Podcasts

149 Lesley Sears 9 Dimensions of Culture

September 2023 By Lesley Sears

Lisa Hochgraf 00:04
You're listening to the CUES Podcast, episode 149.

Lisa Hochgraf 00:09
Welcome to the CUES Podcast, where leaders and experts discuss the top topics in credit unions today. I'm Lisa Hochgraf, senior editor at CUES. In this episode we explore in rapid-fire fashion, the nine dimensions of culture, what they are and how they can help to build a successful organization.

Lisa Hochgraf 00:29
Returning to the show as our guest is CUES' own VP of consulting, Lesley Sears, who heads up our CUES Consulting offerings. Lesley kicks us off by talking a bit about the difference between climate and culture, and why they're so important to your team's high performance.

Lisa Hochgraf 00:45
Then we go into two-minute mode. I name the cultural dimension, set my stopwatch and tell Lesley "go." I think you'll be impressed with how much great information Lesley conveys in each short segment.

Lisa Hochgraf 01:00
Lesley's not only an expert on culture, but also one of the most approachable talent development experts around. Her expertise is cutting-edge stuff from the world of talent development that can help credit unions become ever more agile. If you have a question after listening, feel free to reach out to her at lesley@cues.org. That's lesley@cues.org.

Lisa Hochgraf 01:23 So let's get started.

Lisa Hochgraf 01:27
Glad to have you back on the show, Lesley.

Lesley Sears 01:30
Awesome. Thank you, Lisa. I'm excited to be here. This is gonna be a fun one. I'm excited to start talking culture a little bit.

Lisa Hochgraf 01:36

- 1 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Yeah, I think this will be a fun one to today. We're going to do a special rapid-fire round about the nine dimensions of culture. But before we do that, would you kick us off by talking about culture more generally? What is it anyway? And why is it so very important?

Lesley Sears 01:54
So culture, the way we look at it, and actually what we call it is climate, right? So there's culture, which is the deep stuff. So it's what's what the founders set up with, regardless of what of what organization you're talking about. Culture is truly the deep stuff. Climate is what everybody experiences every day. So it really truly is the interactions between people. It's the feeling you get in the credit union. So it's, it's easier to repair in a couple years, if you have good focus and understand what you need to focus on, you can really shift the climate in amazing ways.

Lisa Hochgraf 02:32
So are we talking about climate or culture today, just?

Lesley Sears 02:35
We're gonna talk about climate because it's the dimensions everybody knows that by culture. So when you say climate, people don't really know necessarily. They're thinking winter or summer. But so we're talking about climate. But really, it's what people would think of as culture. It's what they experience every day when they walk into the office.

Lisa Hochgraf 02:53
So climate is what we experienced at work every day and culture goes even deeper. Can you give me a hint about what going even deeper mean?

Lesley Sears 03:00
Think of what the founders set up, right. So if somebody founded an organization, it really gets into their thinking about prioritizing tasks, or prioritizing objectives and goals. So it is truly, and I always think of the founder, because they set some of that kind of that infrastructure within an organization. And it takes a long time to change that, takes a bit, 10 years to change truly change the culture of an organization, because it's just that deep-seated. It's the foundational things in an organization

Lisa Hochgraf 03:35
Includes--all the history, it sounds like.

Lesley Sears 03:37 It sure does.

Lisa Hochgraf 03:38
And so we're going to be talking about the nine dimensions of culture or climate depending on how you're using the terms. How do these nine dimensions of culture really contribute to making it a healthy workplace for people?

Lesley Sears 03:51

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So every culture has these nine. And then it's, how strong are they? So it's not a matter of do we have one? Or do we have another? No, you got all nine? There, all nine of them are there. It's just how well, how healthy are the nine within your credit union? How well do you function within each of the nine dimensions? So as you're thinking about as you're hearing it from a credit union perspective, understand you have it, which then allows you to see how strong you are at it, which is kind of how we do the assessment. When we're assessing a climate or a culture in a credit union, we're looking at all nine and really helping to understand is it strong is it weak, which then helps focus development, helps focus what we need to strengthen within a credit union.

Lisa Hochgraf 04:42
That's terrific, Lesley. So everyone listening, you have all nine of these dimensions in your climate at your credit union, and they're part of your larger culture. So you can't stop listening at any point, but we've kept them all the two minutes right,

Lesley Sears 04:56
You're ready to test me here on two minutes.

Lisa Hochgraf 04:58
Got my stopwatch right here. So I'm going to present each of the nine dimensions. I'm going to I've already got my stopwatch set for the first two minutes, and then I'll say go. And I'm excited to hear your short but pithy insights. I'm sure our listeners are too. Are you ready?

Lesley Sears 05:13
I'm ready. I'm ready. It's gonna be a good test.

Lisa Hochgraf 05:16
Okay, Lesley. Give us your best insights about challenge and involvement. Two minutes or less. Go.

Lesley Sears 05:23
So challenge and involvement is really how well individuals are in teams are given opportunities to get involved in the daily operations, right? It's just what it sounds like. So are we challenged? Are we involved? They have to understand the vision, they have to understand the goals. And to the extent that they do understand those, then how involved are they?

Lesley Sears 05:46
So some behaviors to kind of be looking for within a good challenge, healthy challenge and involvement. People feel motivated, energized, committed to making contributions. The climate is dynamic, electric, inspiring,

Lesley Sears 06:02
Some things to look for on maybe not great, challenge and involvement? Apathetic. They're not interested in professional development. So if you have a team full of people that don't really want professional development, I would question your challenge and involvement dimension to see if that is healthy.

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Lesley Sears 06:21
And then quickly, so how can you promote it? So take time to make sure everybody understands the bigger picture. And then once they understand it, how can you cooperatively bring them together? So they have an insight, right, they have a voice in what we're looking at and how we're doing it.

Lisa Hochgraf 06:42
Bravo, great start. All right, Lesley, now, two minutes or less, but no less insightful? On freedom. Go.

Lesley Sears 06:52
So freedom refers to the degree to which and all of these again are how well do you do it? Right. So how can people take initiative? What freedom do they have to act on their own? So within their position, are they being micromanaged? Or can they make decisions on how things are accomplished? So there again, being they understand the objectives, they understand the goal, but they're given the freedom to do it in a way that feels good to them, that feels natural to them, they're not being forced to do it a particular way.

Lesley Sears 07:29
So some of the things to look at as far as healthy behaviors: They are independent in behavior, given the autonomy and the resources to define much of their work.

Lesley Sears 07:29
Some of the things to look at are some of the things you can see for behavior when it is not a good healthy freedom environment? They're going to have little initiative; they're not going to be excited about accomplishing their tasks; they're going to spend a great deal of time and energy obtaining permission. So they're following around behind their manager trying to get permission to do things versus doing it themselves. And they're looking at how to do things by the book. And I'm a process person. So I think there needs to be process often in a credit union. But taking it over the top and not giving people their freedom to make their choices can be problematic.

Lisa Hochgraf 08:20
Well said. Next up, trust and openness.

Lesley Sears 08:28
Again, just like you would think, how much do people trust each other in the climate? And that looks I mean, you're looking at peers, and you're looking at managers. So when you're thinking of engagement, and some of those, if you have hybrid work or remote workers, this is huge to be able to do this well to be able to trust each other. And it's to the degree to which you have emotional safety. So trust often comes from emotional safety. And how well do you do that? They count on each other for professional and personal support. So people count on each other. Not that not even that they just trust each other, but they count on each other to be there when they need them. They have a sincere respect for one another. That really is some of the healthy behaviors.

Lesley Sears 09:16

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Some of the unhealthy behaviors that you can see with low trust, everybody's suspicious of each other. Right? They don't trust each other. They don't trust that they're going to do what they say they they're going to do in the daily routine. They closely guard themselves, both themselves and their ideas or their plans. So they're not going to contribute because they're so busy worrying about somebody stealing their plans or their ideas that they can't share.

Lesley Sears 09:43
So how can you promote good healthy openness and trust, establish and reinforce agreed upon guidelines? Right? So having some housekeeping stuff internally, so when you're working on a project together, what are some of the things that you collectively agree to do? In your climate, to make sure that that's how we build up trust, and also give people a voice. If they have a voice, they will be much more committed to anything in the credit union

Lisa Hochgraf 10:12
Spot on, two minutes exactly. And now two minutes an idea time.

Lesley Sears 10:20
So, one of the biggest challenges that I see in many of the credit unions I work with is time. Nobody has time to do anything. So idea time and ideas support, which we'll talk about in a few minutes, go very closely together. I say they're two sides of the same coin. Idea time is, yes, you've been innovative. Yes, you've been able to come up with different ideas and looked at different tasks that you do and use, you know, better ways to do it shorter, more efficient ways of doing it. You just don't have the time to be able to implement, right, which so many credit unions really want that innovative culture, that innovative climate. If you don't give people the time, you're wasting your time. Like don't focus on innovation if you're not going to give time to really bring those ideas to life and bring them to fruition. So that's idea time.

Lesley Sears 11:13
How you can really lean in on some of the good behaviors is have flexible times that people are permitted to work on ideas, to really initiate some of the ideas, pull ideas from them, and then give them time to be able to implement. If it's too tight, and there's expectations with no time, then it's the pressure is going to be too much. And you're gonna have retention issues. You're gonna have an expectation that is not doable.

Lesley Sears 11:42
So some of the quick ways of kind of promoting idea time is look at the schedules and see where the junk is. Right? Are there meetings that don't need to be taking place? Are they too long? Are you having a 30-minute meeting, that could be a 15-minute meeting. You'd be amazed at how much time a week, you can pull out just by redoing the meeting structure.

Lisa Hochgraf 12:07
I imagine people love that when people shore up the meetings and make sure they really count.

Lesley Sears 12:11

- 5 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Yep.

Lisa Hochgraf 12:12
All right. Next up two minutes on playfulness and humor.

Lesley Sears 12:18
So this is one of those things that I think is a one of the most obvious byproducts of a healthy culture. Right? If people are able to be playful and humorous within a climate within a place of business, then chances are the culture is pretty healthy. Like there's not going to be the humor and the playfulness if it's not showing up as a byproduct, right? So we a great way for someone to kind of take the pulse of their climate is walk into the space. Are people laughing with each other? Are people able to have relationships that are strong enough that they can be humorous with one another, and not have fallout from it? So I love this as just a quick test.

Lesley Sears 13:02
How good are you doing? It's easygoing, light-hearted. You can feel it when you walk in. And remember, it's not just your employees that are feeling it. It's the members too, right? So if a member walks in to a unhealthy climate, they're going to feel it. And if they walk into a healthy climate, they're going to feel that as well. And they're going to feel the difference between the two. And I mean, obviously keeping jokes and laughter and stuff proper and professional, but just having it makes a huge difference.

Lesley Sears 13:34
So if you don't, what are some of the things you can try to do to promote playfulness and humor? Have designated places for sharing jokes, funny stories, and encourage silly times, right? So have a cadence in your credit union that there are times that you can be silly and have fun together.

Lisa Hochgraf 13:54
Bring on the beanies. Bring on the pom-poms. Something fun, something unexpected?

Lesley Sears 13:59 Yes, exactly. All right.

Lisa Hochgraf 14:01
Two minutes on something very different. This is conflict. Go.

Lesley Sears 14:06
So all of the other dimensions we're going to talk about today, you want high numbers; you want good high numbers. Conflict you don't. Conflict is the only kind of negative dimension that you want to keep it low. Conflict is one of those things that the better you are at managing it, understanding how to have those conversations, the healthier your climate can be. And we'll talk about debate here in a little bit. Debate is different than conflict. Debate is healthy conversation. Conflict is not healthy. So it's the sniping. It happens when people genuinely don't like each other. Right? There's a dislike in the climate.

- 6 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai

So again, as much as playfulness and humor, I think, can be a good representation of a healthy climate, conflict can often be a very good representation of a not-very-healthy climate.

Lesley Sears 14:59
So again, If you're kind of doing just the pulse and getting a feel for how healthy we are in two minutes, how much conflict do you have in your credit union? What does that look like? Are you having to manage that conflict more than you feel as you should have to? Then you probably have a conflict issue somewhere in there. It can boil down to gossip, slander, I mean, it can present itself a lot of different ways. But it genuinely is a byproduct, right? So it's a lot of the things that we're talking about today are showing up unhealthy and the conflict kind of comes out of that.

Lesley Sears 15:36
What are some things you can do to promote low conflict? identify common goals, so distract the attention from the conflict itself and focus on the healthy stuff. How are we all moving toward the same goals? How are we doing that? What dimensions around conflict can we do better at?

Lisa Hochgraf 15:56
Awesome. It's kind of cool that the next one up may tie in with a previous one. So we talked recently about idea time, and now the topic is idea support. You're on.

Lesley Sears 16:09
Awesome. So this is how ideas are considered right? Do you have a strong method for supporting those ideas you want them, right? I mean, innovation will mean the difference between succeeding or failing in any organization. If you don't have continuous innovation, and continually looking at your tasks that you're doing and seeing how you can do them better, then it's gonna be hard to make it in the future. And the more you can support not only the idea presentation, so giving people a great way of presenting ideas, but then also supporting them, meaning allowing them to be brought into existence, right? Because having an idea means nothing. And maybe you do want to test it. Maybe you do some more preliminary things, but make sure you have a method for that. Make sure you define a way you can do that well. If everybody thinks that the answer to an idea is going to be no, that's a problem. That's a huge problem in your credit union. And it'll either present itself today or it will present itself tomorrow. But eventually it's going to present itself. And you're going to have lost out on a lot of potential innovation within your credit union.

Lesley Sears 17:25
So I've kind of spilled the beans a little bit on some of the how to promote it. But I believe it really truly is having a deliberate procedure for ideas by presenting them, celebrating them. How can we take it into the first stage? I mean, how are we phasing it out? But you have a very specific, deliberate plan for how to do that.

Lisa Hochgraf 17:47
Super, we have two to go. And I am excited for two minutes of insight on debate. Go ahead.

Lesley Sears 17:56

- 7 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai

So that's the healthy part of a conflict, right? You want debate? If you have strong ideas, and you have idea people, often they're going to have different ideas of what coming to fruition looks like. That's debate. That's having a healthy conversation about how can we do it this way? Or can we do it that way? Or what did it what would it look like if we did this? That's debate. What viewpoints Do you have? What other ideas that are differing? What knowledge are you bringing? We've talked a lot about skills recently. Bringing different experiences into those debate conversations I think is so healthy and so beneficial to an innovative credit union.

Lesley Sears 18:37
So giving room for that, you have to have trust because people aren't bringing forward their ideas and their plans unless they feel like they're going to be accepted. Right. And they have that emotional security in the credit union. Feel like that's good. And part of that we just talked about what kind of support do you have? Debate's a part of that, right? Being able to have a space that we talk through ideas and figure out what works and what does not work? And no judgment, right? There can't be any judgment as we're talking and debating different ideas.

Lesley Sears 19:11
So what are some of the things you can do to promote healthy debate, actively encourage people to take and share their ideas? So take ideas from other people, and then share their ideas and bring their opinion to it right, bring their perspective, bring their knowledge and experience to the idea, and not only experience of in the credit union, but previous experience. And this is again, part of that idea support methodology.

Lisa Hochgraf 19:42
This has been so much fun. I think we'll have to find other topics we can do this on Lesley.

Lesley Sears 19:47 I agree.

Lisa Hochgraf 19:48
We've reached the final dimension of culture: risk-taking. And go when you're ready.

Lesley Sears 19:54
It's funny because lately, credit unions have been more interested in In establishing a strong risk-taking practices, and there's been several credit unions that have had pretty low scores on risk-taking. I think there's been more micromanaging going on then leadership necessarily would like for there to be. So the risk-taking is just what it sounds like: Are you able to make decisions in your function right within the tasks that you do every day? That you're making decisions without having to ask for management approval, that it's an individual risk-taking. And I mean, I'm a firm believer in making sure that you put guardrails around risk-taking, and let's pick the ones that are the least volatile, right? So having different levels of risk, I think is important. But giving people that ability is very, very important. I don't think he I hate to say about taking a gamble, because I think you have to take a carefully thought out gamble. But giving people the ability now again, trust, right, a lot of the same conversations come up throughout many of these dimensions, that and you can see how they tie together, for sure. But risk-

- 8 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai

taking is one of those difficult sometimes, especially within a credit union, to let loose of the reins. But it can be super important for people on the team.

Lesley Sears 21:21
So how can you promote this? Reinforce the importance of learning from your mistakes, right, knowing that you don't fail, you just you learn something and move forward or fail forward. And I think too, having a good plan for risk-taking is a great idea. Do a green, yellow and red flag type of risk-taking approach.

Lisa Hochgraf 21:44
This has been amazing. As an editor, I love it when information is dense, meaning either a short time and a lot of it or a small space and a lot of it. And this has been a lot of really good information in a short period of time. Thank you so much for sharing these insights.

Lesley Sears 21:59
It's been so much fun. I love how a climate is made up. 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. And again, focusing, I'm all about focusing, you know that, like we've got X number of resources, 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.

Lisa Hochgraf 22:30
Indeed, do you have some suggestions for people that want to look at their nine dimensions and sort of bring them together? We can see easily that they're related, but how do you start? How do you work on them?

Lesley Sears 22:41
I think listening, so kind of going through these and maybe writing jotting down the what the different nine dimensions are. And then looking around, right, many of these play off of each other. So if you're seeing weakness, you're probably going to see it across the board, right? That you're going to see many dimensions that have weaknesses in them. And the same thing with strengths. So in the nine, maybe you have strength in six of them. And then if you can begin to identify some of those places that you're just struggling, these are the places to look for sure. This gives you a place to start. So you're not just trying to like put your finger up in the wind to figure out where where we are with our climate. This gives you a place to start and a really good way of beginning to look around look internally within the credit union to see where you are. And if you need an assessment, you know where to find me, right? We can do this. We can do to make sure scientific way

Lisa Hochgraf 23:37
For sure. I know you're very steeped in all the latest research, and it's so useful, so telling. Thank you so much for being on the show, Lesley.

Lesley Sears 23:45
Thank you for having me again. This is fun; we have to do it again.

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Lisa Hochgraf 23:48 See you the next time.

Lisa Hochgraf 23:50
I would like to thank you our listeners for taking time out of your busy schedules to listen to today's episode of the CUES Podcast.

Lisa Hochgraf 23:58
And many thanks to Lesley for once again sharing her deep experience and insights. Learn more about CUES Consulting which Lesley champions at cues.org/CUESconsulting.

Lisa Hochgraf 24:10
Find a full transcript of this episode at CUmanagement.com/podcast 149.

Lisa Hochgraf 24:17
You can also find more great credit union-specific content at CUmanagement.com.

Lisa Hochgraf 24:23
Thanks again for listening today.

Lisa Hochgraf 24:26
CUES is an international credit union association that champions and delivers effective talent development solutions for executive, staff and boards to drive organizational success.

- 10 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai

  Podcast 148 Deedee Myers Designing Orgs of the Future August 2023 By Deedee Myers, Ph.D.   Lisa Hochgraf  00:03 You're listening to the CUES Podcast, episode 148.   Lisa Hochgraf  00:08 Welcome to the CUES Podcast where leaders and experts discuss the top topics in credit unions today. I'm Lisa Hochgraf, senior editor at CUES. In this show, Deedee Myers talks about the important role CEOs play in designing the organization of the future.   Lisa Hochgraf  00:25 Deedee, as many of you know, brings a lot of knowledge about leadership and governance to the table. She is CEO of DDJ Myers, an ALM first company, which is a CUESolutions provider for succession planning and board development, and the sponsor of our quarterly Advancing Women publication.   Lisa Hochgraf  00:43 In this episode of the CUES podcast, Deedee shares great insights about how CEOs can best design the organization of the future. She dives into what new CEOs and female CEOs might especially want to consider when doing such futuring.   Lisa Hochgraf  00:59 The biggest thing credit union CEOs need to do to design the organization of the future is to go on a listening tour. According to Deedee, CEOs should talk with staff, leadership, team members, board members, members and even trusted vendor partners. This will help them find out where the credit union has been, where it is and where it is going.   Lisa Hochgraf  01:23 In this episode, Deedee also answers the question of what kinds of outcomes CEOs might be able to achieve through their efforts. After you hear what Deedee has to say, I think you're going to be very motivated to design your credit union's future. So let's get started.   Lisa Hochgraf  01:41 Welcome back to the show Deedee.   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  01:43 Hey, Lisa, good to be here. Thank you so much for having me again.   Lisa Hochgraf  01:46 Yeah, we always have such great conversations when you're on the podcast. And I'm especially looking forward to today's topic, the CEO's role in designing the organization of the future. To kick this off, what have you seen that made you suggest this topic?   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  02:03 Yeah, thanks for asking that question. It's something I'm reflecting on quite a bit, Lisa, that we're having really robust conversations, in-depth reflective conversations with boards on how do they need to be in the future? What's working? And what do they need to let go of? And more and more CEOs are looking at their organization now and what does it need to be in the future. And then you put that in the context of unprecedented times, and still in the hybrid remote work environment, leadership or the need for leadership skills is really changing.   Lisa Hochgraf  02:35 And so what is the role of the CEO in designing the organization of the future?   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  02:40 Oh, there's a lot there. Briefly is, one of the things I like to think about is like three time zones. What was, you know, a very reflective what was. How did we get to where we are, what worked? What didn't work? And how do we describe what was? And then, Lisa, coming into what is today? How do we describe what is today and looking at and listening, you know, maybe doing a listening tour, listening to all of our stakeholders on how they describe what is today and then moving into the future? What could be. So I like to look at, you know, what was, what is and what could be. And I would also recommend, you know, having maybe a third party, do some of these interviews with you or sit with you during the interviews, but getting an unbiased perspective of what people in the organization are saying Lisa, I think is really important part of research and moving forward into what could be conversation.   Lisa Hochgraf  03:35 So it sounds like you're suggesting that the CEO's role is to sort of coordinate this process of having conversations around what was what is and what could be, what do we want in the future? So are these conversations with board members with members of staff who are the conversations with?   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  03:54 Yeah, and coordinating it, as you said, is really important. But also, being a body of a listener, I think the CEO has to shape themselves in a way that people will want to share and go below the surface. From the board member perspective, individual board members, you know, we could talk to the whole board. 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. And then front line, mid level, which is one of the greatest places of crisis right now in organizations, as well as the executives. And then I also think, Lisa, bringing in the strategic partners for the organization, who do they rely on for strategic planning, maybe their technology, their fintech, what are they seeing? And it is a big research project. There's a lot about listening and clearing the filters, so you can really hear what people are saying.   Lisa Hochgraf  04:45 So you talked a little bit about CEOs needing to sort of brush up their listeners skills to do a good job with this particular endeavor. Are there other ways that CEOs can prepare to do a good job in the role of designing the organization of the future?   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  05:03 Yes, absolutely. I think messaging ahead of time is really important. How do we message what the listening tour is? And so people will lean into the conversation, and also stating that there's a standard of no-holds-barred. You know, just please share kind of like an what we call the leadership dojo that we do Lisa at our company is where we can't figure out where we want to go unless we all see where we are coming from, you know, so being very open and leaving the filters at home, a bit of epoque, like taking your own biases out of the conversation. The other piece that I would strongly recommend is to make sure that you have a centering practice, because you're not going to join everything you hear. And some of that may be targeted against you as the CEO. And you always want to, you know, keep that body of a listener, and have that presence of like, I really care and want to connect to what your concerns are so please share.   Lisa Hochgraf  05:59 And yet at the same time, when it's tough for me to hear what you have to say, a way to breathe, a way to let it sort of roll off like the duck the, roll the water off the back, and then be able to look at what was said in a constructive and forward-thinking way.   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  06:13 I appreciate what you're saying. And what I'm recommending to the CEOs that we're coaching is, "Don't start your centering practice the morning you get in the car and go on your first listening tour, you know, to a branch, for example, or a call center. You need to start this centering practice way before you actually step into those sticky conversations. So it becomes embodied practice in you. So you can really hear and not be triggered.   Lisa Hochgraf  06:37 It sounds a lot like what my husband says about planting a tree, we should have done it 10 years ago. Start that centering practice right now. It cannot hurt to have that in your back pocket at any point, right?   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  06:49 Absolutely.   Lisa Hochgraf  06:52 And let's talk about the special case of a new CEO. How does a new CEO's newness help or hinder their ability to do a good job with futuring?   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  07:03 Oh, that's one of my favorite topics. And I really want to dig in on that in a research project. So I was talking with somebody a couple of weeks ago, new CEO, and I was told, "Yep, we got the onboarding all taken care of." I go, "What are you going to onboard with or who with the first week?" And the conversation was all about the board? And I said, "Well, what about the people? You know, what about the people, the people that work there everyday or in the culture who make the organization?" And it was amazing to me and a bit sad that they hadn't thought about that part. I said, you know, in our conversation, I think there was a shift in mindset, maybe that's where this person needs to start, especially following a longtime, tenured, very successful and loved CEO. Some reality check there, Lisa, I think is helpful.   Lisa Hochgraf  07:50 So I would imagine that a new CEO has maybe an advantage in being able to respond to new things. Like hearing the past might be easier for the new CEO. Are there other things that being new could be helpful with?   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  08:03 Yeah, hearing the past is often generative conversation for a new CEO. And I'm going to flip it up here a bit, Lisa, go like what could hinder that as well. So I also want to pay attention to what's the listening bias of the speaker, or the speaking bias of the speaker, I should say, you know, so we're still seeing a bit of gender conflict there. You know, so if I'm a board that it consists of mainly male board members, we're hearing a male board member perspective. And as a female CEO, we need to be open to that, because it's very important. It's got us this success that we want here, and then co-decide where we want to go from there. And we can dig in on that a little bit, if you want. But I think there's help. And then there's a hindrance on managing the biases that are in the conversation.   Lisa Hochgraf  08:55 Yeah. And it's interesting, I think, like, I've worked for CUES for 25 plus years now, whoa;. I know a lot about my co-workers that have been around a long time and the culture of the organization over time. And so I appreciate both my colleagues that have been with me on this long journey, right, we can build on good things. And we understand things to avoid because of our experience. And we also need to hear from the newest of the staff members because they're bringing in new ideas from outside. And so I think this idea of new and long tenured is a balancing act, right? There's good from both and everyone needs to be heard. And then you're raising the issue of gender, of making sure that we're listening, not just with ears because we're a woman or because we're a man but listening across the spectrum of gender, to be able to hear again, what everyone has to say, right? Are there any special tricks to the trade you would say of learning to listen more broadly?   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  09:55 Yeah, it starts with intention. And awareness follows intention. So going into the conversation or any big or important conversation, there's a lot of those these days, is setting an intention. So the intention could be that I want to hear from these three people in the room who are new to the organization. And I'm new to the organization, like what is working for them. So that's the intention. And then awareness is really important. Because if the conversation starts to go off topic, or the intention changes by the players in the room, then we need to back up and say, "Okay, we started here. This is where the conversation was going to go. Now we're all shifting and going over there" and creating clarity in the room of the participants that we're all going to go there together. Because if half the room goes there, and the other half is languishing in the earlier conversation or yearning to get back to it, we're actually starting a dysfunctional practice. So I think there's an intention set, then there's an awareness. And are we in the conversation? Or are we shifting, and then a declaration that we're going to go together and then stay in that practice, I think is very important.   Lisa Hochgraf  11:04 So the CEO goes on what you called earlier, a listening tour, and listens to board members, and to staff members and to their leadership team members, maybe even to a few members of the credit union? And then what do they do with all of what they've heard? How do they process all of this, going to be a lot of information? And some of it's going to be conflicting? And some of it's going to be disparate? What do they do?   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  11:28 Yeah, well, speaking from a researcher perspective, you know, when I do that, I'll look at things and patterns and do as much as I can to be in a quiet space. Sometimes I go home, and in my dining room, Lisa, I just take off the artwork. And I take these big, sticky notes. And for each interview, I'll write one or two words for the interview that I cluster, and then it just, I sit with it, and then I'll go back to the next day. And it's amazing what pops out of that.   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  11:56 Then I'll have somebody else look at it and do it as well, look at the themes and see how they construct what the patterns are. And then report back. We have to report back to the people who took their time to be in the conversation with you and say, "This is what I heard. And I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with it yet. But I it's important. And I just wanted to share with you. This is what I heard. And I'm going to come back to you in 10 days or a month and give you a response on what we could do differently in the organization or continue to do because it's a great practice and we're thriving because of it." But the message here is: Let people know that you're paying attention to what they said, sort of reflect it back to them.   Lisa Hochgraf  12:39 And you said something about 10 days or a month. How long can this process take? How long have you seen it take in organizations that have taken it on?   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  12:47 Yeah, that obviously has something to do with the size and how remote are all the workers. And because there's so many remote, do we need to do some of this on multiple zoom or teams conversations but as much as we can, physically connect with people being in the same room. So a good month is really important.   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  13:07 And as a new CEO, you don't want to make any changes right away, right? You want to listen, and then you want to create whatever the change needs to be with your team, not in isolation. So some people, you know, when we do interviews for CEO searches, they often have a 90-day or 120-day plan. And what I'm looking for there, and I think the boards are too, "Is this person doing this all by themselves?" Yes, there's some conversations they need to have by themselves on a listening tour. Yet, are they also doing it and generative practices and conversation with others? So there's a unified approach to whatever the next steps are, if any.   Lisa Hochgraf  13:44 So this is kind of a logistical question. Do you recommend that the conversations get recorded?   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  13:50 No, they won't. But what when I do research like this, I have sometimes the participants say, "Can I see you?" you know, and they'll want don't want a video. So we'll we'll put on a video and set up an audio. But what happens there's, for me, I have to be very flexible and I think CEOs do too. Some people will share more if they're not on video. And we call that listening long distance. You know, listening to the breath patterns, there's a pace, the tone is in their their voice, and other people just want to see us. So giving them a choice to I think is a good logistical practice.   Lisa Hochgraf  14:26 I like that a lot. And I know that each individual organization will come up with an individual response even as they bring together all the different conversations and the notes from all the different conversations. But can you give our listeners an idea of what the spectrum of possible outcomes could be? I mean, I'm thinking like it could be one organization has one really clear message that they need to go after and another organization might have three to five priorities that come up. But the second question is, is there a spectrum of what kinds of directions might coming up? For example, we really need to revamp our technology, or we really need to get to know our members better. Those are two very different possible outcomes. Can you talk a little bit about what their spectrum of possible outcomes could be?   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  15:12 I'm not going to give a like have five or six. But here's what I'm hearing the most because I do a lot of these co-listening tours. One is, we as people in credit unions, we as humans, we need to 'North Star' right now. 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, Lisa. That's why a lot of CEOs are looking at the organization in the future. What is that compelling reason? All things fall from that; that's really important.   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  15:48 We also do an organization alignment assessment, which is rich, it's much more than engagement. It gets a lot of the things that you're talking about. And it's also part of a listening tour, onboarding for new CEOs. And what comes out of that is like, what what populations in the organization are most aligned on how they're adding value, and which ones are kind of lost. So that's helpful there. So those are populations like leadership, senior leadership, or mid-level management or staff. And then looking at there's different areas of the organization like maybe technology, or contact center or branches that might have different degrees of alignment. So what I'm looking at their is find the low-hanging fruit. What are some things that you can cross a t and dot an i on? Because you didn't know that people wanted that? Or we never talked about it? It could be? Could we have a food truck once a month? Well, that's an easy cross off the list, right? It could be that, do we really need to track PTO? I mean, some things are low-hanging fruit.   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  15:50 So, have a group of people identify those in the data. And then as a team, figure out, I always say start with two words, the deep work that needs to be done, what's the deep work we need to do? And usually, Lisa, that comes into teaming, how do we team? And how do we do leadership model or we are leader models? Those are usually the places people start. Because if we can be models of leadership, the other things will come more easily. It's usually around how can we model leadership? And how can we team together that's gotten lost last two, three years. So low-hanging fruit in that helps the listeners go, "Oh, people are listening." And then the deep work which has to be more organization-wide.   Lisa Hochgraf  17:36 I love that. I like the idea that tracking where some of the feedback comes from is interesting, too, that you might find out that marketing and IT are more separated than we stereotypically think they might be, or that they're more aligned than more would be typical, right. And those are interesting factors in this discussion, too. That's really interesting.   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  17:57 To add to that, because I think this is good information to have, we also look at tenure. Is there alignment on how we're doing as an organization from longer-tenured versus new tenured? We usually see there's pretty much alignment regardless of tenure. We also look at gender and race and ethnicity, as well as different areas of functional domains in the organization. So the CEO, the new CEO can go and look, "Wow, this is great qualitative data to have. Here's how it lines up with my listening tour. And it provides a lot of clarity.   Lisa Hochgraf  18:28 Deedee, this has been fantastic information for our listeners. I want to be respectful of your time. But before we go, is there anything else that you would like our listeners to know? If they're a CEO thinking about their organization's future or a new CEO thinking about their organization's or a female CEO, what words of wisdom do you have to part with?   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  18:48 Connection, connection connection. We've got to figure out how as leaders in this might sound like, might sound like a lot, but we're spending at least 50% of our time connecting with people. It's a crisis that we can't avoid any more. And that means we have to listen to them, talk with them, be with them, develop, coach, whatever it takes the Lisa but we've got to figure out how to connect, connect, connect. And the second piece is, I think the more we listen and appropriately respond, that we can build that middle-level bench strength that is crying and desperate for that critical and strategic thinking. So those are the two things that I would say.   Lisa Hochgraf  19:28 And that's wonderful. Thank you so much for being on the show again today, Deedee.   Deedee Myers, Ph.D.  19:32 Yeah. My pleasure. Thanks a lot, Lisa.   Lisa Hochgraf  19:36 I would like to thank you, our listeners for taking time out of your busy schedules to listen to today's episode of the CUES Podcast. And many thanks to Deedee for sharing her expertise about so many important topics. Learn more about DDJ Myers at D D J myers.com. That's DDJmyers.com.   Lisa Hochgraf  19:58 Find a full transcript of his episode at CUmanagement.com/podcast 148. You can also find more great credit union-specific content at CUmanagement.com.   Lisa Hochgraf  20:11 Thanks again for listening today.   Lisa Hochgraf  20:14 CUES is an international credit union association that champions and delivers effective talent development solutions for executives, staff and boards to drive organizational success.

• The Value of a ‘Can-do’ Mindset for HELOCs and Fintech 

  Today’s credit union leaders need to ready their organizations to serve the members of the future. 

  By Omar Jordan 

  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 and 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 HELOC marketing. 

  “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 return on investment, he also offers 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