5 minutes
Being successful should never be your No. 1 priority. Your first priority should be to make your members successful. Reverse these priorities and your success is in jeopardy.
Don’t get me wrong; your success is important, and while my clients hire me to help them grow faster and more reliably than they ever thought possible, without a doubt my most successful credit union clients have shifted their No. 1 priority away from accelerating their own success to accelerating the success of their members.
Most credit union leaders nod in agreement with the notion of prioritizing a member’s success, but when you pull back the curtain and look at what’s happening on a day-to-day basis, you’ll find that daily priorities shift their focus away from member success, growth and well-being, to their own well-being and success. How do you know if you have prioritized your member’s success rather than your own success? Here are my five strategic priority-setting questions. By rating yourself on these five questions you will be able to calibrate your focus using a 1 – 10 scale. The higher your score, the higher your member focus.
1. Strategy
Your current and prospective members are busy each week with 40 to 60 hours of work, soccer practice, community involvement, cooking meals, and all kinds of other responsibilities. The vast majority of people describe their lives as overwhelming, overburdened and over-scheduled. A differentiated and successful strategy is one focused on making members’ lives easier and more rewarding. To that end, your strategy should communicate a compelling and highly differentiated value proposition rather than the products and services offered.
If you compared your strategy to your competitors’ using a 1 - 10 scale (1 is identical to competitors and 10 highly differentiated and distinctive), what rating would you give it? What rating would members give?
2. Mindset
To enable member success, the prevailing mindset throughout your credit union needs to be described as a champion vs. an amateur mindset. The mindset of a champion is one of playing to win versus playing not to lose, of seeing challenges and obstacles as gateways to higher performance versus interruptions, and of doing one’s best at all times. An amateur mindset sees success as a nice-to-have and not a must-have. For your members to be successful, leaders and executives must instill the mindset of personal excellence in every nook and cranny of their credit union. When the dominant mindset is a winning mindset, your strategy has a far greater chance of being successful.
If you looked at the prevailing mindset in your organization using a 1 - 10 scale (1 is playing not to lose/detesting challenges and 10 playing to win/personal excellence), what rating would you give it? What rating would members give?
3. Talent
Member success cannot be achieved without employee success. I’ve asked leaders in the 43 states, seven countries and three continents where I’ve worked if they can have happy and successful customers without happy and successful employees. The overwhelming answer is that customer success is joined at the hip with employee success. Success requires leaders to instill a passion and enthusiasm for learning, growth and innovation. Successful leaders convert the talent and potential inside their credit unions into ever-higher levels of employee success, thus ensuring higher levels of member success.
When you think of the talent in your credit union using a 1 - 10 scale (1 is transactional and doing the job requirements and 10 transformational and hungry for growth and learning), what rating would you give yourself? Your executive team? Your front-line employees? What rating would members give?
4. Execution
You can have the best strategy imaginable, a champion mindset, a passion and enthusiasm for learning, and growth and innovation, but if you are unable to execute ruthlessly, your members will not achieve the level of success they desire or that you envision. The operative word here is ruthlessly. You’ll know you are ruthlessly committed to member success when you have articulated clear promises, non-negotiable priorities and have a bias for action in service of member results.
When you think of the level of execution in your credit union using a 1 - 10 scale (1 is missing deadlines and making excuses and 10 flawless execution and tolerating no excuses), what rating would you give yourself? Your executive team? Your front-line employees? What rating would members give?
5. Leadership
Credit union leaders must recognize that the information economy is dead and has been replaced with the connection economy. Members feel overwhelmed and are hungry to connect with advisors who convert information and data into beneficial insights. Members want to know, think, feel and believe that by being a member of your credit union, they are accomplishing their hopes, dreams and aspirations. This requires leaders to connect not only with their members’ hopes, dreams and aspirations, but also their employees’.
When you think of the leadership in your credit union using a 1 - 10 scale (1 is uninspired and authoritative and 10 passionate, purposeful and empowering), what rating would you give yourself? Your executive team? Your front-line employees? What rating would members give?
When credit union leaders set priorities for member success first, and credit union success second, the organization will be rewarded with more member referrals, higher financial performance, increased employee creativity, execution with precision, and deeper levels of satisfaction. So, that begs the question, how can you become more successful faster and more reliably than you ever thought possible while also ensuring member success? The short answer is to establish a clear priority of infusing a mindset of personal excellence for yourself first and then others.
What new priority will you set after reading this article?
Hugh Blane is president of Claris Consulting. He is a nationally recognized business strategist hired to help organizations solve challenging business issues, strengthen personal and professional relationships, and execute on strategic initiatives with greater effectiveness. To learn more about establishing and prioritizing a mindset of personal excellence, you can read Hugh’s special report, “Mastering Your Mindset: Nine Negative Habits That Hold Executives Back and How to Break Them for Accelerated Business Performance.” Download your copy here.
