7 Conditions of Success Help Guide Core Conversion

Editor’s note: Direct Federal Credit Union is a one-branch, $750 million credit union located in Needham, Mass. It is undergoing its first core conversion since 1984 and has partnered with CU Times to document its journey until the new core is anticipated go live in 2021. Contributing authors will be members of the project team and each article will tell a story from a different point of view. Read previous articles and continue to follow along at cutimes.com/instantinsights.

A few years ago, I was at an industry event listening to the CEO of a fairly large credit union discuss the ups and downs inherent in the CEO role. He offered that the most stressful experience he had endured over a long and successful career was his credit union’s recent core conversion. He described it as rebuilding your car’s engine, transmission, suspension, brakes, electronics and fuel-injection systems . . . while driving down the highway at 75 miles an hour.  He added one more thing: Not one of the passengers in the car can experience any disruption throughout the trip. I took his words to heart, and successfully whistled by the graveyard of a 36-year-old core until we could whistle no more. The time had come.

I am a firm believer that mindset is everything. I often think of the words of Charles Swindoll: “I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it . . . We are in charge of our attitudes.” Certainly our core conversion would be a mountain of work. It would challenge every skill we had, our project management, problem solving, communication and conflict resolution capabilities, just to name a few. But it would also offer unprecedented opportunities. The Direct team knew we would have to overcome the challenges, but we chose to embrace the opportunities and take full advantage of them.

We identified seven conditions of success beyond the obvious operational and technological measures inherent in a core conversion. These seven conditions of success came right out of our core values and strategic goals. We committed to using the core conversion to further embed these seven elements into our culture.

1. Continuous Improvement is one of six strategic areas Direct has pursued. We have been undergoing a Lean transformation over the last several years. Every employee is responsible for seeing the work from their customer’s point of view and improving that work by adding value and eliminating waste or friction. We had accomplished some great things, but our existing core had become an impediment to the next wave of improvement. One of the litmus tests in choosing a new core was the core’s ability to resolve hundreds of employee-generated improvement ideas that were not possible with our old core.

2. Systems Understanding is a critical element of everyone’s work. In order to manage and improve the work, employees need to understand how the systems used in their work function. Certainly we don’t expect them to be coders or system designers, but they should have basic knowledge of how their systems facilitate their work. More detailed exposure to data, procedures, workflows and interfaces inherent in a core conversion provides the best opportunity possible for all employees to develop a greater understanding of the systems.

3. Broader Knowledge of how the core works will be a natural benefit of the conversion. Direct has been on the same core for 36 years. What’s more, we have been fortunate to have the same “system expert” driving this core the entire time. He has done some truly amazing programming to get the core to meet our needs. The downside is the usual one – a great deal of institutional knowledge concentrated in one person. Having everyone involved in converting to the new core will create a much broader base of core knowledge.

4. Goal Achievement is highly valued at Direct and the team is good at it. With its comprehensive project plan, strict deadlines and seemingly infinite improvement opportunities, the core conversion is proving to be fertile ground for employees to define and achieve ambitious goals. It is the most significant professional endeavor most of us will ever pursue. As people deliver tangible results, their sense of achievement grows as does their drive to do even more. The core conversion is a wonderful opportunity for everyone to feel great about their accomplishments.

5. Career Development is a critical part of Direct’s culture. Our value proposition to our employees is to provide purposeful work, professional achievement and personal fulfillment. As people do all the hard work and contribute the value inherent in the four elements described above, they should be recognized and rewarded for it. Promotions are just one – but important – way to do so. Everyone who participates in Direct’s Career Development Program (CDP) has a formal CDP Plan that explicitly details their goals, conditions of success, desired position level within the organization and target date for achieving that level. As you might imagine, most CDP goals for 2020 involve the core conversion. It has been a great way for employees to demonstrate how much more they can offer, and a wonderful way for us to recognize and reward them for doing so.

6. Team Building is essential for sustained success. We often say, “if you want something done right, do it together.” The conversion has provided many opportunities for employees to participate on various teams. There were teams to evaluate various cores; teams to negotiate contracts; teams to define the broad categories of work that would be required; Conversion Action Teams to complete this work; and teams to ensure consistency across data validation, interface testing and user acceptance testing.  Completing large amounts of work in a team environment is a new experience for many employees that requires the development of new skills. But after the usual team-building phases of forming, storming and norming, our teams have hit their stride and are all performing.

7. Peer Recognition of one’s work and the value it brings to our collective endeavor is a key contributor to personal fulfillment. The core conversion has provided countless occasions for employees to appreciate their peers’ efforts. As employees work on inter-departmental teams, they have gained a better understanding of what others do and how it provides value to our members or to one another.

Of course our core conversion, like all core conversions, has been a great deal of work and certainly has caused some stress. But we’ve been dealing with those challenges in stride, so why dwell on them, and in doing so, give them extra energy? Rather, we consciously focus on the unique opportunities a core conversion presents and keep those opportunities top of mind.  Because after all, the procedural nuts and bolts of the core conversion are only 10% of the story.  The other 90% is what we decide to do with the experience.

Joe Walsh is president/CEO for Direct Federal Credit Union in Needham, Mass.