CUES Podcast

Terrance Williams says it was his dad who taught him to be a leader who listens, an intern who asked him how he knows insurance is still the right career for him and his parents together who instilled in him his mantra of “paying it forward.”

In this episode of the CUES Podcast, Williams, the new president/CEO of CUESolutions provider TruStage®, illustrates his leadership style by describing his approach to having lunch.

“I want to make sure that everyone’s comfortable engaging with me,” says Williams. “When I go get lunch, I talk to everyone in the cafeteria, regardless of their role, and regardless of what they do, and I want them to view and see me as someone that's approachable as someone that they can talk to and engage with—and give me feedback, give me a suggestion, give me a thought. (That) doesn’t mean we’re going to do everything that comes my way, but I always want to maintain that open forum, so that people are comfortable coming to me and approaching me."

Williams explains in the show how he was able to respond to an intern’s question about whether Williams had made the right decision to pursue a career in insurance. He is certain that he has.

“I …  believe what we do genuinely matters,” he says. “When you think about the ability to transfer risk, the ability for me to live my life without the worry of being able to take care of the unexpected, without having to worry about what might happen with the loss of a loved one, … our role, when you boil it all down … is really to ensure that we can help rebuild lives to the degree money and caring can. That’s what we do. And I would like us to talk about that more as an industry.”

Williams adds that one of TruStage’s strengths is its mutual structure. “This belief in this notion of people helping people, the ability for us to make long-term decisions that really are centered around the member, the ability to ensure that we can invest today with the recognition that we will benefit someone tomorrow.”

The show also gets into:

• Williams’ mantra, paying it forward, and how he wears that idea on his arm (see photo) 
• How Williams won a national award for chief marketing officers without being a CMO
• The job during Williams’ career that was most formative for him as a leader
• Diversity, equity and inclusion

Links for this show:

• TruStage
• TruStage’s CUESolutions provider page
• Key Strategies for Setting Up a Diversity & Inclusion Program with Angela Russell from TruStage
• CUESolutions providers are trusted credit union suppliers
• Transcript

Chris Jones and his team have formed a new company named to represent well what they do. Jones is a senior benefits consultant and partner in PARC Street Partners. PARC stands for plan, attract, retain and compensate—all key elements of the company’s work to help credit unions create a succession plan, attract, retain and compensate key executives so that both the executives and the credit union “win the financial game.”

In the end, he says in the show, the credit union’s members win too.

“If the credit union is winning the financial game, the executive should win the financial game,” he says. “And as the result of those two, ultimately, keeping the member in the center, … the member is winning the financial game. When the organization is healthy and moving forward, the member is winning.”

PARC Street Partners specializes in helping credit unions, executives and boards put in place supplemental executive retirement plans so that everyone can win the financial game together. But in the show, Jones emphasizes that SERPs are just part of the larger succession planning picture.

“Succession planning is a process,” he explains. “It’s not a SERP. The SERP is a tool that is used to support the process. The succession plan should stand in and of itself, on its own. … And then the question is, do we need a SERP to support that? We think often you do, but the plan should stand on its own.”

The show also gets into:

• How SERPs play into today’s recruiting processes
• How having conversations about succession planning and SERPs can help clarify details about executives’ retirement plans that have previously not be discussed
• What will change and what will not change for Jones' team and clients of PARC Street Partners 
• The difference between the two main kinds of SERPs—457(f) and split-dollar plans—and examples of situations when each might work best

Links for this show:

• PARC Street Partners
• Article Bruce Smith of PARC Street Partners: Turn Your Credit Union’s SERP Liability Into Net Income 
• CUES Unlimited+ member video featuring Chris Jones: A Myth Boards Hold About Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans
• Become a CUES Supplier member
• Download a transcript

Hybrid, remote and in-person work gets talked about a lot these days. The conversations are often about which companies are staying remote, which are calling every employee back to the office, and which jobs can truly be done effectively from someplace other than a physical location.

But a topic that’s been less talked about so far is the impact of our new choices about where we work in terms of career development. And this is the topic Deedee Myers, Ph.D., delves into deeply in this episode of the CUES Podcast. Myers is the president of DDJ Myers, an ALM First Company, the CUESolutions provider for succession planning and the sponsor of CUES’ Advancing Women publication.

In this show, Myers emphasizes the need to both slow down and focus on people in a variety of areas related to people strategy and career development.

For example, Myers says executives are exhausted from having to manage several groups of people—those who are in the office all the time, those who are in the office part of the time and those who are in the office none of the time—and not having the training to lead in this way.

“It’s going to take some courage and commitment for us to slow down and relearn how to ... be effective leaders” in this environment, she asserts.

She cites recent research that says people who are in the office a few days a week are more likely to get promoted than people who are fully remote “because they’re seen, they’re there, they’re in the meetings, it’s easier to have conversations.” 

Because of this, she recommends figuring out “how to be seen on those two, three days that you’re in the office, or how you can keep connecting with others in a meaningful way.”

The show also gets into:

• What kind of person is now needed to lead the people development and talent strategy parts of what was traditionally called “HR”
• How to connect more effectively with young employees
• What aspiring CEOs need to know about the impact of hybrid work on their careers

Links for this show:

• DDJ Myers, an ALM First Company
• Recent CUES videos featuring Deedee Myers: 
  • Considerations for Women Who Want to Be CEO
  • How CEOs Can Design Organizations of the Future (Unlimited+ membership required)
• Become a CUESolutions provider

From a past episode of the CUES Podcast, we already know that Scott Hackworth is an able data guy. In this show, he talks about the compensation data and corresponding trends that stand out in this year’s CUES Executive Compensation Survey and CUES Employee Salary Survey.

He also describes the suite of data analysis tools included in the CUES compensation surveys and how they may be helpful to both credit unions and their team members.

“The year-over-year comparisons are still very high,” in the latest survey data, Hackworth says in the show. He is a CPA and president of Industry Insights, CUES’ partner in producing the annual surveys. This year’s increases are in the “high single digits, whereas in ‘21, it had been the low double digits. But we’re still in that 7, 8, 9% year-over-year change—and that’s on a same-sample basis. So, looking at the same groupings of companies, same employees largely, we are seeing 7, 8, 9% pay increases. That’s significant."

In addition to the overall upward trend, Hackworth talks about significant increases for CEOs and chief member solutions officers. Then he describes how to use the data analysis tools included in the CUES survey offerings. 

Listen in to get all the details.

Links for this show:

• CUES Executive Compensation Survey
• CUES Employee Salary Survey
• Industry Insights
• CUES’ CU Management magazine’s coverage of the surveys in its October 2023 issue

Peter Glyman finds it fun to say “yes” to a fintech integration with a Jack Henry product.

Glyman is managing director of corporate strategy at Jack Henry, a CUES Supplier member and the sponsor of this episode. In the show, he talks about his fintech experience as the co-founder in 2006 of personal financial management tool Geezeo, which Jack Henry acquired in 2019 and subsequently integrated with its Banno Digital Platform.

In the show, Glyman says a best practice for credit unions when it comes to fintech might be “getting involved.” This could be watching fintechs directly; starting a credit union service organization to work together with other CUs in monitoring the environment; or partnering with a larger group like Jack Henry that’s vetting fintechs and choosing which to integrate into its products.

Glyman also talks about application programming interfaces—or APIs—what they are,
why they’re important and the value of knowing a fintech has published theirs. And in addition to talking about Jack Henry-fintech integrations he thinks are particularly excellent, he also describes financial technology he’s been following.

“I spent a fair amount of time the last couple of years looking at blockchain and crypto for Jack Henry and how that is relevant for our credit union clients,” he says in the show. “… We're looking at wealth tech as an area of interest, allowing credit union members to be able to buy fractional shares of stocks or create portfolios. I think that's a missing piece in the member experience with their credit.”

He also invited credit union leaders to reach out to him via LinkedIn about the technology they’re interested in—or just to talk fintech in general. “What areas are you interested in?” he asked. “What new technologies interest you? I'd love to hear that."

Links for this show:

• Jack Henry
• Jack Henry's Banno Digital Platform
• Peter Glyman on LinkedIn
• Three Important Findings From Jack Henry's 2023 Strategic Priorities Benchmark Study
• Four Ways Technology Can Improve Efficiency for Credit Unions and Members
• CEO Institute: FinTech
• Transcript

In the latest episode of the CUES Podcast, Lesley Sears defines the differences between climate and culture and explains how they together create the workplace your staff members experience every day. 

VP/consulting for CUES, Sears then rises to the challenges of describing each of the nine elements of climate in two minutes or less. In that short span, she defines each, explains what to look for if they’re healthy or unhealthy dimensions, and what to do to bring each along toward health. 

The nine dimensions of culture Sears highlights are: 

1. Challenge and engagement 
2. Freedom 
3. Trust and openness 
4. Idea time 
5. Playfulness and humor 
6. Conflict 
7. Idea support 
8. Debate 
9. Risk-taking 

Credit unions want high numbers for every dimension except conflict, Sears says.. 

“Debate is different than conflict,” she explains. “Debate is healthy conversation. Conflict is not healthy. So, it's the sniping. It happens when people genuinely don't like each other. There's a dislike in the climate. So again, as much as playfulness and humor ... can be a good representation of a healthy climate, conflict can often be a very good representation of a not very healthy climate.”

What are some things you can do to promote low conflict at your credit union? Sears suggests identifying common goals. “Distract the attention from the conflict itself and focus on the healthy stuff,” she advises. “How are we all moving toward the same goals? How are we doing that? What dimensions around conflict can we do better at?”

Listen to the full show for more about each dimension.

“I love how a climate is made up,” Sears summarizes. “And I love that behavioral psychologists have really been able to bring these dimensions together. So, I'm passionate about them. I think they are truly a way of measuring who you are as a credit union.

Sears advises using the results of a climate assessment to help you focus your talent development efforts. “Like we've got ‘x’ number of resources,” she says. “How can we get the most that we possibly can out of those resources? And I think these dimensions help us really do that well.”

Links for this show: 

• Transcript
• More content from Lesley Sears 
• CUES Consulting 
• From new CUES CEO Heather McKissick, I-CUDE: Addressing Talent Challenges Requires a Holistic and Innovative Approach

According to Deedee Myers, Ph.D., in this latest episode of the CUES Podcast, more and more CEOs are looking at their organizations and asking themselves, “What does it need to be in the future?” The answer to that question, she says, has to be put in the context of unprecedented times with the hybrid remote work environment taking hold and the need for leadership skills really changing.

“As humans, we need to ‘North Star’ right now,” says Myers, CEO of DDJ Myers, an ALM First company, a CUESolutions provider and the sponsor of CUES’ Advancing Women publication. “We need a reason to come to work. We need to come together with one voice and have a place to go. Call it a vision or North Star organizing principle, we need to know why we matter every day. That’s lost right now in a lot of organizations. That's why a lot of CEOs are looking at the organization of the future. What is that compelling reason?”

Myers suggests that when CEOs are designing the organization of the future, they should talk with many stakeholders about “three time zones.” That is, they should have conversations about the credit union’s past, where it has been, what it has done; the credit union’s present, where it is, what is working, what is not working, what has stayed the same, what is changing; and of course, the credit union’s future, what it could be.

Myers suggests CEOs listen to not only what board members have to say but also executives, middle-level leaders, front-line staff and trusted vendors, including fintechs.

Going on such a “listening tour,” Myers emphasizes in the show, requires CEOs to look to remove their biases so they can get a fresh perspective and practice really good listening skills.

“I think the CEO has to shape themselves in a way that people will want to share and go below the surface,” she says. For example, it might seem simpler to have this conversation with the whole board at once. “But when we pick up the phone and talk to each board member, we get to hear really what they care about, and what they’re concerned about.”

The show also gets into:

• How to set the ground rules to support a successful listening tour
• The value of CEOs having a personal centering practice to help them listen to all feedback, even the difficult-to-hear feedback
• The value of intention and awareness in being a good listener
• Special considerations for new CEOs and female CEOs
• What to do with the information collection on a listening tour
• Identifying both low-hanging fruit leaders can address readily and deeper work the organization needs to do

Links

• DDJ Myers, an ALM First company
• Become a CUESolutions provider
• DDJ Myers sponsors Advancing Women
• Podcast 73: How to Smash a CEO Interview, with guests Deedee and Peter Myers

Omar Jordan says a mantra he lives by personally and professionally is, this one from Tony Robbins: "Stop being afraid of what could go wrong, and start being excited of what could go right." 

As founder/CEO of the credit union service organization Coviance, Des Moines, Iowa, Jordan believes that credit unions would benefit from not being afraid to take a risk to see what good could come of it—especially a calculated risk related to home equity lending, lending automation and working with fintechs. 

“In this industry, as you know, … we're good at managing risk,” Jordan says in the show. “And that's primarily what I hear. ‘We manage risk, we manage risk.’ And to that I say, … 'Everything is scary until it's not.’ And so, it's okay to take risks every now and then as long as we're not putting one out of business. Let's … continue along the path of innovation.” 

In this episode of the CUES Podcast, Jordan talks about trends in the HELOC market. 

“We've been actually predicting home equity lending demand to rise, and our predictions became reality,” he says. “We're seeing industry headwinds such as high interest rates, home values being on the rise [and] lack of demand for refinance and purchase mortgage turn into opportunity or tailwinds for credit unions, and especially credit unions who are looking to expand on their TAM, their total addressable market and their member share of wallet.” 

In addition to describing Coviance’s lending automation offering and its potential to bring a credit union a return on its investment, Jordan also offers his thoughts about partnering with fintechs that will enhance your core business versus compete with it. 

“There are competing fintechs, and they … are going after our credit union members—and not just on the lending side but nearly every product that credit union offers,” he says in the show. "And there are fintechs, such as Coviance, [that] … are primarily focused on providing credit unions the technology solutions, the product … they need ... to lend at ... the speed of today's borrower—because your members’ expectations today aren't what your members’ expectations were five years ago.” 

The show also gets into: 

• the difference between lending automation tools and loan origination systems—and how credit unions can benefit from having both.  
• what the Coviance system offers 
• Jordan’s big-picture thoughts about how credit unions can best partner with fintechs 
• ideas worth considering regarding digital transformation, digital optimization and innovation. 

Links for this show: 

• Coviance 
• Transcript 

In this episode of the CUES Podcast, Lesley Sears says she loves the commercial in which “Polly Pratz wore many hats.” While the commercial is for an online university, Sears loves the many hats idea as it relates to having an organization-wide skills taxonomy—a system for deeply understanding the skills of each employee and the organization overall. 

Having a skills taxonomy can help an organization not just think about their people within the boundaries of their position or role (such as teller or chief marketer) but rather think broadly about what they can or could do—their current and developable skills (such as accuracy or setting marketing strategy), explains Sears, , CUES’ VP/consulting services who heads up CUES Consulting.

In the commercial, the female protagonist “has on a firefighter’s hat and the coach’s hat and … all of these different things that she has done in the past,” Sears says. “The skills taxonomy really begins to identify that for the organization, … so people really understand who their workforce is and what they’re bringing to the table on any given day.”

In the show, Sears says a skills taxonomy is like a biological taxonomy that classifies plants or animals into kingdom, phylum, class and so on. The difference, of course, is that a skills taxonomy organizes people’s skills.

Having an organizational skills taxonomy opens the door to being better able to address skills gaps both in the organization overall and in individual employees; understand the skills big picture when hiring new team members (e.g., what additional skills would we like in the new loan officer to fill out our organizational taxonomy?); and knowing how to build better cross-departmental teams, Sears explains. Skills-based talent strategy built on a skills taxonomy can help streamline people processes, saving both time and money.

“So, you, the CEO, the CFO, … everybody within the credit union, understands what the objectives are, … the mission, the vision, … the objectives and anything that the people strategy can do to make that work better, or … make your resources go further,” she says. “You've got a team of people that want to move toward that objective.” In other words, focusing on skills helps to align the organization and move it toward its overall goals.

Sears acknowledges that developing a skills taxonomy might seem overwhelming at first. But fortunately, talent development research has illuminated a set of common skills that your organization might have—or might want to have. So, it’s just a matter of finding out. And again, research has helped refine effective ways to dig in and find out, Sears says.

Links for this show:

• Transcript
• CUES Consulting
• More content from Sears, including her monthly Purposeful Talent Development blogs 
• TalentNEXT, for HR, talent and people execs

A decade before CUES member Dana DeFilippis, CCE, became CEO of Merck, Sharp & Dohme Federal Credit Union in Chalfont, Pennsylvania, she decided she wanted the job.

Coming to credit unions from public accounting, DeFilippis prepared for the CEO role by adding leadership of the IT department to her duties as VP/finance of the $825 million institution, excelling at opportunities her CEO gave her to present to the board, attending CUES’ CEO Institute and earning her certified chief executive designation, and getting to know every part of the organization.

Now CEO for two years, DeFilippis has leveraged the knowledge she gathered to help her use technology and teamwork to promote staff innovation and better serve members.

“So, our ultimate goal is that we free up our employees’ time (from) doing mundane things, so that they can be more innovative; they can think about how things are being done and how do we, you know, continue to improve our processes, improve our products and services that we’re offering to our men members,” DeFilippis explains, noting that automating month-end close by implementing SkyStem’s ART month-end close system was one way that’s been done. “So yes, the ultimate goal is because we’re … pretty lean … to be able to really free up people's time so that they can be more innovative and think about ways to be more productive."

CUES thanks SkyStem for sponsoring this show and for being a CUES Supplier member at the supporting level.

The episode also gets into DeFilippis’ advice for aspiring CEOs, including strategies for learning; the benefits she got from attending CUES' CEO Institute; her deep-seated belief in teams with representation from across the organization; Merck, Sharp and Dohme FCU’s recent mobile banking implementation; and inspiration for taking on new challenges.

Links for this show:

•  Merck, Sharp & Dohme Federal Credit Union
• SkyStem and ART, its month-end close system
• CUES’ CEO Institute
• Five Signs It’s Time for Your Credit Union to Automate Month-End Close
• Why Every Credit Union Should Value and Optimize Flux Analysis
• Podcast: Easing the Pain of Month-End Close
• Transcript