By Bryan Ochalla
Steve Farber, the author of Greater Than Yourself and the president of Irvine, Calif.-based Extreme Leadership Inc., suggests board members could benefit from looking at how things are the same and different from the past—especially while searching for a CEO whom they hope will stay put through thick and thin.
In the past, Farber says, “work was where you went to collect a paycheck, while you lived your life on the weekends. More and more, though, work is becoming a place where people expect to have meaningful experiences.”
Farber says employees at all levels—including the one in your credit union’s corner office—want work to be meaningful. “They want to be part of something great, which hasn’t always been the case.”
As a result, just as it’s valuable for a credit union CEO to create a work environment that enables his or her staffers to feel as though they’re doing something important, it’s also key for a CU’s board to create a similar environment for their sole employee.
Another timeless tactic that credit union board members would do well to consider: Today’s employees, whether they’re the CEO or a front-line staffer, want to be recognized for their work.
“That’s another thing that has become more and more important over the last 20 or so years,” Farber shares. “And even though it probably seems like common knowledge or conventional wisdom at this point, it’s not always common practice.”
It should be, though, especially if a credit union board wants its CEO to stick around for a meaningful length of time. “Create that kind of work environment,” Farber says, “and not only will your executive do better work, but he or she will do that work for a very long time.”
A former editor of CUES' Credit Union Management magazine, Bryan Ochalla is a freelance writer based in Seattle.
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