Many of you have been there. For many, there is a turning point in your professional lives; a point where you went from credit union (or insert your employer here) employee to passionate credit union advocate. My questions are as follows:

How did this happen?

What reasons or ideas did you find most compelling?

As I've been in contact with various credit union folks around the country, I've found that a lot of credit unions (and other types of businesses as well) have the same dilemma. They have scores, hundreds even, of employees who are just there. They're there, they're doing their jobs, they're punching the clock; but they're not really engaged and passionate about their position, their own credit union, or the credit union movement as a whole.

What can we do about it? What will you do about it?

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...

Hey, Gang. 

My apologies on my absence from the unCUlturers blog. This absence was largely unavoidable. Allow me to briefly explain.

In mid-October, I was diagnosed with a tumor on my kidney that ended up being cancerous. Long story short - On November 18, surgeons removed part of my kidney and a rib. They think they got all the cancer, though I'll have to undergo CT scans for the rest of my life to keep an eye on things.

So let's get back to business, shall we? There's much to be done.