Thinking Forward: Credit Union Strategy Execution: How Can Credit Union Leaders Deliver on the Promise of Strategy?

Credit unions today face an environment marked by relentless change, information overload, and the need for accelerated decision-making. Strategy in this context is more important than ever because it defines an organization’s focus, priorities, and resource allocation. But having a good strategy is only half the battle. Especially in competitive industries and times of change, even a sound strategy will result in failure without effective execution. In short, in today’s financial services industry, identifying the right strategy and having the capability to put that strategy into practice are equally important.

The Implementation Gap Between Strategic Vision and Execution

Many organizations struggle not because they lack strategic vision but because they fail to translate strategy into action. Even well-crafted strategies can fall apart during implementation, especially when the competitive or operational environments those strategies were created for change. Well, conditions are changing, and so for credit unions today, this is especially relevant given growing pressure from competitors, evolving consumer expectations, transformative technologies, and an uncertain economic and political future.

Indeed, credit union leadership and boards often excel in defining their mission, vision, and strategic intent. But they must also ensure that the credit union’s execution capabilities match their ambitions. How many times have we heard about fantastic strategies that end up sitting, mostly untouched, in PowerPoint slides and Word documents? Where does this “implementation gap” between strategy and execution come from?

Barriers to Bridges: Overcoming the Implementation Gap

Last year, in partnership with Velera, we surveyed and interviewed credit union leaders about their credit union’s strategic direction and initiatives. Many of them told us that they feel there are capability, capacity, and resourcing gaps inside their organizations that limit or slow their ability to execute. In our conversations with these executives, we found that most are zeroing in on a few core areas as they seek to enhance their internal operational capabilities.

• Strategic and Tactical Focus: Many credit union leaders report that they are pulled in too many directions, making the work of setting strategy more cumbersome but also diluting their teams’ tactical efforts. In our study, 20% of credit union leaders said focus is the top barrier they face—beating out money, talent, technology, and all other possible roadblocks.

• Organizational Alignment: Many leaders see employees and departments working in silos, leading to a lack of agreement on prioritization and inconsistencies in execution.

• Cultural Resistance to Change: A strong but misaligned organizational culture can act as a barrier to adopting new strategic initiatives. Culture must flex with strategy as it responds to changing conditions.

• Operational Barriers: Credit union leaders often feel their organizations are bogged down by tech debt and organizational inertia. Legacy systems, inefficient processes, and insufficient data utilization can impede execution.

• Trustworthy Partnerships: Credit unions depend on the capabilities of their supply chain to deliver on strategy. In our study, nearly 80% of credit union leaders said that a strong provider network is a “must-have” for success, but nearly 70% said that while it’s easy to find willing service providers, it’s a challenge assessing their trustworthiness.

The “4 As” of Strategy Execution

Leaders looking to assess and improve their strategy execution capabilities may find the sheer number of potential pitfalls their teams face overwhelming. In their 2019 book Strategic Execution: Driving Breakthrough Performance in Business, Scott Snell, Professor at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, and his co-author Ken Carrig have usefully distilled the many factors shaping implementation of strategy into four core areas: alignment, ability, architecture, and agility. These “4 As” of successful strategy execution offer a structured approach for credit union leaders looking to bridge the implementation gap.

1. Alignment: Connecting Strategy to Daily Decision-Making and Operations

   Define clear strategic priorities and communicate them effectively up and down the organization. Then, leverage metrics and incentives to establish “line of sight” between what employees do day-to-day and how their decisions and actions shape organizational success and failure.

2. Ability: Finding the Right Talent and Building the Right Team

   Invest in your team through leadership development and workforce training/upskills, proactively encourage information-sharing, and resource the highest-priority areas effectively so that teams have the support they need to meet organizational expectations.

3. Architecture: Structuring the Organization for Performance Excellence

   Be intentional about organizational design to support strategic focus, eliminate friction to streamline internal processes, and align technology investments and infrastructure with strategic priorities. Similarly, be intentional about designing a culture for high performance, with clarity around values, boundaries and accountability for decision-making, and employee selection.

4. Agility: Cultivating the Capability for Change

   Successful strategies are solutions for particular environments that pose specific problems for organizations; when the environment changes, so too must strategy. To reduce organizational drag on strategic shifts, build a culture of continuous learning and innovation, empower strategic thinking at all levels, and use data—especially insights into members wants, needs, and behaviors—to drive decision-making.

For credit union leaders, the challenge is not just to create a winning strategy but to ensure that strategy is executed effectively across and at every level of the organization. Dedicated investments in alignment, ability, architecture, and agility can help leaders transform strategic intent into tangible results, driving sustainable growth and member value in an increasingly competitive financial landscape.

—TN