Be careful what you ask for—younger board members might not like what you’re selling

By Randy Karnes, CEO, CU*Answers

Why do consultants always seem to feed credit union CEO egos that the reason they are less than they hope to be is because of somebody else’s influence, control, or an external factor? The easy answer is it is risky to offend the person you want to hire you. It is risky to hope that you will get readership when the inconvenient truth is that the reader is the one you need to wake up or maybe challenge the most. But here goes: You want younger board members? You can’t handle younger board members!

You can replace the word younger with many other ideas as well. More business savvy, more technical, more mission based, more member focused, etc. And by the way, these ideas are probably more appropriate goals than the old standby of age. 

The bottom line is, have you changed your approach to teaming with board members as a resource or asset to be more?

The Mitchell Stankovic Underground Community for credit unions is looking for ways to do things not just differently but better! Won’t you join us?

How young is your approach? Is it a carryover from when your current board members were 33 years old? You might have changed from paper reports to digital ones on a tablet, but are they the same reports? You might have changed the order of the board report sections, but have you really changed the board content? You might have moved from a Tuesday evening to a Thursday, but have you added or deleted the number of meetings you have a year? You might have shuffled the committees around, but have you only tried to shorten the meetings, not encouraged a new kind of input?

It’s a tough, scary, uphill battle with traditionalists to upset the apple cart, but when you do bring in new board members, even one by one, the traditions are what you teach, not what they demand! Are you the reason that your credit union makes old souls out of every board member you attract?

 

As a CEO, you can feel that you are supervising the operations and a board is a redundant asset helping you with supervising something that cannot afford anymore supervision.

Often when I meet 80-year old board members, I find they have stuck around not because of what is happening now but because they remember what happened when it was “fun, rewarding, and real” for them as volunteers. They remember when they were part of building the credit union, not just rubber stamping someone else running the joint.

Right there is the key clue to how you need to make young board members feel today! They need a job, they need a purpose, and they need a role from their perspective – not yours, not the NCUA’s, and not from the perspective that the place is on autopilot. 

As a CEO, whether with 50, 500, or 5,000 employees, it can seem that you, too, are watching a business operation that is on autopilot when you think about the Monday-Friday operation. You can feel that you are supervising the operation, and a board is a redundant asset helping you with supervising something that cannot afford anymore supervision. So, you already feel marginalized, and you might be doing that to your board without even realizing it.

Just like you, they need to build something, to sense that they own something, and that their skills are important to something. Renew those feelings in your board and it won’t matter how old they are! They will engage what is building, they will take interest in what they own, and they will get the pride of being important to it all.

The Underground Community, hosted by Mitchell Stankovic, is looking for ways for credit unions to do things not just differently but better! Learn more.

Ask yourself, is your format, your ask of them, and your commitment to their role the reason things are not changing as you hope?

Shift from the crutch of blaming generational issues on your board and tackle the generational stagnation of your organization’s approach to the value of owners and their volunteering. Build something, if not just enthusiasm, and you will see a change.