Empathy in Action: Shifting the Center of the Credit Union Business Model

In today’s “new normal,” what should credit unions be doing differently?

Gigi Hyland, Executive Director of the National Credit Union Foundation, joins us to share stories about putting empathy into action, explain how new member habits are changing the credit union business model, and what she would do if she was chartering a new credit union today.

Key takeaways

1. New habits are forming. Will members ever go back to old behaviors around cash, fees, and in-person engagement? Do we want them to? And what does this mean for access and inclusion?
2. Put empathy into action: Step back and really get to know our members today. What are their individual stories and dreams, and how do we use that to guide our strategy? How do we move from serving members to saving members?
3. Make the financial wellness of your members the center of your business model. If we were chartering this credit union from scratch today, what would we do?

Read the full transcription:

Cameron:
Hello and welcome to another episode of The Remarkable Credit Union Podcast. We created our podcast to help credit union leaders think outside of the box about marketing, technology, and community impact. Each episode we bring on expert guests from inside and outside of the industry for conversations about innovation. Our goal is to challenge your preconceptions about business as usual and provide you with actual take aways that you can use to grow your membership, improve the financial health of your cooperative, and magnify the positive impact in your community.

Cameron:
Today’s big question, what is the role of empathy for the credit union movement in the new normal that is 2020. Today I’m very excited to welcome GiGi Hyland. A woman who needs no introduction, but it is my job to give her one, so I will do it nonetheless. Gigi, who I’m sure many of you know, is the Executive Director of the National Credit Union Foundation. She is a past board member of the NCUA from 2005 to 2012. Other past positions included being SVP and General Counsel for Empire Corporate Federal Credit Union, working at CUNA, and being a partner at a family law firm. Gigi also shared that among her many personal passions including anything outside, including a “rabid birder.” I’ve never met a rabid birder before, we will be hearing more about that. And that she loves to cook. Gigi, thanks for joining us today.

Gigi:
Thank you Cameron. It’s so great to be here. I appreciate the invitation to join you today.

Cameron:
Well I can’t really imagine anyone better to talk about this specific topic, so I was delighted. I guess those in the audience who don’t know this, we were really proud to redesign the foundation’s website. But I told Gigi when I reached out that you have been on my list of podcast guests since 2016. So I thought why not now? Let’s make it happen. I’d love to start just by talking about what the foundation does in normal times, especially I love the three pillars that you guys talk about that kind of underly how you approach engaging with the Credit Union system and its members.

Gigi:
Sure. So first of all, thank you to you and your amazing team for helping me design our website. Your work with us on that is really helping to make those three pillars shine even more brightly. So I appreciate that work. When I got to the foundation almost seven years ago we really looked at the foundation from a perspective of is this an organization that should continue to exist. No one really knew about it, it had done a variety of different things over the years. The board and team really weren’t sure what the direction was. So we spent a lot of time digging deep into where could we add value, what wasn’t being done in the system, what where are and what are our super powers, what does that look like.

Gigi:
So we have landed on this idea of ignite, inspire, and respond; these three pillars. The ignite pillar is really all about helping Credit Union’s focus on their members’ financial wellbeing and health, and their employees financial wellbeing and health. The inspire pillar is all about why should you care that you work for a Credit Union, what do the cooperative values and principles mean, how do you use them particularly in 2020 and beyond. And then the respond pillar is our CU Aid. Everybody I think recognizes that name, but a way to harness the collective generosity of the Credit Union system to help our Credit Union people get back on their feet when disaster hits. Whether that’s a tornado or a wildfire or a hurricane. So we’re honored to work in those three areas. They’re areas of work that really no one else is in and we’re proud that we can add value, I think to Credit Unions in those three areas.

Cameron:
I think it’s a really wonderful way to break down what you guys do in normal times. Of course we are not in normal times. So I’d love to know, I guess your three pillars and then your mission and vision, which I have detailed notes here of the mission is to serve as a catalyst to improve people’s financial lives through Credit Unions. And your vision is to make financial freedom achievable through Credit Unions. So powerful and inspiring mission and vision and we’re in an era obviously where so much is up in the air and it seems like we’re going to have a number of trends working against people’s improving their financial lives and achieving financial freedom. So how do you see that changing and how do you see the Credit Union movement as a whole changing right now?

Gigi:
Yeah, I think what’s interesting is our mission and vision is probably stronger and more important now than it has evert been. We certainly have no intention of changing it. It really is a time when Credit Unions can step back in this crazy time that we’re in and really look deep around their why. Why do we exist and why are we here? And I think most Credit Unions have the answer to that, and it’s to serve members and to do that in a way that is inclusive and provides access to allow people to have the tools they need to improve their financial wellbeing. So our mission and vision in my mind really is even more kind of in the spotlight right now than they’ve ever been and in particular the two areas of work that we do around financial wellbeing and that catalyst activity, but also what we do around cooperative values. So our signature development education program and our exploring why workshops and then the new training that Chad Helminak has put together around empathy. All of those are probably more critical now than they ever have been. So we’re staying true to our north star and to that mission and that vision and really doubling down on the first two pillars of our work because I think that’s what Credit Unions really can benefit from.

Gigi:
In terms of the Credit Union movement as a whole, again, this is really an opportunity for Credit Unions to step back and to really look at the business model. I know Cameron, you do a lot of reading, you look at a lot of different sources. It’s very clear that people are doing business differently these days. Many more people are using their debit cards than they ever have before versus cash. People are driving, which means that auto loans are going to go down. People are not necessarily using their credit card and doing a lot of shopping, so interchange goes down for Credit Unions. A lot of credit unions have been waiving fees in this area, whether it was non-sufficient fees or other fees associated with products and services. I’m wondering if it’s easy to go back to that once you’ve waived all of those fees for a long period of time, and is it the right thing to go back to that.

Gigi:
Is that really the right source of income for Credit Unions? And I know that can be somewhat controversial for Credit Unions. Particularly what I’m referring to is NSF fees. But how do we think about people’s financial wellbeing in this new age and how do we think about Credit Unions being at the top of a consumer’s wallet around anything that they do digitally and what does that mean, what does that look like, and how do you build engagement and drive financial wellbeing through your iPhone and through a variety of different technological advancements, whether they be nudges or whether they be other ways to think about how you engage with members to really have members feel that the credit union continues to be a very trusted partner that they can turn to in those micromoments of their financial lives and not just the big moments of college education and car and buying a house and retiring.

Cameron:
I love what you said about the mission and vision being more true than ever. I’ve seen this in a lot of groups I’m involved in, including some non-profits where I think maybe the mission and vision had gotten a little bit taken for granted and I see people just saying oh yeah, that’s right, this is why we show up. And how powerful an opportunity this is for all of us to kind of create new legends built on top of our north star, our mission and vision that we’re moving towards. I really appreciate your comments as well about the, I think in essence, the new habit formation that’s happening right now. If we get used to doing everything through remotely or if we get used to using our debit card instead of cash, how do those habits change back, should they change back. And then I think lastly, shout out to access and inclusion because I think one of the phrases that I’ve been thinking about a lot was I saw a presentation where someone said “Well, all Credit Unions have to be digital first now.” And I remember just thinking yeah, but we need to make sure that digital first doesn’t mean that the least advantaged members come last. Because at the heart of the Credit Union movement is serving all of the members, not just those with the best technology.

Cameron:
So I appreciate you sharing all of that. I’d sort of like to build on that by asking what can Credit Unions do to reach and serve those who are being disproportionately effected by the pandemic and I guess can you share any specific success stories? Because sometimes I think this feels a little overwhelming and abstract.

Gigi:
Sure. It is, and I think what the danger zone of a pandemic is that because we are all required to stay at home and in place we’re all experiencing the pandemic very differently. That shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody. Again, you and I were talking before we started the recording, that we both feel very fortunate that we live in places that have green grass and a backyard and we’re able to get out of our house literally and just be outside in nature without necessarily going anywhere. There are so many people that don’t have that simple release valve that we have. I think in addition to that you certainly have many more dire statistics around folks that don’t have any choice but to go to work. And disproportionately that is effecting the black and brown populations of our nation. So they don’t have any choice to go to work. They either don’t go to work and lose their job and therefore lose the stream of income that they need to survive or they don’t have any choice because if they don’t go to their job because they’re concerned about their safety, someone else is just going to be there to replace them. So you have to hold onto that job. So they’re essentially putting themselves, their families, their loved ones, their neighbors potentially at risk because they have to go and be exposed.

Gigi:
That also includes healthcare workers, it includes first responders, it includes all those folks that we talk about. But I think there’s clearly a disproportionate effect on black and brown households in our country and I think what’s important for Credit Unions is to really step back and understand who are my members today, not who were my members when we chartered the Credit Union. Who are my members today? If I was a Credit Union that originally represented a production plant in southwest Virginia and now that production plant has closed and I’ve become a community Credit Union, what change has that been necessitated or necessitates now to make sure that I am serving everyone within my field of membership as much as I can. What does that look like to serve my community? Who is my community? What do they need? How are they coming at their finances differently than I may be? I’m not trying to be a Debbie downer here, but we really have to step back and this is really meant to be an opportunity of how do we really think about the opportunity of how people think about their money differently and do things differently with their money and get them where they are in life. That’s the amazing opportunity for Credit Unions right now in the face of really, what’s a hard time for people. To really step back to look to see what can you do.

Gigi:
In terms of specific success stories, Cameron I thought about this and I don’t know where to begin. You’ve talked to my wonderful friend, Jim Moral over at Peninsula Credit Union. He’s a great example of putting empathy first and really doing what I just said. Who are our members, what do they need, where do we have to be to meet them where they are in life? Maria Martinez down at Border Federal Credit Union, one of our Wegner awardees, she was telling me a story or we were on a conference call and she was telling me a story about a lot of her members are older members who are Hispanic who are used to coming into the Credit Union and that is their social time to meet with the teller that they love and cherish and who they trust with their money. And they don’t have that anymore. And how do you pivot on that to make that part of your membership still comfortable? Do you go and socially distance, find a way to go to their home and do the transactions they need or what do you do to make sure? I know that was on her mind.

Gigi:
Just the statistics alone that we’re receiving nationally that CUNA certainly has been collecting. Almost 90% of Credit Unions doing loan deferments, 85% of Credit Unions doing new products that are trying to help people have a cash flow or improve the cash flow, deferring fees, waiving fees, helping their employees with child care and a variety of other things, money for food if for some reason that’s an issue. And that is an issue for a lot of people. So there is such an amazing wealth of beautiful examples out their of Credit Unions just saying this is our DNA and this is what we do and really stepping up to the plate to serve, which is great. If there was a ray of sunshine in all of this, we should celebrate that and we need to celebrate that.

Cameron:
I agree. There’s so many good stories. A couple others I heard were [inaudible 00:12:55] at NextMark Credit Unions, a DE as well as a long history of being involved in volunteer work delivering meals to those who need them. So they’ve been organizing efforts to deliver to first responders and folks who don’t have access to food right now. I love seeing her posts about that. And then another one, which is anonymous. This is maybe the problem with telling stories in the Credit Union space. This is a CEO who told me that they canceled their street fair, in effect, near one of their branches because of course it’s not happening right now. And they basically took the funds that they had set aside for that and they gave it to their three most needy member businesses. The story about one of the owners kind of tears going down his face and talking about how many people this meant he could keep on staff and the other two saying that they felt like it gave them the chance to be able to reopen.

Cameron:
I remember just thinking just how proud I was of that story because that is not what the mega banks are sitting around thinking. Like how do we redeploy our marketing budget that we can’t spend right now to give back to our customers? So I just thought that was a really amazing story.

Gigi:
Yeah. There are stories of going from serving members to saving members in a way. And I don’t mean to be too extreme when I say that, but in many cases that is the case. A small cash infusion, a small deferral of payment, that allows people to just try to breath in this time which is really hard economically. And again, stories to celebrate.

Cameron:
I agree. I guess I thought of this more in a business context, but kind of the notion that something my dad taught me, which was that he always said in business you don’t really learn much about someone until something goes wrong. And I think in a sense, the whole system- Not the Credit Union system.- but the whole world has kind of gone wrong. I don’t think any of us expected 2020 to go this way and it’s one of those moments of truth, moments of magic, where I think Credit Unions as a whole can really step forward and show their character. All right, I’m going to jump to… You touched on this and it’s just such a cool thing that you guys are doing. The foundation has always talked a lot about empathy, but it seems like recently you’ve done a lot of work putting empathy into action. I know you’ve been releasing some trainings, and as you said, our friend Chad is leading that. So I’d love to know what exactly does that mean as we sort of embark onto the second chapter of the pandemic, as we have this likely kind of staged reopening, potentially with some whiplash as things maybe have to shut down to some extent? How should Credit Unions be exercising and training their empathy muscles?

Gigi:
Right. So first thing I would say is I would urge Credit Unions to go to CUNA’s e-school site and to look for the empathy training. It’s free. There are four different sessions. Chad did an amazing job kind of breaking it down for folks and helping folks understand what empathy is. Empathy, as you know Cameron, is just very different from sympathy. It’s not me looking at you sand saying “I’m so sorry about that. I’m sorry you’re going through that.” Because that’s more sympathy. That’s from my perspective. That’s how I feel. I’m sorry for you. Empathy is the old adage of walking in another’s shoes. Empathy is putting yourself in their place and trying to really understand what people are seeing, feeling, hearing, saying, doing in a particular situation. Really trying to get- Not in their head.- but in a way, really in their skin. Even more visceral, but in their skin around what could this be like. So there are several examples in this particular pandemic.

Gigi:
We just gave an example of them. For you and me, we have the pleasure and the joy of being able to look outside at nature and get some respite from nature from this pandemic when we’re cooped up in the house. For those that live maybe in New York City or a place where they’re in a concrete jungle, how do they do that? Do they have that ability? Just that small perspective is a hugely different way.

Gigi:
We have one of my wonderful team members, Jenni Speth, her husband is actually a nurse and he has to go in and he has to go into the hospital and he’s treating people with COVID and people not with COVID. They have three kids at home. That lens of oh my gosh, how do I keep my family safe, from his perspective. From her perspective the same thing, how do we keep our family safe and make sure that you can go do your work and your passion, but also protect our family at the same time. So that balance, that really hard balance of what he’s doing as a medical first responder. Again, a whole different lens. So how do Credit Unions think about… Empathy is great.

Gigi:
So understanding where the members are in life. Once you do that, that’s not enough because what you need to do is you now need to take it into action, and that become compassion. So it’s the compassion for where I am in my life and how can I as a Credit Union, use what I do best, what I know, what my expertise is, to help you as much as I can compassionately around where you need to go financially? We always say that everything is connected in life. So when people are not well financially oftentimes there are a variety of other issues that are happening in their life. Whether it’s food insecurity or they’re not in safe housing or they have difficulty getting affordable transportation to get to and from a better job. All of those things that are linked together.

Gigi:
I think Credit Unions, again, this is the opportunity for Credit Unions to step back and say how do we know who our members are, how do we really understand their paint points, and why they make financial decisions the way they make them, and then help them. Help find courses of action and products and services or coaching that can get them to whatever their dream is. And whatever noble dream it is, it might be I need a car because now that I’ve been furloughed I need to start a gig job delivering whatever. Delivering flowers or setting up a bakery, whatever it might be. But helping members really get to that place. But starting with empathy and translating that into compassion, which means action.

Cameron:
I love that; compassion means action. I think it was the Dalai Lama who said that if you see someone trapped under a rock the goal is not to say oh my gosh, that must be so difficult, I feel your pain. The goal is to move the boulder, move the rock. I thought that captured what I think that lack of moving towards action is often sort of the missing step. I think one of the hardest thing… And we wrote a little bit about this several weeks or a month ago. That we’re not all in this together, we’re all in this separately. That there are hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of separate pandemics happening. There are so many different ways that people are experiencing it. And one of the biggest challenges that I see is that we’ve removed that face to face connection. So that, at least in my experience, is one of the most powerful ways to create that kind of empathic connection with someone. Do you have any thoughts on the current environment, how do flex those muscles?

Gigi:
Right. Yeah. It was interesting just anecdotally as Chad was doing his E-Schools. The platform we were using, Adobe Connect, allows for people to chat. As he asked the audience, I think it was in the second E-School, “What’s happening now and what are you feeling about it?” Kind of what are you missing as part of the pandemic. So many people answered along the lines, as you just said, which I miss being able to give people hugs. Whether it’s my family, whether it’s my colleagues, whether it’s just my neighbors. That human need for touch and for contact and for empathy is missed so much by so many people. And I think as we think about what I’m calling the flat screen that we’re living in right now… And I don’t mean a TV obviously, I mean the computer. The flat screen world that we’re living in right now, it’s more important than ever to find ways to connect.

Gigi:
So there’s several, and these are somewhat old fashioned ideas. But when was the last time you wrote a postcard or a letter to a friend? Hand wrote a letter or a postcard to a friend? The post office is still working and stamps still work. So is there a way to connect? Because I look at my mother in law, who is living with us right now because she was in a retirement facility that locked down. We got her out of there before they locked it down so she could have a little bit more freedom and kind of be able to move around our house. But she lives and breathes for the mail. The mail is her excitement and her joy of the day because it comes to her, it makes her feel special because something is coming to her. And even if it’s just bills or notifications, it’s still something that is her own. So think about that in the context of other people.

Gigi:
I’m not saying that everybody has to go out and get some cards and write them. But one way to connect is to just sit down and write a letter to somebody who you haven’t talked to in a long time. A dear friend, a colleague who you haven’t seen. Take the time to write it out and to think about that. And then mail it. Receiving that is just one gift, but so much more personal and really connects more so than anything else.

Gigi:
Aside from that or in addition to that, leverage technology. Whether it’s Zoom, whether it’s Go ToMeeting, whether it’s Teams, certainly in the workplace if you’ve got to talk to colleagues, don’t send them an e-mail. Pick up the phone and talk to them, hear their voice, let them hear your voice, be awkward, be vulnerable, let them hear what you’re going through. I think many of us it’s hard to give ourselves grace in this moment, which is so different. It’s so hard to say to ourselves, this is not what I used to know and it’s okay to really feel weird, to feel tired, to feel exhausted, to feel unsure and uncertain.

Gigi:
But what’s most important and what drives empathy and what drives compassion and what drives movement is sharing that, honestly. And it’s awkward because there are a lot of us, and I will include myself Cameron. I’m one of those people who I’ve had to be strong in my life a lot for other people, so that’s just my nature and I don’t really share in my team. My family will say you will never see her cry. And then something comes on the radio, some piece of music and she’s bawling in the car. It’s like what happened? Where did that come from? So it’s allowing ourselves to have grace, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, and to connect with people in whatever way you can. I know I’m doing some baking and I’m sending it to people. Hopefully they’re okay with that. I’m just kind of assuming that they’re going to love a homemade baked good for friends and family. It’s things like that, what can you do to connect as much as you can. So there’s a tapping into creativity there to break down the flat screen of our lives right now and to emotionally connect with people because that’s what will sustain us and that’s what will get us through this.

Cameron:
Well said. One other idea that I heard from my friend Doug Robinson at the Vermont Federal Credit Union, he said they basically tried to call every single member. He was exhausted when I saw him, but I think really proud of the effort. But I just thought wow, what a great way to… If you’re shutting branches down or curtailing them in some way, to really have your whole team create that kind of personal connection at a time when people really need it. I need to go write more cards. I like that idea. I’m going to go work on that.

Gigi:
Yeah. There’s also… Similar to the old adage you gave, people will not remember what you told them, but they’ll always remember how you make them feel. So it’s that sense of how do we feel like we are in this together in a way that you have my back and I have your back, even though I know you’re dealing with it differently than I am. But I’m here for you. It’s that sense of it. I think that story that you just told, that Doug and his team did is a great example of that.

Cameron:
Well, and I guess it just got me thinking Gigi, that I think I’ve also had some concerns about the we’re all in this together messaging. Because I think we’re all in this separately for the most part. But I think my biggest issue with that is when it’s broadcast as a one to many message. Because I think you’re right. You can say we are in this together if you’re willing to reach out to me one to one. But sort of as a tag line or something you put in an e-mail it feels a little disingenuous because I think until you’ve connected with someone, you can’t honestly be together with them.

Cameron:
Okay, so an idea that we’ve been playing around with here at PixelSpoke is this idea that the Credit Union system, the Credit Union movement is inherently ethical. The business model of being a member owned cooperative just means that on the whole there are definitely a few examples I’ve come across, but on the whole it’s a system that just sort of naturally is oriented towards ethical behavior. But that it is not naturally oriented towards inclusive technology because most of the technology is not owned or built by the Credit Unions. It’s usually built by third party vendors. We’ve been thinking about this a lot. Kind of what does a digital branch that is truly inclusive of all types of people; age, race, gender, physical ability, primary language, urban, rural, on and on and on. What does that look like? What does a truly inclusive digital branch look like? So I’m curious as we reach out to, as you said, what does our membership truly look like today? There are always pockets of underserved populations in the membership and often it’s the majority. What are some of the challenges inherent in relying more on digital channels to communicate with members that you all are seeing?

Gigi:
I think the first, and I hate to say it’s the obvious one, but not everybody has access to digital. So not everybody… Everybody probably has a smart phone. The vast majority of people have a smart phone. But do they have the money to pay for internet access right now? Do they have to rely on the public library to go and access the internet to get to their account? If you live in rural America, that access to broadband is minimal at best. So how do we think about the most common things that people need to actually get into a digital age, whether it be a smart phone, whether it be internet access, what are all those basics that people need and how can we ensure that people have them across the board?

Gigi:
I think of an example that’s not related to Credit Union, it’s related to another cooperative, CoBank out of Minnesota that did a really interesting rural telemedicine project a couple of years ago in rural Georgia to help mostly African American women combat Type 2 Diabetes. One of the barriers, you might have guessed, is these were rural communities and they had no access to internet and they didn’t have computers. So part of the funding was to provide them internet access and an iPad to be able to talk with their doctors, to e-mail their doctors, to look at resources online on how to manage their Type 2 Diabetes, how to make the right food decisions, how to exercise. It was a very successful project ultimately. A very small project, but a very successful project. Back to empathy, that was what are the pain points and what are the hurdles that prevent people from moving along the course of their financial lives? What are those? How do we understand those, again, fully empathetically and then compassionately, what do we do about that? What do we do to make sure that we can empower people to be in the digital age?

Gigi:
[inaudible 00:27:57] is doing some amazing work around certainly the Latinx, Hispanic/Latinx population around trying to help Credit Unions break down the cultural issues that many Hispanics have. Either a lack of trust with institutions, including Credit Unions, not having a cultural fit, not looking like the person who’s trying to come into a Credit Union. So again, from a Credit Unions perspective, are we as a Credit Union representative in our tellers and our front line staff of our community looks like, so that there’s a comfort level of even engaging in person, but also engaging digitally? Is what I’m seeing in the website and the reach out digitally aligned with the culture that I’m used to and the way things need to be phrased so that I feel comfortable doing transactions and having my money here and working with a Credit Union on my financial wellbeing. So there’s so many levels and layers to this that, again, I keep saying it, that Credit Unions really need to step back and look with fresh eyes. If we were chartering our Credit Union today, not our history, but if we were chartering it today, what would we do? How would we start? How would we build from the ground up? What does that look like?

Gigi:
And one anecdotal story, and I’m very fortunate to have David Birky, who is with Interra Credit Union in Indiana, and Chad and I went out and visited Interra earlier this year and did an exploring why session. Amy Sink, the CEO was telling us a great story about one of her members. She goes out and she goes to all the branches and just stands and greets members and just sees how things are going and helps out. She was in one branch one day and some lady member walked in, coming in with a variety of checks, and cashed those checks and walked out the door with the cash. And then 15 minutes later she came back and did the same thing. And then 15 minutes later she came back and did the same thing. And Amy came up to her and said “What can I help you with?” Or “Why do you have to keep coming back and forth to do the transactions?” This lady was a small business owner of a tienda in the town of Ocean and she was essentially serving as a check casher for many of the folks in her community who did not feel comfortable coming into the Credit Union to cash checks.

Gigi:
So Amy… Amy is a great, energetic leader, was like this can’t be happening in my community. What do we do? How do we do that? But for Amy that was a oh my gosh, this is how one of our members is doing business when there are so many better ways to do this and to serve this community. So it’s that empathy. It’s that walking in the shoes of another to truly understand the barriers. And that’s the opportunity for Credit Unions in the digital landscape too. What would prevent people from using a particular digital resource right now? What are those barriers and how do we break those barriers down, across ethnicities, across gender, across different generations, across income levels?

Cameron:
I agree. I think it’s one of the most exciting opportunities right now, is to not have the technology just be something that’s outsourced to other folks, but to really kind of listen and observe as you said, build empathy and really hold the technology to the same standard of the cooperative principles and the Credit Union mission instead of just kind of outsourcing it. I think I see this in particular with… It can certainly be with websites. We work hard at that, but I think that’s always a risk. But also with a lot of the third party tools like online banking and application forms and I think it’s a very compelling opportunity. All right, so this is the problem I have. I have all these questions that I want to ask you and we’re running out of time. So I’m going to take care of my curiosity and I’m going to ask you some more fun questions. This is what we like to call our rapid fire questions. So I now know that you are, it sounds like, an accomplished cook. So I’d love to know what is your favorite meal?

Gigi:
Let’s see. That’s really hard because I love to cook a lot of things. So I would say my favorite meal would start with a sweet pea flan with wild mushrooms and lemon rind. That would be the appetizer. And then I would do a salmon wellington after that. And then I would make just a beautiful, classic chocolate mousse au chocolate for dessert. Lots of bubbly and a really good pinot noire for the salmon.

Cameron:
Oh my. All right. So it’s not like boxed mac and cheese. [inaudible 00:32:12] that’s where we were going.

Gigi:
Oh no.

Cameron:
Aiming a lot higher. A lot higher. I like it. What is your favorite word?

Gigi:
I love the word creamery.

Cameron:
Creamery.

Gigi:
Creamery. It just sounds exactly like cream tastes, which is luscious and thick and I love the word creamery. I just find that to be a beautiful word.

Cameron:
Well chosen. You’ve actually had several careers, but I’d love to know if you had a different career path, what do you think you would be doing today?

Gigi:
I would probably be a national park ranger.

Cameron:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Sounds like [crosstalk 00:32:50].

Gigi:
National park ranger or an oceanographer probably.

Cameron:
All right. And lastly, I’d love to know, what is the best life advice you’ve ever received?

Gigi:
Very simple. So a couple different words: breathe, just breathe. So the physiology of taking a deep breath to reset. That is one piece of life advice. The second is to be kind. Kindness costs nothing of us and it does so much good in the world. It’s hard to do sometimes because you’re pissed off or you’re angry or you don’t understand or you’re not empathetic, but breathing opens up the path, and then being kind.

Cameron:
Love it. Breathing opens up the path and being kind maybe lets you walk down it or something. All right, excellent. We’ll turn this into a book of Gigi sayings. So let’s do our final take. I’d just love to know is there anything that you didn’t get to that you’d like to share with our audience or anything you want to reiterate?

Gigi:
Well, you didn’t ask me the question of if you could wave a wand and change one thing about Credit Unions what would it be, and I was so excited because I was then about to go to one of my favorite Disney songs, which as you might guess is Salagadoola mechicka boola Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo. So one of my favorite songs. Of course I can’t sing either so I completely embarrassed myself. Awkward. Awkward moment. What’s one thing I would change about Credit Unions? I’m just going to answer that one. Make financial wellbeing of your members and your employees the center of your strategy. That is where you start. That is your why. That is your path forward. That is your opportunity.

Cameron:
I love it. And you sang for us too. What a perfect way to end it. All right. Four years in the making. Thank you so much for joining and thanks for all the good work that you’re doing.

Gigi:
Thank you Cameron. Really appreciate it. You too. Thanks again.

Cameron:
All right. Thanks for joining again today. I really enjoyed the conversation with Gigi. Quick share of a few of my key takeaways. The first one was just going back to that point that new habits are forming right now. Research shows that it’s between 7 and 27 repetitions before a habit forms and this current situation is causing people to develop new behaviors around cash. They’re getting used to not paying fees, changes in in person engagement. So think about, will members ever go back to those old behaviors, do we want them to, and what does that mean especially from an access and inclusion standpoint?

Cameron:
I loved Gigi’s question about how do Credit Unions stay top of wallet around everything that members are doing digitally. We’ve been thinking a lot here at PixelSpoke about how Credit Unions are emphatically not Fantex, so the real opportunity is in a human plus digital experience. So how do we build that competency with video and other mediums so that there still is a person behind it all instead of just an AI bot. But we get better at using the digital side as well.

Cameron:
I loved Gigi’s framing about how do we put empathy into action. Basically that sympathy is kind of understanding how feeling bad that someone is suffering, but empathy is walking in their shoes. And then compassion is actually taking action to alleviate their pain. So I love the framing of how do we step back and really get to know our members today and not just superficially from a demographic standpoint, but learn individual stories, figure out what their dreams look like today, how they’ve changed. And how do we use that to guide our strategy and product and other changes like that?

Cameron:
I also loved Gigi’s framing about how do we move from serving members to saving members. I think it’s especially helpful to have a more elevated framing, that it’s not just about service. That many of our members are really really struggling. So how do we help them to move forward?

Cameron:
I like the ideas around opportunities for empathy and action. Hand writing letters, I think that’s something I’m going to start doing more of. Shared the story about Vermont Federal doing phone calls proactively out to every member.

Cameron:
And then Gigi’s focus on leveraging technology for communication and being open and honest about our own struggles and suffering. Creating that human connection even if it is through a flat screen. And then just a reminder that I think what’s powerful about all these techniques is messaging around we’re all in this together is a hard message in a one to many setup if it’s on a billboard or if it’s in an e-mail blast. It’s really only true if we’ve taken the time to connect directly.

Cameron:
And then lastly, I love Gigi’s framing that if she could change on thing about the Credit Union system it would be to put the financial wellness of members at the absolute center and heart of your business model. And I think that question of if we were chartering this Credit Union from scratch today, what would we do. I think there’s a famous quote from Andy Grove, who was one of the founders and CEOs of Intel. They were wrestling with a gigantic business model shift and they stepped back and they said well, if the board removed me and his co-founder, what would they do. And it basically gave them the courage to make a really hard decision that allowed their business to thrive into the future rather than being caught in the past. All right. Thanks for joining us today. Until the next time, I wish you all the best of luck in making your Credit Union remarkable.