You might unite and ignite the CU movement. By Dana Murn-Kohal 
Remember the children’s book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie? In that story, giving the mouse a cookie sets off a chain of events that eventually leads back to giving the mouse another cookie. What if you gave a future leader a cookie—in the form of your support or mentorship? What chain of events would you start? It could become a beautiful story to tell your children. Many of the “future leaders” of our movement are Millennials like me. And wow, everyone is talking about us these days—whether it is about how we have been taught to expect praise in every aspect of our lives or that we cannot save a dollar to save our souls. Despite all of the white noise and generic classifications, most of us care about causes passionately, and that can be to credit unions’ advantage. At CU Water Cooler Symposium, which I "crashed" back in September with a great group of eight others, it was evident in every conversation that we (several of us Millennials) had passion for the credit union movement. This made me puzzled. We have an industry full of awesome people who love what they do and love singing the praises of credit unions, so why don’t more Americans love credit unions? Credit unions have a lot stacked against them right now, including regulatory changes, alternative players in the financial services space, aging membership, and an influx of CEO retirements. Hopefully we aren’t looking for a knight on a white horse to save the day, as I don’t think he is coming. But do you know who can help? Your future leaders—those Millennials! They have fresh takes on things your credit union may have been doing the same way the last 20 years. When a Milllennial has a suggestion to improve work efficiency, listen! Despite our tendency to “crash” credit union events, future leaders really aren’t disruptive to the credit union space. In fact, we want to help, we want to unite for good, and we love to work for a cause we care about. If you give a future leader the “cookie” of your support or mentorship, you will set off a chain of events that will most likely help us do great things in the credit union space. By the end of CU Water Cooler Symposium, our crash group was closer than ever. We talked and joked about what it would be like to be a major leader in the credit union space who could unite all credit unions together. Maybe at that time we were joking, but as the months go by I wonder: Is it really that farfetched that nine future leaders could come together and change an industry? I don’t think it is … and we may even just try! Dana Murn-Kohal is CUES’ professional development and innovation manager. Learn more about Alex Castley, the 2014 CUES Next Top Credit Union Exec. Learn more about being a crasher through The Cooperative Trust. Read more CUES Skybox posts on professional development. Sign up for CUES Next Generation Membership.
