Management Network September 2014

Are Members Happy or Not?

Making a Seamless Switch

Whether a CU is large or small, bringing in a new chief executive can be a delicate transition. In the second edition of her book, Chief Executive Succession Planning: Essential Guidance for Boards and CEOs, author Nancy R. Axelrod describes the shift between CEOs as a “pivotal point that exert(s) a profound impact on organizational performance.”

Fostering successful collaboration between a CU’s staff and its new chief executive requires a long-term transition strategy, one that begins before the new executive is announced and continues after the executive joins the credit union, she believes.

Defining the role of the outgoing chief executive, for example, can leave the CU more prepared for its new leader. A parting chief executive should begin planning for succession long before it becomes a reality by building an organizational structure that fosters leadership and a self-sufficient staff.

“A concrete way for a chief executive to contribute to succession planning is to build organizational bench strength by nurturing staff members with leadership potential,” Axelrod writes. “Ultimately, the chief executive’s most important contribution to succession planning is to ... leave the [CU] stronger and better for his or her successor. Building a successful organization ... and fostering an adaptive and accountable culture will increase the probability of a successful transition.”

To learn more about healthy communication and seamless changes in leadership, purchase Chief Executive Succession Planning: Essential Guidance for Boards and CEOs and take advantage of an $11 discount if you are a member of CUES’ Center for Credit Union Board Excellence.

By Kait Vosswinkel, CUES editorial intern

Letter to the Editor

Great insights on “PR Insight: How to Engage Members Through Blogging”. Thank you so much for sharing. Credit unions talk about Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Vine. Those are all well and good. However, the blog truly is the engine that drives much of your social media efforts. Consumers today want a connection, not a sales pitch. And the best way to build that connection is to give them great information via your blog.

Mark Arnold
President
On the Mark Strategies, Dallas

Lean Journey’ Makes Everyone an Innovator

Since inviting its employees to “fix what bugs you,” $59 million VA Desert Pacific Federal Credit Union has benefited from improvements ranging from the elimination of paper forms in many processes to a change in email extensions to make them easier to share.

“You don’t need an outside expert to come in and recommend new efficiencies,” contends Cindy Glessner, CEO and Certified Effectiveness Coach of the Long Beach, Calif., credit union with 4,600 members. “Your staff has all the genius you need.”

The credit union’s “lean journey” was inspired by the work of Paul Akers, a business owner and author of 2 Second Lean: How to Grow People and Build a Fun Lean Culture. Akers identifies eight common areas where waste may impair efficiency: overproduction, transportation, inventory, defects, over-processing, waiting, wasted motion and wasted human potential.

VA Desert Pacific FCU applied that model initially to replacing paper with digital forms to improve member service and document management, but employees empowered to identify and eliminate waste have implemented and shared a variety of other improvements as well. When they see an opportunity for improvement, they make the change and create a short before-and-after “lean video” to share with fellow employees in staff meetings, explains Glessner, a CUES member.

For example, a member service representative rearranged the equipment in her small branch to put the devices she used most frequently in easy reach. The credit union is also changing its email extension from its initials to the leaner “desertpacific.org” after employees shared a funny video to make their point, with a string of staff members laboriously trying to convey the email address in a phone conversation: “No, no, it’s v as in Victor, a as in apple…”

The idea is to implement changes that save as little as two seconds of work time, but Glessner says the more than 50 improvements at VA Desert Pacific FCU since November 2013 have done a lot more than that—and enhanced teamwork as well. “This process gives staff the authority and responsibility to fix things, and sharing the videos highlights their creativity and autonomy.”

Corrections

Federal credit unions are not required to submit informational tax returns, as was suggested by a table in “Make Your Way ... Through the Pay Maze,” which starts on p. 34 of our July issue. We regret any confusion this error may have caused, and thank CUES member Mary Isaacs, EVP/chief financial officer of $1 billion Altra Federal Credit Union, Onalaska, Wis., for bringing it to our attention.

In the list of 2014 CUES Golden Mirror Awards winners published in August, the “CUSO Marketing” category winner should have been listed as CU Direct, rather than CUDL. We regret the error.

Also in the list of 2014 GMA winners in August, America’s Credit Union should have been listed as located in Lewis McChord, Wash., in the Print and Outdoor Advertising and Television categories. We regret this oversight.