NAFCU Journal May June 2021

12 THE NAFCU JOURNAL May–June 2021 I ’ve been helping organizations with strategic thinking and planning for nearly 30 years. Although putting together a strategy can seem complex, there are only a handful of critical ele- ments for building a strategy to help your credit union be more successful. Here are a few big ideas to keep in mind. It’s Just a Guess Hopefully a thoughtful and well- researched guess, but still just a guess. No one could have predicted a year ago where we would be today, and no one can predict, with any certainty, where we will be a year in the future. There is No One Right Answer Throughout our education, we are taught that to get a good grade, we must find the one right answer. After you graduate, you realize that in many situations, there are potentially multiple right answers. In strategy, it’s essential to look for the second and third right answers to find the best right answer. Scarce Resources At the heart of it, strategy is about the allocation of scarce resources. Even Goo- gle and Amazon do not have unlimited resources. How you invest your time, money and people is the essence of your strategy. Saying “No” One of the most important things a great strategic thinker does is figure out what to say “no” to. Just as important as how you invest your resources is where you choose not to invest. What part of the market will we not serve? What prod- ucts or services will we not offer? What projects, even in the face of sunk costs, will we walk away from? It takes courage to say “no,” but the ability to do so allows you to direct your focus and is critical to success. The Secret: Competitive Advantage The main factor in creating a winning strategy is pattern recognition. The ability to identify trends, anomalies in the data, shifting member expectations and changes in other critical indica- tors—before your competition sees them—is what allows you to create a competitive advantage. Time Horizon It used to be that organizations would set 10-year strategic plans, then it dropped to five, then three, and now most of my clients feel that they can only look out about 18 months with any confidence. Therefore, it is vital to have a tight cadence of reviewing the strategy often. Traction Many strategies fail because they are constantly adjusted. Review the plan often but change it only when the market demands. As you consider these big ideas, here are some questions to help you develop a strong strategy: 1. What roadblocks will inhibit you from effectively executing the strategy? 2. How confident do you feel that your data and financial projections are accurate? 3. What metrics will you use to mea- sure the success of your strategy? 4. Are the timelines and budget num- bers realistic? 5. Is this strategy in line with your current strategy, or is it a signifi- cant diversion? 6. Does the senior team enthusiasti- cally support the strategy? 7. Do the Board of Directors enthusi- astically support the strategy? 8. Is it difficult or impossible for your competition to copy the strategy? 9. Is this strategy based on the current and future needs of your members? LEADERSHIP DOWNLOAD CONSIDER THESE BIG IDEAS, QUESTIONS TO DEVELOP STRONG STRATEGY By John Spence