored markers, easels and torn-off pages that never remain lightly glued or taped to the walls. In their place, view a map of your board’s mind, projected on a large screen or visible on laptops throughout the meeting room. Many software options exist, most offering online and mobile access for single and multiple users, all for a reasonable price. (Here's a list of them to get you started.)
- Let the thoughts, observations and ideas flow. Mind-mapping, by design, is a bit disordered at first. One way to add a little structure to a day that needs to be a bit “higgledy-piggledy” is to organize the topics for discussion. Like you would in a mainstream analysis, discuss everything--mission, financials, products, delivery, technology, markets, economics, competitors, business model, and more. Most important, gather your board’s broad-spectrum views and desires, placing them on the mind map.
- At the same time, expand, organize and enhance your board’s mind map. This is the job of your facilitator--insider or outsider--to direct the results of your board’s thinking into collaborative solutions. Fresh ideas will stem from existing thoughts and observations. Relationships between ideas will unfold. Connections will be established to illustrate the relationships that can drive your credit union onward. Your board’s mind map begins to look a lot like a route map in the back of an airline magazine. Yet in all of the routes, stops and destinations, hubs materialize. These hubs, centered amongst all the commotion, are your foremost business objectives and drivers.
- Ultimately, your board will build consensus, a shared vision, and a depiction of their beliefs and views about your credit union. Your board will have visibly articulated what it believes is possible, probable, practical, sustainable and--most important--relevant. Now, it’s up to management to carry out the mind map, your board’s outline and explanation of its exclusive strategic thinking.
- Print your mind map and spend the second day of your planning session setting detailed objectives and building potential strategies. Management, at a range of professional levels, is intensely involved with the design and delivery of the plans for the specific, strategic issues in sight. Insight, experience, access to data, and original research allow management to fuse your board’s mind map into attainable plans, goals, metrics, scorecards and results that your board approves and oversees as management implements.
Great boards have an admirable, give-and-take relationship with their CEOs. The CEO depends on the board for guidance and the board depends upon the CEO for execution. A map of the mind of your board helps to ensure continuity and communication in the strategic planning and execution function at your credit union.
Jeff Rendel, CSP, is president of Rising Above Enterprises, which works with credit unions that want elite results in leadership, sales and strategy. Each year, he addresses and facilitates for more than 100 credit unions. Reach him at 866.340.3770.
Find an article and a video on board advocacy by Rendel on the Center for Credit Union Board Excellence website. Search for "Rendel." Not yet a member? Sign up for a 30-day free trial.
