Plan B Mindset

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Brazil with other credit union leaders to study the SiCredi cooperative financial system (what we in the U.S. would call a credit union or credit union system). They have a federated model much like Quebec-based Desjardins caisse popular (also a credit union system) with a centralized “home office” that can build expertise and scale, but is owned and governed by individual financial cooperatives each with their own individual governance models. In a sense it is like a super-franchise – a common brand but the “franchisees” own the entire system rather than the home office. SiCredi's president is a gracious man named Ademar Schardong who was instrumental in building the federated model in the 1980s as Brazil re-emerged from the military dictatorship that ruled the country since the 1960s. He spent a great deal of time with our study group explaining how their model works and their impressive growth trajectory in the last decade...

Now is a great time if you are a sports fan – college football bowl games having just completed (except for this BCS thing that drags on until mid-January) plus the NFL playoffs and the college basketball conference season getting rolling. Over the years, I have had the great pleasure of listening to a number of college coaches from the state of Iowa talk about their teams and their approach to coaching. With each one of them, I ask one question, “What do you do between games to prepare your team for the next game?” It is a question about how a team moves from a win or a loss in its previous game to focus on the challenge ahead. I think it is a question that goes to preparation in any endeavor – sports, business, drama or music. Nick Saban made business journal and blog headlines this past summer after a Sports Illustrated article talked about how Alabama prepared for games (click  here  for article). This was followed up with a sister publication, CNN Money , ada...

From time to time I hear great stories from others that feel like they need to find their way out to the larger world. I wanted to share a post by April Schmaltz, who is our VP, Marketing at TMG Financial Services. I thought this was a great summary of her personal lessons learned at the Inc. 500 conference, where she picked up some hardware for us as one of the fastest growing private companies in America (shameless plug #1). Also, if this is your first time to PlanBPhilosophy.com , take a moment to view past posts and subscribe via email or RSS (shameless plug #2). Jeff ------- By April Schmaltz Sometimes life is a little bit like the teacher on the childhood Charlie Brown cartoon specials.  All you hear is noise.  Noise that sounds remarkably like “Wanh, wanh, wanh,wuh-wahn, wahn” especially if it doesn’t help you cross a task off your to-do list. But what if you take a moment to listen?  What do you hear?  What do you learn? I have pr...

I have had the great pleasure of spending some time with credit unions outside of the United States in the past few months. First, I was honored to speak at the World Credit Union Conference in Gdansk, Poland. I met many amazing leaders of credit unions throughout the world. This past week I spent time talking with three different groups of Irish credit unions about their challenges to gain scale and their hope to look to collaboration through credit union service organizations (CUSOs) to build a better future. Through these conversations I have met many great, dedicated people. However, I have noticed a trend that I think is not unique to credit unions. That trend is that people can often be sorted into those that are satisfied with the status quo and those that intolerant of that same status quo. This seems like a dramatic observation. To be clear, it is not like making a distinction between Nelson Mandela and those that protected apartheid in South Africa. While there ar...

I have been an admirer of Apple. Not a fanboy, but an admirer of their simplicity, design and consumer focus. So I read the Steve Jobs biography. I am not a big fan of those that quote Jobs incessantly, but I found the last bit of Isaccson's book riveting - when Jobs spoke in his own words. Many of you have read it. Some of you haven't gotten to the end. I have re-read this part about five times in the last few weeks. I thought I would share it. Jeff ----- My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products. Everything else was secondary. Sure, it was great to make a profit, because that was what allowed you to make great products. But the products, not the profits, were the motivation. Sculley flipped these priorities to where the goal was to make money. It’s a subtle difference, but it ends up meaning everything: the people you hire, who gets promoted, what you discuss in meetings. Some people say, “Give the cu...

With my absence in writing for a couple of months, you could believe that I haven’t been thinking much about the ideas that I write about here at Plan B Philosophy. In reality, there is nothing further from the truth. I have so many ideas for blog posts that sometimes I don’t know where to start. But a few events during the past month have spurred me on to write. The event I want to focus on is multi-billion dollar trading loss by JP Morgan Chase and subject of risk. This loss happened as a result of a highly complicated trading scheme that had JP Morgan trying to mitigate risk in their portfolio by taking a bet on the European economy. The media was *shocked* by this event. It was seriously reported for about a week and JP Morgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon, testified in front of Congress. With an upcoming election and the political implications of the Volker Rule, we will probably hear about this for some time to come. Putting aside the actual issue, the media reaction amaze...

On February 15 the world lost a great man. Warren Morrow, my friend and co-worker, unexpectedly passed away of heart failure. He was 34. And he left an incredible legacy. Warren accomplished so much in his short life. He was the CEO of Coopera, a company devoted to helping credit unions reach the Hispanic marketplace. Out of college he co-founded the Latino Leadership Project that helped Latino high school students strive for and reach higher education. Beyond his roles or titles, he was a tireless champion of the double bottom line – doing well by doing good. His funeral lasted more than two hours, as there was a chance for people to come forward and talk about the impact Warren had on each of them and their life. It was an amazing experience for me to witness. Person after person came forward to talk about how his positive attitude, his encouragement and his persistence impacted their life. Certainly Warren impacted my life in many ways. I became a board member of Coop...