Your financial institution isn’t a farm. So why does your bank and credit union strategic planning look like a collection of separate silos?
Marketing wants to build awareness. Operations wants greater efficiency. Lending wants application growth. IT wants digital investment. The board wants whatever puts the numbers in the right place. Each group has its own agenda, its own priorities, its own little corner of the strategic plan.
But here’s the harsh reality…fragmented planning creates fragmented results.
Can’t Hit the Broad Side of a Barn
Walk into some strategic planning sessions and you witness a fascinating phenomenon – department heads protect their turf like roosters guarding the henhouse. Each leader arrives with a predetermined wish list, ready to defend budgets and projects.
The result? A strategic plan that reads like a grocery list rather than a roadmap. Marketing gets campaigns. IT gets systems. Lending gets application numbers. But nobody gets clarity on how these pieces actually fit together, and the plan lacks any concrete focus.
This approach to bank and credit union strategic planning is like trying to build a barn with everyone working on different blueprints. The foundation team builds for a two-story structure while the roof team plans for a single story. The result isn’t just inefficient; it’s structurally unsound.
When departments operate in silos, strategies compete instead of complement. Resources get wasted on competing priorities and teams work harder but achieve less. Your institution becomes a collection of individual efforts rather than a unified force.
Flock Together
Great bank and credit union strategic planning starts with a fundamental shift in thinking. Instead of asking “What does my department need?” leaders must ask “What does our institution need?”
This requires what we call “Team One” thinking. Your senior leadership team isn’t a collection of department representatives – it’s a unified leadership group with one shared mission. When marketing makes a decision, they’re not just representing marketing interests…they’re representing institutional interests through a marketing lens.
The most successful financial institutions understand this distinction. Their strategic planning sessions aren’t negotiations between competing parties. They’re collaborations between teammates working toward shared objectives.
The Rooster’s Call
But what if you already have an aligned leadership team? Well, that’s great! You aren’t done, though. Aligned leaders still fail to communicate that alignment throughout the organization. Your strategic plan might make perfect sense in the boardroom, but if it doesn’t translate to the breakroom, it’s moot.
A rooster crowing at the farm wakes everything up and gets the day going. Your plan serves a similar function for every volunteer and staff member.
Effective bank and credit union strategic planning creates a clear, compelling message that reaches every corner of your institution. From your board members to your newest teller, everyone should understand what the strategy is, why it matters and how they contribute to its success.
This isn’t about oversimplifying your strategy. It’s about making it accessible, actionable and inspiring at every level of your organization.
Building Your Strategic Barn
Stop farming out your strategic planning to individual departments. Create a unified approach that actually works.
The most successful financial institutions don’t just plan strategically…they plan together. From vision to execution, from boardroom to breakroom, everyone’s working from the same blueprint.
Let’s build a strategy that unifies instead of divides. Book a free consultation with On The Mark Strategies today to get started.
