Are you all in with your strategic plan?

“’Cause the house always wins. Play long enough, you never change the stakes. The house takes you. Unless, when that perfect hand comes along, you bet and you bet big, then you take the house.” – Danny Ocean in Ocean’s Eleven

Gambling and poker have come out of the shadows and taken a more mainstream place in popular culture and media. You don’t have to look far to find books, movies and television programs about gambling. “All in” is gambling terminology for the time in a poker match when a player wants to call but has an insufficient remaining stake. That player may bet the remainder of his stake and declare himself “all in,” effectively gambling everything he has left on one last hand. It’s an act of both strategy and, at times, desperation.

In credit union land, a rough equivalent to the “all in” comes when the board and executive management team decides it’s time to jumpstart the strategic plan process. More than any other time of the year, strategic planning season requires the absolute buy-in and concentration of both the board and executive management team. If your entire leadership group doesn’t come to the table ready to play and committed to both the long-term and short-term processes and goals of strategic planning, you are not “all in” and may as well fold your hand.

While well-crafted and thought-out strategic planning is not a gamble in the true sense, you are investing a great deal of time and energy in your credit union’s future via this process. Consider the following tips to help ensure your credit union is really “all in” with your strategic plan.

• Keep your plan realistic. An unrealistic plan, one that does not carefully consider current trends or focuses on all the wrong issues inevitably leads to failure. Honestly, you probably aren’t going to accomplish a list of 20+ strategic initiatives. So keep it real (and simple).
• Stay on the same page. Healthy debate is vital to strategic planning. In fact, your team should be at its most open and expressive during this time. However, when it’s all hashed out, you must stay united. If everyone leaves the strategic planning session going ten different directions instead of one, you are not “all in.”
• Allocate the proper resources. Strategic planners are great at developing new directions for your credit union. However, every new direction and initiative will require two things — manpower and money. Don’t hamstring your strategic plan by making it a paper tiger without the teeth of a budget and staff.
• Assign specific goals. Numbers matter. With every directive of the strategic plan you must also assign realistic benchmarks. Grandiose plans may look great on paper, but have little impact unless you can come back to the table in twelve months and say “yes, we met and/or exceeded our goals” or “we tried hard, but didn’t quite make the numbers for which we had hoped.” Tacking your strategic plan to hard-core quantitative mileposts helps keep everyone accountable and “all in.”
• Ensure “strategic” means strategic. In the strategic planning process, it is possible to become bogged down in points that are really more tactical than strategic in nature. Tactical steps are generally the action steps for accomplishing larger objectives and timelines. While these tactical steps are critical, they are really more the building blocks to achieving the big picture items. While in the strategic planning process, don’t become enamored with the number of steps it takes to run the race ­– focus on the finish line.

Once a year, many credit unions gather their board and executive management team for its strategic planning process. What comes out of these meetings provides critical direction for the credit union and helps ensure its growth and viability for years to come. Making sure your key leaders are “all in” helps ensure your strategic plan is full of aces rather than one you have to fold.