By Theresa Witham
John Oliver believes credit union boards need to take strategic planning from the conceptual to the practical and from the abstract to something measurable.
“I’m not a fan of any strategy that you, the board, can’t measure,” he said at CUES’ Directors Conference in Palm Desert, Calif., Dec. 9-12. “You can’t manage it, if you can’t measure it.”
Oliver, president ofLaurel Management Systems, Inc., Palm Springs, Calif., applies the same concept to organizational mission statements. “It is very rare, even in corporate America, to see mission statements that lift you up and define what the company is. I think they are a complete waste of time.”
Most mission statements are bland and very similar to other mission statements. Plus, no one can recite them, he said.
“Let us get down to practicalities on this,” he said, offering the following examples.
