Strategies for building your credit union’s high performance “dream team”

Creating a vision of greatness for your credit union starts with your most important business asset—your people!

Their attitudes, productivity, climate culture in which they work, and how well they are lead and managed all influence your credit unions current and future success in serving members effectively.

Great organizations foster a team environment and are the sum total of the experiences and skills that their people bring to the workplace to achieve their mission and business goals.

Building high performance work teams in your credit union involves dual commitment from both staff and leadership.

What does team really mean? Team is really a unit for which Together-Everyone-Achieves-More.

In our hypersonic fast-paced financial services industry in which credit unions operate, it is impossible for any one individual in the workplace to master the complexities of the work world and the challenges of change.

The new mantra in the business workplace is “The task is the boss”!

High performing multi-skilled staff work teams can have an impact on productivity in a much greater way than any individual. Hence the team slogan “All of us working together are better than any one of us working alone” is valid, alive, and well in successful workplaces.

In developing high-performance teams, credit union leaders must realize that this is no easy task and all groups must go through four phases for cultural cohesion: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing.

This is the first stage of team building and involves the behavior of individuals desire to be accepted by others. Team members behave independently and the key element of this stage is that all team members get to know each other, agree on goals, and understand the tasks at hand.

This is the stage where different ideas from individuals compete for consideration. Team members begin to open up to each other and challenge each other's ideas and perspectives. Resolution to issues is part of this stage of team development which can be contentious and painful to members who are risk adverse to conflict.

Each team member practices tolerance and patience for the good of the group. Resolution of individual differences is the key growth element in this stage of team development.

In this phase of development, the team focuses on one goal and creates a plan for focusing on the task needed for achievement. In this stage all team members forgo their individual preferences and agree with each other in order to make the team properly function. In this stage all team members commit to a shared responsibility to work toward the success of the team goal.

When teams reach the performing stage, they are able to function as a high performing team unit that gets the job done without conflict and limited supervision. This is the high productivity stage where team members feel competent and are motivated by a collective accomplishment of achieving goals.   

High performing teams also share common characteristics that help to maintain healthy team member relationships.

Your credit union team must have a shared and meaningful purpose in what they do. The credit union "people helping people" philosophy and making a difference is a driver and reason for their work.

The business objectives of the credit union must be in alignment with the goals of the team. Each team member must be clear on their roles and how they benefit the team.

Each team member must possess complimentary skills, the right combination of experience, knowledge, and competencies to perform effectively.

The team must also create and commit to their team charter where the ground rules are agreed upon for appropriate behaviors and actions, the scope of the team responsibility in decision making, and strategies to ensure that commitments are kept.

To ensure that your credit union's team is functioning and performing at its highest levels, leadership must foster a climate where there is a high degree of trust among team members, no fear of conflict, a commitment and accountability by all team members, and an attention to and focus on achieving results. Your credit union's team is only as strong as its members—or to use one of nature's analogies—the strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack.