I corrected my vocabulary - quickly! This was certainly a great team, and they deserved to know it. What makes them great? A deep desire to build trust with one another.
Sure, each person on the team has challenges just like any other person in the world. I imagine sometimes people on the team wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Certainly the daily frustrations of management responsibility gets to each one of them on occasion. They thing is, though, they recognize these challenges and work to ensure that overall they can speak openly with one another, challenge each other, and debate the finer points of strategy and priorities even when they might not feel like it, and even when the subject matter may be uncomfortable to discuss.
The saying "culture eats strategy for lunch" is true because organizations that lack trust end up with "things unsaid." What are "things unsaid?" Simply put, the thoughts, questions, challenge statements, and behavioral corrections that, if uttered, would be good for the organization but because of a lack of trust never leave the inner sanctum of an individual's mind. The result? Poor decisions are never corrected. Bad behavior is never changed. Product enhancements are never suggested. Etc.
Trust is important. If you have trust, the fear of feeling like an idiot for making a suggestion falls away. None of us want to make mistakes, especially in front of our peers. We certainly don't want to say anything "stupid." When people are put at ease because of trust, they will more readily bring up the uncomfortable which will undoubtedly strengthen the institution and lead to better management performance.
The team I had the opportunity and pleasure to work with knows this and, more importantly, makes it an important part of their culture. I wish I could take them along with me to other credit unions on a trust-based training roadshow (yes guys - even Mike!).
It would be a great program!
On an unrelated note, I just left the CUNA Mutual Discovery Conference where I spoke on Next Generation issues as a stand-in for Justin Ho. Justin is our real next-gen expert, but was unavailable to conduct the session. In any case, I had the opportunity to catch up with another speaker who had covered the challenges in building relationships with indirect members in an earlier presentation. I thought her observation was interesting and wanted to pass it along.
As any credit union knows, it is a long, hard slog to build deposit-based relationships with indirect members. But we try, and try, and try....... It seems to never work, save for a few rare examples.
This person's contention, based on background study and a pilot research program, is that what we really need to do is immediately being working additional lending-related business as soon as the ink dries on the indirect loan docs. She suggests a rather quick (within days) follow-up call to the indirect member to ask about other loan needs. Do they have other auto loans that could be refinanced? Do they need an equity line? How about a credit card with better terms than the one they have?
This approach makes good sense. People don't easily switch deposit relationships because it is a pain to do so. This is especially true when the "switch to" institution isn't very well known. Loans relationships, however, are a very different story. The switching costs are rather low, and often product tie-ups do not exist (such as with direct deposits, etc.).
Sure, there are those institutions with loan pricing tied to deposit balances, but remember these are indirect borrowers who probably do not have those kinds of account relationships in the first place.
It was an interesting conversation, one certainly worth sharing.
