If you could rebuild your credit union today, what would it look like, and what are you willing to change to make it happen?
If you could start your credit union from scratch today, with the exact same resources you have right now, what would it look like?
What would the org chart look like? What would the branch structure be? What would the branch staff look like? What would the tech stack be? Where would you focus? What products would you have? Etc.
If everything could be changed instantly and the credit union became exactly what you believe it should be, what would that look like?
I think this is a powerful thought exercise. But only if we’re honest about it.
It’s easy to paint the picture. Easy to build the perfect org chart on paper. Easy to talk about the ideal branch model, the right technology, the right people, the right focus.
It’s harder to face what it would actually take to get there.
After you paint the picture, the next question isn’t just “what’s stopping me from making it happen.” It’s “what am I actually willing to change to make it happen?”
We get so caught up in today and what is, that we forget to look at the future and what it could be. But we also have to be careful not to let vision become an escape from action. Sometimes the barrier is fear. Sometimes it’s time, money, energy, or capacity.
Sometimes it’s the unwillingness to make hard decisions. Keeping the wrong structure because it’s familiar. Holding onto the wrong people, the wrong processes, or the wrong priorities because changing them feels uncomfortable. Knowing exactly what needs to happen but not wanting to deal with what comes with it.
This forces us to compare what we say we want with what we’re actually willing to do.
Once you have the vision, you have to ask. What’s really standing in the way? What’s a real constraint and what’s an excuse? What have I convinced myself can’t change that actually could? What hard decision have I been avoiding?
We get so used to managing the current state that we forget to challenge whether the current state is actually the one we should be defending.
Vision matters, but only if it leads to action. So paint the picture. Build the ideal. Be honest about what you’d create. Then ask the harder question. What’s stopping me from making that real, one step at a time? And what am I going to do about it?