Cues Podcast

This episode of the CUES Podcast covers the key connection between skilled and authentic leadership and management and organizational and employee well-being. “This is really what we need to focus on ... as leaders and as organizations,” says guest Laurie Maddalena, MBA, CSP, CPCC, CEO of Envision Excellence. “How do we support the well-being of our cultures and create cultures that cultivate well-being and also well-being for our employees in their personal lives? In the show, Maddalena offers these concrete steps to take: Audit your culture. Is what’s in practice what you say it should be? Assess the quality of the work of your leaders and managers. Are they modeling the behaviors you want to be part of your culture? (eg, Are they constantly connected?)  Know your business model. This will help you determine which ways you can offer flexible work and to which employees. Root out such traditional and unhealthy leadership practices. Micromanaging, not giving feedback, reprimanding rather than coaching, and no

Bruce Bauer understands how credit unions sometimes push establishing a charitable donation account down on their list of priorities. But Bauer, an executive benefits specialist with CUESolutions provider Cuna Mutual Group, rather wishes they wouldn’t. In this episode, Bauer explains that credit unions that have charitable donation accounts can get additional revenue from the same budget line item for their philanthropy. That’s because CDAs allow them more investment flexibility (and potentially more return) both on the dollars they plan to donate plus a specific amount of additional funds.In the show, Bauer details the rules and regulations the National Credit Union Administration has in place to govern credit unions’ use of CDAs. He also talks about some cool successes in charitable giving that have been facilitated by the use of one of these accounts. In all, Bauer thinks using a charitable donation account is something every credit union should at least consider, as it can set them up for a triple win—to

CUES member Jeff Disterhoft became passionate about advancing diversity, equity and inclusion after his son took a class about race at the University of Iowa and started asking his dad questions about DEI.“A few things became clear over the course of the semester,” Disterhoft says in the show. “One, I didn't have it all figured out in terms of the systemic oppression of people of color in our country for hundreds of years. Two, I had a lot of unconscious biases that had not been properly addressed. And three, I could do more as an individual, and I felt like GreenState could do more as an organization.”DIsterhoft is president/CEO of $11 billion GreenState Credit Union, North Liberty, Iowa, the recipient of CUES’ 2022 DEI: Catalyst for Change Award.With its CEO and board both passionate about DEI, GreenState CU launched last year a 10-year initiative to help close Iowa's racial homeownership gap, which ranks sixth largest in the nation. The goal is to fund more than a billion dollars in mortgage loan

If you're building a team, you want players who are humble, hungry and people-smart. Zachary Churchill says this is not his idea—it's from Patrick Lencioni, founder of The Table Group—but Churchill seems not only to espouse it but embody it. The winner of the 2022 CUES Emerge competition, Churchill is not afraid to say he previously entered the competition in 2013 and didn't advance. So that's pretty humble.“For me, ego is the obstacle to personal progress,” says Churchill, CUDE, CMA, CFE, CCM, in the show. “I tend to think my way is good enough, so why change? But the truth is, we’re not going to change unless we want something bad enough or the pain of doing things the way it is now, that status quo, hurts enough. ... I desperately wanted to do a great job in this year’s competition. And that meant I had to let go of my ego ... and just do things the way that the experts advised me.”Churchill is hungry, too, interested in learning and growing—to the point where he would like to become a

Episode 137 of the CUES Podcast tells a story of CEO succession that includes two leaders splitting the president and CEO roles for about six months;  doing additional planning for the expected retirements of the longtime CFO and CIO; consideration of several merger options; and a merger. This is the story of Charlotte Metro Credit Union, which just as we were about to publish this episode announced its new name will be Skyla Credit Union. Our guests for this episode are CUES member Bob Bruns, retiring president/CEO, and Eric Gelly, incoming president/CEO for the $1 billion institution in North Carolina.“It was quite a learning experience for our board to be very open-minded about what the options were,” in terms of choosing a new CEO and leadership team through either a recruitment process or a merger, Bruns says in the show. In the end, the board decided to hire Gelly and merge with a credit union of similar size, Premier Federal Credit Union, Greensboro, North Carolina. Gelly describes the handoff from Bru

Sponsored by SkyStemClosing the books at the end of the month can be a lot of work. Doing it month after month can be grueling. And when the organization is growing and adding new technology, well, that can just make an already tough job that much more difficult, says our guest in this episode of the CUES Podcast.Jennifer Stein, CPA, CGMA, is senior project manager for SkyStem, a CUES Supplier member based in New York City and the sponsor of this show. A former corporate controller, Stein has been through the ups and downs of the month-end close many times, and that experience has driven her passion for making the process easier for accounting teams.Her top tip? Standardize the process. This is especially helpful during this era of turnover caused by the Great Resignation, she says.“By standardizing your processes and your reconciliation templates, for example, you’re helping new people learn the exact same way that other people are doing things,” she says in the show. “So, by having standardization in proces

Got grit? According to the guest in this episode of the CUES Podcast, getting grit is about having passion and perseverance in pursuit of long-term goals. It’s about going outside of your comfort zone and taking risks to live your best life. As a bonus, the process of getting grit will likely inspire other people to want to behave that way as well. “Grit is really defined also by the fact that these are your goals, your unique goals that you want to accomplish,” explains Caroline Adams Miller, author of the books Getting Grit and Creating Your Best Life. “And why is that? Because it's this passion, this inner passion that keeps you going when the going gets tough. And if it's someone else's goal, you're not going to have that. So it has to be your why not someone else's why. “People have what I call authentic grit simply by virtue of how they live and how they do hard things,” continues Miller, who will present a keynote about grit at Directors Conference, slated for Dec. 4-7 in Las V

James Hunter, CCM, not only has deep knowledge of credit union lending best practices but also a passion for diversity, equity and inclusion. In fact, Hunter says in this episode of the CUES podcast that he strives to put the two together every day—to be an “equity injector” that helps all members of his credit union be more able to live their best financial lives.“I want to be the equity injector,” Hunter says in the show. “I want to find ways that we can creatively come up with the resources and tools to help individuals get what they need so they can stop worrying, but also have peace of mind and live their best financial life.”A CUES member, the CUES Emerge runner-up in 2020, and a CUES Emerge mastermind in 2021 and this year, Hunter is chief diversity officer for $243 million New Orleans Firemen's Federal Credit Union. He comes to that role having previously served as a credit union chief lending officer and a senior vice president of mortgage lending, as well as a board member for Inclusiv.In the s

Sponsored by FiservWant to compete better with fintechs? Reduce friction. Want to make more loans? Reduce friction? Want to become more appealing to young people? Reduce friction.The opportunity that lies in reducing friction across the credit union is a key theme in this episode of the CUES Podcast. Our guest is Bill Handel, general manager and chief economist at Raddon, a Fiserv company. Fiserv, based in Brookfield, Wisconsin, is a CUES supplier member and the sponsor of the show. “How do we build that relevancy within those younger generations?” he asks. “It's not just mortgages. It's everything.“We have this historical mantra of 'Do business on my time, in my place and with my processes,'” he explains. “The older generation says, ‘Okay, the bank hours are here, and the bank locations are here, or credit union locations are here, and (I) have to go through these steps to get this process done. (The) younger generation says ‘no,’ and they want to do it differently. … And that's the

When considering a core conversion, Tami Webb, who is VP/sales for CUES Supplier member United Solutions Company, Tallahassee, Florida, suggests first asking: Why do we want to change? What's the objective? What's driving all this work? Webb is our guest for this episode of the CUES Podcast. She has helped about 30 credit unions convert to a hosted core or remote data processing system. At USC, Webb works with clients to convert and use XP2 or DataSafe. She also has experience working with other Fiserv core solutions as well as Jack Henry’s Symitar Episys and Ease solutions. No matter what core system you are converting to, the first step is building the right conversion team, she says, starting with the project lead who will serve as the liaison between the internal team and the vendor. In addition to the project lead, the core conversion team should include an IT lead and subject matter experts for each area of the credit union. Take care to select the right SMEs for this project, someone who can

When G&F Financial and Aldergrove Credit Union merged, they started with a cultural assessment to see if the combination was a right fit. And they followed up with “roots and wings” sessions designed to honor the history of both credit unions and to create alignment around their joint future.“We did some reads to see exactly where individual employees were at, what were their values, what was important to them, and try to align what they liked about their previous organizations and what they hoped for the new organization,” explains CUES member Bill Kiss, CCD, co-CEO of G&F Financial, a $5 billion credit union in Burnaby, British Columbia, and a guest on the show. “So that was a fascinating exercise to go through. And after the merger, we went into ‘roots and wings’ sessions. So those were, from the root side, you’re honoring your past. You’re recognizing the great things where you’ve come from, and all of the accomplishments of the organization. And then the wing side is the future about where you ca

During this episode of the CUES Podcast, Matthew Bidwell, Ph.D., talks about the employee engagement at NASA leading up to the lunar landing. If you asked an employee who was sweeping the floor what they were doing, they would have said, “I’m putting a man on the moon,” notes Bidwell, associate professor of management at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and a speaker at TalentNEXT in May in Austin, Texas. Sharing the vision and how each job played into larger organizational achievement was clearly successful at NASA during that time. And it can be a useful tool to leaders working to boost or sustain employee engagement today. During the episode, Bidwell talks not only about what employee engagement is, but also some do’s and don’ts for creating and sustaining it. He also talks about the importance of keeping people at the forefront of business efforts. “If we're going to be very process-centric, how do we engage people in actually creating these processes rather than

“Learn and earn” has proven to be a great strategy for getting the attention of Gen Z, according to Bolun Li, CEO of the financial education app Zogo. In this episode, Li describes the incredible growth his company has seen from creating hundreds of bite-sized financial education modules, getting them out to Gen Z on an app for their phones, and then rewarding them with pineapple points that are redeemable for gift cards and donations to charity.According to Li, this “learn and earn” strategy has taken Zogo from launch to half a million users in just two years. In this latest episode of the CUES Podcast, Li describes the company’s growth and how credit unions can get Zogo in the works for their members He also gives some very practical advice about how to better understand Gen Z—and how to reach them.A member of Gen Z himself, Li suggests that working with parents to become their children’s first financial institution is a great way in. He also recommends becoming active on college campuses.The show also gets

In the latest episode of the CUES Podcast, Kimberly Wright says she feels like she has made it past the proverbial glass ceiling that’s long been a metaphor for a system that holds women back from rising to top leadership roles.Senior vice president and executive director of the American Heart Association in Atlanta, Wright says, “I feel like I have busted through the glass ceiling in my current position. And I will say that I have opened it up for others.”But all is not rosy.“Now, whether or not they patch up the ceiling again afterwards? I don't know. They might,” Wright adds. “They may not like my style of kicking through or busting through the glass ceiling. But I think I have. Hopefully, it stays open.”Wright and a second guest on the show, Andrea Brown, share the stories of how they have become top Black female leaders and what helped them along the way. Brown is executive director of the Black Mental Health Alliance for Education and Consultation in Baltimore.Both women say that while they have ar

Marvin York was watching videos with his granddaughter when a clip came on of graduation ceremonies at historically Black colleges and universities. “And I saw all of these professionals getting ready to launch,” says York, VP, contact center member engagement for CUESolutions provider PSCU, a credit union service organization based in St. Petersburg, Florida. The video York and his granddaughter watched showed Black engineers, doctors, lawyers and others celebrating the completion of their degrees and getting ready to enter the world of work. “And I said, ‘Wow, that is impressive,” York recalls. “And what struck me was in this industry..., it was always told to me we just cannot find people of color to be in these leadership roles, in these key positions. And I'm watching this video and I said, ‘We got to do better.’”  From this experience, PSCU Bold, Effective Leadership, a CUES Strategic Leadership Development Program, was born. In this episode of the CUES Podcast, York describes how the program went

CUES member Steve Bugg is very clear that the diversity, equity and inclusion journey that his credit union is on makes his organization stand out in the competitive financial services market and for talent as well. “We know today everybody says they deliver great number service or customer service, have to have competitive products or services, and have to have a great technology plan,” says Bugg, president/CEO of $1 billion Great Lakes Credit Union in Illinois, which was recently named the first-ever CUES DEI: Catalyst for Change Award winner. “But if everybody else can say the same thing, and a lot of institutions that we compete against ... can outspend us, what’s the one thing that makes us unique and different? This is what it is: It’s our initiatives and our efforts under DEI.“We all know there’s a war for talent right now as well,” Bugg adds in this episode of the CUES Podcast. “And where we sit in the suburbs of Chicago … our employees can look at ... other financial institutions or other companies.

Innovation is that flash of an idea—and it’s happening all the time. Disruption, on the other hand, might stem from innovation, slowly making changes in a marketplace until the whole landscape is different, according to Steve Hewins, senior vice president of CU Members Mortgage, a CUESolutions Bronze provider based in Texas. “A disruptor eliminates something that’s in the market today,” Hewins explains on this episode of the CUES Podcast. “And it normally comes in a phase. “Typically, it'll start off with initial disruption,” he continues. “And then you'll have very quickly some rapid or sequential evolution of that. And then … everything kind of starts coming together because people recognize it; they try to copy it; the status quo tries to adapt. And then basically, the status quo typically doesn’t adapt and then gets replaced with the ‘new normal’.“And so disruption does have innovation in it,” he adds. “But it’s more about the market dynamics of how it impacts the rest of the market.”During the

In a speech prepared for John F. Kennedy to be given on that fateful day in Dallas in 1963, we were to be reminded that “leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”In this episode of the CUES Podcast, the 2021 CUES Emerging Leader, CUES member Alex Hsu, CCM, cites this quote as among his favorites. And he lives it.“When I completed my Gallup Strengths Assessment, for instance, my top strength was achiever, which is great for someone who leads projects, right?” says Hsu, VP/strategy and change management for  $25 billion SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union outside of Los Angeles. “And my second top strength was learner. So really, throughout my career, I’ve sought to blend learning into everything that I do, which included going to grad school while working full-time and also pursuing these certificates” in everything from IT to change management to diversity.Hsu won the CUES Emerge challenge with a project about how to establish a “Center of Innovation” at a credit union. He says he designed his p

Andy Saner lives by the idea that asking questions is important. In this episode of the CUES Podcast, Saner, senior vice president of product engineering and data services at CUES Supplier member Harland Clarke, a Vericast business, describes the value of applying such curiosity to help match members with appropriate credit union offerings during the moment when they’re opening an account. “When you’ve got employees that during the time of account opening ..., you’re asking questions, you’re learning more about that member’s needs and what they have to have,” he says in the show. “You understand … through those questions … insight into the member’s needs. Maybe they’re open to trying something different in managing their money or a different vehicle for payments and the like.”Being curious, asking good questions and applying the data you have on the new account opener has two main purposes, Saner explains. “It helps you match up better the products and services,” he says. “But it also deepens that relationshi

In recent times, such high-profile sports figures as tennis player Naomi Osaka and gymnast Simone Biles have made headlines by announcing they were stepping back from competition to take care of themselves and their mental health. In this episode of the CUES Podcast, guest Dee Baker Amos applauds these actions. VP/marketing and communications for Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, Amos also points out that taking care of your mental health isn’t—and shouldn’t be—reserved for world-class athletes. “We all have to work on it, famous or not,” she says. “And I want to actually repeat that because I think that it's something that people have to hear: We all have to work on our mental well-being, famous or not.” In the show, which is hosted by Tony Covington, CUES VP/new markets and a former pro football player for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Seattle Seahawks, Amos describes the importance of leaders sharing their own vulnerabilities since this helps create a safe space for employees. “Leaders must be willing to