CUES Podcast

Laurie Maddalena’s vision is to create a place where people love to come to work. Gallup has found in its most recent workforce study, she says, that only about 34% of American employees feel engaged at work.

“Most people don’t enjoy their work and I think a lot of that has to do with leadership, the quality of leadership we have in our organizations,” says Maddalena, CEO of Envision Excellence, a leadership consulting firm that provides leadership development programs for managers and executives, keynote speeches, team building and leadership assessments.

As antidote, Maddalena recommends leaders look to be “modern” leaders, focused on facilitating people doing the work, not fixing problems themselves. Modern leaders get to know their employees and place high value on the people side of the business, she says. 

New leaders sometimes struggle with taking a modern leadership approach because they have been promoted because they are technically adept—not because they have leadership skills. So instead of leading in the modern, they are more likely to lead as they were led, in a more traditional, directive rather than facilitating way.

According to Maddalena, new leaders often struggle with: 

• Getting focused. This could be because they haven’t had the necessary leadership training or aren’t getting enough guidance from their leader.
• Delegation. New leaders might think their technical skills are most important, when in fact their job as leader is to facilitate other people’s work.
• Supporting their staff’s engagement. Engagement comes when leaders step back and facilitate solutions rather than fixing things themselves, she says.

To overcome these challenges, Maddalena recommends that new leaders:

• Ask for training and other help preparing for their new role.
• Look deeply at their leadership style and constantly develop themselves.
• Shift their mentality about leadership. “Leadership is a privilege and it’s a responsibility,” she explains. “It’s not a hat we wear. True leadership is service.”

“I often say, ‘If it weren’t for the people, leadership would be easy,’” Maddalena adds. “Preparing yourself to be of service to people” is a key part of the job. 

In the show, Maddalena says it’s hard for people to lead in a modern way. Leadership training is important both for new and experienced leaders to continue to evolve.

“We need active leadership” more than ever during the pandemic, she says, “meaning reaching out and checking in. People are really stressed. It’s going to take more energy and effort” than ever.

“Our job as leaders is to focus on the people and facilitate the people side of the business,” she underscores. “The technical side will get done. But the people are who put the effort in to get the results, so we need to make sure that’s a big focus.”

The show also gets into:

• How Laurie Maddalena fell in love with credit unions
• Laurie’s favorite quote from Zig Ziglar and how that applies to leadership
• Perspective on how leadership is the same or different during a crisis like the pandemic
• Maddalena’s assessment of leadership readiness at credit unions during the pandemic and beyond
• The value of modeling leadership
• The CUES Emerge program and how Laurie Maddalena and her consultancy supported it

In the Tampa Bay, Florida, region, migration from Spanish-speaking countries has increased more than 200% in the last two decades and that number continues to rise, creating social and economic change in the area, according to Lindsey Walker, executive assistant with $259 million/32,000-member Tampa Bay Federal Credit Union, Tampa Bay, Florida, and the 2020 CUES Emerging Leader, the first-ever winner.

That growth was driven by part by Tampa being a top destination for people from Puerto Rico escaping Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Other Spanish speakers have come to the Tampa area from Columbia, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.

According to Walker, a national survey found these individuals prefer having documents available in their native language. “There’s always room for misinterpretation when you speak dual languages,” Walker explains in the show. “This is especially true for older Spanish speakers. They often bring a grandchild or friend with strong English skills to help them.” If they don’t, they sometimes sign without fully understanding the terms, which can become a real problem.

In the Tampa Bay region 24.3% of the unbanked and underbanked population rely on payday lenders, Walker points out in the show. These organizations prey heavily on minorities who lack access to mainstream financial products, she says.

Getting their business at the credit union instead can be as simple as letting a consumer “know they can become a member of a credit union or that we will accept their identification. They actually can get access to products.

“Since 2015, Tampa Bay Federal Credit Union has begun changing the narrative in our community and helping get the word out that we are there and we can support” Spanish speakers, she explains. “We make it known that we accept alternative types of identification for membership and loans. We have staffed our front line with over 74% being bilingual. Our branches are strategically built in Hispanic communities. We facilitate financial literacy classes in Spanish. We have bilingual branch leaders who have undergone” … financial literacy education courses.

In all, “with completion of the Spanish outreach program … we’ve been able to provide materials to our Spanish speaking community such as member applications, loan documents, website, marketing materials,” she adds. “It’s a huge leap for the credit union. The feedback that we have received as each segment of the program has gone live” has been very positive. “They’ve been so grateful that we are listening to their needs and responding.”

The credit union invested $56,000 and now anticipates 1% growth annually. With 8,200 Spanish-speaking members now, that’s 1,900 new members in the next five years “that we’ll be able to help,” Walker says. “We also anticipate an on-balance loan sheet increase of $128 million. Of that, we anticipate $6.4 million being deployed to our Hispanic communities. I think it’s a huge win-win.”

The show also gets into:

• Walker’s professional mantra, “Seize every opportunity available,” and her favorite quote
• Tips for credit unions that want to do this in their own shops
• Grant writing and the National Credit Union Administration’s community development financial institution program
• The CUES Emerge program

In this show, Patrick Donohue tells the story about going to Home Depot to buy a power drill. He emphasizes that he didn’t really want a power drill. But rather he wanted to make a hole in his wall. And actually, his purpose wasn’t truly the hole. Instead it was to install his family’s new Ring doorbell. At bottom, it wasn’t that Donohue wanted to buy a power drill. It was his wife who wanted a better system for making sure delivered groceries got brought inside in a timely manner.

Product manager, Data Solutions Group at CUES Supplier member FIS, headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, and the sponsor of this show, Donohue tells this story to underscore the idea that behind every data point is an intention, an intrinsic desire of an individual member. 

 “The more we can use data to understand our customers’ stories—what’s going on in their life and what’s likely to happen next for them—the greater the chance we have to delight them and retain our members,” he explains.

During the show, Donohue also talks about key trends impacting credit unions’ use of data today, including fintechs—both startups and big tech companies—and the uncertainty associated with the coronavirus pandemic and what that means for members’ transaction patterns. 

Next, Donohue provides specific tips on how to better use data that’s currently “left behind” and not leveraged to credit unions’ advantages. He suggests looking to the transaction ledger for the rich information contained there about members. 

He describes an example transaction that credit unions could mine. 

“We can spot that a user has made a purchase—let’s say at a golf shop,” he says. “The merchant name is a little bit cryptic. We think it’s a golf shop but we can use a merchant name database and know that it’s Golf Mart. Then we can look at the whole landscape. Is this a one-time purchase? Is it a present for his cousin Larry? No, this is someone that also has a subscription to a green fee app. We can also see that their college tuition expenses are increasing. We might be seeing some signals in the data that his life is changing a bit. He wants to keep his golf going but he also has some additional expenses he has to pay.

“You begin to layer on data to better understand that unique customer’s story,” he adds. “It allows everyone in the value chain for that member to customize that experience from the personal banker who’s standing in front of John inside the branch to the digital experience that’s serving up insights in mobile banking … all the way to the customer service rep who’s talking to them via phone. We know more about John and what’s important to him.”

The show also gets into:

• The backstory behind Donohue’s professional mantra: “Move the authority to where the information is”
• What is meant by “single-threaded” apps created by fintechs, and how credit unions’ more holistic strategy can be a competitive advantage
• The top tough questions that credit unions should be asking themselves when it comes to making the most of their data to serve members on a personal level
• How FIS helps its clients with their data efforts

For this milestone episode, CUES Podcast listeners submitted their questions for experts to answer. So instead of featuring one or two experts, this show features seven! Instead of being centered on just one idea, this show covers three areas of major interest to credit unions and their leaders: reopening physical branches in light of the pandemic, reaching and engaging young members, and the future of credit unions 25 years out.

Our first question about when credit unions might reopen fully comes at the 5:12 mark from CUES member Ron Kraus, chair of the board of $2 billion Together Credit Union in the St. Louis area. Kraus’s question is first answered by Mike Carter, EVP of CUESolutions Bronze provider Strategic Resources Management, Memphis, Tennessee. A second response is given by Steve Reider, president of CUES Supplier member Bancography, Birmingham, Alabama. Neither expert expects 100% reopening across the country by Thanksgiving and each has ideas about the larger implications of the pandemic on the financial services.

The show’s second question is from CUES member Karen Bruce, associate board member at $1.7 billion America’s First Credit Union, Birmingham, Alabama. It's about how credit unions can best reach and engage young members and comes at 12:04.

Bruce’s question is answered by three experts: Ben Stangland, president/COO of CUES Supplier member Strum, Seattle; Keith Brannan, chief marketing officer for Kasasa, Austin, Texas; and Jeff Fromm, author of four books and the president of Futurecast, a subsidiary of Barkley, New York. The three say young members are a great opportunity for credit unions and offer ideas for connecting with them.

The third and final question in the show comes from CUES member Mary Gray, director of member engagement and programs at $1.8 billion A+ Federal Credit Union, Austin, Texas. It's about what credit unions will look like in 25 years and comes in at 25:06. 

Two experts with vision provide answers to Gray’s forward-thinking question: Steve Williams, principal with CUES Supplier member and strategic provider for technology and planning services, Cornerstone Advisors, Scottsdale, Arizona, and Chris Skinner, an independent technology commentator at The Finaser blog, the author of several books and chair of the Financial Services Club.

Williams says in 25 years there is great opportunity for both large banks and grassroots financial services. He notes four words that come to mind about qualities that credit unions that can stay the course will have—purpose, talent, technology and scale—then elaborates on each. Skinner suggests not trying to compete with big banks but rather standing for something other than shareholders and profit. He believes credit unions have a great opportunity to deliver on this idea.

The show also gets into:

• What listeners whose questions are featured in the show have appreciated about the CUES Podcast 
• A favorite memory of CUES Podcast founder and host James Lenz from the first 100 episodes
• How to submit your question for possible use on a future show
• The great story about how Jeff Fromm ended up studying young consumers

In the best of times, it’s a big job for leaders to demonstrate the kind of empathy that builds trust with their followers. Showing the kind of empathy that builds trust is even harder in this era of remote work and social distancing brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, says episode 99 guest Sean Martin, Ph.D., associate professor of business administration at the Darden School of Business at the  University of Virginia, Charlottesville, which hosts CUES’ CEO Institute III: Strategic Leadership Development. 

“People will choose to trust you to the extent that they believe that a) you have the skills to do a job (they can trust your abilities you have the technical know-how to do things), b) that you have the integrity that they can trust that you’re not going to tell them a lie; you’re not going to misrepresent things; you’re not going to ignore the truth and then c) trust in your benevolence, really trust that you actually have a sense of caring and concern and empathy for them,” explains Martin, who is among three highly-rated speakers presenting at Knowledge and Networking in November.

“To the extent that you have those three dimensions, … then we can say you are a trusted leader. That’s really hard to do virtually. It’s not impossible. But when we’re in a virtual environment, when people are not able to interact face to face or when we’re having interactions over the phone and all we can hear is each other’s voices, or we have to stay six feet apart or we’re all wearing masks … that presents a lot of challenges for how to we express empathy effectively; how do we show people how much we care. … Are we taking the time to really build relationships when people are distanced?”

Martin’s research involved how organizational and societal contexts affect leader-follower dynamics. He says COVID-19 has had “big general effects on leadership,” but also speaks to social class dynamics. 

“I think we’re waking up to the fact that a lot of the jobs that we rely on societally and even within an organization is done by people that we frequently—and I don’t think intentionally—… take for granted,” he explains. “We frequently assume that people will be there to bag our groceries. We assume that people will be there to work on manufacturing lines. We assume and take for granted that people will show up to do the actual production of goods and services that make our economy run. When something is taken for granted, I think we tend to not value it as highly.

“For a long time, we haven’t had a reason to as a society to wake up and realize the incredible value, skills, abilities and critically important roles that people (have) who often are not sitting at the very high end of an organizational hierarchy,” he continues. “When COVID hit and exposed a lot of these things, we are starting to realize that the people we really can’t afford to lose are the people who are making things and the people who are performing the face-to-face service. That’s the essential work. We need to start valuing that differently."

The show also gets into:

• Leadership lessons that can be learned from sports
• Why Dr. Martin likes to use sports in teaching leadership
• What is Dr. Martin’s favorite sport
• What Dr. Martin will present at his Knowledge and Networking in November session, titled  “Organizational Values: A Beacon in a Storm of Uncertainty”
• Dr. Martin’s paper that was featured on Comedy Central

The pandemic has accelerated trends that have long been underway, including consumer adoption of mobile services. That means that credit union leaders need to shift their thinking, possibly shifting their strategy for meeting and supporting digital demand.

“In order for them to manage and go forward with their physical and digital relationships, they’re going to need to change,” Kevin Blair says in this episode of the CUES Podcast. “Nothing will be quite the same as it was before the pandemic.”

In this show, Blair, president/CEO of CUES Supplier member NewGround, says that before the pandemic, surveys showed that 60% to 70% of consumers preferred coming to the branch to do their financial business. Now, a similar proportion says they prefer to interact with their financial services provider digitally. 

“What the pandemic did was accelerated it—it pushed the industry to the tipping point,” Blair emphasizes. (Learn more in the company's new whitepaper.

Interestingly though, this doesn’t mean credit union members will never want to enter a branch. On the contrary, research Blair cites in this episode says the first thing that consumers wanted to reopen was manufacturing. The second was their financial services provider. Blair thinks this means their top priority is jobs and then after that they want to attend to their financial business.

In the show, Blair provides a host of practical suggestions for how to make sure that your credit union’s physical locations respond to consumers’ concerns about sanitation and the prevention of disease transmission. These include sneeze guards, automatic door openers and motion-activated faucets. 

Blair emphasizes in the episode that credit union leaders need to keep their organization’s long-term strategy in mind.

“This too shall pass,” he says. “It’s not forever.” Physical sites are designed and implemented with a 20 to 30-year vision. They have some flex but they aren’t something you replace two years after establishing them. 

In addition to working on their actual digital delivery systems, credit unions need to be thinking about how to staff the support for digital delivery—he says it’s not unreasonable to think that teams doing digital delivery support could double or triple in size. And that begs the question about what kind of physical space will best help employees do this work.

The show also gets into:

• The member experience center of the future
• How members are more patient with branch service than with digital delivery
• Rebalancing delivery channels going forward
• Alignment of brand, place and culture
• Resetting strategy in the wake of the pandemic 

“The cloud brings a lot to the table when it comes to what you can offer your members,” Steve Comer says in this show.

That’s a key reason that credit unions are embracing the use of the cloud these days, explains Comer, director of financial services & insurance sales at Hyland Software Inc. Hyland OnBase is a CUESolutions provider for enterprise information systems and the sponsor of episode 97. Another key reason that credit unions are increasingly using the cloud is that the technology has matured and been proven over the years.

To clarify what is meant by the buzzword “cloud,” Comer provides a very succinct definition: It’s “somebody else’s computer.”

“You’re referring to servers, databases applications that are housed somewhere and accessed over the internet,” he explains, “so it’s just relieving an institution of the burden of carrying all that infrastructure in house.” 

Credit unions are adopting the cloud in many applications now, he says, because “they are very strategic in their thinking” and the cloud can help them make strategic moves.

For example, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused many credit unions to send their staff members home to work, credit unions that already were using the cloud found themselves with an advantage.

“Credit unions had to learn to operate with the remote workforce,” Comer explains in the show. “The ability to keep work processes going was suddenly reliant on mutual accessibility points that didn’t exist if you had a completely on-premise infrastructure.

“You have to be able to work with your co-workers” even when you’re working from home, Comer adds. “You have to be able to communicate with your members. You have to be able to share information. And, because of COVID, people were everywhere.”

This show also gets into:

• How cloud-based applications helped credit unions, especially those that were ready with cloud technology, participate in Paycheck Protection Program lending—by allowing them to share and access application materials, evaluate and distribute loans, and manage compliance requirements
• How cloud-based applications help with compliance monitoring and execution on new rules not just for PPP but in general
• How the cloud can help a credit union capture information that’s coming in and make its data processes more efficient
• What’s next for the cloud, which Comer says is likely to be part of practically every new technology

The job of board liaisons today is multi-faceted and evolving—and it’s a good idea for organizations to foster their development, according to Julia Patrick and Michael G. Daignealt, CCD, in episode 96 of the CUES Podcast.

“It really is proving to be a pivotal position, more so than I think a lot of people realize,” says Daigneault, CEO and co-founder of CUES strategic partner for governance, Quantum Governance, Vienna, Virginia. “The primary purpose of it is often thought of to support the board and support the committee. But I think it’s also to guide them … and make governance more effective.”

That guidance may be a factor in a credit union board becoming high performing rather than mediocre.

“Michael and I share a passion for how internal leadership can really help move an organization forward,” explains Patrick, CEO/co-founder of the American Nonprofit Academy, Phoenix. “That board liaison is oftentimes the centerpiece of an effective board versus maybe a not-so-effective board.”

What are some key responsibilities of board liaisons?

“There’s a lot of issues that go from compliance to recording to all of the different things that have to be stored during official meetings,” Patrick answers. “They’re tracking things through their board portals. They’re actually navigating things that have a fiduciary responsibility as well as keeping the culture of the organization and … (supporting) communication.”

Daigneault echoes those thoughts, noting that because board liaisons are so connected to the board chair, the CEO, directors, committee chairs and committee members, they’re often good glue for holding everything together. They also provide a really important resource for the continuing education of board and committee members, he adds.

Patrick and Daigneault will co-lead Board Liaison Workshop this September. When the two led a previous CUES in-person event for board liaisons, they asked what participants most wanted to learn. The board liaisons cited such things as:

• How do we support board member engagement?
• How do we facilitate the board packets more effectively?
• How do we do the minutes right, rather than just taking down everything that is said?
• How do we help the senior team and the board shepherd the strategy process even more effectively?

Attendees also expressed a desire to continue evolving the role of board liaison.

“There is a desire for the board liaison to have a stronger voice and to be seen in the C-suite as a very important part of a successful operation and not just a clerical role,” Patrick explains in the show. “To understand that this is a trained, professional piece of someone’s job description, that’s somewhat of a new conversation.”

Daigneault adds that the job of the board liaison is “a multi-faceted role, which is morphing and evolving and becoming more professional day by day.”

The show also gets into:

• What surprises executives and board liaisons themselves about the evolving role of the board liaison
• Why board liaisons sometimes feel alone in their jobs
• The special role of board liaisons when governance is being conducted virtually
• How the Board Liaison Workshop and other CUES board liaison offerings are fostering a network of these professionals who can connect with and learn from each other
• What Daigneault and Patrick bring to their presentations at the Board Liaison Workshop—high-level perspective on strategic governance plus tools for succeeding with the nuts and bolts of&

In this episode, James Robert Lay tells the story of how the CEO of Tower Records once said that kids “would always” want to come into the stores and listen to music.

But Tower Records went out of business in 2006.

“Music was digitized,” explains Lay, the author of a new book, Banking on Digital Growth and an instructor for CUES School of Strategic Marketing, slated for September. “We went from the record to the eight-track to the cassette, to the CD, to mp3, but we’re not done yet. Because what is music now? Music is now streaming with Spotify and Pandora.”

Financial institutions are seeing a parallel shift. “What we’re seeing is the explosion of fintech and what fintech is focused on is—like music—micro niche markets, or micro problems and, for credit unions, it’s like death by a thousand cuts,” Lay explains. 

In the show, Lay gives a formal definition for digital growth as “a systematic process centered around the modern consumer journey” and notes that digital growth is built on three goals:

1. Increasing traffic to a financial brand’s website
2. Generating leads from the website traffic
3. Converting those leads into loans and deposits

“The way we have to do this is by positioning the credit union beyond the commoditized great rates and amazing service and look-alike laundry list of amazing features that every other financial brand promotes,” he emphasizes.

Lay explains that digital growth is not about mobile banking, remote deposit capture or social media—those are tactics.

“Digital growth is about acquisition,” he says.

The show also gets into:

• How the pandemic has impacted digital delivery
• How the pandemic has impacted credit unions’ digital growth strategies
• Roadblocks to digital growth
• Exiting the circle of chaos to move onto your next great opportunity
• The shift from digital delivery supporting a branch-first strategy to branches supporting a digital-first strategy
• How training and education build clarity around the digital consumer buying journey
• An update on the CUES School of Strategic Marketing

It’s OK for credit unions to be strategically planning for growth during these uncertain times, Sarah Szilagyi says during episode 94 of the CUES Podcast.

“We as humans as maybe even … as women, we tend to think when we’re in a time of needing to help people, it’s not a time to think about growth or opportunity,” explains Szilagyi, SVP/experience and chief of staff for CUES Supplier member CO-OP Financial Services, Rancho Cucamonga, California. “Actually, that’s one of the beautiful things about credit unions. Credit unions are meant to help people, that’s why we are here. But it is also OK to say, ‘There’s opportunity right now—opportunity to help people, which would lead to growth.’”

“It is a time of change, which means a time of opportunity,” she continues. “As consumer behavior shifts and needs change, what credit unions can offer members also shifts and opens up new doors. A lot of shoppers are buying online now. A good portion … are buying online in the last 10 weeks for the very first time. That alone is an opportunity to explore, that member behavior, that shift. What cards are they using? Are they protected properly, etc.? There’s an opportunity to broaden services right now and to better serve members. They go together. It’s OK.”

Szilagyi notes that the situation credit unions and their members are in right now is “all-new territory,” and totally unique from anything that’s been experienced before. Because of this, the process of strategic planning is shifting. 

“The pace of decision-making has increased drastically,” she notes. “We’re working cross-functionally more than ever to get things done. We’re looking at our members and asking, ‘What do they need?’ and really working quickly to serve those needs. We’re trying to plan and re-plan while many of us are at home watching children.”

Szilagyi notes a Gallup poll that found credit union members were hit harder than the average American with regard to the COVID experience. “Thinking about that is a credit union priority,” both in their immediate response and in longer-term planning, she says. Credit unions need to be offering “financial wellness and products that help their members be financially well, as well as digital and contactless type of products.

“Building trust is really one of the most important things a credit union can do right now,” she adds. “Being an ally will increase loyalty long term and members definitely need a financial partner right now they can trust.” 

These days, credit unions’ planning cycles are addressing immediate issues and looking forward to 2021, Szilagyi notes. To support credit unions in this effort, CO-OP Financial Services is offering its Credit Union Strategic Investment Assessment in partnership with EY through July 2.  

The show also gets into:

• How the impact of people—both employees and members—on strategic and growth planning is bigger than ever 
• Why data is an important foundation for growth
• More about the development of CO-OP Financial Services’ Credit Union Strategic Investment Assessment
• More about what a credit union receives when it does the Credit Union Strategic Investment Assessment
• Strategies for applying in the real world the results of the Credit Union Strategic Investment Assessment