Credit unions often pride themselves on being thoughtful, member-centric, and deliberate. Those qualities matter. But in an operating environment where big banks scale faster, fintechs pivot instantly, and consumer expectations reset every six months, thoughtful and member-centric are no longer enough. Speed — in decision making, in innovation, in reallocation of resources, in market response — is now one of the strongest leadership differentiators in financial services.
Speed is not an outcome of “being busy.” Speed is a leadership choice. When executives decide that responsiveness, iteration, and progress outrank perfection, the organization moves. When decision rights sit too high, approvals stack, or teams are built for consensus rather than action, the organization slows. That isn’t culture. That’s a choice.
The Credit Union Leadership Shift: From Careful to Fast-Forward
Three forces demand a new leadership tempo:
- Members expect immediacy. They compare your mobile app to Amazon, not another credit union. If your internal work takes 120 days, but the member’s patience is eight seconds, you lose — even if the final product is “right.”
- Technology cycles are shorter. A great idea held in committee for 18 months is no longer a great idea. It’s a memory.
- Non-traditional competitors behave like startups at scale. They ship features that are “good enough,” gather data, and improve in real time. Meanwhile, many credit unions work for months to prepare a pilot.
The strategic question is no longer “Can we afford to move fast?” The question is “Can we afford not to?”
Four Practices of High-Velocity Leadership
1. Build around problems, not projects.
Fast organizations obsess over the member problem first, and only then select the technology, vendor, or staffing model. This prevents solution shopping and keeps the focus where it belongs: solving one real friction point at a time.
2. Reduce team size to increase ownership.
The more people assigned, the slower the work moves. Small teams feel responsibility and act like owners. Large committees feel like observers waiting for permission.
3. Treat most decisions as reversible.
Some decisions are “one-way doors” – capital commitments, charter changes, core conversions. Most are not. When leaders treat every decision like a permanent bet, they unintentionally create bureaucracy. The velocity mindset is simple: decide, test, learn, adjust.
4. Remove internal drag.
Policies, meetings, review cycles, and layers of management don’t begin as barriers, but they compound over time. Fast leaders hunt for bureaucratic dead weight and dismantle it with the same energy they devote to growth.
These ideas are not theory. They are choices any credit union can make — independent of size, field of membership, or balance sheet.
A 10XCU™ Example: “60-Day to Same-Day” Lending
A 10XCU™ client — a mid-sized credit union with strong capital and flat loan growth — believed it needed a new LOS to compete. The executive team estimated an 18-month evaluation and implementation cycle.
We reframed the problem: “Members don’t care about your LOS. They care about how fast they get an answer.”
Instead of forming a 14-person steering committee, the CEO empowered a three-person “fast team” with full decision rights. Their mandate: reduce the approval time from 60 days to same-day for qualified borrowers. No technology purchase allowed in phase one. The team:
- Eliminated four internal loan handoffs
- Rewrote two legacy policies
- Shifted decision authority down a level
Result: 63% of loans were approved in under 24 hours within 45 days — before any system purchase. Only after speed was proven did the credit union invest in automation to scale the new model.
That is 10XCU™ velocity: focus on the real friction, empower a small team, act before perfecting.
What Credit Union Executives Must Decide
Speed is not a feature of technology. Speed is a function of leadership will.
Ask yourself:
- Where in your organization do decisions stall because no one owns the risk?
- What percentage of your projects exist to fix internal processes rather than solve member problems?
- How many approvals exist today that no one can justify?
- If a competitor launched your best idea tomorrow, would you be ready to respond within weeks or would you need a committee cycle to start?
The market no longer rewards the first to think. It rewards the first to move, learn, adapt, and move again.
The Strategic Advisory Bottom Line
Credit unions will never out-scale the largest banks or out-code the fastest fintechs. But they can out-decide both. Velocity is now a form of member value. A credit union that makes rapid, high-quality decisions — and empowers its people to do the same — will win the next decade.
Not because it is big. Not because it is tech-heavy. But because it is fast.
Jeff Rendel, Certified Speaking Professional, is a leading strategic advisor to the credit union industry and creator of the 10XCU™ System — the proven framework for building credit unions that grow with purpose, lead with clarity, and move with speed. For advisory engagements, board sessions, or CEO strategy support, visit jeffrendel.com or call 951.310.7275.