#3297: CFCU's Tansley Stearns Shares 5 Steps to Find What's Missing From Your Strategy...

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CFCU President/CEO Tansley Stearns stopped by the show to share insights and highlights from her recent article posted on CUinsight: “Five steps to find what’s missing from your strategy.”

Specifically, the story is about Tansley weaving her lifelong running experiences (successes and failures) and correlating it to bold thinking for today’s credit unions. She referred to an ultramarathon race she just discovered called “Big Dog’s Backyard Ultra World Championship,” which spurred this article, as well.

From a leadership perspective, Tansley pointed out that it may seem best to chart a conservative course during challenging times. But, in actuality, leaders need to be ambidextrous. She expanded on this thought of being ambidextrous as leaders.

We also referred back to an earlier conversation we had this year with her calling 2023 "the year of the test." Tansley talked about what she meant by this for CFCU — and how the tests went this year as we close out 2024.

We then dug into a couple of the five steps/suggestions to be bolder, more determined and dream bigger from her CUinsight article:  She detailed: “Keep the brainfood coming” and “Feel the fear.”

Lastly, we addressed the historically conservative nature of the credit union industry -- although, it may be less today than has been in the past. But Tansley discussed how to get a collective group (credit union industry) as a whole to adopt daring approaches to push that proverbial envelope -- especially with all competitive threats surrounding the industry: PayPal, SoFi, Apple, Chime, Google, and even Elon Musk wanting to turn X (formerly Twitter) into a banking platform.

Lots on the plate in this conversation with Tansley. And, as usual, she delivers big time with her positive and progressive thinking and passion for this industry. Check it out and let us know your thoughts. And be sure to watch the entire episode below for all the details.

And we have to give George Hofheimer some love, too. That's his book I'm holding up in the thumbnail shot: "Banking on a Human Scale."