Four lessons learned from the CU Leadership Convention

This past week I had the pleasure of speaking at the CU Leadership Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada.  This was the first year I have attended this conference, and it was previously called the CU Directors conference. Now that the organizers have opened the conference up to credit union management teams, the conference attendees have grown and the topics discussed have expanded greatly. Here are the top four things I took away from the 2018 CU Leadership Convention.

Cal Ripken is a great opener! 

Cal Ripken kicked off the conference and in his keynote, he shared terrific stories, wisdom, and thoughts about how he set a major baseball record for most number of games played.  I followed Cal in the second speaking slot, and Cal made my life easier by exciting the credit union attendees. My favorite story Cal shared involved how he managed through spring training and avoided getting hurt.  Over Cal’s career, he had nine coaches. So, when spring training started, Cal would proactively propose a training schedule that worked best for him and would take the workload off his Manager. The result was two-fold. There was a happy Manager with a decreased workload and a happy player who avoided early season fatigue and injury. This is a lesson that all of us should remember and put into practice. We should think about how to make our bosses lives easier by proactively proposing solutions to problems and managing ourselves.

 

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