By Ray Birch
DALEVILLE, Ala.—Believing there’s far too little collaboration within the movement, execs from four credit unions recently went on a “Learning Journey”—a two-day visit to three progressive credit unions in Georgia to learn how they run their businesses.
Bobby Michael, CEO of the $1.2-billion Army Aviation Center FCU here, came up with the idea of the Learning Journey, and told CUToday.info that this kind of information sharing is needed for credit unions to thrive.
“You don’t know what you don’t know,” said Michael. “We do things here the Army Aviation way, but we all know there is more than one way to skin a cat. I wanted to see with my own eyes that there are other ways to do things, and there are better ways to do things.”
The two-day trip in late June took a four-person team from Army Aviation, as well as teams from three other Alabama and Florida CUs—Florida State CU in Tallahassee, Innovations FCU in Panama City, Fla., and Alabama State Employees CU in Montgomery—to visit three growing and innovative CUs in Georgia—Peach State FCU in Lawrenceville, LGE CU in Marietta, and Robins Financial CU in Warner Robins.
Exchange Of Ideas
The visit included tours of the credit unions’ facilities and operations. But Michael said that most of the learning occurred in meeting rooms, where there was not only information shared but an open exchange of ideas, as well.
While AACFCU is a billion-dollar credit union, Michael said collaboration is very important for smaller credit unions, which can benefit from the experience and knowledge of the larger shops. He also noted that CUs may do a good job of talking about collaboration, but that much more is needed within the industry.
“There is collaboration among the leagues and with CUSOs,” said Michael. “But I don’t think many credit unions are doing something similar to the Learning Journey.”
For the educational experience to pay off, Michael emphasized that egos can’t come along for the trip.
“You have to check your ego at the door and be humble,” emphasized Michael. “If you come in all full of pride and think that you have already figured out the best way to slice a cake you won’t be willing to learn. You have to realize someone else probably is doing some things better than you are, and you just sit back and be quiet and hear how they do it. That is how the learning begins.”
Sit Back And Listen
Michael admits that sometimes what is shared may work well for the credit union that is passing along the information, yet it might not work for another CU. “But, again, have some humility, sit back and listen.”
L-R: Jeremy Hinton, Scott Gladden, Innovations FCU; Todd Peeples AAFCU FCU; Marshall Boutwell, Peach State FCU; Lisa Hales, AACFCU; Jared Freeman, ASE Credit Union; Bobby Michael, AACFCU; Chuck Adcock, FSU Credit Union; Jim Freeland, AACFCU
Before the trip, Army Aviation created a list of topics that would be discussed, polling the three other CUs that traveled to Georgia. Questions were summarized and then e-mailed to the host credit unions.
“We covered those issues and a lot that we did not even plan to talk about,” said Michael.
Army Aviation’s focus was on marketing, lending, HR and IT.
Michael said he was most interested in corporate culture, cross-selling, leadership development and mentoring.
“One thing I was particularly interested in is how these three credit unions assembled their senior management teams, what were some of the growing pains and how long did it take until they felt they had a strong level of cohesiveness and a team that was working as effectively as possible.”
Innovative Lending
Army Aviation Lending VP Jim Freeland said he was most interested in learning about new and innovative lending products, if lending operations were centralized or decentralized, and the pros and cons of both, and lending staff size.
“I also just wanted to know, from a lending perspective, what made each of the three credit unions different in their marketplaces,” said Freeland.
Lisa Hales, marketing VP at Army Aviation, wanted to learn new ways of reaching out to members and non-members.
“One idea we came back with we employed immediately and it is working well,” she said.
Todd Peeples, IT VP at AACFCU, said he wanted to find out how each of the credit unions handled e-services, disaster recovery and branching technology. He said these kinds of meetings give credit unions a competitive advantage over banks. “I know you’d never see banks share information with each other in this same way.”
Michael said that another Learning Journey is certainly in the future for his credit union.
“A date has yet to be set, but it will happen,” he said. “For the 48 hours we invested into this we got back a tremendous amount of knowledge.”