Living Your Mission, Vision, and Values with Brent Rempe

Hello and welcome fellow Awsomologists to Awsomology. I’m Sue.

And I’m Ben. And in this episode, we’re joined again by Brent Rempe, president and CEO of First Alliance Credit Union in Rochester, Minnesota.

Welcome back, Brent. Good to have you back already so soon.

Hey. Thank you, Ben and Sue. It’s great to be back. Always enjoy spending time with y’all.

Well, we love spending time with you too. And you may not be a three peat yet like Dohnia. I know that is a that’s a sore subject, but we’re gonna get there.

You are, certainly holding the current record for the fastest returning guest.

Yes.

And I just assume it’s because you couldn’t stay away. You couldn’t help yourself.

It’s too much fun being with us. Is that accurate?

Make us feel good, Brent.

It is too much fun, and it’s enjoyable.

And I will throw out my I feel like my number one fan is likely my wife, Deb.

And she listens to all of my, podcasts and different thought leadership.

She thought that our time together was the best that that I’ve done so far. I’ll just throw it out there. Oh, no.

Let us know when that plaque gets shipped. We’d like to see that, with her name on it. That would mean a lot.

Will do. Will do. Best content ever.

Best content ever.

Hey. That reminds me this is gonna hit did anyone watch Fuller House on Netflix? Was it Netflix?

I think it was on Netflix.

It. It’s Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t watch it. It’s on the list.

So there was this song, this rendition, one of, the one of the sons saying best summer ever. So I think in that tune, we can sing best content ever.

Well, why don’t you give us just a couple bars?

Yeah. Real quick.

Go ahead.

I will, but I will clarify that I cannot sing. It’s like best content ever.

That is perfect.

There we go. We got the clip. Brent, it’s been awesome seeing you again.

Well, we’ll Me too.

Talk to you next time. Mic drop. Yep. See you next time.

That’s all we wanted.

Alright. Well, no. For real, Brent, you are always welcome here.

Last time, we talked a whole lot about purpose, which, of course, is one of our favorite topics we’ve been talking about, a lot as of late.

And, now you’re back to talk to us a little bit about living your mission, vision, and values. You worked with a friend of ours, Sam Pluster, who was just on the podcast not too long ago, and unveiled a new mission, vision, and values this year already. So we would love to hear all about that, the process, what you came to, how you got there, any and all of it. Hit us.

Hit it. Yes.

We had a strategic planning session back in August. It was the board of directors and several members of the executive and management team.

And one of the tasks was to review our mission, vision, values, and ask based on the strategic plan of where we’re heading, where we’re going, which is really trying to lead with mission first, trying to serve First Start and Fresh Start members.

Did our mission, vision, and values fit?

Our mission, vision, and values were very likely, I believe, redone in twenty sixteen by a marketing company with a complete rebrand.

We asked our staff coming out of that session, our strategic planning session, do they fit? And there was a resounding answer. No. They’re a little more they feel a little prescribed.

Whereas what we really try to do is uncover what was already there.

So there was this article in the HBR har Harvard Business Review. I believe it was called building, your company’s vision.

It was. And it was from Jim Collins, good to great, the author of good to great with a coauthor.

I believe last name was Porras.

Jerry Porras, was the coauthor on that, and it was from, nineteen ninety six. So it’s an oldie but a goodie.

And based on that, they suggested you already your company already knows what their values are.

You just have to get the right people in the room to tell you.

Because values aren’t written on the wall.

Mhmm. They’re practiced in the hall.

And how do you get to know that?

Well, you you invite people under the room. So what we did, knowing and prepping for Sam Pluster and, Mission Brand Consulting, their visit, back in October.

So August, August was strategic planning. By October, we were doing our mission vision value session.

And following the, the advice in that article, we put together a Mars group.

So who would reach who would we send to Mars in a rocket ship of five to seven?

And then we added some, you know, some bonus people who, by position, had a lot to do with some of our outreach and whatnot or member contact.

But the staff nominated seven people to sit and help us uncover what was already there, our mission, vision, values. And so we sat in a room for two days, discuss well, you know, Sam had to stop from saying the f word on your show.

He did not withhold that word. So there was a lot of cussing and discussing, when we were stuck in the room together. Stuck, I say. We all kinda spend a lovely two two days together, and uncovered something that we really felt was us. It was like, yeah. This is us.

And it’s very approachable. So rather than a prescribed from, like, a marketing company that’s in you know, or from the board of directors or executive team, it was really grassroots.

And the mission and the values the vision and the vision in addition to the values were uncovered that way.

So, twenty sixteen to twenty twenty five, a long time, assuming there was not a lot of conscious work on it in that time frame. So maybe I mean, certainly time to at least, open up the conversation like, is this still who we are? Is this still what matters to us? So, lots of logic behind that. And it sounds like, everybody was pretty much on board like, yeah, this, you know, this isn’t really us anymore or, like you said, maybe these felt a bit prescribed.

Was there any resistance to to change or updating them? Were there people that had a feeling of, like, you know, I I love this one value or I love this part of our vision or and did you experience anything like that along the way?

Mission? No. Vision? No. Values with a little bit of a harder discussion.

Okay.

Interesting.

And we initially and so I have this rule of thumb with values.

Three is a good number to have because people can remember three things off the top of their head. Yeah. Okay. Maybe you can have as many as five, but if we had five, my requirement was we have to come up with some acronym that has some meaning to us, whether that’s heart or lead or whatever that acronym was.

So some of the things that we really like, inclusivity and diversity were part of our original values.

We felt and I I I just tread lightly saying this because, I mean, it did not come out. And this was before any, any of the political pressures at the moment or any of the trends going on in our greater society right now.

But we really felt like we’ve diversity, equity, inclusion were becoming or had become part of our DNA.

And important to me is trying to remove bias, especially in the hiring process to new team members.

And I think one thing I’m kinda going on a tangent here, but I think one thing that we used to do that we don’t do anymore that I think would have introduced bias is we had our hiring process delegated down to the manager.

While the managers are now involved, we’ve got the HR department or what we call employee experience is much more involved in the process throughout the way, kind of as that is, you know, their role, and their role is helping ensure that we’re hiring mission aligned, values aligned individuals.

Our values also are meant to describe the ideal employee.

So there’s supposed to be adjectives that describe the ideal employee.

But yeah. So from my point of view, our our workforce is just growing in diversity. I mean, Rochester is a a a, you know, upper Midwest, so not a major city, but, you know, a town of a hundred twenty thousand people, city of a hundred twenty thousand people. So there is some more diversity than maybe some of the more rural areas than compared to the Twin Cities, to Milwaukee, not quite as drawing from as diverse a a talent pool. But from my point of view, we’ve really been able to move the needle in hiring more diverse staff. So we felt like that was already ingrained in who we are.

Mhmm. Can you tell us a bit about the the process that got you to the the consensus or the discovery that, like, everybody was relatively cool with changing mission and vision and putting some work in on the values?

Yes.

So I think the an the answer came pretty quickly after strategic planning that there was a collective this doesn’t really feel right. Our mission, vision, values, our values, you know, some of them are good. And there’s always been a little bit of a- we’ve done some survey work previously. So even before our strategic planning, some all staff survey about which of our our values align the most with you, which ones are least meaningful. So there was some survey work done ahead of time that really started helping us realize that they were no longer us. Yeah.

But as far as how we landed on it, we had a facilitated session. Again, Sam Plaster from Mission Brands Consulting came in with Quang, one of his associates, and had discussion and activities over two days.

By that first day, we had been in several different groups. Like, there so there were about, I think, in the end, about fifteen of us in the room. Some of us there by position. Some of us nominated by our peers. Most of us nominated by our peers to be there.

Just sat through, met in different pods. So we rotated, small groups, and we went out mission, vision, values in several different renditions. Yeah. It came back for some large group discussion.

Also went through some of our prework. We had done a number of in addition to staff surveys, we’ve done a little bit of market research.

Actually, Richie Lou from Xavier University in Cincinnati did some market sentiment analysis for us, and, actually, we purchased in addition to surveying our own members, we purchased a panel with Qualtrics, marketing research and survey company.

So we really kind of understood our market position both from a membership viewpoint and from a general community viewpoint as well and did that with our field of membership. So all that kind of had a lot of background work.

Mhmm.

Had also worked getting to know some of our community partners and realizing the needs in our community and the gaps that are there from a financial wellness, financial well-being perspective. So all of that kinda came together as inputs into this two day session.

So what, Brent, what was your team’s experience with your previous mission, vision, values? Like, were they being used robustly?

Were they sort of, sitting on a shelf gathering dust?

I I I would say the mission and the vision were gathering dust.

Okay.

And I cannot recall off the top of my head our former mission. I I should have pulled that up for you. And but it was it was lengthy.

Our vision was lengthy.

Our values were on our desktops, and I, again, I think certain values spoke to people or organization more than others. Diversity, inclusivity, flexibility are three that come to mind. Trust.

I hope trust was one of them. No.

I don’t know if we trust you.

That one that trust was one of them, Brent, to be honest with you.

Not. You should not.

From all of that input that you got from the community, from the Qualtrics, surveys and activities, all of that, was there anything that, I don’t know, surprised you at the least or maybe even straight up blindsided you?

Like, holy smokes. That, wasn’t didn’t see that coming.

Yeah. We have a tagline, all for one, which means all all we do, we do for for all every one of our members, essentially. So all for one.

And it’s just been a tagline. It’s been how we sign emails. It’s been in our marketing campaigns. It’s part of our logo extended logo.

And that actually why still with both Qualtrics, both members and nonmembers was favorable, it was kind of bottom of the list of favorability.

Mhmm. And so our all for one tagline was not as appealing to our members as maybe it was to us.

Members preferred something I think both nonmembers and I think nonmembers preferred no judgment, just guidance.

And at the top of my head, you know, there were some other more geared towards financial well-being or guidance that also trended positively with with membership.

But that was the biggest surprise is I think the thing that was most prevalent, all for one.

We even have a company vehicle that license plates is all for one.

Yeah.

I’m currently no no one registered this in Minnesota before we we get another company vehicle, but I’m currently hoping to get the we show up maybe without an o license plate.

Yeah.

Love that.

Yeah. That’s really that’s interesting because I love, like, all for one just attaching that to being a financial cooperative. You know? I mean, there’s so many connections to that meeting, all for one, one for all, you know, all of that.

You know? So, but I I could see how, one, it maybe doesn’t resonate with a broader audience that maybe doesn’t understand the connection of the structure and that sort of thing, which is a constant challenge for credit unions. Right? Making sure that people understand that we are cooperatives.

But then the other thing that makes me kind of understand it is when you put it alongside something that might just resonate with people more or mean more to people. And I think, like, you know, judgment free and stuff, That that also, I love, and speaks a lot to, you know, the idea of serving the underserved and, taking people for more than their credit score and, you know, taking them for their story and, you know, everything else that they’ve been through. No judgment.

That that’s the ethos of credit unions as well. Yeah. Yeah. And I I’m kind of at the point I’m battling a little bit with I mean, what what’s really important for our members to know? It is would I rather them know that we’re a cooperative, or would I rather them know that we’re the place to go when you need your story to be heard?

Absolutely. Yeah. And and so with that, I I think that’s where it makes sense that maybe it didn’t jive as as much.

Yeah.

Yeah. We actually did some focus group work, last year, Ben. That was last year already, wasn’t it? This time last year somehow. Is an idea of how far long ago that was. And, we one of the questions that we asked was around the credit union difference, and, it each so each we did a couple of surveys, then we did an in person focus group. And when once we got to the in person focus group, the people there had been exposed to this concept of credit unions being financial cooperatives, and so they already had some they already knew that part of it, and then we did a presentation to explain it more deeply.

And what it came down to is we we could get no consensus that they cared Right.

In the nicest way possible. It just didn’t we the question we asked was something to the effect of, you know, does this, you know, does this change your attitude about credit unions as a whole or anything like that? And the answer broadly was, no. We we what we care about is how we’re treated.

Right.

And I think your research really backs I I think of two things. Cornerstone League, now in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas back, I would say, back when it was just the three league or three states, Kansas I mean, not Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas, did a little bit of research that said the same thing. They also said, be very careful with calling your board or advertising that your board is full of volunteers because that can actually change market perception Mhmm. Of of the fact that maybe you are a little more volatile than a bank, a community bank, which typically has a paid or well paid, volunteer board of directors.

And then that also reminds me if you remember CUNA, now America’s Credit Unions did a open your eyes campaign that came with some research. Mhmm. And I think some similar sentiment came out of that research as far as let’s focus on the end and not necessarily the means. A hundred percent.

Yep. I think that’s exactly it. Like, while the structure is cool, interesting, different Mhmm. It’s not the thing that puts it’s not the thing that members or the public will see as the reason that they have more money in their pocket.

It’s Mhmm. The lower loan rate or the better experience or whatever. You know? So sure.

Maybe some of that is fueled by or made possible by our structure, but that’s that is Right. That’s just not what people care about.

Yeah. It’s really is it as simple as saying that it really is a question of features versus benefits?

We that’s a feature. I I you know, and this is something back in the day when I was training people to do sales.

That that was a big thing to, you know, understand the benefits, be able to communicate what the benefits, the tangible benefits are rather than telling people what the features are.

The what what does it say in features tell benefits sell?

Right. Right.

We’ve maybe went through the same sales training or maybe we’ve never trained the same methodology.

So, you know, it’s interesting to think though how and this probably happens fairly often.

I don’t think I ever really sat down and made those connections that being a financial cooperative is a feature as opposed to being a benefit. What is that what does that mean to anyone, and what is that going to do? It’s the tangible benefits to them that matter.

Right.

Yeah. And when I listened to the members that fortunately, I I most of the time where I’m talking to members, it’s in a positive, and its members you know? So usually, you know, I I’d tell you, you know, not that we don’t have our share of of maybe from time to time, things we we prefer didn’t happen or or some opportunities for growth. Fortunately, Andrea, who is our, chief revenue officer, takes care of a lot of those. But but so by the time the member comes to me or if a member were to get to me, it’s usually very positive.

And the ones that get to me are usually wanting to tell their story.

Mhmm. And their story typically revolves around us listening to their story, us giving them a chance, and us providing possibilities.

Like, we did a member we do these member testimonials, which I’m hoping to maybe call member stories moving forward rather than testimonials because, again, I want to get the member story out there whether or not we’re connected to it. I think that’s really to be less and less salesy and more and more authentic story is what I’m really hoping for.

We were shooting one the other day, and this member almost without any prompting, almost was telling our mission, vision, values through his stories and how we lived it in in relationship to him.

It was such such a beautiful thing. Our our marketing, coordinator, like, oh my god. Like, check check check. How did that happen?

So I think that’s really another Mhmm. It’s like that’s where you know your mission, vision, and values are not on a wall, but they’re being practiced in the hall.

Right.

Yeah.

I the I think it’s I’m trying to form a thought here. What am I I’m try oh, this is such a good conversation, until I screwed it all up by not being able to form a thought.

You know, I think about when you talk about that member story, one of the things that one of the things that that can be challenging is we all we all come with our different stories.

Everybody has their own experiences.

And I think in the effort to create efficiency, to save money, to do all of the other things that we need to do, there can be a temptation to in the financial industry to say, okay. Well, like, I get it that you have a story, but also so does everyone else has a story, and everybody has a good reason that they acted a fool.

And, just because your you think your reason is more compelling to act a fool doesn’t mean that we should reverse this fee or do, you know, whatever the thing is. But we we it’s easy to lose sight of hearing that full story and being able to say, oh, well, no. Actually, I can see the confluence of events that got these two people into the same spot, and I can see how the my reaction to them should be different. It should be individualized.

Yeah. I I agree with you. We really empower our employees to take the time they need with our members, but it’s really twofold. There’s really two paths.

I I think, you know, we hear talk about box lending. So if your credit criteria, your loan, loan to value, your debt to income meet these boxes, you can maybe fast track the loan. And quite frankly, for people that are credit qualified, that’s likely the relationship they want with with the credit union. So we can do that quite easily.

And frankly, we need we need some of that in order to be able to take the time to listen and to live that mission, vision, values.

But with that, we believe that that’s where our growth is coming down from or will be coming from.

By niching down and focusing on who we work with well, we believe we’ve seen it maybe not so net much in net income with, some of the economic conditions and CECL credit loss, reserves. That’s a whole another story.

But certainly in in loan production and deposit growth, we’re growing, and we believe it’s because of that alignment, and we’re starting to gain momentum there.

Mhmm. Yeah. What your conversation here is reminding me of is this group watch that we did that was really focused on marketing and it kinda brought about this, not just credit union marketing, but marketing around the world.

It brought about this challenge of efficiency versus effectiveness.

And, you know, I think that that can be applied beyond marketing for sure. I think it can be applied to the conversation that you’re having. You know, like you said, Brent, like, we need some of that efficient stuff that we can just crank out because people are qualified. We’ve got the standards in place for underwriting and everything that that work can just get done. And that helps keep the lights on and and pays for the effectiveness that can happen on the other side. And and, really, that efficient stuff is effective because, like you said, those folks want that kind of experience. They want to get in and out, and they know that they’re qualified and all that stuff.

And that that’s effective for them. On the other side, though, if we tried to go that efficient route with the folks that we should be listening to their story and having conversations with, well, that will be very ineffective because you’re not gonna know the full picture. You’re not gonna understand why they’re where they’re at and what’s possible for them and made possible through you and your services. You know?

So it’s just, it was kind of a little bit of a light bulb moment just hearing you two talk about it, how that whole that battle between efficiency and effectiveness can be applied in so many different aspects of business, of life, relationships.

You know?

Yeah. One of my student professors, in when I was going for a master’s program, His name was armor Arman Pitcher Verdorfer. So doctor Percher Verdorfer, German slash Italian, kind of a combo there. He lived on the northern border of Italy.

But he would always say bottom line, his tagline was always, it’s all about balance.

Yeah.

And how true is that in in everything we do in life, personally, professionally?

Yeah.

So we’ve talked we talked quite a lot already about the impact that these that, your new your updated mission, vision, values can have on members.

What does that look like for a team to, be able to live in alignment with those things or to be able to maybe say them out loud knowing that they were already aligned with them Right.

And make it part of their everyday?

Yeah. And so I I can answer that a few different ways. Maybe start about talk sharing about the rollout.

So I believe in early December, we had an all team meeting, where it was in person right after we I think we closed about half an hour early. Just had an in team meeting. Everyone came together, and we rolled out the team that was the Mars group. So the team that helped uncover this rolled out our mission and vision values to their peers.

And so we talk about mission, vision, values. I’ll state what we came up with. Sam said it the other day, and he he beefed up one of the he beefed up, I believe, our mission, but everything else he is spot on with. But our our mission is we show up, we listen to your story, and we provide possibilities.

Our vision and so a mission is is really what we do.

Our vision is aspirational.

It’s like if we achieve this, we’d be out of business.

And so a company’s vision, in my opinion, should always be or nonprofit, a company, whatever, it should always be trying to put yourself out of business as your aspirational.

Mhmm. So our aspirational is a financial oasis where everyone has access to the opportunities they deserve, fully aspirational. The other two are practiced. So then who we are is our values, and the values are are passion, persistence, and presence.

Three p’s.

So our team rolled that out.

We have some awards, that we we give out. Leave the goals to do that on the monthly basis. I have a team running the mission, vision, and values or the values. So we give out three awards for passion, persistence, and and presence, and I think that might be on a quarterly basis, actually.

And then we have a team’s channel where when we catch people in the act of our mission, vision, and values, we should have a shout out to the whole team.

And so those are some of the things practically.

But then I I think also, you know, when you have a a new leader, so I’m nineteen, maybe twenty months, I think twenty months next week into my role as, president CEO of First Alliance, You know, it can feel like change, and change can be uncomfortable.

So we’ve had some shifts in staff, even before we did redid our mission, vision, and values. But certainly, once we’ve redefined them, those values, that’s what we look we look for people who can live our mission or mission aligned, but then those values of passion, persistence, and presence are who we’re looking for in hiring.

And those have actually been incorporated also into our, our performance reviews as well. And, you know, and, unfortunately, some people self select out, because perhaps this isn’t the credit union that they thought they were at. Because, again, we’ve really tried to niche down because I strongly believe you have to have a niche and a defined target audience in order to be successful.

And in Rochester, we’re known for specifically the storybook lending is, I think, really our competitive advantage.

So serving the underserved through listening to their story.

And so even saying that out loud and saying that more often, you know, I think Patrick Lencioni calls the CEO. You have one job. It’s really a CRO, chief reminding officer.

And so I’m repeating and repeating and repeating our mission, vision, and values quite often.

Yeah.

Yeah. And then sometimes some people might self select out. Some other folks might be involuntarily separated from the organization. Mhmm. And it’s tough, and it doesn’t feel good.

And I lose sleep leading up to when that happens.

But in the end, you know, don’t lose sleep long term. Like, because we know that we’ve made the choice. You hire by your values.

You fire by your values.

And it all comes down to I mean, it all starts stops and starts with mission, vision, and values. Yeah.

Yeah. So it’s a perfect segue to the next question, which is how do you use these things to help guide decision making? You know? And, of course, the makeup of your of your team, how you hire, how you fire, all those things. That’s a a perfect and maybe one of the most logical logical examples for this because this is, at the end of the day, the team that’s gonna deliver this stuff in your day to day business. Right?

Do you have another example of a way that you’ve used this work to run a decision through the filter that they provide or, you know, help it make a decision?

Yeah.

Yes. So one interesting one, which might be a little bit of a hot topic depending on on the audience, but the state of Minnesota legalized marijuana or is in the process of going through legalization of marijuana.

And with that comes the question, do we bank or do we not bank, marijuana related business?

Sure.

And there excuse me. There’s been some you know, conversation’s been ongoing.

Pretty much I think marijuana banking came up within my first two months here during a liquidity crunch, and that’s been an ongoing conversation.

You know, we have our strategic plan, which I think our value our you know, it mentioned that the revision of our mission, vision, values really came from that strategic plan. We’ve defined our ideal member, and I ideal member is first start, fresh start. And we see some different, demographics coming from that or stemming from that, which you could be in all four demographics. One person could be in all four demographics. The demographics were low to moderate income, small business and entrepreneur, immigrant and refugee, youth or young adult.

And so one person can fit in all four of those categories. It might be an immigrant who’s a young adult, who is low income, who owns a business. So with that, taking that through taking marijuana banking through that matrix and really talking about it, and does this align to our strategy? Does it fit our first start fresh start? Because we are serving first start fresh start members because of our mission, vision, and values, and that’s who we are.

And quite frankly, anytime a state legalizes, the cannabis industry, that’s an underserved market.

Mhmm.

And so we decided that we are going to try to serve cannabis related business at least at certain levels. I mean, we we had a have a policy which is going to the board, later this week. And we have tier one, two, and three. And off the top of my head, I can’t tell you what’s in category tier one, two, or three. But we’ve decided we will, lend, like, certain tier and then allow the rest of the tiers, I believe, to to bank with us if I recall the policy off the top of my head.

And so that was, again, filtered through that mission, vision, values, our strategic plan, and our ideal member.

Yeah.

Love that. That’s like consciously activating these tools that you spend a lot of time and resources and money on, you know, developing.

That’s that’s awesome.

Where the rubber meets the road kind of stuff.

And and I think it’s so easy to want to do something because it’s shiny or new. I mean, you know, credit unions I think any industry, really. But credit unions particularly, we have a ton of third party vendors, and there’s always something shiny coming down the turnpike.

You know, I’m from Oklahoma when I call the road a turnpike.

But there’s always something shiny turning coming down the turnpike.

And, you know, with that, really being able to filter those shiny objects to seeing which actually help us achieve what we’re striving to achieve versus being some a distraction or being something exciting or a fad.

Yeah. That yeah. It makes we’re big believers in mission, vision, values, of course.

So all of this, you’re pre sort of preaching to the choir when you talk about this. But I think it’s so it’s so important for anyone who believes in these concepts as a larger thing to continue to talk about it because I think that there are a lot of businesses, nonprofits, a lot of different entities not doing this kind of intentional work and not being able to make that connection between having a core set of mission, vision, values, and success, and seeing how you can how it makes decisions easier, how it it mean easier, quote, unquote, but gives you somewhere it gives you a backing. It gives you somewhere to align how it makes hiring, and parting of the ways, being logical.

But what what happens, Brent, when a business is not has maybe has core values and they are somehow not aligned with them? They have them. They exist. They’re on a wall, and they are not aligning with them. How do they get back on track and get an alignment?

So from my perspective and from my thoughts on what we just experienced, I don’t think you do. Okay.

If they’re on, though, just sitting there on collecting dust on the wall, I highly recommend personally, just again through this experience, really choosing a small group of people.

Again, I I think democracy nominations really can help the team buy in. Mhmm.

But have a representative democracy of your organization come forward and try to uncover. I mean, you don’t necessarily need to hire Sam or exclamation, but I can almost guarantee you they’re more than ready to come help.

And just having the conversation on Mhmm.

Is this aligning? Why is this not aligning?

Is this no longer us?

What is us?

I even less time intensive, some staff surveys, can help narrow it down pretty quickly.

Sir download cert not download. It’s a web based application, but go to survey monkey. Yeah. Type up an application. Use chat GPT to help you write some probing questions.

Mhmm.

I mean, it can be a very little lift to at least start asking the questions.

But if you’re not practicing, if you’re stating values that you’re not living, those aren’t your values. Yeah. And so that’s why my recommendation is to abandon those values and uncover what really, truly is at work in your organization. Yeah.

I one I’m gonna go ninety nine percent agree with what you’re saying because I do think that there’s something that can be done along the way or, you know, by taking the moment to look at what’s on the wall and asking some of these questions, maybe even as you start to do some of the research, maybe something that you find is you are actually living some of these things out.

You’re just not taking the time to recognize, to celebrate, to, you know, whatever.

Throw in another fun sounding word.

You know, but I I do think that that’s an important part of it too. And I’ll say I’ll say my one of my biggest challenges or, weaknesses as as a leader is to take those moments to stop, take a big old breath, look at the stuff that’s on the wall, look at the tools that we’re using to guide our organization, whether that’s our strategic plan or our mission, vision, and values, and say, holy cow. Like, Sue just, like, did that last week, and, like, I didn’t even didn’t even give her a high five for it, you know, let alone, like, recognize her for it officially. You know? So, something we all probably could do a little better, I’m sure.

But And you know I love a crisp high five.

I know.

I know. And when you when you deny me that, it’s painful.

I I got my, one of my team members, Leanne, who is our collections manager, Linda administration manager. I got denied a knuckle bump today.

Ugh. Shut up. They left you hanging.

She did. But then she saw it, and then it was awkward, like, a little, like, afterthought knuckle bump. Yeah.

Oh, the people expecting a knuckle bump. I mean, come on. Listen.

Well, let me also Ben, let me push back on you because of the number of times. And I think it’s also kismet that where our six by six big ideas and our mission are, you can see it right out your window. Because the number of times since we put those up that I have been standing in that sort of corner area of your office by your door and have and have you go, you know, I look I look over your shoulder and, I can see, you know, this on the wall. And it seems to me like that is the thing we should be doing. And I don’t know.

Probably a handful of times Yeah.

We’ve said that out loud.

So For sure.

Yeah. And that and I do think that that is part of the purpose of them being on the wall as cliche as it is and as much as people that facilitate strategic planning sessions say they’re not just the thing that lives on the wall and all of that. And, like, and, like, yes, all of that is true for sure. But, also, speaking from someone who needs the visual reminder and literally has to walk past it before I go into my office and start working, that’s been a huge gift to be able to, you know, consciously have that presented to me before I start to work. And I know that, subconsciously, it’s impacted some of my decisions and my communication and things like that.

Well, before we wrap up, Brent, what’s one piece of advice you’d like people to know, from our conversation today or maybe something that hasn’t been said yet?

Yeah.

To me, I just reiterate that it all I think it all starts and ends with mission, vision, values.

And so my piece of advice leading to what your your recent, suggestion been is really doing an assessment of how your organization is living your mission, vision, values.

Are you enacting what you espouse?

Are you living what’s stated?

And just starting with a little bit of a self assessment there because I think so often just similar to goals. If it’s not written down, if it’s not front or front, if you don’t see it, it’s easier to forget about it.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I would say treat your mission, vision, values, and live in them like goal setting and come up with some kind of tape measure to assess Mhmm. Alignment.

Yeah.

And that’s gonna look different to different organizations.

Yep. Definitely. Yeah. I imagine no two are the same.

And, you know, best case scenario, you do that and you realize, like, holy cow. Actually, we’re we’re kinda living these things. Like, we’re doing this. Or, you know, similar to a goal, like, holy cow.

We’re we’re on track. Right? Yeah. That’s that’s maybe the best case scenario. But the more realistic one is probably like, yeah, we have some work to do.

You know? And that’s okay too. Then do the work.

Right.

Awesome. Well, Brent, I don’t wanna plant, an idea in your brain, but you are always welcome back even if it’s not too long from now. Yeah. We’ve proven that we’ll welcome you back anytime.

So Arguably, I don’t think you’re planting that idea in his brain. Yeah. I think he already knows that.

But before we wrap up this time with you, Brent, let’s talk about something awesome where we’ll transition to our something awesome segment. I hope you brought something. If not, heads up. You’ve got about thirty seconds to think of it.

Oh, I’ve got something.

As I was thinking about my something awesome, just some, things came together for me today. It’s, warming up a little bit, and spring and summer are kind of in the air. So, our family’s been talking about our summer plans, starting to build our, mini twenty twenty five summer bucket list. Like, what are the things we wanna do we can get done this summer?

And, our little baby girl, Olive, just turned three, this weekend, so she’s right in, like, that prime zoo attendee, time in her life. So, when Charlie was about that age, three four, I swear we visited, like, every major zoo in the country, which was awesome, but now we gotta do it all again. Got to. We want to do it all again.

So one that we haven’t been back to in a while is the Minnesota Zoo and you being, in Rochester. I thought it was appropriate. This is just that natural, nice surprise that came up for me because as I was looking at some of the zoos and, like, what new exhibits they might have and stuff, the Minnesota Zoo has this new thing called the treetop trail. Are you aware of this?

Yes. Yeah.

So, like, an old tram Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So, usually, there’s something awesome. There’s something that I can share that, like, I’ve actually done, and I can tell you this is awesome.

So I haven’t done this one yet, full full disclosure, but, I think this is on our plans for the summer now because it looks so cool, like an old tram line that they turned into, like, a aerial boardwalk pretty much. Right? So, really excited to see that. So I will share a link in case anyone else in the Minnesota area or that might be passing through wants to check it out, but it looks so cool.

I I’ve heard it’s cool. I think my wife and son were members of the zoo, and they Beth and Toby have gone up, and they said it was very windy the day they went out.

Probably makes it, a little scary.

I think the coolest thing about the Minnesota Zoo is we even like going there in the winter because they’ve got such a significant indoor part that it’s if we’re going up to the cities and want to have some time walking or physical activity that’s not, you know, in in sub sub or below zero or below thirty two two degree weather, the Minnesota Zoo provides a nice respite.

Yeah. Cool.

And though my favorite zoo in the country is actually I believe it it well, it’s in is it the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, but in Colorado Springs?

I’m trying to think of the exact name of the zoo, but it’s the coolest zoo. It’s in the side of a mountain.

Oh, wow.

And you underestimate, you know, Colorado Springs is a smaller smaller city. You might underestimate it, but it’s just one of the coolest zoos I’ve ever been to.

Alright. It’s on the list. Alright, Brent. You said you got something. What what do you got for us?

Thank you. I going tying back into our mission, vision, values, one of the p’s in our values, presence, and how nice the gift of presence can be, not just and it’s it’s a a double edged I mean, it’s a a gift that that gives back.

And so not sure. Usually, again, I think you wanna share something, but I’m just gonna encourage people to take a moment to be present with their loved ones.

This morning, you know, I heard on one of your podcast recently, Ben, you talk about your sleep habits and always making sure they’re nice and tight, waking up early. I’ve been waking up at five thirty to go to our local gym, and that just kinda cuts the morning a little short with family. And then I have to get out the door. But this morning, took about twenty minutes with Toby, and he got a talk.

He right now, he has an obsession with college mascots. It was Bucky from Wisconsin. Uh-huh. It was Herky recently from it was Wilbur the wildcat from Arizona, Herky from Iowa.

Today, it’s Albert the gator. I don’t know if that has anything to do with Florida winning the national championship or not.

But just spending that quality time with him before I walked out the door.

It was a close you guys are a close second or hour together to that that time with him this morning.

Well, that’s precious time. So that says a lot that we’re even in second, let alone, close second.

Very close second. Yeah.

Love that.

Awesome.

Well, I have a book to share.

I only like to, share if I’ve actually finished the book, so I was excited. I finished it just in time to make it to this episode. It’s a book called The Little Liar by Mitch Albom.

Mitch Albom, if you are not familiar, was the one who was the author who wrote Tuesdays with Morrie. So everybody remember what Tuesdays with Morrie was?

That’s good. Like, that’s actually quite a long time ago now, but really love his writing. And this the little liar is about a family of, a family during World War two a Jewish family during World War two in Greece.

And I learned a ton about the Jewish diaspora in Greece, which I didn’t really know about. I think we all connect sort of, to the to maybe Poland and Germany and some of those areas. But, it and it follows this the sons of the family and this other girl from a neighboring family from the time that they are all, the part of the family is sent to Auschwitz and, all the way through them being adults.

And it just was it was really, really a good book, really heartbreaking to read, but just so many different stories that I guess I had never intersected with that it’s it’s fictional, but it’s based on real life events and real people and their experiences.

So, really highly recommend. But there’s basically not a Mitch Albom book I wouldn’t highly recommend. So it was an easy that was an easy yes for me. It was very good. Called the little liar.

So, Brent, we have done it again. Thank you so much for being with us again.

Thank you for having me.

We appreciate you, and we appreciate everyone who’s listening and has, stuck with us today and always you can always catch up on your favorite podcast app, or you can find all of our episodes on our blog at exclamation q so dot blog dot okay. I’m gonna get this right.

Exclamation q so dot com slash blog.

You got it. Well done.

Tough one.

Thanks again, Brent. We appreciate you.

It is an honor knowing you. We’re so excited to see what you and your credit union do with this, work, not only in your community, but, everywhere else that the credit union industry touches because, we didn’t know it’s a network. So thanks for what you’re doing.

Thank you, Ben. Again, I appreciate the time. It’s always a pleasure.

Yeah. Awesome. Thanks everybody for tuning in. Be awesome, and we will see you next time.

The Osmology podcast is a production of exclamation services. Executive producers are myself, Ben Bauer, and my friend, Suzanne Campbell.

Thanks to Kyla Ganther for our show artwork, Scott Seager for booking our guests, and Alex Westerhausen for social media support.