By Lisa Hochgraf
John Oliver convinced a client credit union board that focusing on developing strategic objectives and measurables would be superior to spending time developing a mission statement.
As a rule, "we say we want to be different from all the other financial institutions and then we come up with a mission statement that is the same as everyone else's," reasoned Oliver, president of Laurel Management Systems, Palm Springs, Calif., during the inaugural CUES Director Strategy Seminar this week in San Diego.
But Oliver was disappointed when he found the client decided to instead draft a vision statement, which Oliver doesn't view as any more helpful than a mission statement.
The client reported that the board met three times and didn't arrive at a vision statement it liked, so it surfed the Web until it found one it liked and adopted that.
"What a waste of time," Oliver said.
While he'd prefer credit unions to develop strategic objectives and measurables, Oliver emphasized that "if you're going to say it in your mission statement, you'd better fulfill it. If you don't, your credibility is shot.'
Also, if you're going to do a mission statement, Oliver said, make sure it tells the marketplace and employes what to expect--and also that you can measure your fulfillment of it.
He cited two mission statements from history that he likes because they meet the three criteria above:
1. Microsoft: To have a PC on every office desk by the year 2000 and
2. British Airways: The world's favourite airline.
So do you have a mission statement? Does it tell your employees and the marketplace of members and potential members what to expect from your credit union? Can you measure how you're doing against it?
Don't use google to develop yours, Oliver said. Otherwise you might end up like a credit union that came up with "We're going to generate a culture with an ethos of transparency"--and had no idea what that meant.
Lisa Hochgraf is a CUES editor.
Read more from CUES Director Strategy Seminar :
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