LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla.–Credit union board members were told the best place to start in responding to the rapid change in financial services is inside their own boardrooms.
Peter Sheahan, the founder and CEO of ChangeLabs, which has recently become Karrikins Group and who has worked with numerous credit unions and big-brand Fortune 500 companies, told the CUES Directors Conference that most organizations have a passive-aggressive response to change, in which they acknowledge the change is occurring but then don’t do anything in response.
To get past that and to adequately position the credit union for the future, its board must first understand a couple of “truisms”:
- “Nothing ever changes in industry that didn’t exist on the periphery for a period of time.”
- “Change is really slow—until it’s not.”
“The most important thing for you as boards to do is to understand your role as a questioner of legacy beliefs and assumptions,” Sheahan told the CU volunteers. “It turns out that it doesn’t matter how well you execute the wrong strategy. In times of disruption, getting clarity right is actually as important as getting execution right. Your job as board members is far more important in a period like this. The assumptions you make will echo long into the future.”
He cautioned boards to be careful, as they are a disproportionate body relative to the membership with the power to make huge decisions, and that often within boards there are one or two people who have disproportionate power on the board.
Watch CUToday.info for the full story in the coming days.