The Tortoise and the Hare Are Both Wrong

By Sarah Snell Cooke

My mother recently had surgery, so I made the 90-minute trek to Podunk, PA to visit with her. All’s well. With her anyway.

I would categorize my driving style as assertive. Seriously, I will be the first to buy a teleporter because I see travel time as wasted – especially driving in Maryland. I would never do anything remotely dangerous, but I’m very strategic about my pole position. And I might occasionally exceed the speed limit on an interstate.

Let’s just say for those who haven’t spent a lot of time in Maryland that you can typically drive faster in the right lane, because no one wants to be that guy. They want to be one of the cool kids but fail miserably going the speed limit in all the other lanes. They may be going the same speed as the lane to the right – Hell, it can be wide open – and they DO NOT GET OVER!!!!

But I digress.

So, I’m traveling across I-70 West, not quite to ‘Deliverance’ country and one of my most massive, hugest, biggest pet peeves is driving behind people who cannot maintain a consistent rate of speed to save their lives. Even before you start getting toward the mountains and you can use your cruise control, they can’t manage it.

Between cussing the other drivers, who I’m sure are generally lovely people, I got to thinking about credit unions. Don’t we all?

The well-known Tortoise and the Hare fable came to mind. The lesson of the story is that slow and steady wins the race, but is that true in today’s world?

No.

Fast and steady wins the race

Consistency has always been and will always be important. Keeping your brand, stories and products and services in front of consumers and top of mind for members is critical. Ensuring constant improvement in all areas of business, whether investments in efficiency or operational workflows, is important. These things keep us consistent.

But they also are intended to help you move faster and be nimble.

Knowing what to expect from your credit union, as an employee and as a member, is important. It’s comforting, even and especially during times of great change. Communication must be transparent enough for your stakeholders to understand the why, consistent enough to assure the business is holding steady and have integrity to build trust.

What about the hare?

Credit unions have been experiencing tremendous disruption since the housing crisis and the invasion of the fintechs, creating different and increasing demands from consumers to suit their needs. The current administration is proposing regulations that are keeping credit unions guessing what’s the next shoe to drop and dropping the ball on CDFIs when they’re most needed. The current inflationary and recessionary period is compounding the challenges.

Some suggest that setting strategy in the current environment is darn near impossible because of everything coming at you. I say, that’s exactly why a solid, forward-looking strategy is needed.

The point of strategy is not to be perfect. Strategy is taking in all the information you can see and developing insights from that as to where the scenarios are likely to end up and how your credit union can best handle those for your members. Strategic planning is also broad enough that the details happening right now should not affect your goals. I’m heading into my credit union’s strategic planning session this weekend, and our fundamentals haven’t changed. The tactics or the timing might, but not the strategy.

The problem with the hare was that he got cocky and decided to take a nap mid-race. That’s the part we have to avoid. Credit unions’ not-for-profit business model provides better cushioning than other models to keep on running.

What does fast really mean for credit unions?

Consistency in line with your strategic plan is table stakes. We also have to be responsive to the opportunities that jump out at us that align with our strategy and goals. Ask yourself:

·      This wasn’t in the plans, but will it move us forward in the same direction?

·      How much money, time and people can we commit to experimentation?

·      Is it scalable?

Unlike most credit unions, fintechs will put themselves out there before they’re perfect. They’ll iterate with the valuable feedback they receive and leverage agile development to – as the Mitchell, Stankovic & Associates' credit union Underground Collision 2Xperience would say - #getshitdone!

Jennifer Oliver is CEO of SCE Federal Credit Union, but in 2019, she was CEO at South Bay Credit Union. The South Bay board, which still includes fintech leader Chris Otey, gave her room (and a budget!) to experiment with different ideas. Check out this older piece from the Underground for details, but she tested out temporary branches in shared workspaces to raise visibility and accelerate member access. The team used these popup branches to show others in the shared workspace, which turned over regularly and who tended to be younger, to expand its reach and show people how to use all their remote services.

At the time of that publication, we didn’t know whether it was successful or not, and that’s not my point. My point is to experiment with new ideas, testing and succeeding or failing fast.

Credit unions have a stereotype for awaiting perfection before launching anything. Perfection kills innovation. Find the level of risk you’re comfortable with taking, which will depend upon the member and credit union impact and investment and make the jump. That’s what fast and steady means for credit unions.

How will your credit union run fast and steady?