In 2011, I made the decision that as CEO I had to do something different in 2012 to better engage the senior management and the staff. If we were a larger institution and could shuffle staff around, I would have sent them to offsite conferences, training session, etc… I had to change or challenge their thinking, their vision and how they approached the day.

We had mastered the art of not making waves by not asking questions, by not pushing the limits of our abilities and by not taking risk. I saw this as being stagnant and knew that we needed to do more if we were going to make any forward progress in this economy. It was my opinion that we needed to step up and address with the staff how we approach our work environment, the members, delivery of products and services, attitude and moral. We needed to look at new ideas and approach them with a “how can we do this” attitude rather than a “why we can’t do this” attitude.

I needed my senior management and supervisors to look more openly at alternatives to the way things were being done. To move what had become the norm. Anyone can shuffle papers but I needed proactive department leaders. We kept falling back into “that’s the way we’ve always done it…” I needed them to look at and weigh the risks and rewards of keeping things status quo or making changes to our product/services delivery structure.

Meeting with David expanded dialogue between the management and staff. It forced us to meet at a given time each week and along with what was discussed with David, the group openly conversed, sharing information that normally might not have normally gone through the entire group.

We’ve carried much of that forward although we still are working on being fully compliant and really attending the scheduled our meetings. I/We are excited about the new way of conducting business and the prospects of how what we’ve learned will affect the future.

– G.J.