The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) is facing a period of significant upheaval following the abrupt removal of board members Todd Harper and Tanya Otsuka, an event that has thrown the agency into a state of uncertainty and sparked widespread concern across the credit union industry. This turmoil coincides with discussions among credit union leaders and futurists at NACUSO Reimagine about how to navigate future disruptions, emphasizing the importance of strategic foresight and scenario planning.
Read Harper’s reaction and news analysis here – “NCUA in Crisis: “Wrongful” Firings Leave Credit Union Watchdog Crippled”
Economist and futurist Rebecca Ryan spoke about the role of a futurist, explaining that while historians study the past and journalists report on the present, futurists focus on unfolding trends to provide clients with a competitive advantage for the future. The current instability within the NCUA serves as a real-world example of the kind of disruption that requires credit unions to think proactively.
As the NCUA grapples with a regulatory freeze due to the lack of board members, credit unions are being urged to employ strategic foresight. This involves a two-phase process: “sensing” and scenario planning. The sensing phase involves analyzing societal, technological, economic, environmental, political, and regulatory changes. Scenario planning, the second phase, involves creating a range of different future scenarios—from challenging to surprisingly successful—to prepare for various outcomes.
This approach is crucial, especially given the concerns about political influence over the NCUA. As previously reported by The Green Connection, the removal of Harper and Otsuka has ignited a debate about the extent of political influence over this crucial regulatory body, with Brian Lauer of Messick, Lauer and Smith, highlighting the legal and political ramifications. The abruptness of these firings, and the White House’s assertion of the President’s right to remove agency heads, underscores the need for credit unions to consider politically driven regulatory shifts in their strategic planning.
Read and watch the full interview with Brian here – “ NCUA Turmoil: Political Winds Batter Credit Union Regulation”
In the face of these uncertainties, experts advise credit unions to avoid reactive planning. Instead, they should engage in thoughtful consideration of multiple potential futures. This proactive stance will enable them to identify controllable factors and prepare for a spectrum of scenarios.
Moreover, the turmoil at the NCUA, as noted by Henry Meier, Esq., may signal a broader trend of questioning the constitutionality of independent agencies, which could lead to further instability.
Ultimately, while the NCUA’s future direction remains unclear, the emphasis on strategic foresight offers credit unions a path to navigate the uncertainty. By thinking futuristically and employing scenario planning, credit unions can better prepare for regulatory changes and continue to serve their members effectively.
Disclosure: Transcript below is automatically generated
Rebecca Ryan 00:00
My name is Rebecca Ryan. I’m an economist and professional futurist, which is, you know, what is a futurist anyway? Can you explain a little more about that? I think the best way to sort of understand what a futurist is is to think about historians or kind of professionals who study the past. Journalists are supposed to report on what’s happening today the present. And then futurists, what we do is we think about all the trends that are kind of like unfolding in the future, and we try to think about how we can give our clients, like a competitive advantage to work with those trends and build brighter futures. And so today is very interesting breaking news. The NCUA board has lost two members to the Trump administration, and so that obviously is going to have an impact on credit unions. And unlucky, lucky. I don’t know how much to call it, but gave you, you know, real world thing to deal with today, and how is that impacting everyone? Yeah, I mean, I don’t wish this on anybody this kind of disruption, but it is pretty awesome to be able to come together with fintechs, credit unions, CUSOs, and think together about how a disruption like this could play out. And that’s exactly what we do as futurists. You know, we think about how could this play out over time. So what we’ve got going in here is every team is working on either a challenging future, an expectable future or a visionary future, and they’re writing stories based on how these things could play out. So it’s going to end up being one, probably some therapy. You know, people can think through like how this could work, but they’re also getting real world exposure to how useful it is to have a process to think through the future. Because what a lot of us do at the future is we kind of, like, lick a dart and throw it at the wall. We’re like, we hope this is how it ends up. But foresight, professional foresight, gives us a process. And so how does scenario this type of scenario planning to enter strategic planning? Yep, there are two phases that we do in strategic foresight that most people don’t do in strategic planning. The first one we call the sensing phase, and that’s where we look at all the changes that are going to come. Usually we look at society changes. So how are members changing? How is the technology changing? How is the economy of what we do changing environmental changes might not be as important for credit unions, but they are for some communities, and then politics and regulatory changes. So we look at those five categories of changes in the sensing phase. So that’s kind of the first phase that’s a little different. The second phase that’s different is what we’re doing today, which is scenario planning, looking at a range of different futures, and then trying to figure out, okay, what are the things that we could control or influence that will help us whether the future is challenging or whether the future is surprisingly successful. Because, as a futurist, I don’t think it’s responsible planning to just assume everything’s going to go great, because look what happened today, right? So you have to be prepared for, like, a range of futures, from very surprisingly successful to very challenged.
Sarah Snell Cooke 03:12
And so, you know, this has been a workshop. So great, hands on experience. Like you said, what kinds of questions I’ve seen you answering questions? What kinds of questions what kinds of questions are you getting from the
Rebecca Ryan 03:22
credit union? Yeah, one of the questions I’m getting is, you know, for like, I’ve talked to a couple of challenging tables, or, like, how, how dark Should we take this, right? And I always say take it as dark as is realistic, because we’re not trying to, like, be crazy Black Mirror people here. But like, you really should think, like, How bad could this get? That’s one of the questions. The second one is, is, how many different trends should we think about as we build the future? And I always say, look at like, today we had a disruption. We definitely need to think about that as a factor influence in the future. But then we want to look at those trends that are very high impact and high certainty. So we gave them seven to look at, and they’re like, can we just we have to pick just one. Should we pick one? And for today, because they’re doing it for the first time, I’m like, just pick one. We already have this disruption. Just pick one more trend and think that through. So those are the kinds of questions I’m getting. One other question I got is, you know, we have leaders who don’t think futuristically at all, but we have staff who know that, like the credit union, has to change. How do you bring those two groups together? And my advice there is, most people have never done strategic foresight, so people don’t even realize that there’s a way of thinking strategically about the future. And also, when people are afraid, they tend to contract. They don’t broaden out to think about the future. So sometimes, if you just have, like, you know, an hour long discussion about the future, what are the plausible futures? Even something that small can kind of. Crack open people’s awareness like, oh, the future isn’t this big, scary unknown place. We actually there are some things we could do to help build the future more
Sarah Snell Cooke 05:09
excellent. Thank you so much. Thank you.