By Michael Neill, CSE
Thanks for all the great feedback on my missional leadership presentation at CUES Symposium: A CEO/Chairman Exchange earlier this month on Maui. I was so motivated by all the questions and comments I received after the presentation, I wanted to give you some added value--some take-aways to get you over the hump of “now I’m home and it’s snowing,” how do I stay energized?
Here’s the second of seven “Missional Monday” blog posts. In each of the next six, I’ll consider one of the six actions of missional leaders, hoping to provide you with the opportunity to gain more value from our time together and take action on implementing missional leadership.
So, let’s look at some ideas that will help you act on the first of the six actions of missional leaders: Create and communicate a compelling mission.
Idea for Action: Review your current mission statement. Do you have a statement that describes directly and succinctly what the credit union will do for those it serves? Remember, a missional leader can’t lead without a mission with which to frame behaviors, decisions and implementations.
The credit union has to have a statement that is purpose-driven, and can be used to explain how it supports decisions, implemented strategies and tactics. My suggestion was that your purpose-driven statement be short enough to fit on a bumper-sticker, but not sound like a slogan.
A good example is Tinker Federal Credit Union’s statement: “We exist to help our members achieve their goals and realize their dreams.” This statement makes the reader think, “I want to be a part of that.” Members, neighbors and employees alike can see that your purpose is dramatically different from your competitors and that your credit union is there to make things better for those around you.
Idea for Action: Once you’ve got your purpose-driven statement, make sure leaders and managers at every level use it to frame every decision, every recognition, every accountability session, every thought and every action. Remember, many leaders communicate change with regard to avoiding crises. Doing this does create action but, as a result, also creates anxiety and fear, not engagement. Some leaders communicate change for the purpose of improving financial performance. Most employees think they are doing a great job and wonder why you would think they, not you, need to do it better.
To create positive, organized, engaged and focused followers, you have to show them a better place than where the organization is now, rather than running away from the present. Make sure that place is not only good for staff, but for those the CU serves. Leverage your mission and use it to explain and introduce everything.
Here are some examples of how leaders can use the CU’s mission statement to frame their daily actions:
Thanks for all the great feedback on my missional leadership presentation at CUES Symposium: A CEO/Chairman Exchange earlier this month on Maui. I was so motivated by all the questions and comments I received after the presentation, I wanted to give you some added value--some take-aways to get you over the hump of “now I’m home and it’s snowing,” how do I stay energized?
Here’s the second of seven “Missional Monday” blog posts. In each of the next six, I’ll consider one of the six actions of missional leaders, hoping to provide you with the opportunity to gain more value from our time together and take action on implementing missional leadership.
So, let’s look at some ideas that will help you act on the first of the six actions of missional leaders: Create and communicate a compelling mission.
Idea for Action: Review your current mission statement. Do you have a statement that describes directly and succinctly what the credit union will do for those it serves? Remember, a missional leader can’t lead without a mission with which to frame behaviors, decisions and implementations.
The credit union has to have a statement that is purpose-driven, and can be used to explain how it supports decisions, implemented strategies and tactics. My suggestion was that your purpose-driven statement be short enough to fit on a bumper-sticker, but not sound like a slogan.
A good example is Tinker Federal Credit Union’s statement: “We exist to help our members achieve their goals and realize their dreams.” This statement makes the reader think, “I want to be a part of that.” Members, neighbors and employees alike can see that your purpose is dramatically different from your competitors and that your credit union is there to make things better for those around you.
Idea for Action: Once you’ve got your purpose-driven statement, make sure leaders and managers at every level use it to frame every decision, every recognition, every accountability session, every thought and every action. Remember, many leaders communicate change with regard to avoiding crises. Doing this does create action but, as a result, also creates anxiety and fear, not engagement. Some leaders communicate change for the purpose of improving financial performance. Most employees think they are doing a great job and wonder why you would think they, not you, need to do it better.
To create positive, organized, engaged and focused followers, you have to show them a better place than where the organization is now, rather than running away from the present. Make sure that place is not only good for staff, but for those the CU serves. Leverage your mission and use it to explain and introduce everything.
Here are some examples of how leaders can use the CU’s mission statement to frame their daily actions:
- "In our continuing effort to live out our mission to help our members achieve their goals and realize their dreams, we are implementing a new lending system. This will help us to live out our mission because this will allow us to … ."
- "Our mission is to help our members achieve their goals and realize their dreams. You know we are a very good credit union; however, we can’t be great without turning our mission into the way we live fully, every day. We do a lot of great things. Our financial numbers say we know how to run a credit union. Our members affirm that we are fast, accurate and very friendly. However, we are not nearly as good at living out our mission to help our members achieve their goals and realize their dreams. Finding additional ways to save our members money, time, etc. can only do that. And our results suggest that is what we do least well. To any degree that our actions are not fully in alignment with our mission, we can’t call ourselves great.”
- “I want to tell you that what you just did was a great job of living out our mission to help our members achieve their goals and realize their dreams. Finding an additional way to save that member time with mobile banking was living out our mission.”
- "Last month, you didn’t do a very good job of living out our mission to help our members achieve their goals and realize their dreams. I can tell that because you didn’t meet your minimum expectations on your sales. When we sell, we save our members time, money, etc. What are you going to do differently next month to live out our mission more fully?”
· “In our continuing effort to live out our mission to help our members achieve their goals and realize their dreams, we are implementing a new lending system. This will help us to live out our mission because this will allow us to … .”
