VANCOUVER, B.C.–The CEOs of three Canadian CUs that have gone through mergers recently were asked what was the biggest mistake they made in the process.
The question was posed by Jay-Ann Gilfoy, president and CEO of Meridian Credit Union in Ontario, who was moderating the panel discussion.
Here’s how each CEO responded:
Shelley McDade, CEO of Sunshine Coast Credit Union
“We had a project that came on the heels of all that other (merger) change where we probably should have taken a break. It was a regulatory project and we felt we’ve got to get it done now. About two weeks after it was done I could start to see little plumes of smoke. After we dug into it we realized we had gone so fast and so hard we hadn’t given employees time to assimilate and digest it. The regulator was thrilled; our employees not so much.”
Larrey Davey, CEO of Access Credit Union
“Where we missed the boat a bit was at the beginning when we didn’t rely on our transition team. They are the traffic cops in a merger. All the departments are eager to get going and (the transition team) has to watch that there isn’t a bottleneck in what’s getting done. Every department wants to do something now and it always involves IT. They are there to set the priorities.”
Lisa Loughery, CEO of Brunswick Credit Union
“It was in trying to go too fast, too quickly. We were making big changes in the organizational structure before really understanding what each credit union had. We had to take a step back and understand these departments better before we made these big changes. There wasn’t pushback, but it wasn’t well received.”