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< Back Great Things from the Great North Michael Daigneault Jul 25, 2017 Three overarching Canadian principles that can be applied universally I love Canada. After all, my birth name is Michael George Daigneault. (You’ve got to say it with a strong French accent!) It’s as French-Canadian as you can get, and yes, you’ve guessed it – my family emigrated to the U.S. from the wheat fields of Weeden and Valcourt in Quebec. In all, many cool things are from Canada: governance geek, along with snowmobiles, egg cartons, insulin, Trivial Pursuit, Péché Mortel beer, Justin Trudeau, Celine Dion, Peter Jennings, Dan Aykroyd, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, Margaret Atwood, Shania Twain as well as the “Ryans” (that’s both Reynolds and Gosling) all are from Canada. In addition, the first credit union to open its doors in North America did so in Canada – at the start of the 20th century in Levis, Quebec. There Alphonse Desjardins organized La Caisse Populaire de Levis. Just about 10 years later, he helped organize the first credit union - just down the road a bit - in Manchester, N.H., and so credit unions were born in the United States in 1909. A few years ago, CUES began working more directly with its credit union members in Canada, and Quantum Governance had the good fortune to begin doing so, too. We have learned that while there isn’t just one set of standards in Canada there are, none-the-less, a number of overarching principles that guide Canadian credit union governance and are worth thinking about. They include: 1) A robust commitment to ongoing education: Canadian best practices and regulators focus on continuing education for all CU board members, CEOs and audit committee members. Now, we’re not suggesting that credit union education in the United States needs to be regulated. We would, however, stand up and cheer if more credit unions would require regular training for both board members and senior staff. So much is changing; so much has yet to be learned. 2) A durable culture of responsibility and accountability : We’re doing more and more studies for our U.S.-based clients on board member compensation. One of their stated interests is an increased measure of board member responsibility and accountability. We’ve seen this in our neighbors to the north, where compensation for board members is a normal course of business, along with a remarkably high level of responsibility and accountability. 3) Ongoing board member skills evaluations. A unique aspect of the Canadian regulatory framework is to require regular evaluations of board member skills. While it has increasingly become a best practice in the United States to evaluate boards as a whole , our Canadian credit union clients pushed us to create a new tool to support their special needs – a “ Director Skills Assessment .” This assessment goes a step deeper to help evaluate individual board members’ contributions to the leadership of the credit union across five key areas: 1) governance culture; 2) personal attributes; 3) leadership skills; 4) engagement; and 5) knowledge centers. And so we say thanks to our friends to the North -- for peanut butter, Trivial Pursuit, some delightful beer, credit unions and some great ideas to help us along the way. Previous Next

Perry Haaland, Ph.D. Statistician Perry Haaland, Ph.D. Statistician is an expert in a wide range of statistical methodologies. Dr. Haaland has more than 30 years of professional experience as a statistician. He brings the practical experience of solving complex problems in an industrial research setting along with well-honed skills in explaining statistical concepts to management at all levels. He retired in 2017 as the lead statistician at Becton Dickinson, a Fortune 250 medical technology company. Dr. Haaland is a strong proponent of effective graphical analyses, having been one of the founding members of the Section on Statistical Graphics of the American Statistical Association. Dr. Haaland is currently Adjunct Professor of Statistics at UNC-Chapel Hill where he is developing a curriculum for teaching data science to graduate students in statistics. Learn More Back

< Back Moving Beyond The Strategic 'Moment' Michael Daigneault and Jennie Boden Sep 27, 2016 Incorporate strategic planning and thinking into your routine discourse. When more than 30 percent of our clients describe themselves as “less than effective” at something, we sit up and take notice. And that’s exactly how (and how many) of the board members and CEOs we work with describe the challenge of articulating a compelling future vision for their credit unions. Not having a future vision for your credit union is a genuine problem, but one that can be overcome (though not easily, or a third of our clients wouldn’t be struggling with it!). Is your credit union challenged with crafting or updating the foundational components of your overall strategic plan—vision, mission and strategic goals—as well as the more specific strategic objectives and metrics undergirding them? It's worth the struggle to get your future vision right. This is much more than just a convenient tagline or agreeable-sounding statement in your annual report. The conscious or unconscious future vision that a board and senior team hold in their heads has real consequences. Crafting a clear and effective path forward that will truly benefit members is among the most critical and nuanced challenges you will collectively undertake. Yet many boards and executive teams spend less time thinking about the consequential strategic issues facing their credit union than they do on small changes to the loan-loss ratio, car loan volume or even on a single member complaint suggesting that the carpet needs to be replaced in a branch. We recently facilitated the CUES Director Development Seminar in Santa Fe, New Mexico. When we asked the 100-plus attendees who included strategic discussions regularly on their board meeting agendas, one brave soul posited, “Well, we have an agenda item called the ‘strategic moment.’” Though the room spontaneously filled with laughter, the speaker was quite serious, and everyone knew it. Many other attendees may have recognized that by including such a “moment” on the agenda, their colleague was likely well ahead of their own routine meetings typically filled with data-intensive, financial and fiduciary oversight reports. Veteran directors may recall the days when their credit union was just forming and their role was to pour over financial statements, do cash counts and fill the void that a lack of professional staff created. Today the director’s role is quite different. Unless your credit union is very small or in start-up mode, you rely on professional staff to brief you on financial and fiduciary reports. You need to provide effective oversight, hold staff appropriately accountable—and then move effectively to your strategic responsibilities that will help propel your credit union to flourish into the future. In that spirit, we recently developed a list of sample strategic topics for directors to discuss in board meetings, even just for 20-30 minutes. Not all of them are applicable to your situation, but they are the types of questions that can help you regularly exercise your strategic thinking muscles: What criteria would you use in considering—or rejecting—an offer to merge your credit union into a larger one? What types of risks does the evolution of payment systems foreshadow for your credit union? How is your credit union growing? How might you need to grow differently in the future? Even if your credit union is growing, is it genuinely improving members’ financial lives? What would the “ideal” board for the credit union you envision in the future be like? Do you have the right blend of directors for that future? What would the future focus be? What committees would the board have? What type of relationship would it have with your CEO and executive team? What type of relationship would it have with your members and the community? How does your credit union define its risk tolerance or philosophy? Are you too risk-averse? How does your credit union’s risk profile compare to peers? How should you balance ROA, risk and stewardship to members? How do you leverage your cooperative culture into a competitive advantage? Are there other success measures you should be looking at, beyond financial performance? We strongly encourage the board to work hard to fine-tune a strategic plan that includes clear vision and mission statements, strategic goals, objectives and metrics in constructive partnership with your committee leadership, CEO and executive team. After reaching a consensus on the features on the accompanying chart shown in blue, challenge your CEO and executive team to develop their organizational work plans to meet or exceed your agreed-upon strategic goals. But don’t stop there. Include regular and ongoing strategic thinking, discourse and potential changes to your strategic plan, if necessary, in board meetings throughout the year. Insist that your CEO and management team report regularly on the strategic metrics of success as you march toward achieving your strategic goals and objectives. Consider changes in the marketplace or your business environment regularly to assess whether anything needs to be fine-tuned, adjusted or even eliminated. Strategic planning and thinking are continual processes. Off-site sessions annually or every few years may be helpful to recalibrate your leadership’s thinking, but they’re not the end-all. The real work of strategic planning should be a regular feature of the discourse and thinking of the board and executive team—day in and day out, moving beyond the “moment” (though that’s a good start) to become the central focus of your most important deliberations. Previous Next

< Back Did You Dust Off Your Old Pandemic Plan? Michael Daigneault and Jennie Boden Mar 24, 2020 Key ideas about response oversight and future strategy If you’re like most in this world today, you likely feel like you’ve lived a lifetime in just the last week. I know that we have. As we write to you safely from our home offices, we send well wishes to you and everyone in your circles that you are safe, well and doing what you can to “flatten the curve.” But we also know that you all have immense responsibilities. Personal responsibilities to your families and your loved ones. And professional responsibilities to your employees who are looking to your credit union for stability and, yes, a paycheck. Responsibilities, too, to your members who are counting on you to keep your doors open—or at least your drive throughs and your ATMs—so that when they need access to their funds, you are there. And eventually, they may need even more from you. In 2005, the White House, through the Homeland Security Council, issued the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza —which addresses the threat and potential impact of a pandemic. At the time the experts issued that document, they were focused on a pandemic resulting either from a flu strain that existed then in birds or another influenza virus. The National Strategy is still very relevant, and it outlines how the government prepares, detects and responds to pandemics of all kinds. It is still in use today. “It also outlines the important roles to be played not only by the federal government, but also by state and local governments, private industry, our international partners and most importantly individual citizens…” It states that the “private sector should play an integral role in preparedness before a pandemic begins and should be part of the national response.” A few short months after the federal plan was released, the National Credit Union Administration issued a guidance letter in March 2016 stating that “credit unions and their service providers supply essential financial services and, as such, should consider their preparedness and response strategy for a potential pandemic.” It went on to say, “The National Strategy addresses the full spectrum of events. The main components of the National Strategy address: Preparedness and Communication; Surveillance and Detection; Response and Containment.” In 2007, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council issued its own guidance through the Interagency Statement on Pandemic Planning , which was just updated earlier this month due to the current COVID-19 Pandemic. If you’re like most credit unions, in response to all of this guidance and these recommendations, someone at your credit union prepared a pandemic response plan back then, and put it on the shelf, thinking that you’d never in a million years need it. Well, a million years has come to pass. We spoke just a few days ago with the CEO of a $500 million credit union who remembered that her staff had developed a pandemic response policy some time ago, and they “dusted it off” (her exact words) and put the policy into motion. To her relief, so far it has been working well for her credit union. Some of the specific elements of that credit union’s implementation plan include: Any employee who has remote work capabilities is required to work from home until further notice. (This includes at least one employee from every department, as well as multiple call center employees). All branch lobbies are closed until further notice, with only drive-thru options open. Additional deep cleaning services have been contracted for all facilities. Additional technology has been purchased to support increased remote capability. New member products and services have been created including a new short-term loan product, a low interest rate, no down payments, no documents required, reduced restrictions on skip-a-pay loan program, etc. A communications program has been implemented to reach members via email, social media, website and on-hold messages. The credit union has contracted with CUES Supplier member CO-OP Financial Services , Rancho Cucamonga, California, to provide overflow call center support, if needed. An emergency sick leave policy has been created and enacted. If you don’t have a pandemic response policy, you are likely developing the components of your policy as you respond each and every day to the mounting issues that confront you. Ensure that someone is memorializing the good actions that you take as you move through this crisis so that you can thoughtfully, when we all come out of the pandemic on the other side, translate your actions into a comprehensive, cohesive policy. And very, very importantly, ensure that the overarching framework and strategy of your plan is developed in constructive conversation with your board of directors. Does this mean that the very detailed elements of your plan, i.e., what does deep cleaning mean or which individual employees should be designated to work from home, should be approved by your board? No. But it does mean that the overall, strategic approach of your plan should be developed in discussion with your board and that your board should ultimately approve the key principles underlying your pandemic response plan. If it’s been a while since you “dusted off” your pandemic response plan, consider this template that we’ve crafted and take a look at the National Strategy, both of which we hope will provide some support and direction to you and your credit union’s leadership (board and management alike). Stay well and stay safe. P.S. Be sure that you and your Board are staying up to speed on all of the regulatory updates regarding COVID-19, including those impacting annual meetings and board elections! Previous Next

< Back Building Your Associate Board Member Program, From The Philosophy Up Jennie Boden and Gisele Manole May 1, 2021 The groundwork for success includes commitment from the start. The debate over the best governance practices for board succession rages on. It is a routine topic in every single engagement and interview we conduct. The issues of diversity and term limits are especially prominent lately, and the daunting task of building the board of the future feels, as with many other responsibilities, like a full-time job for the credit union’s volunteers, all of whom have limitations on their time. The State of Credit Union Governance 2020 found that almost half of board members surveyed (45%) thought that their board was only adequate or less than adequate at attracting people who have the right skills. So, what does it take to marry talent with your board and governance culture? Mina Worthington, CEO of $796 million Solarity Credit Union in Yakima, Washington, describes how her credit union answered the question. “Ultimately our success was in finding the right way to meaningfully involve associate board members in the work of our board,” she says. “They are board members in every way possible except for the vote.” What does an associate board member program look like? And are some key ways that associate board members can be brought successfully into your fold? At Solarity CU, associate board members are partnered with a “board buddy” to help orient them to the credit union and the culture of the board itself. Proper board orientation is oftentimes overlooked or treated as a “self-help” effort, lacking a strategy for continuing orientation past reading the governance manual, bylaws and policies and meeting with the CEO and senior management. An associate board member at Solarity CU explains: “Right after I joined, my board buddy reached out and called me. We sit next to each other in the board meetings. She’ll whisper historical things to me and follow up with me after the meetings to be sure that I understood everything. I’ve only been on the board for about two months, but I already feel respected, and I definitely feel like my voice is heard.” Another hallmark of Solarity CU’s success with its associate board member program has been the institution of regular monthly meetings between the CEO and associate board members before the board meetings to review the meeting materials and answer any questions. Worthington says, “Investing the time in building those relationships with associate board members was just as important as making sure that they knew what was going in the meeting materials each month—the message being, ‘We want to learn about you as much as you want to learn about us.’” Another hallmark of a successful associate board member program is access to training and conferences that give associate members a broader look at the issues, innovations and ever-evolving best practices in credit union governance. Think of this as an investment by both parties in the future of the credit union. A multitude of resources are available—from online trainings and workshops to conferences and certification programs. Some are even free! So, the underlying philosophy of a successful associate board member program must be, “We’re 100% committed to you,” instead of thinking of associate members as engaging in a protracted interview process that can sometimes go on for years. From our experience in working with thousands of credit unions, an associate board member program that engages, orientates, educates and invests in its volunteers in meaningful ways is the best way to ensure the future of your credit union. In the coming year, if you haven’t explored an associate board member program to support a healthy balance of board renewal at your credit union, maybe 2021 is the year to do so. Just be sure, as with everyone in your boardroom, that you are open and committed to helping those volunteers develop into exceptional stewards of your vision and mission, too. You can purchase Quantum Governance’s Associate Board Member Job Description, as well as other policies from their Policy Library here . Previous Next

< Back To Pay or Not To Pay Michael Daigneault Sep 22, 2015 Deciding whether to compensate credit union and CUSO directors is a hard question. There’s been a lot of buzz recently about whether credit union board members should be compensated. For a long time, this notion was taboo. For many, it literally seemed to go against the very essence of a cooperative credit union. Then the idea of compensation seemed to shift from being taboo to being merely uncommon. Though federal credit unions can provide compensation only to one member of their board, usually the treasurer, some state-chartered credit unions may compensate more broadly. A recent study published by Filene Research Institute (and underwritten by Quantum Governance and CUES, among others) notes that there has been a new and significant shift, with many beginning to support the notion of paying their boards, “with some even believing that doing so would soon be crucial to their ability to attract and retain effective board members.” The study, aptly titled Should Credit Unions Pay Their Directors? , goes on to report that “At 145 credit unions in 12 states, directors earn somewhere between $60 and $37,597 annually.” The report’s author, Matt Fullbrook, manager of the Clarkson Centre for Business Ethics and Board Effectiveness at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management shares that while “In most states, credit union director compensation is dwarfed by fees paid to directors of commercial banks …the pay trend is slowly catching on, especially among large credit unions.” On the one hand, such a trend makes some sense. Credit unions deserve engaged board members who feel appreciated and perhaps, at times, fairly compensated for their significant efforts. They bear significant burdens. They are, for example, legally responsible in ways that even the CEO isn’t. And I don’t have to tell you that there is a lot at stake: millions of dollars in assets for most credit unions and even billions for an increasing number in this age of consolidation. Credit unions need the best and the brightest board members to meet the tremendous challenges of the day, but it has become increasingly hard for many credit unions to recruit high-quality, dedicated directors. If compensation can help in that regard, perhaps it is one tool that should be utilized. Yet on the other hand …there is a rich tradition of board members serving their fellow members in a voluntary capacity. Indeed, you and your colleagues are in the business of running a cooperative credit union on behalf of your members. What About CUSO Boards? Like a credit union board member, directors of credit union service organizations are tasked with providing good governance, effective oversight, strategic vision and the like. But unlike credit union board members, they are guiding for-profit entities. And therein lies a very significant difference. CUSOs were created as “outside-of-the-box” business solutions – creative ways for credit unions to effectively address effective business needs. One argument for compensating a CUSO board certainly is that in order to attract and retain the most creative, “out-of-the-box” thinkers, compensation is a must. But as in the credit union community, there are also cons to the practice of compensating CUSO board members, many of whom are credit union CEOs themselves. That con list includes: the argument that the CEOs are already handsomely compensated by “the community”; that while the CUSO is a for-profit entity, it exists to serve a cooperative community and should, therefore, follow cooperative principles; and that it may send the wrong message to credit union members or the community, among others. The long and the short of it is this: There is no simple answer to the question for either credit unions or CUSOs. The notion of compensating a CUSO board (despite its for-profit status) can be just as perplexing. What I can tell you is that for both credit union boards and CUSO boards, answering the compensation question does require a board that doesn’t shy away from asking the hard questions. All of us should consider the long-term implications, as well as pros and cons of compensation at the board level, and dig deeper to find common ground on this challenging issue. Previous Next

< Back Are Women Better Leaders? Jennie Boden Sep 24, 2021 They are when they act with humility, self-awareness, self-control, moral sensitivity and kindness. I just finished an interview with the female CEO of a fairly large credit union. I love conducting interviews. It’s my favorite part of my job, and luckily, I get to conduct a lot of them. As president of consulting services at Quantum Governance , I’ve probably interviewed thousands of credit union board members, supervisory and audit committee members, CEOs and members of senior management. And each time, I learn a lot. During this interview, the CEO was talking about adding her opinion in the boardroom on a sensitive topic. She stopped mid-sentence and stared off into space for a minute. (We were, of course, on Zoom.) I pushed her just a bit, inviting her return: “What are you thinking?” I asked. “I’m wondering how much I can say, how much I should say,” she replied. “What’s the right balance for me to share in the boardroom?” I paused before I spoke. “I can’t imagine a male CEO ever pausing, even for a minute, to ask himself that important question,” I said. And I do think it’s an important question. There’s a lot of data out there that suggests that women are currently better leaders than men. For example, this article in The Washington Post reported that countries led by women “suffered far lower death rates” than those led by men during the first wave of COVID-19. A study by Pew Research Center found that while most Americans find few differences between women and men in terms of leadership, women are perceived as more compassionate, empathetic leaders. A recent Forbes article reported on Gallup data that suggests that “in 1953, 66% of Americans preferred a male boss—today the figure is 23%.” The author of the Forbes article, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, asks the million-dollar question: 'If women have more potential for leadership, then why are they still the minority group among leaders?' - Jennie Boden via X (formerly Twitter) That same Forbes article also cited studies demonstrating that among the central qualities that “make leaders more effective, women tend to outperform men. For example, humility, self-awareness, self-control, moral sensitivity, social skills, emotional intelligence, kindness, a prosocial and moral orientation are all more likely to be found in women than men.” And that’s what the CEO I was interviewing was demonstrating as she paused and considered her next steps: skills that make leaders more effective, such as humility, self-awareness, self-control, moral sensitivity, social skills, emotional intelligence. Yet women often don’t get much credit for applying their winning leadership characteristics in the boardroom or in executive roles. The author of the Forbes article, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, asks the million-dollar question: “If women have more potential for leadership, then why are they still the minority group among leaders?” Charmorro-Premuzic answers his own question by saying that employment choices are made more based on “ style rather than substance , so we pick individuals for leadership on the basis of their confidence rather than competence, charisma rather than humility, and narcissism rather than integrity. … The typical leader is not known for their humility or competence, but arrogance and incompetence.” Now, clearly, this isn’t always true. Some boards value humility more than charisma when recruiting new directors or hiring a CEO. And I’ve met many male CEOs and C-suite executives (within the credit union community and outside of it) who fully embody substance over style. I’m lucky to say that I work for one. And of course, men, too, can demonstrate self-awareness, self-control, emotional intelligence and all of the rest. Yet female leaders with substance, humility and competence still have a harder road to top roles. Chamorro-Premuzic suggests that this has to do with maintaining the status quo. I think he’s right. But even if it’s just a little bit true—this maintenance of the status quo, we all need to work together to shift this paradigm and begin to value even more substance over style and humility more than charisma. -Jennie Boden, via X (formerly Twitter) Fortunately, some significant inroads are being made in the credit union community. CUNA recently reported that 52% of credit union CEOs are female, compared to only 3% of bank CEOs, 5% of top leaders in commercial banks and 6% of chief execs in Fortune 500 companies. And having a substantial representation of women in the top job is not just common among the smallest credit unions anymore: At credit unions with between $1 and $3 billion in assets, more than 14% of the CEOs are female. Great. Good for us. Truly, that’s good for our community. But even if it’s just a little bit true—this maintenance of the status quo—we all need to work together to shift this paradigm and begin to value even more substance over style and humility more than charisma. Because we want our credit unions—as they pursue their mission to be people helping people—to be led by the best possible leaders. Previous Next

< Back Reimagining Your Board Meetings Jennie Boden Oct 27, 2020 To make your gatherings more effective and engaging, first look at the real reasons boards meet. Credit union leaders everywhere seem to be asking the question, “How do we make our board meetings more effective and more engaging?” To answer that question, I think you have to first look at the real reasons that boards meet. To convey information … sure, but information can be conveyed in an email or a report, too. To make decisions? Yes. That’s easy, and a consent agenda can often do the trick, especially when the decisions are straight-forward and non-controversial. To engage with each other? Yes, to be sure. To build trust among directors and with your CEO. Absolutely. To deliberate and plan for the future. We hope so! And we’re sure that you can identify many more reasons that your board meets… First, it’s important to know that while most credit unions by regulation have to meet 12 times a year, the regulators do not say that every meeting has to be the same . When we share this with our clients, they are often amazed, but it’s true. And knowing this alone should allow you to open your mind to the possibility of change—because we know what you’re doing. You’re likely opening up Microsoft Word, pulling up last month’s agenda, changing the date, changing a few key items and hitting “save.” But no more. You don’t have to be bound by the same old agenda that serves up the same old meeting. You can consider rotating the cadence, length, agenda and, yes, the focus of your board meetings throughout the year. In The State of Credit Union Governance 2020 , Quantum Governance, CUES and the David and Sharon Johnston Centre for Corporate Governance at the University of Toronto found that while respondents say they spend 26% of their time on strategic matters (a percentage we dispute given the number of credit union board agendas and meeting minutes that we review each year!), they think they should be allocating 36% instead. At the same time, credit union directors report spending about 17% of their time on a review of financial results (again, here we think this is largely underestimated!), and they’d like to get this number down to about 14%. But how do you go about shifting the focus of your meetings to better reflect the actual, real reasons that a credit union board meets? Particularly in the face of the great challenge that the pandemic has posed, which has greatly limited, if not completely eliminated, your board’s ability to meet in person at times. In the summer months, when everyone is otherwise focused, consider a brief, one-hour meeting via Zoom during which you can quickly dispense with your fiduciary oversight responsibilities, check on where you are strategically, vote on any important issues coming out of committee (via a consent agenda), and make it to the beach by noon. (You might also consider this during the holidays, when the pressure to get to the beach becomes the pressure to go holiday shopping or at other busy times of the year.) Then, identify those “regular” board meetings that you need to have throughout the year and revise your agendas so that they include more time for strategic discussion and less focus on financial-related matters. Remember, it’s highly likely that your credit union’s professional staff has more skilled financial folks on its team than you will ever have on your board. Your job as a board member is to trust them but verify that what they are saying is correct. Not to do their work. Then consider a few board meetings a year where you meet for a longer period of time to really take a deep dive on a few strategic matters. Maybe hold a three- to four-hour board meeting where you take care of the business first and then spend the rest of the time talking and exploring the future of the credit union or critical questions that are before you. Finally, of course, it’s important for every board and management team to spend considerable time in retreat together each year—a one- or two-day time away from it all where you can plan cooperatively, as constructive partners, for the future of the credit union. All of these count as board meetings. Developing a calendar for your board that incorporates a wide variety of meetings will increase strategic conversations at the board level, ensure that you still keep a critical eye on those important fiduciary matters and, most importantly, keep your board members on their toes and engaged. Previous Next

< Back RIP RBG: The Thin, Strong String That Ties Women Together Jennie Boden Sep 21, 2020 Our foremothers paved the way for us; now we pave the way for the women now coming of age. This was written by the author Saturday morning, after the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I’ve been thinking about all of the stories of the strong women in my family today. This day. The day after Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died. I come from a line of very strong women. My grandmother, Ora, died when I was very small, but I’ve seen pictures of her. She was tall, broad and her hands were well worn. My mother and her sisters used to talk about her with fear and awe and love in the same breath. When Ora was raising her family, which included my mother and her two sisters, a cousin who was developmentally disabled and “the boarders” as my mother used to call them. It was the Great Depression, and she did whatever it took. Sometimes that meant moving from abandoned house to abandoned house, where they would crawl in through an open basement window or maybe it was a window that my grandfather, whom everyone called Hap, broke. Yes, they were squatters. But, if you listened to the Hathaway girls, as my mother and her sisters were known, it was all a great adventure. When the Hathaway girls grew up, they had babies. Lots of them. There were a few boys sprinkled in here and there, although not in my family’s case where four daughters were born. Our family has always been female-centric. My mother’s strength and certitude about who she was and how she would move through the world as a woman was formed during her childhood—coming home after school to find the family had moved one day from the house on Magnolia Street to one a block over on Maybrick—and later as a 20-year old mother when her first-born daughter, still an infant, came very close to dying. Toward the end of her life, she cared for my father as dementia took him and their love story faded slowly and painfully. As the country mourns the passing of Justice Ginsburg and honors her legacy, I’ve been thinking about all of the women who have come before us in all of our families, in all of our circles, in all of our workplaces, and in all of our communities. All of the women who have made us who we are. All of the women who have made things possible for us that we never knew were once impossible. I’ve been thinking about the thin—but strong—string that ties all of us together as women. I’ve been thinking about the paving they did for us. And the paving that we must do now for others. And about the paving that I will continue to do in memory of my grandmother, Ora, my mother, Katie, and the Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Previous Next

Governance Resources Finding Balance in Board Meetings Efficiency vs. Engagement Read More What Key Factor May Be Working Against Your Interest in Raising Board Engagement and Accountability Discover the hidden factor sabotaging your board's engagement and accountability, and learn how to address it effectively. Read More In Search Of The Strategic Board Discover how credit union boards can become agile strategic partners and lead their institutions to future success. Read More Who Needs A Shadow Board? Add younger employees and members directly to your C-suite and board to benefit from their skills and knowledge today. Read More The Need for Evolution: One of Today’s Central Governance Challenges If your credit union has grown have you re-considered the balance of authority between your board and CEO? Read More Hope for Gen Z Comes in the Shape of Credit Unions Generation Z has the potential to be the greatest credit union generation, so why are so many credit unions struggling to get their attention? Read More Make Your Voice Heard Speaking up can be scary, especially if you’re the only woman in the room, but it’s important to call attention to problematic behavior in the workplace. Read More Gender Equity In The Boardroom: We're Not Done Yet Boards still have work to do to support their female directors and wider DEI&B efforts. Read More Leadership Matters: Choosing Humility Acknowledge your power in the workplace and strive to have open and humble conversations that encourage other voices to be heard. Read More Dealing with Divisive Directors Honor the principle of democratic member control even when you need to remove a board member. Read More Does A Divided Vote Make You A Divided Board? A divided vote makes you a human board. And it’s what you do afterward that matters most. Read More A Cautionary Tale of Risk Management in This Time of Bank Failures Defining roles and responsibilities and continuing education help ensure appropriate coverage. Read More Know When It’s Time To Go Holding onto your board position may be best for you, but what’s best for your credit union? Read More The Sophisticated Art of Ensuring Your Board Grows Alongside Your Credit Union Four areas to focus on. Read More Is Your Organizational Success An Accident? New study suggests where to look for the answer. Read More Defining Consensus 'Five finger consensus' allows all directors to weigh in on key decisions. Read More On Being the Female Chair Leading a Predominately Male Board Two female board leaders share their experiences and advice for promoting good governance—especially, but not only, as representatives of a minority demographic. 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< Back More Listening, Less Mansplaining Jennie Boden Mar 22, 2022 In the boardroom and everywhere, it's important to hear all voices. I was recently facilitating a retreat for one of our credit union clients when one of the board members—a male board member—started going toe-to-toe with me on the subject of good governance. Really? I thought to myself. Okay, let’s go . I’ve been a professional in the national not-for-profit sector, focusing on governance, strategy and C-suite management issues, for almost 30 years. And I’ve been working specifically in the area of credit union governance for almost a decade. I’ve probably interviewed more credit union board members than, well, most everyone, and I’m an author of The State of Credit Union Governance studies published by CUES and Quantum Governance. I help assess and review governance data from 50 or 60 credit unions every year … every year . Now, I’m not trying to boast. But I am saying that I know my way around a discussion on credit union governance. Apparently, however, my male client knew more. The term mansplaining is relatively new—it first appeared in a Los Angeles Times piece in 2008—but the concept, of course, is not. The phenomenon of mansplaining is so common that it even now appears in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and is officially defined as “when a man talks condescendingly to someone (especially a woman) about something he has incomplete knowledge of, with the mistaken assumption that he knows more about it than the person he’s talking to does.” For many women, mansplaining is a frustrating, recurring part of their professional lives, regardless of their position or tenure. While some may be tempted to call mansplaining a mere annoyance—or invoke gendered stereotypes that women are “too sensitive”—the impact of mansplaining behavior goes much deeper than words. In the boardroom, it can be a clear signal that a board member’s expertise is discounted and, according to the Society for Human Resources Management , it can even affect the way board members are nominated and selected for committees or leadership roles. Mansplaining in the Credit Union Boardroom So, why is this particularly relevant among credit unions? We know that credit unions have made significant progress in diversifying their boardrooms, especially as compared to other sectors: 36% of credit union board members are women, whereas women hold only 25% of board seats in Fortune 100 companies, according to a 2018 report by Deloitte and The Alliance for Board Diversity of America. Yet, even at 36%, women are still significantly underrepresented in our credit union boardrooms, which remain male- (and white-) dominated spaces. Much more work remains to be done to improve gender diversity in the boardroom to ensure that boards truly reflect the communities they serve. As most women know, mansplaining happens everywhere: It begins on the playground and carries through to the boardroom. But it doesn’t stop there. In fact, the concept of mansplaining is so universal that in 2016, a union in Sweden temporarily set up a hotline for workers to report incidents of mansplaining and seek counsel from professors, authors and other gender experts on strategies for dealing with this condescending behavior! Even the BBC offers a flow chart to help readers identify mansplaining even when they may not realize it’s happening to them! As we encourage boards to reflect on and improve their own diversity, we know that many credit unions will recruit new directors who don’t necessarily have banking or accounting backgrounds, but who are bright, driven leaders in their fields. They are strategic thinkers who are ready to learn more about what the credit union does. This diversity—both in terms of gender and racial background and also professional expertise—undoubtedly helps advance a credit union’s service to its members not only by ensuring a strong “ear to the ground” but also by deliberately crafting a leadership group that brings diverse experiences, skills and viewpoints all to strengthen the decisions made in the boardroom. Board members with prior sector experience will, naturally, lead in helping their new colleagues develop a greater understanding of the credit union and their responsibilities as board members. In fact, we encourage it. In offering guidance, however, it’s important to remember that your support should be offered in a way that’s conducive to learning and recognizes your new colleagues’ own talents and expertise versus sharing your own knowledge in a way that is condescending, meant to intimidate and discredit. Board members of all tenures and backgrounds should approach their role with what David Smith , an associate professor of practice at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, calls “healthy doses of humility and a learning orientation.” Smith also notes that a “prove it again” bias that women often experience “questions their competency by having them continually prove that they have the experience and ability to perform. Most men do not experience this bias as it is usually assumed that they are competent, and they are advanced more often on potential.” While this observation is based on his experience in the U.S. Navy, a credit union boardroom—a similarly male-dominated space—can also encourage these dynamics. How to Move Past Mansplaining How do we recognize and move past the mansplaining we observe in the boardroom? Smith’s research found that what women most appreciated in male mentors and allies was their capacity to listen—which Smith summarizes as “generous listening with an intent to understand and not fix her or fix her problem.” Recognizing the root impulse for this is also important: “As it turns out, many of us as leaders are socialized to be problem-solvers. We listen to a colleague until we discern the problem and then tell them how to fix it.” (Read more on this from Smith in “ More Listening, Less ‘Mansplaining’ Make Men Better Allies to Women Co-Workers .”) In the credit union boardroom, where we find various levels of expertise in accounting or banking, but a steadfast desire to learn, this is equally important for male colleagues to internalize. What are some other key strategies for creating inclusive, welcoming, and respectful spaces? Arin N. Reeves, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan offers a few suggestions : Create and use agendas for meetings to define intentions, decrease interruptions and offer clarity on who should be speaking and why. Adopt a “take turns” approach in meetings; it will provide additional structure around who should be speaking and offer all participants an opportunity to give their perspective. Separate “divergent thinking” (unstructured brainstorming and idea generation) from “convergent thinking” (idea analysis and decision-making) to prevent unwanted interruptions and allow for women’s voices to be included as an active part of the leadership and decision-making process. Speak up! We can all recognize the symptoms of “mansplaining,” and if we can respectfully call out and encourage reflection about this behavior, we can create more respectful, productive and effective board and committee meetings. We all know that there are challenges to recruiting board members. Don’t make the mistake of not fully appreciating or realizing the full potential of your board members by silencing those voices that will help to further the vision and mission of your organization. Previous Next

Michael Daigneault Co-Founder & Principal Consultant Michael is a renowned expert on governance, strategy and ethics and has channeled this more than 35 years of expertise into a uniquely personable, engaging and authentic consulting and presentation style. Michael along with his wife founded Quantum Governance over a decade ago with the mission to improve the effectiveness of board and executive leadership through governance and strategy. Michael is a nationally recognized keynote speaker and published author on governance, strategy and ethics in both the credit union and nonprofit fields. Prior to founding Quantum Governance, Michael was President of the Ethics Resource Center (ERC) – the nation’s oldest, independent ethics center. During his tenure, the ERC launched the ERC Fellows Program; developed ethics centers in the United Arab Emirates, South Africa and Colombia; and spearheaded the rebirth of the National Business Ethics Survey. Michael also served as the Executive Director of the American Inns of Court Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to enhancing the skills, ethics, civility and professionalism of judges and lawyers. Michael is a three-time graduate of Georgetown University, holding a B.A. from the College in Philosophy, and both a J.D. and a Master’s Degree from the Law Center. He lives in Virginia with his family. Back