Today I had an epiphany on Day 2 of the CUES CEO Institute II at Cornell.

An epiphany on how my credit union can align our staff with our vision, mission, values, and who we are as a credit union.

It is going to take time. It is going to take an understanding that we need resources to help new employees understand how great and powerful the credit union movement and cooperative principles truly are.

It will take discipline to ensure every employee is fully entrenched with our credit union values.

It will begin at the hiring phase to ensure that we are bringing on board people that are aligned with who we are as a credit union and who we are as ambassadors of cooperatives and the credit union movement.

Difficult? Absolutely. Impossible? Never.

I would challenge anyone to consider by investing our resources to the development of our staff, we will truly create ambassadors and lifelong employees of our credit union.

This will define who we are and what we represent as a credit union and how we do business.

This will create long term and profitable members who believe in the credit union way.

This will define our culture.

By creating this type of environment, we will foster motivation and creativity to help support a greater autonomy, purpose, and meaning to living the credit union philosophy of people helping people.

Today I had an epiphany on Day 2 of the CUES CEO Institute II at Cornell.

Now it is time for all credit unions to make that a reality.