Big ideas. Big bets. Big projects. None of it matters without the right people and the right infrastructure to make it happen.
Key People and Infrastructure are the backbone of every successful strategy. They’re not just supporting players; they’re the determining factor between execution and excuses. You can sketch all the vision boards you want, but without the right talent, tools, and systems to make them real, you’re building a high-rise on quicksand.
This is the KPI of Relevance that forces credit union leaders to look in the mirror and ask: Do we actually have the organizational muscle to pull this off?
Talent is the New Competitive Advantage
It’s not technology. It’s not products. It’s not even pricing. The one thing your competitors can’t replicate is your people — their ingenuity, energy, adaptability, and passion for delivering member value.
Yet, too often, strategic planning assumes talent will magically appear when needed. The plan says, “We’ll launch this initiative in 18 months,” as if a future version of your team will somehow grow new capabilities on demand.
The truth: Strategy doesn’t just require people. It requires the right people, with the right skills, in the right roles, at the right time.
Building that team requires deliberate, often uncomfortable action:
- Upskilling existing employees for future-focused competencies (think AI literacy, data-driven decision-making, advanced member experience design).
- Hiring ahead of need, not behind it, to ensure leadership bandwidth matches your growth ambitions.
- Eliminating roles that maintain the past to free up resources for roles that build the future.
One 10XCU took this challenge head-on. After redefining their three-year priorities, they realized 40% of the talent they needed simply didn’t exist internally. Rather than waiting for a crisis, they built a “talent runway,” investing early in recruiting top digital experience architects, data scientists, and commercial lending pros. Within two years, they had not only delivered their new strategic initiatives but outpaced their own growth projections by 30%, fueled entirely by proactive talent development.
This wasn’t luck. It was leadership saying: People are strategy. Everything else is commentary.
Infrastructure is the Force Multiplier
Talent alone isn’t enough. Without infrastructure — the technology, systems, and processes that allow your people to work at speed and scale — even the best team gets stuck in friction and firefighting.
Infrastructure is more than IT. It’s:
- Platforms that connect data, operations, and member journeys seamlessly.
- Decisioning tools that turn insight into action in real time.
- Operating models that remove bureaucracy and empower front-line execution.
Too many credit unions expect high-performance results from low-performance infrastructure — legacy cores, siloed data, outdated reporting, manual processes, “bolt-on” digital solutions that don’t actually integrate.
The result? Your best people spend their time fighting systems instead of serving members. Strategy stalls not because the ideas were wrong, but because the tools were weak.
A 10XCU example: One credit union made a gutsy call to scrap its decade-old core banking system, replacing it with a cloud-native platform designed to scale with fintech partners. The transition was messy, expensive, and politically risky. But within 18 months, they were launching new products in 90 days instead of 18 months. Member satisfaction jumped. Their talent pipeline strengthened because ambitious professionals wanted to work where innovation was possible. The infrastructure decision didn’t just support strategy — it unlocked it.
The KPI of Readiness
Key People and Infrastructure isn’t a supporting line item. It’s a strategic KPI of readiness:
- Do we have the leaders to champion each initiative?
- Do we have the talent to deliver it?
- Do we have the systems to support scale?
- Are we willing to invest, early and heavily, in these foundations before chasing outcomes?
Because here’s the truth: every great strategic idea carries a hidden cost. The cost of capability. And if you don’t fund it, you don’t get results.
From Aspirational to Operational
Strategy gets real when you assign names, not titles. When you connect a project to a person with authority, accountability, and resources. When you map a member experience on paper and your infrastructure can actually deliver it.
Without people and infrastructure, strategic plans become wish lists. With them, they become competitive weapons.
Your next planning session shouldn’t just ask, What will we do? It should ask:
- Who will lead it?
- Who will deliver it?
- What will we build, buy, or change to support it?
- Are we ready to move when the market window opens?
High performance isn’t about chasing every opportunity. It’s about building an organization capable of seizing the right ones — fast, fearlessly, and at full strength.
Jeff Rendel is a leading strategic advisor to America’s credit unions, helping boards and executives design strategies that deliver growth, relevance, and exceptional results. Through his 10XCU platform, Jeff works with high-performing credit unions to elevate their thinking, sharpen their focus, and ensure their talent and infrastructure are ready to win. Reach him at jeff@jeffrendel.com or visit www.jeffrendel.com.