One of the biggest challenges in transforming your credit union is finding ways to motivate the people who power the business to buy into the process. Without that motivation, change may never occur. Steve Jobs famously said: “If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.” A vision is the key to motivating your employees to digitally transform. What is a clear vision? A vision is a view of the future that communicates what your credit union aspires to be. One of the key differentiators of a powerful vision is that the vision is clear. It should illustrate what your credit union is striving to be and it should be easy to communicate. If you want it to become a vision that your employees understand and accept, it must have broad appeal. The most effective visions are the ones that are easy to communicate and share. An effective vision is imaginable. Your team must be able to imagine it and see it in their minds. It must be desirable and appeal to long-term employee and stakeholder interest. When you develop and present a vision, you need to explain why it is desirable. To some extent, the new vision may not be widely desirable because it involves some change. If employees are resistant to change, they will try to avoid it and ignore the vision. That resistance makes it even more essential to show why the new vision is necessary and why it will appeal to their long-term interests. Creating a vision that works An effective vision must be feasible. People want to believe that the vision can actually be achieved: It must be realistic and it must be attainable. At the same time, it should be focused and clear enough to provide guidance. The best visions are also flexible because they must be sufficient to allow individual initiatives and alternative responses. This is particularly true for the digital transformation process where change is going to be needed in an evolutionary sense over time. Any vision should easily be summarized in a few minutes. If it can’t be communicated in a simple, easy way, it’s not going to be easy and simple for your employees to understand, share and push throughout the credit union. Share the vision Most importantly, the vision statement can’t be hidden in employee folders or on your site. It needs to be prominent everywhere: on your website, in communal places, in meetings, discussed in speeches. It’s imperative that the vision is shared widely and effectively as soon as it has been approved. Human beings do not like uncertainty. To resolve it, we’ll create our own vision of the future. That makes it extremely important that any change and the vision for the future as a result of the change are unveiled simultaneously. Everyone should see the destination of the vision clearly, and the path that will take them there. Making sure of this will resolve much of the uncertainty the change process creates, enabling the buy-in that’s necessary for positive, successful change. Join us September 28 for the webinar "Digital Transformation - Grow your Capacity for Change." During this webinar, Bud Caddell, NOBL Founder, and Uwe Hook, Digital Transformation Consultant, will share with the audience an inside look at the opportunities and threats facing credit unions today, as well as first steps you can take to grow your capacity for change. Each webinar participant will receive a free download of the Credit Union Change Management Research Report. Register now.