1. Jim, since you were hired in January of 2004, ROA has increased 180%, loans have increased $175 million and spending has been reduced by over $7 million a year. What do attribute your success to?

Hiring great people and prioritizing. We focused on reducing operating expenses and cleaning up the loan portfolio. Since taking the helm our team has worked together to cut the equivalent of $12 million a year in waste. In the first 18 months, Keith Rountree, our VP of Lending, and his team reduced annual loan losses from $4 million to $1 million.

We have a very talented and dedicated group of executives and managers here that know how to get results. Those savings are now passed on to our members making us one of the top performing credit unions in the nation for member returns.

2. I understand you have a lot of experience creating a winning team for bottom line impact, can you elaborate on that?

Hire people you like, hold them accountable and make sure you reward them fairly.  We focus on communicating with each other and worthy goals.

3. Are teams the only way to organize today’s workplace?

No doubt in my mind.

4. How do you go about providing an inspiring vision at Tyndall FCU?

We take our purpose as a not for profit very seriously and we don’t pretend to be anything else. We focus on the difference we can make in peoples lives – that we have a great job but a huge responsibility to pass on the benefits of being a credit union to make a difference in the lives of our members.

5. How can you make sure that you hire people who will work well together and who develop a shared vision and commitment.

We hire our executives in teams and spend a considerable amount of time searching for and investigating candidates. Although I make the final decision on who to hire, I have yet to go against the team’s recommendation. Honesty, communication and a balanced set of incentives help bring us together as a team.

6. The most difficult part of building a winning team is encouraging positive, informal interaction between team members when you are not present. How do you go about achieving this?

We hire honest and accomplished people who know how to get the job done. In addition, we have a strong set of incentives in place to ensure we work together in the best interest of the board and members. We have some pretty good debates and arguments, and believe me, they’re not always positive. We’re a group of equals trying to do the right thing – we argue but we’re honest and forgiving so we can focus on results.   

7. Some people are just negative by nature. How do you emphasize the company’s positive achievements to the group as a whole?

I think it’s important to address negative comments, to respect the team member’s opinion and to recognize their concern may have merit. We focus on our purpose and potential and discuss the costs of not acting or acting too conservatively when our discussions start to go to the “dark side” or become too negative. We’ve found that if we stop and consider the reality of a negative comment we can usually decide if it is reasonable or not and then move forward as a team.

8. What was your biggest challenge when you came to Tyndall in 2004?

Building a great team – Tyndall had a history of CEO turnover that had left the credit union management fragmented and “off track”, in my opinion.

9. How does your community impact the success of your CU?

The community has a huge impact on Tyndall FCU. Over the years we’ve developed strong member relationships by providing superior rates and service. We’ve also been a very giving organization through community service grants, charitable donations and special programs for members of lesser means. As we help our community the community helps us.

10. You seem to love your job and the community, is there anything you would like share about the future of Tyndall?

Tyndall is a great organization – as our team goes forward we’ll continue to focus on getting better returns for our members by investing wisely, improving our efficiencies and keeping the member first. We’ve made calculated decisions to keep Tyndall strong regardless of the economy – so when our community needs us the most – we are at our best!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Point, CounterPoint . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.