How to Build a Courageous, Creative Culture for Your Credit Union – and Why!
Jackie Brown, JB Communications Group
Listen in on any credit union industry conversation these days and you’ll quickly hear about the struggle to find and retain employees. Move over to the marketing talks and you’ll hear topics like “how can we stand out” and “we need some new ideas.”
These challenges are tough to tackle on a daily basis - a tight labor market, a commoditized industry, creative burnout. No wonder many credit unions are just trying to hang on.
But what if your credit union could find a way to meet these challenges? What if there were a way to find success even in a competitive market? There is a solution that can ease these challenges and others: build a courageous, creative culture. An environment that encourages problem-solving at all levels, in all positions, without fear of negative pushback, can absolutely attract and retain employees as well as bring fresh and unique marketing opportunities. In fact, developing a courageous, creative culture is a critical component of success!
While some might say a culture is so ingrained there’s no changing it, the changes needed to encourage creativity can be incorporated with minimal friction.
In fact, a courageous, creative culture opens up countless possibilities for growth, and to ignore it would be detrimental to success. It’s such a key influence, we’re doing a three-part series to dive deep into what it is, why it’s important - especially to the bottom line, its challenges and opportunities, as well how to build a courageous, creative culture whether your culture is in dire need or in the process.
Let’s start with defining the basics.
What is a courageous, creative culture?
Courageous: boldly moving forward in spite of obstacles
Creative: generating new and novel ideas to solve problems
Culture: an organization’s shared values, experiences, attitudes, and practices
When you combine those, a courageous, creative culture is defined as the shared value and practice of boldly moving toward new and novel ideas to solve problems.
In daily work life, this shows up when employees can freely and without hesitation offer meaningful ideas to challenges and problems they encounter throughout the day. These meaningful ideas can be applied to products and services, but also across the entire organization.
“While a loan officer may not have much room to be creative with the approval process, they must have autonomy in how they treat the member,” Chary Krout, co-founder of credit union employee engagement consultancy Cultivate, says. “For instance, one member may need space to make decisions and another needs to talk it out. The employee should feel safe in making creative choices for how they manage the situation.”
Why is a courageous, creative culture key to success?
In a commoditized market like financial services, organizations must find ways to rise above the crowd. Those “ways” are the new and novel ideas that come about from dynamic creative thinking.
Innovative products and services are some of the more obvious benefits of this culture, but dig a little deeper and you’ll see other keys to success like employee engagement. Also consider how innovation impacts other aspects of a credit union:
- Refined internal processes
- Improved member service
- Quicker responses to outside influences
The return on investment you’ll see to this approach will create more value for your members in terms of:
Innovative products and services
When your offerings stand out from all the standard financial products and services, your organization will attract attention, new members and more loyal members. All leading to growth. Taking the opportunity to stand out does mean stepping courageously outside of the safe zone. But think of how delighted your target audience will feel when they discover your very specific, innovative service that feels like it was created just for them. Any financial institution can have vanilla products and services, but creating special ‘flavors’ will find special members!
Innovative internal processes
A courageous, creative culture provides a safe space for employees to ask, “what if?” What if this procedure were streamlined? What would it look like if we tried it this way? When these questions are met with curiosity, and not “because that’s the way we’ve always done it,” processes and procedures get optimized. This in turn creates synergy, reducing frustrations as well as wasted time and energy. Your labor costs just went down!
Innovative member service
Surprise and delight has become cliche in the member service world, but there’s a nugget of truth in cliches - that’s why we hear them so much! Members love to be delightfully surprised and that can only be achieved when the culture is courageous and creative. Treating members as expected will not get them talking to their friends. We must go beyond expectations. And to do that, employees need space to be creative - innovative - in how they interact with the members right in front of them. That surprise and delight will get the member talking, referring your credit union to their friends and family. It also creates loyalty, increasing your share of wallet.
Innovative responses
As your organization strengthens this courageous creativity, your credit union can respond more quickly to outside influences and be more on point. Your organization likely has plans for Fed rate hikes, weather and other disasters, such as widespread health issues, but unforeseen challenges associated with these big events always pop up. In a courageous, creative culture, your team will gain the practice of moving quickly to generate a wide range of ideas, and then boldly strike forward as appropriate.
The positive impacts of a courageous, creative culture are undeniable. Think about what challenges and opportunities your credit union might face as you start to embrace it. Check out the next article in my series to learn how you can address those challenges and take advantage of the opportunities!