Check out this recent article from eWeek.com.

1. Experts are clueless. Experts—journalists, analysts, consultants, bankers, and gurus can’t “do” so they “advise.” They can tell you what is wrong with your product, but they cannot make a great one. They can tell you how to sell something, but they cannot sell it themselves. They can tell you how to create great teams, but they only manage a secretary. For example, the experts told us that the two biggest shortcomings of Macintosh in the mid 1980s was the lack of a daisy-wheel printer driver and Lotus 1-2-3; another advice gem from the experts was to buy Compaq. Hear what experts say, but don’t always listen to them.

2. Customers cannot tell you what they need. “Apple market research” is an oxymoron. The Apple focus group was the right hemisphere of Steve’s brain talking to the left one. If you ask customers what they want, they will tell you, “Better, faster, and cheaper”—that is, better sameness, not revolutionary change. They can only describe their desires in terms of what they are already using—around the time of the introduction of Macintosh, all people said they wanted was better, faster, and cheaper MS-DOS machines. The richest vein for tech startups is creating the product that you want to use—that’s what Steve and Woz did.

3. Jump to the next curve. Big wins happen when you go beyond better sameness. The best daisy-wheel printer companies were introducing new fonts in more sizes. Apple introduced the next curve: laser printing. Think of ice harvesters, ice factories, and refrigerator companies. Ice 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. Are you still harvesting ice during the winter from a frozen pond?

4. The biggest challenges beget best work. I lived in fear that Steve would tell me that I, or my work, was crap. In public. This fear was a big challenge. Competing with IBM and then Microsoft was a big challenge. Changing the world was a big challenge. I, and Apple employees before me and after me, did their best work because we had to do our best work to meet the big challenges.

5. Design counts. Steve drove people nuts with his design demands—some shades of black weren’t black enough. Mere mortals think that black is black, and that a trash can is a trash can. Steve was such a perfectionist—a perfectionist Beyond: Thunderdome—and lo and behold he was right: some people care about design and many people at least sense it. Maybe not everyone, but the important ones.

6. You can’t go wrong with big graphics and big fonts. Take a look at Steve’s slides. The font is sixty points. There’s usually one big screenshot or graphic. Look at other tech speaker’s slides—even the ones who have seen Steve in action. The font is eight points, and there are no graphics. So many people say that Steve was the world’s greatest product introduction guy..don’t you wonder why more people don’t copy his style?

7. Changing your mind is a sign of intelligence. When Apple first shipped the iPhone there was no such thing as apps. Apps, Steve decreed, were a bad thing because you never know what they could be doing to your phone. Safari web apps were the way to go until six months later when Steve decided, or someone convinced Steve, that apps were the way to go—but of course. Duh! Apple came a long way in a short time from Safari web apps to “there’s an app for that.”

8. “Value” is different from “price.” Woe unto you if you decide everything based on price. Even more woe unto you if you compete solely on price. Price is not all that matters—what is important, at least to some people, is value. And value takes into account training, support, and the intrinsic joy of using the best tool that’s made. It’s pretty safe to say that no one buys Apple products because of their low price.

9. A players hire A+ players. Actually, Steve believed that A players hire A players—that is people who are as good as they are. I refined this slightly—my theory is that A players hire people even better than themselves. It’s clear, though, that B players hire C players so they can feel superior to them, and C players hire D players. If you start hiring B players, expect what Steve called “the bozo explosion” to happen in your organization.

10. Real CEOs demo. Steve Jobs could demo a pod, pad, phone, and Mac two to three times a year with millions of people watching, why is it that many CEOs call upon their vice-president of engineering to do a product demo? Maybe it’s to show that there’s a team effort in play. Maybe. It’s more likely that the CEO doesn’t understand what his/her company is making well enough to explain it. How pathetic is that?

11. Real CEOs ship. For all his perfectionism, Steve could ship. Maybe the product wasn’t perfect every time, but it was almost always great enough to go. The lesson is that Steve wasn’t tinkering for the sake of tinkering—he had a goal: shipping and achieving worldwide domination of existing markets or creation of new markets. Apple is an engineering-centric company, not a research-centric one. Which would you rather be: Apple or Xerox PARC?

12. Marketing boils down to providing unique value. Think of a 2 x 2 matrix. The vertical axis measures how your product differs from the competition. The horizontal axis measures the value of your product. Bottom right: valuable but not unique—you’ll have to compete on price. Top left: unique but not valuable—you’ll own a market that doesn’t exist. Bottom left: not unique and not value—you’re a bozo. Top right: unique and valuable—this is where you make margin, money, and history. For example, the iPod was unique and valuable because it was the only way to legally, inexpensively, and easily download music from the six biggest record labels.

Bonus: Some things need to be believed to be seen. When you are jumping curves, defying/ignoring the experts, facing off against big challenges, obsessing about design, and focusing on unique value, you will need to convince people to believe in what you are doing in order to see your efforts come to fruition. People needed to believe in Macintosh to see it become real. Ditto for iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Not everyone will believe—that’s okay. But the starting point of changing the world is changing a few minds. This is the greatest lesson of all that I learned from Steve.

Read more: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2011/10/what-i-learned-from-steve-jobs.html#ixzz1cnSN3HTJ

As you can see in the graphic, there are four basic forms that illustrate the IT / Cloud relationship:  On Premise (Traditional IT), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).  Each form has its own set of benefits and drawbacks.

The traditional IT model, On Premise, is what many of us are most familiar with.  In this model you must maintain all of your own systems, software, and data.  In today’s world, this is typically the least efficient model because you must have the personnel, equipment and expertise to control and maintain the entire system.  While you do have a significant amount of control, this model generally has a higher opportunity for failure and requires a significant investment of capital in equipment, software, and ongoing personnel requirements.

The IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) model is most clearly seen in the “data center” model.  In a data center, the equipment component is eliminated because you are using someone else’s hardware, but you are still responsible for the software that is installed on it.  This has some benefit over the On Premise model since you no longer have to worry about hardware failure.  However, this model still requires a knowledgeable staff to maintain the software and systems, providing  updating, connections, security and everything else that goes into maintaining complex networks.

In the third model, Platform as a Service (PaaS), the vendor controls the hardware and the core software on a server.  The provider then gives the subscriber limited access to change the data and structure on top of the base system.

Website hosting is an excellent example of the PaaS model.  The website is on someone else’s server.  They have an installed operating system and core software, but the subscriber has complete control over the content of the site.  This is a perfect marriage of the service provider and service user.  The custom side of Salesforce is another example.  Salesforce has the platform built, the subscriber must follow the rules (code) of their platform, but can still track anything desired such as, opportunities, clients, participants, contracts, etc.  Salesforce can also be used in a SaaS (Software as a Service) model while website hosting is a strictly PaaS solution.

Software as a Service (SaaS) consists of software on the web that is a hosted application – you must “log into” it.  Much like traditional software, there may be a significant list of preferences that you can customize, but at the core, the application is out of the box.  In this model, the hardware, software, platform, and basically the entire package is completely taken care of by the vendor.  You do not need to know anything about code, platforms, or IT in order to utilize this kind of service.

Box.net, AtTask, Salesforce and Google Apps are all examples of the SaaS model.  Typically, large support packages are also included as a part of your subscription or membership.  This model eliminates the need for a large number of highly trained IT personnel and is generally the most cost effective option over all if you can find the right programs to meet your needs.  It is important to note that SaaS and PaaS models are both updated automatically so that you are always working with the most current version which is a great benefit.

While each of these models has its benefits in today’s marketplace, careful thought and investigation should go into which model will provide the most benefit at the best cost for your organization.  Generally speaking, a PaaS or SaaS system will provide the most easily customizable options with the least investment, especially when the ongoing expense of personnel to “manage” more traditional solutions is factored in as part of the expense.

Also keep in mind that it often makes sense to mix and match solutions to best meet your needs, for instance it may make sense to use a SaaS program for your email and an IaaS provider for your data storage.

The landscape of IT and Cloud relationships is quickly changing and expanding.  Now is the time for most organizations to investigate their potential entrance into this new world.  The new models that are now available can provide a level of flexibility, at a reasonable investment, far beyond what has traditionally been accessible.

For more information on cloud models and how to go about auditing and converting your organization please contact Daniel Nice from our Partner organization Parachute Applications, LLC at 303-800-4525 or at daniel@parachuteapplications.com

http://www.fastcompany.com/1754859/how-square-is-accidentally-disrupting-the-entire-payments-industry?partner=homepage_newsletter

Based on NUCA most recent report on the state of the insurance fund, just shy of 25% of all CUs are significantly distressed and have CAMEL 3’s, 4’s and 5’s! This is shocking in and of itself. When you tie this fact with Nice’s provocative pronouncements in the article about the state of troubled credit unions, YOU, as a leader, have much to think about strategically – including… and beyond mergers.

Click on this link to view the full article: www.creditunionmagazine.com/articles/a-merger-slowdown

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704739504576067461795827534.html?m

When the members of the class of 2010 entered business school, the economy was strong and their post-graduation ambitions could be limitless. Just a few weeks later, the economy went into a tailspin. Theyʼve spent the past two years recalibrating their worldview and their definition of success…

View the complete article by clicking the link below.  You can also listen to the article by clicking the link below “Online Audio”.

Printed Article:
http://alexcusack.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/how-will-you-measure-your-life.pdf

Online Audio:
http://www.airsla.org/broadcasts/Readers_Digest110123.mp3

The following article by recognized business author and consultant Patrick Lencioni, “nails” the practical reality of dealing with a difficult employee (and can be applied to team member, volunteer, family member) etc.  I continually see this problem in many of our clients – even those high performing ones.

This short read may cause you to rethink how you approach all relationships and communication, and better prepare you for the new year:

http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/oct2010/ca20101022_269023.htm

Rethinking the way you approach your business doesn’t mean that what we are currently doing is completely broken, it’s just one of the ways to continually improve what you have, so you have more of it, to provide to members and other stakeholders…   And isn’t creating more economic value for the members the primary reason why we do what we do?

We encourage you to read the following article by Aaron Levie, a Gen X’er, who also happens to be founder and CEO of Box.net – one of the largest, highly successful cloud computing enterprise providers in the world – whose company is less than five years old and has $30 million in funding.  Aaron is the visionary behind Box’s product and platform strategy.

His article “Building the Simple Enterprise” drives home some strong lessons we need to adopt, and has broader implications on the success of all credit unions in the future.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/07/building-the-simple-enterprise

Social networking has evolved to the point where you cannot neglect utilizing this growing force.  While the younger generation began this social phenomenon, all generations are using the social networking available online and it is critical to get your organization’s presence established in this cyber world the right way.

The link http://blog.kissmetrics.com/facebook-marketing/ will connect you to “Facebook Marketing:  A Comprehensive Guide”.  This article will provide an introduction to using Facebook (the largest social network in the world) as a proper marketing tool.  It gives simple and straightforward instruction on how to use pages, ads and groups as a part of your marketing efforts.

Now is the time to make the effort to learn the “ins and outs” of social network marketing – Don’t get left behind!

Few modern day platforms have created the exposure delivered by Apple’s iPhone.  It’s a tool itself, and a vehicle for distributing what’s “in” – including some of the hottest games.  Among them is the game sensation Archetype that hit the U.S. market in July.

The game is a model of innovation and effectiveness that financial institutions can learn from.  A multiplayer, first-person shooter game, Archetype was Apple’s “App of the Week,” chosen as the one application featured on iPhones and Apple’s website.  Produced byVILLAIN and developed by MunkyFun, the game hit #6 in “Top Paid” apps and #3 in “Top Grossing” apps, out of ½ million applications offered.  It is an elegant meld of software, the interactive web and the art to produce a runaway hit in its market.

Timothy Nice (son of Ron Nice of Nice Enterprises, Inc.) is Art Director at MunkyFun and took time from his busy schedule to share what’s behind the game’s success.  His insight has import into how credit unions can win in the electronic world and beyond:

FOCUS

Do one thing amazingly well. Game development is a high risk, high return endeavor.  Either a game is a hit and everyone wins, or it’s not and everyone loses significant money, time, and reputation.  As such, doing one thing amazingly well is essential.

Archetype is rigorously focused on one thing.  The game is an archetypal, multiplayer first-person shooter game, adapted to the controls and environment of the iPhone.  It is a community-only game:  Gamers play on a five-person team, competing against another team for wins, points, and medals.  Game statistics are posted and players advance as they’re promoted from Cadet, up through 35 ranks, to 1st Circle Dreadnaught, based on their performance.

The visuals are fantastic, game play is solid, and the game is well built.  In fact, when the iPhone 4 launched, with a much higher resolution screen only weeks before the game’s launch, the team made adjustments to the game but not wholesale changes.  Both the game and team were robust, so the team could adapt quickly.  How good the game looks on the iPhone 4’s Retinal Display is now a major selling point. Archetype nails its category, plays well on older iPhones, and is absolutely amazing on the iPhone 4.

What was most difficult about making the game?  “The last 20%,” states Timothy Nice.  “Starting was easy.  Moving through game development was easy.  But polishing and testing were a big challenge.  They’re also the added touch that made Archetype strong enough to win mass audiences and profitability.”

Application: Your organization needs an arena for R&D that drives innovation.  It may be led by marketing, member service, technology, or a cross-functional team.  Decide who it will be in your organization.  Next, they need a laser-like focus.  Should they create a new delivery channel, a new approach for member experience, or a new product offering?  Be sure the team’s “charter” is incredibly well defined, focused, and written.  Launch them with the task of doing one thing amazingly well.

More broadly, now more than ever FIs must focus.  Most of the credit unions with high profitability consistently have a great degree of focus in their business model and strategic plans.  The models include technology-intensive models, rigorous-adherence to specific target markets, and/or uniquely different models for engaging members.  In fact, you could argue these leading CUs do one thing amazingly well. Are your plans and offerings extremely focused?  To test this, just ask stakeholders at many levels of the organization.  If they all identify the same focus, it’s probably real.  If they don’t, it’s time to get serious about applying focus that changes everything about your organization.

Be sure everyone can answer the question in the same way:  What is the one thing your organization does amazingly well?

When you’re rolling out a new offering or convenience tool, how much attention and focus do you place on perfecting the last 20% (the finishing, polishing, marketing, user interface, etc.)?  In our experience, few financial institutions apply the needed attention to the last 20%.  Often, some IT guy builds the action plan and nails his area of implementation.  Everything technology-related is detailed out in the plan.  The marketing folks hate action planning, so there are few bullets in their area, which are often limited to “build marketing plan” and “implement marketing campaigns.”  Operations and HR may include a bit more detail such as “schedule training,” “ensure frontline understands new offering,” etc.

This is the unfortunate reality, that last 20% is almost always under-done.  It is like taking the time and effort to cook an elaborate, gourmet meal and then serving it on paper plates and realizing you forgot to invite over your friends and family.  More forethought and rigor are needed for the last 20% of new products, new technology and automated delivery tools, new branches, new promotions, public relations, etc.  The organization as a whole needs to “nail” the last 20%.

It is incredible how many “me too” offerings there are in financial services.  It seems like organizations are always saying, “We need that too.”  But they don’t take the time to do it well.  They roll out the same old thing…  Same average online banking.  Same average marketing promo.  Try again. Nail the last 20% by tailoring the offering and interface so it is notable and better than other providers.  Do it amazingly well, or don’t do it at all.

MARKETING

Marketing blitz. In addition to ascending the success lists, Archetype sold 160,000 apps in the first week of U.S. sales.  What has made Archetype so successful, and why so quickly?  In addition to ensuring the game’s focus, VILLAIN effectively positioned and marketed the game.

Archetype targets the market of original Halo players.  It converts the magic and game play of that game-console classic into the iPhone environment.  To get user input and create pre-launch buzz, Archetype originally launched in the Czech Republic.  This gave them the opportunity to work through the normal start-up challenges in a live, but market-safe, environment.

For the U.S. launch, marketing was incredibly strong and focused.  Most of the marketing dollars spent was in a three day period near the launch date.  Compared to similar games, the marketing budget was large.  The extensive spend focused on gaming thought-leaders and communities.  Much of it was invested in advertising on gaming forums, technology blogs, and iPhone websites.

It worked.  The game quickly reached opinion leaders in the gaming community and created editorial accolades.  The game climbed the charts even before being highlighted as APP OF THE WEEK by Apple, which isn’t common.

The iTunes distribution model is attractive and the market is huge:  Apple sold 24 millioniPhones in 2009 alone.  Apple may sell over 40 million iPhones in 2010.  And the cost of distribution of a game through iTunes is better than other platforms.  Paying Apple 30% is cheaper than the costs for other consoles, and is far lower than creating your own delivery system.

The game’s value proposition is strong.  The developers set out to create a console-caliber experience on the iPhone.  The value proposition is based in equal parts on content, technology, and price.  It nails all three (like Halo did), and there are no holes:

• The content; the game itself, is one of the best.
• The technology; the iPhone, works well as the platform, using the touch screen “joy stick” for moving and turning your player, with vivid screens and audio feedback.
• The value; unbeatable (at $2.99) when compared to games on other platforms, and is in the range of competing games on the iPhone.

For the game’s back story, tactics, and related information visit the Archetype Wiki.

Application: Unfortunately, our industry has few highly successful marketing professionals and marketing organizations.  While some select credit unions do excel in this area, it’s not the norm.  Our industry’s history is with core sponsors and clearly defined (and connected) groups.  This led to our widespread strengths in service and relationships, but it also led to marketing weakness, since historically, we didn’t need much marketing.

Today, marketing plays an essential role toward numerous outcomes – to spark word-of-mouth, create a loud public “splash,” or to win over thought-leaders in your membership.  Marketing must be laser targeted on a specific market and purpose.  It is essential that everyone in your organization (including marketing) know the key “pressure points” that will make your current or upcoming product launches successful.  What are they for your organization?  It is also essential to know when and how to “blitz market” in order to build major awareness.  How strongly is that built into your competencies and plans?

TALENT

Know your strengths and weaknesses. The game’s developer, MunkyFun, is a small team of gaming industry veterans who collectively contributed to over 60 games, including the hit console game, Star Wars:  The Force Unleashed.

As a team of AAA content developers, they know their strengths:  Creating great games.  But they also know and addressed their weaknesses by outsourcing the rest. To match their developer talent, they searched out the best talent for other aspects of the project.  To do this, they went online and found the best deliverables in the categories they needed.  This included contracting with experts to make the game’s introduction movie and itswebsite.  It wasn’t cheap, but getting the best in each area added needed polish and contributed to “the last 20%”.

Application: It’s essential to know thyself, so you can play to your strengths and find others who fill your weaknesses.  Too often, credit unions take the extremes of either doing a new endeavor all in-house – where projects can take way too long and results are sub-par – or fully outsourcing the undertaking – where a vendor drives the entire offering and drastically cuts into its long-term profitability to the organization.  Find the balance by knowing your strengths.  If your organization is strong in member service and technology development, do that in-house and find key contractors to lead other aspects like marketing and user interface.

Is your organization and its leaders strongly self-aware of its strengths and weaknesses?  If so, list out a concise statement of what those strengths are:  That’s where you should be putting your energy.  Next, list out the areas that are not your strengths:  That’s where to outsource.

For example, if one weakness is online banking and your e-branch, then task several team members to scour the Internet for “best-in-class” organizations who have achieved great results in those areas.  Contact them, find out who developed their e-channel, and hire them to contribute to your web offering.  To be clear:  Don’t just find a good CU website and hire your same old CU vendor to do your job – unless you are sure they are the missing link in your development continuum.  In our experience, many of the top-tier (technology) offerings are not being created by the traditional CU providers.

AND BEYOND

Innovate around the core. Archetype’s current game is focused:  A multiplayer, first-person shooter.  They nailed their core deliverable and quickly created a name for the game.  But there’s more to come that will leverage the game into a franchise.

Players are continually asking for more and the team is egger to deliver.  Some logical extensions are new maps and downloadable content.  This builds the franchise, extends and reinforces sales and provides additional revenue streams.

The game will have legs well into the future.  As shown in Jim Collins’ findings, the best companies keep innovating around the core.  That is what’s planned for Archetype.

Application: It is essential that you keep innovating around your core.  In a member-experience model, this can mean experimenting with new ways to engage and please members.  In a technology-driven model, this can mean experimenting with new efficiencies, creating greater simplicity and self-service options.  Challenge your group to answer the question:  How can your organization or department innovate around its core?

Let’s say you’re rolling out business services.  You won’t likely nail every top tier attribute in your offering in the first phase.  Instead, find one aspect of your business offering that will make a big splash – one thing to do amazingly well.  Make the most out of that attribute – with a marketing push, member feedback, etc.  As you progress from there, find another way to make the offering stand out – another “one thing” – that relates to the core, but creates additional momentum for your product line.

The underpinnings of Archetype’s success can spark innovation in our sector.  Take a break from worrying about regs, corporate assessments and your current ROA in order to invest in your future through focus, marketing, talent management, and beyond.  We challenge you to become an archetype of effectiveness in our industry.

Check out Nice Enterprises’ podcast “Become Fishers of Success – Friday, 2/27/09” for more about the difference motivated people can make in an organization.

Unfortunately, finding motivated employees and/or developing motivated employees, often proves to be a difficult task.  According to the Gallup Organization, 74% of American employees are disengaged clock watchers.  That needs to change.  Faced with that statistic and our desire to produce successful and thriving organizations, we can’t rely on artificially “pumping up” our employees.   We must make the effort to discern where motivation comes from and how we can encourage its grow.

Discovering what motivates employees is critical because motivated employees are far more productive, better fulfilled, deliver better service quality, and contribute more significantly to their organizations.  (For background click employee engagement.)

To better understand motivation, let’s start with a quiz:  If I offered you either of two jobs that you had to do for the rest of your life, which would you choose?

1. Being an architect for $75,000 per year, or
2. Working at a toll booth for $100,000 per year

Interestingly, over half of the people posed with this question will choose architect, even though the financial incentive is lower.  That uncovers what’s been missing from conventional views about motivation…

Conventional Views

Traditionally, there have been two views.  The first view focused on basic motivations:  People are motivated by fear, primal desires, etc.  The second view, most common in businesses today, is of extrinsic motivation (incentives or “carrot and stick” motivators).  The boss links rewards to doing what he wants done and links penalties to doing what he doesn’t want done.  This ensures employees are motivated, right?.

While if-then motivators do work in many situations, there is more…

Monkeys, Puzzles, College Students, and Incentives

Consider a third view:  The power of intrinsic motivation, the innate motivation from the work itself.  In his book Drive, Daniel H. Pink compellingly argues that most companies miss the power of intrinsic motivation.

Conventional views say you shouldn’t want to do work unless you have an external reason to do it.  But studies indicate otherwise.  When puzzles are placed in the cages of lab monkeys, they solve the puzzles, in spite of there being no extrinsic reason.

The same is true of college students.  In lab studies, they choose to solve problems without an external incentive.  Equally interesting, after students are given incentives to solve a puzzle, they no longer solve subsequent puzzles unless incentives are offered again.

Understanding Intrinsic Motivation

People can be motivated by the intrinsic attributes of their work and jobs.  As leaders, there are three factors to look for that strongly contribute to work being intrinsically motivating:

1. Autonomy: People want to have control over their work.  They want to know what is theirs to do and have the freedom to determine how to do it.

2. Mastery: People want to get better at their work.  They want to overcome challenges.  They want to be better today than they were yesterday.  They want to grow and improve.

3. Purpose: People want to be part of something bigger than they are.  They want to contribute to something larger than themselves.

Being Creative

Google creatively taps intrinsic motivation:  They offer “20% time” where employees are free to invest one day per week on any project they feel is valuable.

Similarly, an Australian software company Atlassian holds a quarterly “FedEx day” where each employee can collaborate with others on any project they feel is important.  They invest the day (and often much of the night) accomplishing their project.  It’s called a FedEx day because they have to deliver something overnight: The following day, each team presents what they produced.

Risk of Extrinsics

Intrinsic motivation brings traditional tools into question.  For example, if-then incentives are helpful only for certain “algorithmic” tasks.  There are two types of tasks: algorithmic and heuristic.  Algorithmic means a logical sequence of steps or rules for solving a problem, while heuristic means a process of thinking and arriving at a solution through experience, trial and error, or creativity, rather than a set of rules.

Incentives do speed productivity in algorithmic work, but they often slow results in heuristic work.  This is because incentives make you focus in on the specific task and speed up, which is the opposite of what’s needed to prompt out-of-the-box thinking and creative problem solving.

We must take these task types into account when considering incentives.  When we want to encourage creativity and an openness to change and grow, we need to highlight and promote the intrinsic motivation of a task or position by providing employees the opportunity to achieve autonomy, mastery and a sense of purpose within that role.

Here are tips that help promote (and not derail) intrinsic motivation:

• Separate “if-then” motivators: For example, if you give your child an allowance for being part of the family, also give your child chores for being a part of the family.  Don’t give your child an allowance if he does his chores.  If you do, he will expect to get paid every time you ask him to do something.
• Catalyze creativity: Don’t offer incentives for the person who can devise the most creative marketing piece.  Do offer pizza if the team can stuff all of the mailers by 3pm.

Remember, 74% of employees are disengaged clock watchers.  You can help change that by tapping intrinsic motivation.

It probably won’t even take ten years…

Historically, IT has meant “those guys in the back room” administrating servers, networks, and applications.  They purchased hardware that ran software, which were maintained, configured and updated by IT.  System end users experienced big bursts of stress when a manual update or patch caused an outage or a new software version caused an intense learning curve.  The IT department held the ultimate control of what happened when, and as such, it was usually the most backlogged department in most organizations.

Fast forward a few years…

All you need is the onramp to your centralized applications located in the cloud.  Your interface device (PC, smart phone, etc) is a portal to the application and data which might be stored across the country at a professionally managed datacenter with massive scale, redundancy, and efficiency.  No longer is the internal IT department the key.  End users can now deploy and customize what is needed to run your business in real time.

Cloud Computing: According to an IBM study, by 2011, 25% of software will be deployed across the cloud.  Cloud computing is changing how technology is acquired, used, maintained, and updated.  Popular on-demand solutions like Salesforce and @task offer distinct advantages, and few risks.

No expensive servers, so no maintenance or replacement.  Patches, bug fixes, and updates are applied by the provider in real time, so no holding onto old software, no bulk updates or IT issues that must be managed.

The primary difference and advantage of cloud software is that anyone in an organization can deploy and maintain robust cloud applications.  Instead of the “back room” controlling when you add that new field in the database, the end user, who actually needs it, can log into the cloud system and change what he/she wants.

Their Tool, My Apps & Our Community: A provider builds a system, like Apple’s iPhone, Salesforce’s CRM or Google’s Android and Google Apps.  Third parties create applications that interface with the system.  A community emerges.

For example, Salesforce has an extensive community and hundreds of applications.  Some are truly incredible and highly practical:

• Conga Composer: Automates and outputs custom documents from fields in your Salesforce database.  We use it to convert a 45 minute process into a one-minute click stream.  (And it is very cool.)
• Youcalc or Boomi: Integrates information from Salesforce and other applications, so you can see all of your organization’s performance data and monitoring information in one spot.  Imagine one dashboard that automatically updates and contains key metrics from your core system, MCIF, CRM, NPS, project management system, etc.  In the new reality of the web and cloud computing this sort of integration can be cost-effective and time-efficient.

Try Before You Buy, & Sometimes, Don’t Buy at All: Cloud solutions enable consumers to try a product before they buy, and consumers are increasingly demanding this from all providers of electronic solutions.  Salesforce offers a free trial, considers it the company’s best sales tool, and says it’s essential to have in the “on-demand world.”  If consumers can try before they buy, they are happier and you will sell more online offerings (and sell them more efficiently).

Some companies, like Google, even give away their applications.  In this free economy consumers are using advanced applications that don’t cost them a dime.  Through advertising and other means of revenue generation, companies like Google have built empires based on giving away 95% of the products – talk about a different type of business model!

So why can’t a member try your online banking before they buy it?  There is great potential for those who can break the mold of traditional banking and really harness the technology models that are out there, can anyone say “Mint?”

Merchant Services are Easy: A small venture capital backed company, called Square, recently launched a tool that allows merchants to accept payments anywhere.

It uses a small, square input device that conects to the headphone jack on your iPhone, iPad, or Android.  The customer swipes his credit card past the reader, signs with his finger on the phone, and he is done.  He leaves with his purchase and walks away while receiving the receipt by email or text.  There is no upfront cost for the merchant or the consumer.  No hassle for anyone.

Technology is moving quickly, so quickly in fact, that by the time most CU’s get one technology service implemented for the member / customer it is already out of date.  You can see this in the world of mobile banking.  Many organizations have started to develop and implement iPhone apps (which is great), but now there is the whole new market of Android apps.  In this new technology world you have to move faster and at less cost.

The scale and speed at which technology is changing requires a completely new breed of IT.  It requires people who understand the business in which they work and who can consistently find solutions that can be tailored to its specific needs.  You need to be able to implement solutions that increase efficiency without months of implementation and without having to setup a complex infrastructure of servers, software, and networks.  These solutions must also have a focus around the end user (employee or member / customer).

Does your IT department actively find solutions that fundamentally change your business for the better?  Do you listen when they do?  Are you too caught up in protecting (or putting up with) the status quo?

Now is the time to build a different kind of IT department, one that finds and utilizes innovation and new technology.  We need to hire visionaries who can see how cloud software can be tailored to improve our businesses and propel us forward.

http://www.fastcompany.com/video/why-change-is-so-hard-self-control-is-exhaustible?partner=homepage_newsletter

The Balance Sheet Approach

Randy Komisar is Managing Director at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where decisions mean either funding the next great company (like Google) or losing millions of dollars.  In an interview with McKinsey, Komisar offers a simple balance sheet technique for making better decisions.

Compile the group of people responsible for deciding whether your organization will pursue an opportunity.  To start the meeting, say “Tell me what’s good about this opportunity.  Tell me what’s bad about it.  Do not tell me your judgment yet.  I don’t want to know.”

In this way, participants can freely explore all angles, offer contrarian views, and uncover the underlying merits of the opportunity.  Often they gain a more fully-informed perspective on the opportunity and sometimes change their opinion regarding whether or not it should be pursued.

Plan B

The data shows that for large undertakings, the initial plan, “Plan A,” often fails, so you need an approach for determining a Plan B, C, D, etc. The Plan B approach helps you make the most of a new undertaking.

As a simple example, let’s say your organization used the Balance Sheet approach to determine it will roll-out a new product.  Now comes the planning process.  You create your plans (business case, goal statement, project plan, etc.).  That is “Plan A.”

But in reality, you cannot anticipate everything.  Plan A is likely flawed and may be built on faulty assumptions.  So you need to identify how you will get to Plan B, based on data you gain from outside your organization and as you implement.  Plan B is not a “contingency” or a “scenario” plan A, but rather a way to identify the larger questions and the assumptions, which must be identified and tested to find the underlying value in the business plan.

To create your method for reaching Plan B, first “dashboard” the assumptions of your Plan A.  List the underlying assumptions for why you are pursuing the opportunity and what you perceive must be true for it to succeed.  Many of these assumptions can be validated or refuted based on secondary data from other organizations that have completed similar undertakings.  The most important ones to list are those that are leaps of faith (those for which there is no existing data).  These need to be the assumptions that are the most closely monitored.

Now, create your assumptions dashboard.  This can be as simple as an Excel sheet, with columns for “Assumptions,” “% Validated,” “What evidence validated or refuted assumption” and “Plan for moving forward if not validated.”  Use the dashboard to find Plan B by regularly testing and modifying your assumptions.  When assumptions change, you should change your plans and model.  If you cannot find a Plan B, you should scrap the project early.

Companies, such as Intuit, that have used the Plan B approach find that project owners are more effective at either scrapping projects early or delivering better results, because it is easier to see what’s working or failing in individual assumptions (rather than the project as a whole) – while there is still time to course-correct.

Three Candidates

Anne Mulcahy, Chairman of Xerox, recommends this approach to force the hard people-decisions.  Make it your organization’s policy that leaders must have three good candidates for each job.  She calls it your “people portfolio.”

It challenges hiring managers to look beyond their typical sources to find candidates.  It also provides the substance for good debates – because instead of saying, “Can Mary do the job?,” leaders debate, “Which of these candidate will best fit the role and our overall direction?”

She also says teams need the essentials of courage and listening.  The best teams have both:  The courage to passionately disagree and audacity to take unpopular stands, combined with openness to learn and really listen to others’ opinions.

Great leaders and team members have courage and listen, which leads to the right conversations, learning, and growth.  When used properly, the “Three Candidates” approach can help build this kind of effective team.

PreMortems

We’re all familiar with the valuable practice of project postmortems.  After a project fails or is brought to completion, best-practice says do a postmortem or after action report.   Identify what worked well and what you will do differently next time.  Document and share your findings so your organization will better execute on future undertakings.

Premortems, as devised by behavioral psychologist Gary Klein, are similar, except they’re done before the project begins.  In the planning phase, gather your project team (and sponsors, if appropriate) and perform a premortem.

Say, “Assume I have a crystal ball.  Looking into the future, we know this project fails.  Take two minutes and list out why it fails.”  Based on these results, you won’t likely scrap the project, but you will most likely change your plan.  Often leaders can anticipate holes that may result from key risks, organization tendencies, faulty assumptions, or anticipated future situations.  But without a premortem, often these issues go unaddressed.

Each of these expert decision-making approaches are invaluable.  Take time now to determine the settings in which your organization will use them.  For more, contact us at (303) 980-8100 ext. 202 or rich.scholes@trynice.com or ext. 102 or ron.nice@trynice.com.

Please download the assessment tool that accompanies this article.

“What is your business model?”  This is an important question that can be difficult to answer.

Every business needs a clearly defined, rigorously tested, and aligned business model – especially amid the challenging environment most organizations face today.  Taking a systematic, design approach to your business model will improve your organization and its performance.  According to Wikipedia, “A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value – economic, social, or other forms of value.”  Your business model is the “big picture” for your business, the context for making decisions, and the focus for where to improve your organization.

When diagnosing where to improve your business, business model assessment tools provide valuable data on whether your leaders have clarity on the business’ needs – and whether your leaders, managers, and employees are in agreement on where to improve the business and its current status.

When building your business, taking a design approach and using a business model blueprint enable you and your leaders to see the big picture of your organization.  They provide the framework for having the hard conversations without making them personal.

When delivering organizational improvements, a business model blueprint provides a visual for ensuring all areas are contributing to the organization’s direction, periodically assessing progress being made, and keeping everyone on the same page with the “big picture” of the business.  It helps everyone rally around where the organization is headed.

Business Model Areas

Documenting your business model involves defining the organization’s philosophy, value propositions, strategies, focuses, and measures.  In fact, a well designed business model includes strongly-aligned elements in each of the seven business model areas shown: Each area has a specific role:

• Philosophy creates purpose and enduring filters for decision making.
• Emotional Context creates the “connection” to our members/customers and employees.
• Strategy and direction provide tangible inspiration for what’s ahead, clarity on our uniqueness, and shows generally how the organization will get results.
• Alignment links the organization’s strategic direction to its delivery.
• Focus & Measures define where we’ll invest money and time and how we’ll gauge success.
• Delivery converts all of the rationale, direction, and uniqueness into results.

“Mediocre companies rarely display the relentless culture of discipline—disciplined people who engage in disciplined thought and who take disciplined action—that we find in truly great companies. A culture of discipline is not a principle of business; it is a principle of greatness.” Jim Collins

A business model blueprint is best viewed starting from the core and moving outward.  Inner areas nearer the core are deeper and more timeless, whereas outer areas are more flexible and changing:  For example, your Philosophy should stay constant over the years while your Delivery is likely to be changed (and improved) regularly.

Business Model Areas Assessment

To evaluate your business model, take the Areas Assessment survey included in tab 1 of the Excel surveying tool.  It will highlight the status of each of your business model areas.

See image of the Areas Assessment sheet below.

What areas exhibit your organization’s strengths and needs? Please list them below…

• Strengths (9s and 10s):  _________________
• Needs (7s, and 8s):  ____________________
• Major needs: (6s and below): _____________

In the final section of this article, you will compare the results from the Areas Assessment to the responses of your peers and your answers on the Complete Assessment below.

Complete Business Model Blueprint

With your areas of strength and needs identified, now gain understanding on the individual elements that comprise each business model area…

Review the complete Business Model Blueprint above for where each element fits in the overall business model.  To achieve a deeper understanding of each element and more completely assess your organization’s elements of strength and need, take the Complete Business Model Assessment included in tab 2 of the Excel surveying tool.

See partial image of the Complete Assessment sheet below.

From Assessment to Improvement

The results of these two assessments will expose key areas for learning and organizational development.  Following are several basic ways to review your scores.

1. Do You Have Clarity?

How clear are you on your organization’s strengths and weaknesses (in general and specifically)?  After reviewing your scores, answer these questions:

1. Strategic Clarity: Were your score results from the two assessments the same?  Specifically, do your Areas Assessment scores match the corresponding Complete Assessment AVERAGE row for each area?  The degree to which they match is your degree of strategic clarity.  Circle one:  Low – Medium – High
   
2. Operational Clarity: Do you know, specifically, what needs to be done and how to do it, in order to move your organization forward (i.e., to improve your organization’s assessment scores)?  Was it crystal clear which elements need improving and why?  The degree of your understanding of these issues, is your degree of operational clarity.  Circle one:  Low – Medium – High
3. Political Clarity: Are you clear on how individual departments and frontline employees would answer these questions?  (Maybe you should find out by having them take the assessment.)  Likewise, do you have a strong employee engagement survey or other tools for appraising the organization’s current culture and people alignment?  These answers and resources determine your degree of people/political clarity.  Circle one:  Low – Medium – High

2. Do You All Agree?

Do you and your fellow leaders agree on your organization’s strengths and weaknesses?

• Compare your Area and Complete Assessment scores to those of your coworkers.  How do the scores compare?  Discuss where the scores agree.  Then discuss where and why the scores vary.

3. Do You Have Outside Perspective?

Do you have outside perspective?

• Have your strategic planning consultant or a knowledgeable strategic partner fill out the Complete Business Model Assessment on your organization.  How do their scores reinforce or contrast with yours?  Why?

4. Do You Know How to Improve?

The fourth review involves creating a focused and time-oriented organizational development plan.

• What are the key areas and elements that your leadership and Board agree should be addressed?  In what order?  What will be the specific tactical plans implemented to address them?  Over what period?

Your answers to these questions are the beginning of your organizational improvement game plan for the next nine months to three years.  For more advanced reviews and to convert these results into organizational development plans, or for other guidance on improving your business model, contact us at (303) 980-8100 ext. 202 or rich.scholes@trynice.com .

There is a big difference between “doing service” and “delivering experiences”.  If members/customers are not consistently taken aback and surprised by how great your experience is, then you are simply doing service rather than delivering an experience that will set your organization apart.  This leaves you with an important decision… either change your core strategy to emphasize convenience, price, or information/marketing – or make plans to revamp your experience so it is unparalleled.

Harvard Business Review published the top 10 management trends of the past decade.  See the post for yourself.  In related commentary they surmised that while the past decade may have been “the decade of the shareholder” – what’s just begun may be “the decade of the customer.”  There are strong signs that this is true – both as a backlash to the short-term profit mongering we have seen and in response to the overemphasis placed on shareholder value.

Get ready for lots of activity (and competition) as companies focus heavily on the member/customer value proposition.  If you choose to stick with a strategy focused on delivering great member/customer experiences, you’ve got an important question to answer:  What structures and workflow will help make your member/customer experience unparalleled?

Here are practical approaches taken by other organizations:

• Learn from other leaders.  Interview several CEOs who have built organizations that are ahead of yours; ask each of them the same questions.  Learn what they emphasize as important – and share them with your Board and management team.
• Go to the customer. As CEO or another executive, move your office into the lobby of a branch, where members/customers can stop by and interact with you.  See for yourself how unparalleled (or antiquated) your member/customer experience really is.
• Measure intangibles. Establish a high priority on monitoring and measuring member/customer experiences, staff productivity, and employee learning.  Integrate reports and dashboards for these metrics into the workflow of your ongoing, monthly meetings.
• Document workflow. Visually document all of the steps in your major member experience processes.  Be sure there is a box for every process step, then time several member service representatives actually completing the entire process.  Now go back (as a process team) and cut 30% to 50% of the average time (and member/customer hassle) out of the process.

As a rule, here’s the general progression for improving your business:  strategy… structure… workflow.  Establish a clear strategy, create structure for it across the organization, and create aligned and efficient workflow to implement.  Build in that order, then implement with measures – and you will get results.

For more resources, read the post Customer Experience Is Not About Coffee or dig in to books like The Experience Economy and The Loyalty Effect.

1) Short newsflashes about best practices and new approaches from credit unions and other companies, like how Lexus stays customer focused, sent frequently

2) Short ideaflashes about interesting ideas and online resources, like how new mashups can improve technology integration, sent frequently

3) Full articles, like you’ve received in the past, that explore business topics in depth, sent periodically

4) Other media like podcasts that provide unique commentary on issues that you face, sent selectively

In this Nice Podcast, uncover the focuses, practices, and relationships that will build your leaders of tomorrow – today.

[audio:http://www.trynice.com/Newsletter/Podcast/3Podcast-121409.mp3|titles=Building Tomorrow's Leaders - Today|artists=Ron C. Nice|width=600]

• Learn what these three important strategic planning initiatives are…  and how to apply them in every credit union, regardless of size or sophistication
• Discover the actions you can take to effectively address these initiatives
• Understand the results that these initiatives will produce

[audio:http://www.trynice.com/Newsletter/Podcast/4Podcast-090209-96k.mp3|titles=Three Key Strategic Initiatives for 2010|artists=Ron C. Nice|width=600]

In this Nice Podcast, discover the simple and practical formula to create real cost savings in your organization, regardless of size.

Listen to the examples of the formula in action, all while increasing employee and member satisfaction.

[audio:http://www.trynice.com/Newsletter/Podcast/5Podcast-052409FM.mp3|titles=Building Efficiency to Save Money|artists=Ron C. Nice|width=600]

Listen to Nice’s inaugural 12 minute podcast and learn about the application of these four principles in building a $150 million credit union during these unsettling economic times.

In addition to the podcast, download the one page overview:  Nice’s Business Model of Success.pdf , which graphically highlights the flow of the success principles and the results you can achieve.

[audio:http://www.trynice.com/Newsletter/Podcast/6Podcast-022709HQ.mp3|titles=Become Fishers of Success|artists=Ron C. Nice|width=600]