January 30, 2012

Mike McCarthy (left), Hank Hubbard and Jim Rockwood consider the question of what their credit unions are not going to do. McCarthy is director and Hubbard is president/CEO of $32 million Communicating Arts Credit Union, Detroit. Rockwood is chairman of $532 million SAC Federal Credit Union, Bellevue, Neb.

People from a well-intentioned credit union take great pains to plan wonderful strategic retreats for their leaders. They carefully identify a place to hold a planning session. They go through great pains to choose a facilitator. They make wonderful choices about meals. Then, when they go, they fill the walls with flip-chart ideas.

The strategic plan that results from this effort is a long list of all the things that filled those flip charts. The credit union staff work on the list of to-dos and come back in a year to see how they’ve done. Typically, there’s a long list of things that didn’t get done.

According to Michael Hudson, Ph.D., that’s because the leaders didn’t talk about a fundamental strategic planning question: “What are we not going to do?”

“It’s really tough to decide what we’re not going to do,” Hudson emphasized yesterday during his opening keynote session at CUES Symposium: A CEO/Chairman Exchange, taking place this week in Bonita Springs, Fla. “Another key question is: What are you now doing that you would not start doing if you weren’t already doing it?”

President of Credit Union Strategy, Rehoboth Beach, Del., Hudson believes asking these two questions is essential, especially in this era when new hires are generally to replace people who leave—not to add new capacity.

He acknowledged that deciding not to do something can make leaders uncomfortable. That discomfort may be from concern that members expect your credit union to do everything; because the choice is to give up something you’ve been comfortably doing for a long time; or from a sense of wondering what will happen to the people who currently own those projects at your credit union if those projects no longer exist.

The exercise is worth some discomfort, Hudson asserted.

“What’s true about businesses with successful long-time businesses?” he said. “They decide what they’re going to do and what they’re not going to do. They focus. Let’s use those questions to help us get the essentials out on the table.”

Hudson asked attendees to discuss these two questions. Here’s a list of things they reported their credit unions were giving up or choosing not to get into. What are your answers to Hudson’s key questions?

• not to implement remote deposit capture because of questions about fraud, and not being sure about the product yet
• not to go for a community charter, and instead to focus on strengthening current SEGs
• not to have a presence on Facebook and Twitter because the CU doesn’t have a staffer who can be dedicated to monitoring it
• not to join a shared branch network in favor of leading people to technology-based delivery systems
• not to do any paper-based marketing
• not to get into business loans and
• not to market outside of our target market.

Read more from Hudson in this CUES Skybox credit union blog post.

Lisa Hochgraf is a CUES editor.