A Direct Line Blog

By Donya Parrish, MCU VP Risk Management

Do you ever feel like the list of things your credit union “needs to do” to be competitive grows faster than you can keep up with? Get the latest technology, attract younger members, upgrade your ATMs, train your employees on a new regulation, remodel your branch, implement the strategic plan… it goes on and on. While all the information and suggestions coming at you can be overwhelming, here are a couple of pieces of advice I brought home from our Roundtable a few weeks ago in Vegas.

Shift your focus

It is easy to look at all the barriers in front of us, mix that with a hectic daily schedule, and suddenly, you feel like you’ll never get to the finish line. Instead, focus on what you CAN do. Ask yourself which steps might need to be taken, and view the completion of each as a milestone. That prevents the end goal from being the only point of celebration and keeps your team engaged. If the goal may take a few years to finish, it is even more critical to have shorter-term tasks to be proud of.

For example, a common one right now is looking at whether the use of artificial intelligence (AI) makes sense for your credit union. Can you delegate some of the more simplistic tasks to others on your team (or on your board if that is where the discussion is occurring)? It could mean having one person provide a list of three-five vendors, another bring a sample policy, one more reach out to two-three other credit unions to see if they are using it and how, and another to identify training options to use for training your team on some basics. See how this is much more manageable than “implement AI into our daily processes in the second quarter of 2026?”

Don’t lose sight

Even with moving your focus to more manageable units and action steps, it can be critical for buy-in from the team to continue talking about your end goal. Keeping your team thinking about the end goal may spur some competitive nature and ensure that anyone joining the team after the start also understands the big picture of where you want to be.

The next time your board is discussing an ambitious goal, look at how you can break it down into what you can do next, manageable steps, and possibilities that might help you get there. It takes a village, and that includes big projects!