Category: Observations

These brief examples represent  the ideals, principles, and qualities desired and admired by persons,  communities and nations.  The three persons apply these principles in their daily efforts.

In their individual areas, they rise, or rose, above self-interest and seek to bring out the best in others.

A 20’s something woman coach’s philosophy

Building the character of the rower is just as important as developing the skills of the athlete.   Diligent training on respect, resilience, and the outcomes of hard work is rewarded with improved teamwork and an overall love for the sport.

Every word spoken is intentional to create a positive learning environment and consistently progressing rowers. 

An author seeking appropriate use of words

Maybe we need to delete the word ownership from our vocabulary and certainly from our legal contracts and sales agreements and land deeds. Instead, let’s use the word stewardship — and introduce a raft of legislation that defines stewardship as “leaving something better than you found it.”

Steward it or lose it.

An Example of Selfless Generosity  (excerpts)

What made Aaron Feuerstein famous was not success but his attitude in the face of catastrophe. When a fire destroyed the textile mill he owned, he faced the decisions of whether to rebuild and whether to continue to pay his 1,400 workers, who were left destitute in the dead of winter. His decision became a model of how employers should treat their workers.

Standing By His Employees

Mr. Feuerstein won where it matters most. As a business leader, he captured the hearts of his employees and the imagination of Americans everywhere.

What made Aaron Feuerstein famous was not success but his attitude in the face of catastrophe. He became a model of how employers should treat their workers.

In December of 1995, a fire raged through the Malden Mills complex, destroying almost everything. He faced the decision of whether to rebuild. He also saw that the plant’s 1,400 workers were left destitute in the dead of winter. He could have collected the insurance proceeds and walked away from the disaster.

However, he decided to stand by his workers. He took a risk and retained all 1,400 employees on the full payroll for three months. He extended their health benefits and began rebuilding the plant so that they could return to work.

In a 1997 speech, he explained that if the worker felt he was “treated the way he should be treated,” he would go the extra mile and make quality products for the company. He was right.

Here is the link to his interview on 60 minutes (6 minutes):  https://youtu.be/ry7_FcSiQL8

Doing the Right Thing

How will your stewardship be remembered by your credit union’s members?  Who is showing the way for others on your leadership team?

Philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote almost a century ago, “the fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”

For generations men and women have been rising before dawn to row.   These early morning workouts are dark, cold and damp.   The sport is far from public view save for infrequent weekend regattas.

The physical and mental sporting challenge can be rewarding.  But more unique is the setting–the never ending  tableaus of dark nights transforming into colorful  mornings of first lights.

Nature as it awakes, monuments bathed in artificial pre-dawn light, and the iconic sight of an “eight” participating in this classic ritual of humans and nature.   That is rowing’s aesthetic experience that transcends the physical.  And draws people of all ages back to the water.

Dawn’s dramatic opening fanfare

John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

The Georgetown Waterfront

The half-awake moon over the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument

Monuments at daybreak

Rowers  greet the dawn

Light announces a new day

Photos by Alix Patterson, a life long rower, rowing coach and parent.  From high school through college and now in a master’s program on the Potomac River in Washington DC.

One of history’s many lessons is that organizations, institutions and even countries rarely end their existence because of external forces.

Leadership failures, not competition, cause the demise of most businesses and non-profits.

In the credit union system today it is easy to see examples of this failure of leadership oversight described by Warren Buffett.  The technical term for this activity is governance.

Rarely do credit unions have elections for directors; CEO’s end their reign and opt for one more big payday by  selling their coop to another; CEO’s buy banks with members’ savings without disclosing relevant details or future returns to their nominal owners; etc.

Here are Buffett’s view of these institutional failures.  The question is whether your credit union could be fairly characterized by one, or all?

1. “A CEO that wants a puppet board can still get one, I’ll put it that way.” (he notes that executives can prevent their directors from questioning them by wasting their time.)
2. “It isn’t fundamental dishonesty that causes people to go in a different direction. It’s human nature. There are plenty of people who are really decent people, intelligent people. I’d be happy if they married my daughter, or if they moved in next door to me. But they just don’t come to grips with reality. And boards usually don’t push them to.”
3. “Picking the right CEO is 10 times more important than the compensation. But somebody has to be there to represent the shareholders in terms of overreaching by even competent executives.”

How are the member-owners represented in your credit union?  Are they are just well-served customers?  What is necessary for credit unions to reverse the all too frequent examples of leadership and governance failures now occurring? And accepted as “usual and customary”?

It is not a shortfall of capital that causes most credit unions to turn in their charters.   It is the absence of character and  awareness of the member’s “common good” by leadership.

When every credit union performance measure is a number, one consequence is that everyone has a price.

Our neighbor’s yards have been filled with signs of the season these past several weeks.  They include white ghost-like specters hanging from trees, scattered skeleton parts on lawns, mock tomb stones and the endless variety of orange-lighted pumpkin carvings-some real and others plastic.

Halloween is a secular recognition by costume and irony-trick or treat-of the final reality that we all share.

Our neighbors invite us to join with them around an open, outdoor fire pit  with the greeting of “Happy Halloween!” Adults accompany children dressed as multiple characters on their door-to-door hunt for sweets and show.

Yet Halloween is about death’s reality-sort of.  One of the most popular poems in England is Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.  It captures the haunting challenge of life observing death.

Published in 1751, the narrator uses the setting of a church’s graveyard to mediate on the inevitable fate of everyone, whether rich or poor, known or unknown, skilled or day laborer.   It begins:

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

         The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,

The plowman homeward plods his weary way,

         And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

The poet then enters the churchyard cemetery:

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade,

         Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap,

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

         The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,

         The swallow twitt’ring from the straw-built shed,

The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

         No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

The remainder of the poem’s 32 stanza’s is a meditation on the democracy of death no matter one’s station in life.  From the poor to the powerful.

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

         Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;

Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile

         The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,

         And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,

Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour.

         The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

The complete poem can be found here.

Happy Halloween!?

(Editor’s note:  The following remembrance of Ralph’s leadership at CUNA was contributed by several of his colleagues.  CUNA’s announcement on September 14 of his passing  can be read here.)

A uniquely talented executive, Ralph successfully led the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) during a critical period of credit union modernization in the 1980s and 1990s. Modernization required transforming the movement’s structure that had remained unchanged since passage of the Federal Credit Union Act in 1934 and soon thereafter, the creation of CUNA. Modernization ensured credit unions’ viability into the twenty-first century by enhancing their capabilities to compete in a deregulated market. It is this historical transition that best captures Ralph’s contributions.

His credit union work began when he joined the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) in 1974 just as the movement recognized the need to change. It lasted through his untimely death while working on behalf of Irish and British credit unions through the nascent Centre of Community Finances Europe that he cofounded.

He initially served as CUNA’s general counsel and then as CUNA’s CEO from 1987 to 1995. He had an innate set of skills that included the foresight to anticipate new challenges before they appeared and overcome the unexpected but inevitable obstacles every endeavor confronts.

By any measurement of the qualities necessary to be a leader, Ralph met them all. He possessed vision, steadfastness, empathy, resilience, and compassion. Those traits – blended by his splendid intellect and indefatigable personal energy – defined Ralph as an unusually gifted executive.

The Forces for Credit Union Modernization

Ralph was at the center of the credit union movement from the early 70s on. The number of credit unions reached a high near 23,000 in 1972. However many credit unions lacked a too narrow a base from which to grow. Chartering new credit unions became challenging.

CUNA embraced the new regulatory era initiated by the National Credit Union Administration that allowed credit unions to accept small employee groups in their membership so long as each group had a common bond.

Ralph’s leadership during this transformative period is incalculable. Playing an instrumental role in ensuring credit unions had the tools to compete and thrive, Ralph advocated changes to the structure of the credit union system that served the movement since the 1930s.

Organizational Change

Among the reforms led by Ralph was the creation of new movement entities that enhanced the competitive capabilities of credit unions by leveraging their ability to collaborate.  It required a transformation of CUNA’s Governance structure. Formed initially as an association of state associations, CUNA’s Governance needed to blend the role of both credit unions and their state leagues.

CUNA Service Group, a CUNA and league subsidiary, was created to enable credit unions to become full-service financial institutions. Through partnerships with reputable financial-service companies, credit unions were able offer a range of new services beginning with a form of checking called share drafts that new legislation had enabled. As an attorney, Ralph played a prominent role in creating the share draft program from its successful pilot to the national rollout.

Within a few short years and under Ralph’s leadership, additional partnerships were formed to enable credit unions to offer members credit cards, mortgages, and a new service called individual retirement accounts (IRA’s)created by Congress to improve retirement savings options for consumers.

Ralph helped create U.S. Central Credit Union that functioned as a corporate credit union for natural-person credit unions.  It then evolved to become an integral part of a new Corporate Credit Union Network providing a full menu of wholesale services to credit unions.

Under Ralph’s leadership, the CUNA Foundation progressed from supporting credit unions  responding to environmental disasters into the influential National Credit Union Foundation. In addition to CUNA’s president and CEO, Ralph was president for each of these organizations.

Renewal

While modernization reduced the number of credit unions, the number of members and assets grew exponentially.  Their growing operational independence created different relationships between credit unions and their associations. The CEOs of large credit unions sought greater direct input into their national organization.

Under the movement’s original structure, credit unions belonged to the state leagues and the leagues belonged to CUNA. Ralph initiated the first steps of revamping this ownership structure. He created a task force of credit union and league executives which proposed recommendations that led to a significant changes and new association bylaws.

Called “Renewal,” the process provided a combination of credit union and state league representatives on CUNA’s governing Board. For the first time credit unions became members of CUNA. Elections to the board were regionally based.   Divisions representing credit unions of differing asset sizes ensured fair representation among an increasingly diverse movement, while still including a membership category for leagues.

Modernization and the growth of large credit unions required more sophisticated educational and training services for the growing numbers of professionals joining the industry. Credit Union marketers approached Ralph to propose the creation of a Marketing Council run by the marketers themselves with CUNA providing support services. This first council led to more organized around the professionals now employed in credit unions—finance, lending, technology, human resources and operations. The councils now have a multi-decade record of sharing their knowledge among over 6,000 members.

Regulatory modernization, credit union growth, and the rise of professional staff led to concerns that the movement would lose touch with the cooperative philosophy of its roots.  In response Ralph supported a program called Development Educators so credit union personnel could be ambassadors to explain the cooperative tradition of service over profit and the importance of credit union’s historical role.

Leading In an Era of Change

Ralph’s tenure during this era of multiple modernization forces was in many ways equal in importance with the founding years credit union development. Ralph’s leadership role was as vital to credit unions today as those achieved by the movement’s founders.

Leaders earn respect by combining a commitment to the execution of strategy with sensitivity for the people with whom they work.  Ralph understood that compassion does not dilute a leader’s strength. It complements it. Humility is not a weakness, but it is a sign of confidence. All leaders make unavoidable difficult decisions.  Ralph made many, but he never lost sight of such decisions on people.

His recent death in Dublin, Ireland while continuing his credit union work with Irish and British credit unions was stunning. It is difficult to conceive the loss of such a vibrant individual who played an instrumental role in credit union modernization. To those who worked with him through his long commitment to the mission of credit unions, he will always be remembered with great fondness and deep respect as an exceptional person and an astoundingly skilled leader.

These personal attributes made him a leader who earned the admiration and respect of credit unions worldwide. He will be missed.

(Editor’s Note:  Ralph was succeeded by former democratic congressman Dan Mica as President and CEO in July 1996.  This leadership choice resulted in moving the CUNA President’s principal office to Washington DC. Political lobbying became CUNA’s primary activity.)