Flourish in the New Next


Are you and your credit union waiting for a “new normal?”

What if it doesn’t return any time soon … or at all? 

We will emerge from this COVID-19-fueled economic crisis to find that some things look familiar, but that nothing is the same. The safest, most productive way to approach doing business in the future is that there is no more new normal. There is only a New Next. 

The concept of returning to a more stable state of “normal” is reflected in Kurt Lewin’s classic change model of Unfreeze — Change — Refreeze. The idea is that change occurs when you unfreeze a situation, effect the change, and then refreeze to a new state of relative stasis.

The idea that you can refreeze a change to establish a “new normal” was questionable before the COVID-19 crisis. You were already experiencing change and disruption in technology, business models, competitors, and member expectations. Rather than refreezing, things seemed in constant flux. 

But the idea of refreezing to a new normal completely lost its relevance when COVID-19 showed up. In less than eight weeks …

  • The world economy was decimated. 
  • The workplace has been transformed. 
  • Member expectations for flexibility, access, and safety have been reinvented. 

Change has happened as such a rapid rate that I imagine the virus boasting to friends, “You think it takes years to change the world? Here. Hold my beer.”

The result is an environment where there is no time to refreeze and solidify any change or new idea. The best we can reasonably expect to achieve is gelatin that wiggles around and then melts in a constantly evolving pattern.

How Great Organizations Will Continue to Flourish

The consensus going into 2002 was that it would be a difficult year. The dot com bubble had been bursting for months, the telecom industry was imploding, and the United States was reeling from the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Herb Kelleher, legendary founder and CEO of Southwest Airlines, was asked what kept him awake at night in a Fortune interview that ran on January 8, 2002. Here is what he said:

“So my biggest concern is that somehow … we [at Southwest Airlines] lose the esprit de corps, the culture, the spirit. If we ever do lose that, we will have lost our most valuable competitive asset.”

Kelleher was right then, and it is true today. The culture always wins. 

Peter Drucker is credited with saying, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

In today’s world, culture eats everything for breakfast.

A compelling culture that flawlessly executes while you anticipate, adapt, pursue, and even ignore change in pursuit of your New Next will be the difference between continued excellence and irrelevance or even extinction.

What a Culture Equipped for Constant Change Looks Like

The culture you need for your credit union to flourish is built on the foundation of what has worked in the recent past. It is (1) customer-obsessed, (2) values-aligned, (3) results-focused, and (4) people-centric.

Those elements alone, however, won’t equip you to execute at the level you need today while remaining nimble to flourish in the future.

Meeting that challenge requires four additional elements. You might have already addressed two of them: being (5) data- and process-driven and (6) change-ready. These are accelerators for your credit union, and the COVID-19 virus is the ultimate stress test to determine the success of your efforts. 

But, as we move into a New Next era, your culture will require two new elements. It must be (7) future-focused and (8) collaboration-enabled.

A future-focused culture resembles the scouts who worked for the wagon trains as the West was being settled. Every day they rode out over the horizon in search of two things: Where are the hostiles that have the potential to do us harm? Where is the water that will sustain and fuel us on our journey?

Likewise, a collaboration-enabled culture actively seeks and utilizes different perspectives and experiences to reach innovative solutions to challenges and work seamlessly together when crisis arises.

A culture that excels at these eight elements will set itself apart in the coming months and years.

Where to Begin

Stephen Hawking began his book A Brief History of Time with the retelling of an anecdote that has been around in various forms since the late 1500s.

After a presentation on the structure of the solar system by a leading astronomer, an elderly lady confronts the presenter to disagree with his assertions that the Earth is a ball orbiting the Sun. According to her, in the Hindu tradition, the world as we know it rests on the back of a giant turtle.

When confronted with the obvious question about the platform on which the turtle is standing, the lady confidently replies, “Its turtles all the way down.”

We know that this explanation of cosmology doesn’t hold up in the face of reality. On the other hand, the first step in transforming your culture for the future might be as simple as this: It is leadership all the way down.

Equip leaders at every level with the expectation, definition, processes, and competencies to lead in the New Next. Great cultures can theoretically exist without universally great leadership. Experience shows, on the other hand, that great leaders are the catalyst for cultures that lead to positive change and exceptional results.

We’ve survived uncertainty and upheaval before. We will do so again. When we do, we’ll have a renewed awareness that a new normal could be years away, if it ever arrives. There will always, however, be a New Next.

Randy Pennington

Randy Pennington

Randy Pennington is an award-winning author, speaker, and leading authority on helping organizations achieve positive results in a world of accelerating change. He is author of the award-winning books Make ... Web: www.armstrongspeakers.com Details