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Articles by Les Wallace
The Five Leading Indicators Every Credit Union Should Monitor
4 minutes Credit unions have no shortage of data. Satisfaction scores, share of wallet, retention, and Net Promoter Scores (NPS) all provide valuable insight into organizational performance and help validate whether member experience improvements are delivering results over time. While these metrics measure outcomes, the challenge is that they rarely ever explain where the friction first begins. Leading indicators provide a different perspective.
5 Financial Service Trends That Could Change the Way You Strategize
Skip to main content 2 minutes How future-ready is your credit union? Sponsored by CUES Supplier member Jack Henry. Technological advancements and changing consumer demands are reshaping our financial services industry, requiring credit unions to adapt and innovate like never before. With fierce competition around every corner, converging technology and shifting user experiences, it’s difficult to pinpoint what’s most important now (and why).
Good Governance: Board members as futurists
Enhancing your ability to think strategically isn’t hard to do. You woke up this morning in the future. You probably didn’t think much about it because human nature, as is most business nature, is to focus on the here and now—the near term. And when our lives and business issues are urgent, that’s the best approach. However, most of our credit union board work is not urgent; it’s performance oversight. We spend a lot of time looking in the rear-view mirror.
Good Governance: Meeting again, for the first time
How to return to in-person board meetings and retreats as the COVID-19 pandemic winds down It’s April 2021 and your board retreat approaches. Half of your board members—and all of those over 65 or with chronic health conditions—have received a COVID-19 vaccine. New COVID-19 cases have dropped below 60,000 a day nationwide, and the positivity rate in your state is below 5%. Board members debate the precautions they will take to meet in person. One member says she will participate remotely.
Good Governance: The board and talent management
These eight factors of corporate culture are right up there with financial performance as something high-performance boards track. Just the title of this article makes governance experts recoil. Boards have always been advised to stay out of organizational management and that includes human resources issues. Yet, as organizational culture continues to emerge as critical to organizational performance, boards are finding themselves having to engage in some non-traditional behavior.
Good Governance: Your goal should be informed confidence
Can you meet a member one-on-one and knowingly declare that your credit union is healthy across key organizational performance domains?
Good Governance: Here’s why I shouldn’t leave the board
An expert shares the five most common objections directors give to the idea of moving on in due course—and how he addresses them. Every governance educator I know working with CUES has made it clear to their audiences and in their content pieces for CUES that board term limits and more frequent replacement of board members is the new normal. In my case, I suggest term limits of three, three-year terms for a total service period of nine years, assuming a board member continues to get re-elected.
Good Governance: An easy board refresh for 2019
Talk about how your agendas, risk and strategy discussions, and board development and diversity efforts can improve in the new year. Here are a few simple board refresh ideas the participants in last September’s CUES Director Development Seminar found actionable. Agendas If you are not using a consent agenda to manage routine items in one fell swoop, please start. If you are already using a consent agenda, expand it.
Good Governance: Are credit unions ready for Gen Z?
The demographic challenges facing credit union membership are cause for ongoing conversations at every gathering of boards and executives. A declining Baby Boomer population has been a trusted foundation for credit unions. Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) have challenged us to polish our branding, refresh our delivery systems and move toward expensive and risker digital platforms to enhance service.
Good Governance: Generative dialog as board process
Governance is the set of processes used by a board of directors to oversee organizational performance, ensure adequate goals for the organization and determine the best strategy to stay vibrant, valuable and visionary for the members. In surveys, how the board can become a “strategic asset” to the organization is one of the top five concerns of board members.
Good Governance: First 100 days of 2018
CEOs, presidents and other executives all create 100-day plans as they embark on a new assignment, or they may devise a hundred-day refresh plan as they move downstream and feel the need to recalibrate. Could your board commit to a “100 Day Refresh” of governance as you move into 2018? Here are three high-impact areas that are easily refreshed by the board of directors. In my work with 75 credit union boards, I’ve yet to find one who couldn’t benefit from a review of these areas.
Good Governance: DIY board assessment - CUInsight
Board governance itself is a hot topic and board best practice surveys are a great way to identify key focus areas and what your board might be able to do in each area in the new year. Some examples of these studies include: Public Company Governance Survey (National Association of Corporate Directors, 2016) Leading with ...
Good Governance: What your CEO wants for the holidays - CUInsight
Plenty of surveys tell us what CEOs think about their boards. In general, they would like a bit more of a risk-taking attitude, less diving into tactical/operational areas, enhanced governance literacy and lots more tech savvy. During my work with over 300 boards over 20 years and many educational seminars with credit union board members, I’ve developed my own list of what might be worthy considerations for your board to discuss early in 2018. 1. Greater board insight into strategic thinking.
Good Governance: Get full ROI on board and CEO learning - CUInsight
Board members are exploring the credit union seminar circuit—from Hawaii to the Caribbean to Canada—for board development. What has been the follow-up action plan at your credit union for directors attending such programs? If your members’ money sends director packin’ to a conference, the least owed to them is a return on their investment—something tangible. What changes has your credit union made to governance in the last year, based upon the training board members received?
Good Governance: Board member to CEO? A bad idea! - CUInsight
As of this writing I’ve served on five corporate boards of directors and worked with 329 client boards on governance. I’ve experienced three CEO transitions from the board member perspective and helped numerous client boards with the process of new CEO recruitment and selection. In a few cases, a sitting board member had campaigned or was actively campaigning for the CEO job. I have found that circumstance fraught with problems.
Good governance: Missing out on a critical mission - CUInsight
The largest generational transfer of wealth is about to happen in the United States, and credit unions are failing to help their members navigate the journey. Yes, I know your credit union claims to make wealth management services available to members. However, sitting around waiting for members to come forward for services they may not know they need is not a service mission strategy. Only measuring the margin on investment sales is certainly inadequate.
Developing Officers' Leadership Competencies
5 minutes A recent study of nonprofit boards by the Alliance for Nonprofit Research reported that at least 50 percent had no prior training for board officers, particularly their chair. A whopping 70 percent of chairs reported feeling frustrated in their role. More than two-thirds identified keeping the board’s strategic focus as one of their top three challenges. Even if you’re an above-average board, the likelihood is that your credit union has no formal development program for officers.
Good Governance: Widening board recruitment - CUInsight
Today’s credit union board elections have taken on a different hue. Consider these questions: When’s the last time your credit union had a contested election? How many qualified members are knocking down your door wanting to get involved in governance? Have you gone outside your membership looking for experienced leaders willing to serve on your board? Has your membership elected someone to the board who, previous to their nomination, was not a member chosen by the board?
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