3 ways to avoid the credit union strategic planning slump

A few federal holidays here and there. Team member vacations need to be covered in the branch. Your own vacation if you’re lucky. Not to mention you’re stuck in that weird limbo between your last credit union strategic planning event being so many months ago, and you’re next one too far away. What’s the sense in even worrying about it at this point?

Just do it. There’s nothing worse than showing up to Q4 with not a lot to show from Q3.

I personally find the summer months some of the most meaningful when it comes to strategic planning for my businesses. If we’ve worked our plan in Q1 and Q2, Q3 is indeed that weird limbo place of leadership, but it certainly can be impactful. It’s that last leg of the marathon to tie up loose ends from our last strategic plan. Give it a good postmortem to see where we succeeded and if there are areas in which we didn’t. It’s also a place to start thinking ahead to the next year, and what necessary conversations we need to be having when we get together again for the next strategic planning process.

In short, the summer months are a good time for me to focus on what’s important and not necessarily urgent. Knowing I’m not alone in these struggles over the summer, I spent some time reflecting on what has made these summer months successful for me, to share with credit union leaders who struggle during this point in the year. Here are 3 ways to turn the summer doldrums into success:

 

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