There aren't a lot of companies out there filled with stupid people. Granted, there may be some, but they're certainly not the majority. By and large, organizations are filled with smart, capable people. We have technology to thank for this, at least in part. Everyone has access to the same information, the same technology. Some get in on the technology sooner than others, which provides a temporary competitive advantage; but sooner or later folks catch up.

This is partially why I maintain that healthy organizational culture is one of the biggest competitive advantages out there right now. Companies have a big opportunity to differentiate themselves in the area of culture. Like I said, organizations are full of smart people, and organizations themselves are pretty smart in regards to marketing, technology, finance, and so on. So it will be a rare occasion (though not unheard of) that an organization just blows its competition out of the water because they're significantly smarter than other organizations in their space.

What culture does, however, is it unlocks the potential within people. You can almost think of it as an accelerator of talent, a liberator of innovation. Think about it: if employees are trapped working a job they're not in love with for a company they think treats them like crap, chances are they're not going to really tap into their potential to as great a degree.

A healthy culture - one marked by high morale, high productivity, minimal confusion, minimal politics, and low turnover - is one that employees want to be a part of. They want to invest themselves in the success of the organization, because it's obvious the organization is reciprocating. They want to grow and improve, because they want to be a part of the organization's success.

So many organizations miss this potentially game-changing competitive advantage because their default strategy when something isn't going well is to look at all the "smart" things: marketing, technology, finance, etc. But, you see, the problem doesn't always lie in those areas. Often, it's a cultural issue that organizations try to address from a structural or operational perspective; and it just doesn't have any lasting impact. As a result, many groups are just left scratching their heads and going back to business as usual.

So what does your organization do to ensure its culture is a healthy one? What kinds of things have you seen organizations do to really unleash the potential within their employees? And why do so many organizations overlook this potentially huge competitive advantage?

It really is a shame, but many employees trudge into work every day on autopilot. They punch a clock, meander to their workspace, plop down into what may or may not be an ergonomically correct chair, and begin their daily countdown to 5:00PM. For these employees, there's no real passion, no real desire, no pressing urgency about their work. And why is that? For some, the work just doesn't matter. And before you go chalking that up to those employees' bad attitudes, I think we, as credit unions and other organizations, need to look in the mirror first.

We like to speak in lofty terms about the credit union movement, and rightly so. It's a very human movement, built on certain principles meant to help us all be more appropriately human. The difficulty is that we often forget to reinforce this idea with our employees as strongly or as regularly as we ought.

What I'm saying is that our employees need to know their work is relevant. They need to know it matters. And they need to know how it matters and to whom it matters. We're not just running transactions; we're helping people, day after day. Our call center employees are, call after call, helping people understand and manage their finances. We're helping them plan for their future, manage their present, and perhaps recover from their past.

A few months ago, I was speaking with some folks in the lending department at a credit union. As I often do during such conversations, I asked them why they came to work. I asked them what they did during the course of the day. I asked them if they even liked what they did. The answers I got were sadly familiar. "We fill out paperwork," they said. "We process loan applications," they continued. "I'm just here because I can't find another job," one even said in a moment of transparency. My response? "Man, when you say it that way, your work does suck."

I went on to explain what I thought of when I thought of a loan department. It's entirely different from what they were expressing to me. When I think of a loan department, I think of a group of dream facilitators. These employees come to work every day, and yes, perhaps fill out reams of paperwork. But it's not just empty paperwork. It's paperwork that is a means to an end. The lending department enables other people to accomplish their dreams on a daily basis. Do you see the huge distinction here? They're helping people, day after day, accomplish something that's a big deal to them. They're consolidating debt to make it more manageable. They're getting a new car or boat. They're finally purchasimg their first home. After saving for years, they're buying that retirement condo somewhere warm. The loan department isn't just lending money - they're fulfilling dreams. Their work matters. It's more relevant and meaningful than they know.

Credit unions and other organizations that get this idea will have more passionately engaged employees. It's actually a huge competitive advantage for your organization when your employees really understand how relevant and meaningful their work is. The question for us all is this: Do they get it? Do they know and clearly understand how meaningful their work is?

I've seen and heard it time and again. "We're going to fix our culture." Or, "For the next six months we're going to focus on our people." Or, "I hope we can get our morale issue under control so we can get back to business."

Yikes.

Imagine if you took this approach to a health and wellness program. In fact, many of us have had this very experience (don't judge me). It usually begins around January 1, doesn't it? We get really motivated to get in better shape, eat right, and so on. We buy gym memberships and workout clothes that fit a little snugly (because after all, we're going to lose weight, right?) and march off to the gym, determined that this time will be different. This time we won't give up in March. We'll at least give it until June.

We all know that to get lasting results in the health arena, we have to continually manage ourselves in this area. We have to keep eating right, and we have to keep getting to the gym to exercise. It's an ongoing thing, or at least it should be.

The same is true in regards to group culture. In our organizations (for most of my readers, that means our credit unions), we too often try to stick bandaids on culture issues rather than taking a long-term, strategic approach to them. Rather than understanding that culture is an ongoing initiative, we relegate it to some sort of temporary project.

Six months later we end up on the couch, bothered that we can't fit into our workout clothing; but not bothered enough to actually do something about it on an ongoing basis. There's always next year.

Training magazine has published a couple articles of mine within the past weeks. Here's part of one of them:

"Corporate mission statements and core values lists are filled with buzzwords, aren’t they? I’ve said it time and again to various folks I know in the larger business world. You can keep your catchphrases, because until those ideas translate into the culture of an organization, they’re useless.The trap many teams and organizations fall into is mistaking their excitement about a certain catchphrase or concept for actual, cultural change or identity.

The question then becomes 'How can executive teams and organizational development practitioners get things from being simply catchphrases to actually being defining elements of organizational culture?'

I’m so glad you asked. There are a few steps an organization can take to work toward a unified cultural vision, and then some ideas around what we within the training and development world can do to help drive that change."

Check out the rest of the article at Training magazine's website here.

Why do so many organizations, be they churches, non-profits, or corporations, claim to really engage their people; while people at these same organizations would have a hard time agreeing  that that's the case?

Odd, yet sadly predictable in many scenarios...

I admittedly didn’t know what exactly to expect from a conference whose centerpiece was a gurgling water receptacle. I attended the Credit Union Water Cooler Symposium (CUWCS) based on a recommendation from my friend Andy Janning, and as it turned out, a couple other folks from my credit union were going as well. I can’t tell you how glad I am that I went, how cool the conference was, how much I appreciate the organizers, and how stoked I am when I think about continuing the dialogue that began in that Mac-infested room. The next few blog posts here will likely reflect on various ideas and themes from the CUWCS. 

Robbie Wright (CUInnovators.com) opened the sessions with a discussion of credit unions being sexy. Yes, cringing credit union readers, sexy. I realize that by using the word sexy two times (three now) that I’ve already lost half my readers (or have I gained some?). I really liked Wright’s presentation for a number of reasons. It was one of those presentations where I could tell that Robbie didn’t really care so much if we agreed with every nuance of every point he made, but rather, he wanted us to think about it. 

As an aside, that’s one of those things that those of us who are presenters and credit union advocates need to do a better job at. Too often we need our listeners to fully agree, and even adore, the position we’ve taken on an issue instead of being excited about the fact that whether they agree with us or not, they’re mentally engaging the subject matter. Really, we should take disagreement as a sign of success, because we’ve gotten folks to care enough and mentally invest enough to disagree. In fact, that’s one of the trends I liked about the whole conference. Opposing viewpoints were expressed, and everybody was cool with it. There didn’t seem to be a lot of ego in the room, but a perfect dose of appropriate irreverence was noticeable. But I digress.

I hope the attendees didn’t miss Robbie’s point amidst ogling pictures of David and Victoria Beckham. He made a statement that stuck with me, and actually sent my mind wandering in a dozen directions. He implied that the sexy stuff in our world could and should be the simple, everyday stuff like having nice facilities, interacting with each other well, etc.

In other words, healthy credit union culture is sexy. 

You know that feeling you have about your significant other? The one that makes you feel like, though you might have disagreements, you still click? That’s how members and employees (we too often forget the employee piece of this) should feel about both their credit union and the credit union movement. We have to do a far better job of understanding who we are and what our movement is about. People can’t be passionate about that which they don’t adequately understand. 

Further, without really engaging the culture question on both a macro and micro level, the rest of what was discussed at the CUWCS will amount to little more than window dressing. An awesome website and amazing social media strategy will in the end ring hollow with unengaged employees and members who don’t really get what we’re about. Instead, we need to give our people a compelling context within which to function, and potential members a compelling reason to join our tribe.  

I’d like to think that credit union advocates are credit union advocates because we have a bit of a heretical edge to us. We’re different from the norm, and we like that. Ideas that we (should) cling to are scoffed at by other financial institutions. Fine. Let ‘em scoff. While they’re scoffing, we’re conducting meaningful business in a way that helps people and communities.

So let’s bring sexy back. Let’s work on the simple things that make a huge difference to our internal and external members. And let’s hope that at the next CUWCS someone (I’m looking at you, James Robert Lay of CUSWAG fame) puts together a music video to the tune of the Justin Timberlake song.