FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.–“Emotional talent” is the “final frontier of professional talent,” and will be fundamental to any credit union that wants to not just survive but prosper in adverse markets, according to one expert.
Moreover, emotional talent is key to making adversity a credit union’s “best friend.”
“So often we focus on physical talent, and we promote based on technical competency, but those are physical forms of intelligence,” said Tim Sanders, the CEO of Net Minds in Los Angeles who has worked with some well known digital brands and pioneers, including Yahoo (where he was Chief Solutions Officer) and Mark Cuban. “What happens in emotional intelligence, which is our ability to become self aware and to develop collaboration skills, are talents we have to work on every day of our lives.”
“Disruption” is the fodder of much attention within credit unions, but Sanders said CUs must realize there is nothing unique about their predicament. Instead, what credit unions would do well to understand is how they could leverage that disruption.
“Disruption is about how consumers change to solve their problems. Disruptive technology happens to everyone in every space,” he said. “Adversity and change continues to happen. But I believe adversity and change are an equal opportunity nightmare not just for credit unions, but also for everybody in financial services. If you learn how to develop this emotional talent so that in this face of change and adversity you move forward aggressively, change can become your best friend.”
That potential friendship begins, said Sanders, who has written a number of books around these issues, with recognizing what is happening in the broader culture and economy and why it’s critical.
“All the great leaps in innovation always happen right on the edge of adversity, right at the last 10% of a recession or a depression,” he told the meeting. “Someone always takes advantage of opportunities and takes over the market. Kellogg’s, for instance, had been number-three in market position against C.W. Post until the Depression, when Post pulled in its oars and stopped spending, especially on market introductions and advertising. But Kellogg invested in the middle of the 1930s and introduced new products, including Rice Krispies and Snap, Crackle and Pop.”
A Learnable Skill
A particular emphasis of Sanders was that emotional talent is as learnable a skill as any other that someone brings to a job or learns on the job.
“Steve Jobs believed you should be as careful about what you put into your mind as you put into your mouth,” said Sanders. “So when Steve Jobs released the iPod people started to short the Apple stock. Sony Walkman had 65% market share at the time. How did Apple do it? It moved up its release date. Jobs had been watching the dot.com crash and then 9/11, and said ‘Let’s move it up. Sony will sit there with a deer-in-the headlights look and not move.”
Jobs proved to be right by announcing not just the iPod but iTunes. Sony didn’t respond for two years. “Game over,” said Sanders.
“How we react to change and adversity, especially when it affects everyone in our space, can determine what position we are in five years from now,” Sanders told credit unions, before reviewing the “emotional roller coaster” every organization goes through in times of change:
- Shock (paralysis, fear of disruption of communication)
- Rejection (retreat, start looking for scapegoats)
- Resistance (anger, pessimism, concealed resistance)
- Exploration (chaos, confusion, energy, “let’s try”
- Approval (on direction, goals)
- Identification (commitment, acceptance of challenges).
“Not everyone who is disrupted goes down for the count. Sam Walton would tell you that the secret is ‘Curiosity’,” shared Sanders. “He always visited the competitors’ stores. Now Walmart is the number-two online provider.”
To make what he called “the great leap” in order to turn “adversity into innovative competitive advantage, Sanders advised:
- Feed the mind good stuff.
- Focus on personal learning.
- Pour energy into developing relationships inside the credit union and outside in the community.
- Bring your love to work.
“These things together generate incredible amount of competency and resiliency on your part,” he said.
Here’s a look at some of those points in more detail.
Feed Your Mind Good Stuff
“In the old days we talked about management, not leadership,” said Sanders. “Napoleon Bonaparte said ‘The leader’s role is to define reality and then give hope.’ He believed credibility and motivation were the secrets to leading any army to victory. When we feed our mind negative or random information, we let the world determine our level of emotional stability.”
Focus on Personal Learning
This, said Sanders, is the simple idea that you want to take a design approach to how you feed your mind. “Dr. Norman Vincent Peale would tell you that positive thinking is not the prescription you give; positive thinking is the outcome. It’s the result of the design of how you feed your mind.”
Sanders offered two pieces of advice:
1. Create a mastermind group for information about the industry. “In March of 2000 Steve Jobs cut off cable in break rooms and gyms, so employees not succumb into negative news.”
2. Defend the first 45 minutes of every morning to “comb your brain. Devote this to reading something out of a book that improves your ability to solve problems for the remainder of the day. Then you mentally prepare for the rest of your day.”
Sanders said every organization, including CUs, has “Chicken Littles” who come out when times are tough or there are new regulations. His advice: “Chicken Little must fry. Leaders lead by the things they say and punctuate it with action. It’s really important, especially during tough times, to take control of the conversation, define reality and give hope.”
Sanders noted that “when people get stressed out at work they get stupid. Our thoughts create physical reactions.”
The brain, he said, responds by producing the hormone cortisol, which reduces brain leverage from approximately 10% to one-fifth that level. “People start to make serious errors. In a positive work culture the brain leverage capacity skyrockets up to 30%. So that’s two organizations: one that is letting the world lead them, and another that is looking for solutions and solving problems and they are 10 times stronger.”
Sanders recalled working with Mark Cuban when he was creating the company that would make him a billionaire, Broadcast.com. “By July one year he had already read 50 books cover to cover. He had edge-level curiosity. If it was connected at all to his business, he read it. The more you read the easier it is to not only see the future and to face the worst case.”
Pour Energy Into Developing Relationships
Compassion in business, said Sanders, is the concept of growing every single person with whom one comes in contact. “It can be an employee, a member, someone in the community. We give knowledge to people and they bring us into their networks.”
The way to build a foundation in a professional relationship is to share knowledge with people, he said.
“That’s why it’s so important to be a student throughout your life. Mentorship is the habit of highly effective leaders. Mentorship is about giving the mentee the benefit of knowledge so they can get to the next step of their journey. A mentor taught me ‘You never get smarter by making other people dumber.’ I recommend that every single one of you have a mentee. Your network of relationships, I believe, is one of your greatest assets. Smart networking will help you to solve the problems you have. Maybe your colleagues can’t solve your challenge, but in this connected world their colleagues can.”
Sanders urged CUs to understand the “math of goodwill,” calling goodwill the “original viral marketing.
So go into your communities and create those opportunities.”
Some Networking Advice
Sanders urged credit union execs when they meet someone new to not ask, “What do you do,” but instead ask, “ ‘What’s your ‘wow project’ these days? What dragons are you slaying?’ Get them to express to you their goal and their obstacles. Most people’s obstacles can be solved by introducing them to the right person. In Outlook, my Miscellaneous field is the ‘should meet’ field. If you make a personal goal that every Friday by 3 p.m. to have introduced three people who should meet and you push yourself to meet that goal, you will grow your network by 1000% in five years. Not with social media, but good old-fashioned networking. Collaboration is the secret to all innovation. There is no such thing as the lone inventor. Driving collaboration into your credit union culture is the secret to staying one step ahead of the competition.”
Bring Your Love to Work
Sanders told credit union leaders that they cannot lead people whom they do not “love.”
“The hardest thing to ever do is to show people empathy. Do we treat people’s feelings as opinions and give them five reasons they are wrong, or do we treat them with empathy? Empathy is the scalpel that cuts away that pain,” he said. “Feelings are facts. If you want your people to feel resilient you have to acknowledge those feelings. Leadership isn’t just about being strong. It’s about moving the organization moving forward while the rest of the world is waiting for signals. “