CUES 154: A Leader Who Listens and Pays His Good Fortune Forward

11/16/23 • 35 min

Terrance Williams says it was his dad who taught him to be a leader who listens, an intern who asked him how he knows insurance is still the right career for him and his parents together who instilled in him his mantra of “paying it forward.”

In this episode of the CUES Podcast, Williams, the new president/CEO of CUESolutions provider TruStage®, illustrates his leadership style by describing his approach to having lunch.

“I want to make sure that everyone’s comfortable engaging with me,” says Williams. “When I go get lunch, I talk to everyone in the cafeteria, regardless of their role, and regardless of what they do, and I want them to view and see me as someone that's approachable as someone that they can talk to and engage with—and give me feedback, give me a suggestion, give me a thought. (That) doesn’t mean we’re going to do everything that comes my way, but I always want to maintain that open forum, so that people are comfortable coming to me and approaching me."
Williams explains in the show how he was able to respond to an intern’s question about whether Williams had made the right decision to pursue a career in insurance. He is certain that he has.
“I ... believe what we do genuinely matters,” he says. “When you think about the ability to transfer risk, the ability for me to live my life without the worry of being able to take care of the unexpected, without having to worry about what might happen with the loss of a loved one, ... our role, when you boil it all down ... is really to ensure that we can help rebuild lives to the degree money and caring can. That’s what we do. And I would like us to talk about that more as an industry.”
Williams adds that one of TruStage’s strengths is its mutual structure. “This belief in this notion of people helping people, the ability for us to make long-term decisions that really are centered around the member, the ability to ensure that we can invest today with the recognition that we will benefit someone tomorrow.”
The show also gets into:

Williams’ mantra, paying it forward, and how he wears that idea on his arm (see photo)
How Williams won a national award for chief marketing officers without being a CMO
The job during Williams’ career that was most formative for him as a leader
Diversity, equity and inclusion

Links for this show:

TruStage
TruStage’s CUESolutions provider page
Key Strategies for Setting Up a Diversity & Inclusion Program with Angela Russell from TruStage
CUESolutions providers are trusted credit union suppliers
Transcript

In this episode of the CUES Podcast, Williams, the new president/CEO of CUESolutions provider TruStage®, illustrates his leadership style by describing his approach to having lunch.

Williams’ mantra, paying it forward, and how he wears that idea on his arm (see photo)
How Williams won a national award for chief marketing officers without being a CMO
The job during Williams’ career that was most formative for him as a leader
Diversity, equity and inclusion

Links for this show:

TruStage
TruStage’s CUESolutions provider page
Key Strategies for Setting Up a Diversity & Inclusion Program with Angela Russell from TruStage
CUESolutions providers are trusted credit union suppliers
Transcript

Previous Episode

CUES 153: Executives and CUs Can Win the Financial Game Together

Chris Jones and his team have formed a new company named to represent well what they do. Jones is a senior benefits consultant and partner in PARC Street Partners. PARC stands for plan, attract, retain and compensate—all key elements of the company’s work to help credit unions create a succession plan, attract, retain and compensate key executives so that both the executives and the credit union “win the financial game.”
In the end, he says in the show, the credit union’s members win too.

“If the credit union is winning the financial game, the executive should win the financial game,” he says. “And as the result of those two, ultimately, keeping the member in the center, ... the member is winning the financial game. When the organization is healthy and moving forward, the member is winning.”
PARC Street Partners specializes in helping credit unions, executives and boards put in place supplemental executive retirement plans so that everyone can win the financial game together. But in the show, Jones emphasizes that SERPs are just part of the larger succession planning picture.
“Succession planning is a process,” he explains. “It’s not a SERP. The SERP is a tool that is used to support the process. The succession plan should stand in and of itself, on its own. ... And then the question is, do we need a SERP to support that? We think often you do, but the plan should stand on its own.”
The show also gets into:

How SERPs play into today’s recruiting processes
How having conversations about succession planning and SERPs can help clarify details about executives’ retirement plans that have previously not be discussed
What will change and what will not change for Jones' team and clients of PARC Street Partners
The difference between the two main kinds of SERPs—457(f) and split-dollar plans—and examples of situations when each might work best

Links for this show:

PARC Street Partners
Article Bruce Smith of PARC Street Partners: Turn Your Credit Union’s SERP Liability Into Net Income
CUES Unlimited+ member video featuring Chris Jones: A Myth Boards Hold About Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans
Become a CUES Supplier member
Download a transcript

Next Episode

CUES 155: Mitigate the Flight Risk of Newly Promoted Employees

In this episode, Lesley Sears talks about the implications of research showing that newly promoted employees are more likely to leave your organization—and what you can do to mitigate their flight risk.

“When we promote somebody, we’re assuming we’re building loyalty,” says Sears, CUES’ VP/consulting. “We’re ... really feeding into and developing this person. But statistics have shown us that that’s not always the case.
“ADP has come out with a research study that shows 29% of the people that were newly promoted left, transitioned out versus 18% that normally would have.”
Spoiler alert: Sears says successfully fixing the problem comes down to strengthening your organizational climate.
“The culture ... is really ... the byproduct of how everything in the credit union is working,” she explains. Whatever the challenges are at the credit union will show up in the climate and culture. “So, address the culture,” she asserts, “and thereby you can address a lot of your challenges in the credit union itself.”
In the show Sears also discusses:

Specific elements of climate/culture that might be leveraged to mitigate the flight risk of newly promoted employees
How the nine elements of culture are highly intertwined
Why it’s important for credit unions to have the kind of climate/culture that makes newly promoted—and other—employees want to stay
What results a credit union can get from doing a climate assessment
How a credit union’s climate ultimately impacts its members
How CUES Consulting’s Burn Bright offering can help develop resilent leaders at a credit union

Links for this show:
Sponsor: GoCo

Transcript
CUES Consulting

Purposeful Talent Development blogs by Sears:

Podcast: The Nine Dimensions of Climate