A Brief Motivational Speech for Credit Unions-For Anytime

Leadership involves passion. That is the ability to motivate listeners to rise above matters of the moment to strive for greater success.

The skill is rare. It must speak to the heart and the head, ideally with humor.

One person who achieved this art was a former high school football coach who years later became Chairman of NCUA. Whenever Ed Callahan spoke, he would often end his talks with a rouser. It was a throw back to the halftime coach’s exhortation to go out and win the game.

I miss this communication mastery in today’s credit union world. It is more than a celebration of financial accomplishments. It is a spirited message that uplifts by affirming belief in and ambition for the future of the cooperative system.

Then I found a 1994 VCR video that captured the feeling of this endless opportunity to serve people in what the speaker asserts is the “best movement in the world-second to none.”

You may not need your morning coffee after listening to this minute and a half excerpt. It is a momentary summing up during a lending seminar by Rex Johnson. His persuasive tone and style undoubtedly owes a debt to the Southern Baptist preaching from his upbringing.

He wants credit unions to “get rid of the box” when making loan decisions and to exercise creativity serving members in “these difficult times.”

The message sounds just right for today and maybe all time.

https://youtu.be/WMBRunsCVGw

 

So You Want to Change the World

This is the season for graduation addresses.  A congratulatory pep talk by a distinguished speaker to students ending their time of institutional learning for real world lessons.  The following are excerpts from a 2016 commencement message by Eva Braun a faculty member at St John’s college in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

To clarify the credit union relevance, I might title this portion:  Local in Worldly Coordinates, Grand in Human Scope

“All over the country, speakers who accepted the invitation to talk to you on this last and first day soon began to agonize about a fit subject for this great moment So we call for aid on whatever power will come. As for me, I remembered a recent conversation, with one of our graduate students. I’ll transcribe it from my memory, abbreviated.

Student: “How will my St. John’s education help me to do what I want?”

Me: “And what’s that?”

Student: “I want to change the world.”

Me: “For the better?”

Student looks totally abashed; I’m a bit abashed as well, for being a smart-aleck. But he took it well, and the ensuing conversation was illuminating to both of us.

At this point, I want to assure you that at a thousand schools this May speakers will be alluding to this conversation. They will bid the graduates “Go forth and change the world,” or, “Go forth and make a difference.”

A language Tutorial

I say, let us have a little last-moment language tutorial. Let us, Johnnie-fashion, analyze the sentence “I want to change the world.”  I, in all candor, will try to show that “I want to make a difference, I want to change the world” aren’t very sensible sentences. So here goes.

This announcement has three parts: first, I want; second, to change; third, the world.

So, first, “I want.” “I want” is about me, and if what I want is to be a “difference-maker,” it’s about my self-satisfaction. Recall yourselves as Juniors, when you struggled with Kant on morality. No one expected you to get it all. As regards Kant, this much may have stuck: He thinks that doing right is not doing what you want, but what you ought; and that, in fact, the only proof of your doing as you ought is that it hurts some, (so) that your mere wanting is thwarted. So when it’s the world I’m planning to change, maybe “I want” should yield a little to “I should.”

Second, “change.” Why exactly “change”? There are many other modes of action beside this current mantra. There’s protecting and maintaining, activating and fulfilling, restoring and reviewing. Talk of mere change is just terminally vague babble—vague promise and vague threat. Its antidote is specific thinking expressed in adequate language. That very requirement, thoughtfulness and its articulation, was an explicit aim of the Program, to which you devoted the last four years.

Third comes “the world.” It’s a big space in which to thrash about. In choosing it as the venue of my action, I’ve pretty much committed myself to the silliest of all maxims of action—another current mantra. It goes: Only if x happens, can y occur. Filling in the most common variables for this formula: “Only if the world changes radically, can little kids learn to love reading,” in other words, never guaranteed. The implied lesson is: Forget about “the world”—stay local and avoid stymieing preconditions.

What is Good?

And now the usually missing fourth part to the saying “I want to change the world,” namely, “for the better.” Your four years with us were, I think, above all intended to give you a head start in answering for yourself the most crucial of human questions: What is good? For making anything better without a view of good seems to me just groping in the murk of possibility.

. . .you’ll recognize two of the ways that the Program and the College were meant to help you with making the here better now. One was that we hope you would find in your reading the elements of your own firm view of what is good universally and therefore what is better in particular. This crystallization is surely still in process for many of you. Much more will go into it than what you learned here, but that learning will be the informing reference of your experience. That ability to specify the universal is the second of the two ways our Program readied you for great deeds.

Now, in the spirit of that specificity, I owe you an example of what I think of as actual action, local in worldly coordinates but grand in human scope.

Local Action-Grand in Human Scope

Most of you will, I’d guess, work in an office at some point. Proper offices have water coolers, Xerox-rooms, galleys with hot-plates. People spend as much time there as they dare. So post a note: “Would you be interested in reading some poetry together during lunch hour? I propose Wallace Stevens’ ‘Sunday Morning.’ Copies are on the counter. Let’s meet next Wednesday in Room 666. Bring your lunch, I’ll bring cookies. Expertise inessential. Signed…” If no one turns up, which is unlikely, keep trying. Something will come to pass.

Before I finish, I need to say that what I’ve done here isn’t quite right: I’ve told you what’s what and you’ve sat silent, except perhaps for an occasional guffaw. All my points were left unquestioned—deep metaphysical maxims such as cookies being essential to meetings and expertise inessential to poetry, and large practical claims, such as local happenings having more actuality than global commotions. Don’t let it happen to you very often, though these occasional one-way ritual performances are also necessary to human life.

So then: I wish you a life of genuine action and of actual happening, a life of as much happiness as you know what to do with—and a bit more. Go forth, find a place you can love, and help to make it “what it was always meant to be.” Go forth and change the world—for the better.”

 

A Terrific First Quarter & MiraculousTwelve Months for Credit Unions

One year ago March 2020, a national emergency and economic lockdown was declared to deal with the Covid 19 pandemic.

What followed was the sharpest one quarter GDP contraction and highest jump in unemployment in history.  No one knew how long or how serious the total disruption of all areas of human activity would be.

Today the recovery trends in the economy and society at large are well underway.  Credit unions are both examples of this incredible turnaround as well as enablers who assisted members through this period of  uncertainty.

Last week’s Trend Watch analysis of March 31, 2021 data by Callahan and Associates, was positive on every front for the cooperative system. Buoyed by a first quarter GDP gain of 6.4%, major balance sheet growth results were in the high teens.

The 19.1% annual asset growth was the fastest in memory, propelled by a 23.1% share increase.  This share deluge led to a 57%, 12-month leap in the investment portfolio. All 64 slides in Trend Watch can be viewed here.

What About Capital Ratios?

The following slide shows the most recent five years relation between capital growth, ROE, and assets.

The divergence between these two growth trends from their long-term historical relationship resulted in a small year over year decline in the net worth and capital ratios. Overall the industry remains very well reserved with a 10% net worth ratio and over $200 billion in total capital.

The Cooperative Capital Formula: Revenue Flows and Retained Earnings Grow

This small change should not concern for two reasons listed below. For the first 90 years the cooperative measure of reserve adequacy was based on a “flow” concept for capital creation. That is credit unions were required to set aside 10% of revenue until the capital/risk assets ratio reached 4%. Then this formula was reduced to 5% of revenue until a 6% ratio was reached.

When PCA was implemented by the 1998 Credit Union Access Membership Act, this measure of capital adequacy was changed from a “flow” measure to a “stock” concept imposed by Prompt Corrective Action ratio benchmarks. A 7% net worth ratio is now rated well capitalized.  Revenue was taken out of the capital assessment.

The first reason:  as shown below the “flow” into retained earnings measured by ROA exceeded 1.03% for the quarter. This is the first time since December 2012 this rate of net income has been reached. Credit unions have no access to outside capital. Retained earnings, their source of capital, is once again trending upward.

The second reason: credit unions managing 98% of the systems assets meet or exceed the 7% well capitalized PCA benchmark.

Many slides in the Trend Watch deck demonstrate sound trends with delinquency lower, tons of liquidity, and refinancing volumes and lower fees helping members save money. An outstanding first quarter for what appears to be a breakout year for the economy.

Credit union performance with their focus on members’ well being are an untold story of this recovery.   Hopefully this extraordinary collective outcome will be recognized by all as affirmation of cooperative design and purpose.

For Mother’s Day

The Lanyard by Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

From:   The Trouble with Poetry by Billy Collins

Recommended by Joseph P Mclaughlin, Jr.

 

Reader’s React to Posts

On NCUA’s 7-Year Investment at .90%

Where are the NCUA Capital Market Specialists when you need them? Did the NCUA shock test this $600 million investment in a +/- 100, 200, 300 bps environment?
For credit unions this is a required a first step. When I was a CEO, examiners forced my peers to sell long term investments at a loss after NEV shock tests. Appears such assessments are not applicable to the NCUA. This is not a smart investment in this phase of the economic recovery cycle. Who made this decision at Duke Street.? What is their ALM experience? Why is there no public discussion of this at the April Board meeting? Where is NCUA getting their investment advice?

Would the persons responsible lock up their personal savings at a rate of .90% fixed for seven years? Commonsense says absolutely not. So why lock up credit union’s collective savings this way?

Investing in treasuries is not rocket science. When this $600 million dollar launch crashes in value soon, it is credit unions that will pay the cost. What is the end game? This $600M will have a huge decline in value as rates move up in the coming months or years.

The NCUSIF has a backup plan in the NCUA. When the NCUA needs to raise more revenue, they play the A word…Assessments. This is why my CEO peers and I read NCUA as Not Credit Union Accountable.   Never  Shocked. Just Disappointed.   Stuart+Perlitsh

On Watermelon Oreos

Can I interest you in some Marshmallow Peeps Pepsi?  Esteban Camargo

 On Berkshire’s Annual Meeting

I grew up in Nebraska and have attended the annual conference in person.

The comment about two 90+ year-olds holding court, taking unscripted questions live, for over four hours is an example I have used several times during presentations to CU CEOs and board members. I have a great photo of 12,000 attendees in the downtown arena with Warren and Charlie sitting at a modest table on a makeshift stage.

After the first annual meeting I attended, I walked away with great appreciation for how Warren could take complex concepts and distill them down to a few key points and tell it with a story people can relate to. . .

The takeaway I see for credit union CEOs and board members  is as follows:

1) Financial services is a system of numbers and tradeoffs. It is imperative the board elevate and self-educate to a level of acumen that can appreciate not just the numbers, but the nuance of the numbers. It’s difficult to effectively govern otherwise and can lead to risk avoidance (rather than risk management), inefficient deployment of resources, and at its worst, an incorrect assessment of reality.

2) Financial services is a system of numbers and tradeoffs (Part II). It helps when the CEO has enough mastery of the numbers not to just explain them, but to teach their subtlety to an audience that has not worked in financial services or does not have a significant amount of their net worth tied up in a financial institution. If a CEO wants a role model, watching Warren work his craft is a great place to start.

3) When 1 and 2 listed above are not present, it leads to distrust among the parties. The CEO will over-simplify things to gain trust, but when a simple explanation won’t satisfy a complex problem, trust may be eroded.

4) When 1 and 2 listed above are present, greatness follows because attention is shifted to higher order items, built upon a foundation of trust and understanding.  Mike Higgins

 On Jim Blaine’s Inaugural Address

“Because I could never accept that in America those who had the least and knew the least should pay the most for financial services.”   Well said!

I’m planning to create a Wikiquotes page about cooperatives. Wikiquotes is a sister project of Wikipedia, that collects quotes from people and about topics. This is going into the page! Leo Sammallahti

On Rex Johnson, Player Coach

I read the Player-Coach article early this morning, which caused a bit of reminiscing about Rex. In 1978, fresh out of college and having moved from downstate Illinois to Elgin to find work in a period of high unemployment and high interest rates, I entered the HFC management training program. That is where my path intersected with A. Rex Johnson for the first time. As chronicled in your article, he worked his way up to District Manager at Household, a position responsible for approximately 10 branch offices in Illinois and Indiana. The Elgin branch was a stop in my training period in 1979 and in 1980, Rex promoted me to my first branch manager assignment. He would leave a short time later for the position with the state. Rex would always look at the glass as half full and despite the high interest rates charged, the exceptional delivery of customer service enabled this company to thrive for many years.

Fast forward to 1985 and a job opportunity for a lending supervisor position was posted at what today is Healthcare Associates Credit Union. I applied and received an interview and thoroughly prepared for that. As we began the interview, Dan Vaughan, the general manager of the credit union was very casual and asking more questions about my personal interests than professional qualifications. Possibly half-way through the interview it became apparent that the job was mine if I wanted it. This puzzled me as beyond a resume, he didn’t know me from Adam.

He went on to tell me that he too had been a branch manager at HFC and worked for Rex. Positive feedback from a person who would become one of the greatest influencers in the credit union industry provide the break that brought me to our industry 36 years ago.

The first time I heard Rex speak to a large credit union audience was at the Illinois Credit Union League convention, possibly in 1985. He gave the same message about lending that we constantly heard at HFC, except now we had the advantage of extremely competitive rates and were the good guys, not a lender of last resort. Over the years it was always enjoyable to listen to his presentations and his message would serve as reminders of the block and tackling steps we need to consistently perform to build strong and lasting relationships with our members. I’ve done my best to teach people throughout my career, but nobody did it like Rex Johnson, with his charisma and passion that was always genuine.

Thanks for reminding people of the journey and impact one driven and good man has had on our entire industry.       Jim Dean, CEO, Affinity Credit Union

Takeaways from Berkshire’s Annual Meeting on May 1st

While Warren Buffett’s success and reputation is built on the capitalist market system, some of his observations overseeing his 60 plus companies are also spot on for the credit union system.  Especially so for NCUA and the half dozen or so organizations that play lead roles by size or function.  Some remarks I noted:

  1. The biggest risk to a firm: Picking the wrong CEO.  Any organizations come to mind?
  2. The most common problem for firms: The myths people have about their own organization.  They are passed on from one leader to the next.  The CEO does not want to critique is predecessor. Subordinates are afraid to speak up.  These myths lead to enormous errors.  What myths are repeated defending otherwise dubious proposals in cooperative organizations?
  3. The key to success in running a business: You must be in love with your business to be good at it.   Know any leaders out of “love” with credit unions?
  4. The economy is red hot: Not a price sensitive economy right now (supply chain disruptions and scarcity shortages).  A lot more inflation is going on than realized.  How will this affect interest rates?
  5. Lessons from last year under covid: You have to be a learning machine.  Right now is very confusing.  We’re in uncharted territory in government policy.
  6. Their thoughts on firms providing free online trading apps for new retail stock market investors (the gamification of investing): They are preying on people’s propensity to become addicted to gambling.   Just like state lottery systems which took over the numbers games and pushed the Mafia aside.  These activities are immoral.  An interesting word, immoral.   Any credit union activities that fall under this umbrella?

What Credit Unions Can Learn

Buffet (90 years old) and his partner Charlie Munger (97) were on TV live for over 4 hours, no breaks, taking questions on all subjects before the 20-minute scripted formal annual meeting.

I believe if a CEO and senior leadership were to similarly interact with their members in a virtual annual meeting, the example could increase credibility, confidence and trust in the credit union.

Buffet believes his primary responsibility is to his shareholders, to manage their investments well.  He admits mistakes.  His logic is transparent.  His confidence in his organization is second only to his fundamental optimism about America.

This link is a summary of the meeting Q&A on Yahoo Finance.   Watching even 30 minutes of this multi- hour questioning will show that the Oracle of Omaha is about more than his businesses.   What if credit union leaders publicly affirmed a similar belief in their performance and the cooperative system at this year’s  virtual annual meetings?

 

 

Life at 75

In lieu of a personal reunion, my college sends out updates from alumni who wish to share aspects of their life, 55 years after graduation.

One brief observation:

“I’m not traveling much this year nor attending performances of classical music. . .Happy as long as I learn something new each day, talk to someone nice, and cook something tasty.  No longer powered by hormones or ambition.  Very glad to be alive.”

The Members’ Vote: A Reminiscence on Patelco’s Annual Meeting Day

Patelco Credit Union’s 2021 Annual Meeting is being held today virtually. The following is an excerpt from a Credit Union Times story of December 17, 2002 about the credit union:

SAN FRANCISCO-Patelco Credit Union caught the eyes of the credit union community in 2002 when it announced its plan to convert from federal deposit insurance to a private fund.

Patelco’s members overwhelmingly passed the measure to convert to the American Share Insurance fund with 40,734 votes in favor out of a total 66,755 or more than 61%. Only 20% of the credit union’s membership or 38,241 total votes were required for the decision.

Patelco’s conversion was spurred by the credit union’s $480 million in uninsured deposits, which was only growing with the current flight to safety. ASI provides primary deposit insurance coverage up to $250,000 per account and does not limit the number of accounts an individual can have insured. The National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund provides just $100,000 in coverage per account for a limited number of accounts per member.

Additionally, “one size fits all” regulation from NCUA through the NCUSIF was also cited at Patelco’s Web site. The conversion of the $2.9 billion credit union is the largest to date.

While acknowledging the conversion as an individual credit union decision to convert, the switch was not particularly well received by the NCUA Board members. . .

A Reminder for Today

The members’ voice is empowering when called upon.

Experts Predicting Doom–A Perennial Practice

The year 2007 was not a down year for credit unions. Slow sure, but there was no talk of an economic collapse on the horizon. And the housing market was booming.

Nonetheless the temptation is always present to burnish one’s reputation by forecasting doomsday. The issues and trends pointed to by these speakers are not false. Rather the straight line conclusion that everything is going to fall apart because these concerns will go unaddressed, is where the logic fails.

Regulators have a particular attraction for using this clarion call. They are supposed to monitor risk, but sometimes the futures they portray seem more to justify additional resources, not from  experienced insight.

Responding to challenges, seen and unforeseen, is what every manager tries to do. So listen, but then apply common sense.

Words: The Blogger’s Tool Chest

The initial premise from Joseph Pearce

“One of the most important treasures to desire is the possession of words. Words are necessary because they are the very things with which we do our thinking and liberate us from the slavery of ignorance. We can only make sense of the world, and our place within it, if we have the vocabulary to articulate our thoughts. It’s not simply that we need words to communicate with others; we need words, first and foremost, to communicate with ourselves. If we are unable to make sense of the complexity of our situation because we do not have the words in our mind to articulate what’s going on in our lives, we are doomed to the sort of frustration which leads to despondency and despair, and rage and violence which are their toxic fruits.”

I have forgotten the following writer’s names.

Words 1: Changing Minds

We all have filters, [such as] What do I already believe? Does this new idea or piece of information confirm what I already think? Does it fit in the frame I’ve already constructed?

Ideas that don’t fit easily will require me to think, and think twice, and maybe even rethink some of my long-held assumptions. That kind of thinking is hard work. It requires a lot of time and energy.

Words 2: Rules and Extreme Cases

A sagacious legal maxim states that hard cases make bad law. If we make a generally applicable law(or rule) to counter an extreme or extremist circumstance, we risk removing freedom from all people in order to restrict the freedom of the extremist.

Words 3: Generosity and Wealth

Generosity is simultaneously a moral and a material imperative, especially among people who live close to the land and know its waves of plenty and scarcity. Where the well-being of one is linked to the well-being of all. Wealth among traditional people is measured by having enough to give away.

Words 4: God’s Question to Job

The question:  Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Who determined its measurements-surely you know?

We manage the contributions, loyalty and human capital of our founders going further back than our initial chartering dates—generations helping generations. It takes a community to create a credit union. We see in our time how this founding effort has been paying forward, establishing our present public standing. Whenever an enabling legacy is honored, this renewed awareness generates deep gratitude, even awe.