Author: Communications

The Control Conundrum

My local community hosts a Tuesday night “running group.” They run together, then go out for drinks and food afterward. Every week they do this. 

I’ve known about this group for over a year and have yet to go despite genuinely enjoying running. Outside of the time away from my family, the downside to going is near zero. I intellectually know that the upside of meeting new people and engaging with the community is high. 

So why not go? What’s getting in my way?

Why Sharing Can Be Challenging

Whether it’s fear of ridicule (“Why do you run so slow, my guy?”), general introverted tendencies, or social anxiety—there are many reasons why this is legitimately difficult, and I won’t downplay them or pretend to understand them all.  These are complicated subjects—so I’ll just focus on myself for this example.

For starters, look at the way I framed this topic. “Upside” vs. “Downside.” Pretty clinical, right? I do that because, for me, the entire issue is around control. 

As much as I’d like to think it’s that family time holding me back, it’s likely a more insidious set of issues—a long series of justifications keeping me from going. Things like “I have my own cultivated running schedule, I have enough friends, I’m an introvert, and this will be exhausting,” etc., all based on my needs and on how this experience would disrupt MY life, without considering that sharing myself with new people in my community could be a massive win for my well-being.

It’s just plain easier for my brain to keep the element of control front and center. This “new” experience, where I literally have to share myself, is unknown and uncurated and may create issues I haven’t planned for or considered. 

The safety of the illusion of control in my life has kept me from trying something that would almost certainly be good for me.

Why Share? Because It’s Literally Good for You.

Harvard’s Robert Waldinger and Marc Schultz are the director and associate director of the longest study on happiness in U.S. history. It started in 1938 and tracked the lives of 724 men (their spouses and over 1300 descendants) for over 85 years—eventually chronicling it in their book “The Good Life.” In a 2023 appearance on Derek Thompson’s podcast “Plain English” they effectively summarized the entire project in one statement:

“The people in our study who had the warmest connections with other people stayed the healthiest and were the happiest.”

Some of you don’t have this concern in your personal life—you’re incredibly gregarious and the entire idea of sharing yourself easily, but have you considered its impact on your work life? 

How do I start? 

Ramit Sethi is the author of the book “I Will Teach You to be Rich” (I clearly haven’t done all the steps right yet), but there’s a concept he deploys that is apt for our sharing conversation: Money Dials.

When budgeting, he suggests you allow yourself to spend where it matters most. Are you a car person? Turn that dial up. Obviously, you can’t turn the dial UP on everything, so the inverse is how the concept actually pays dividends. Do you like staying at home?  Turn your travel dial way down.

How Does this Work for the Credit Union Industry? 

I constantly hear about resource constraints in our industry, whether capital, time, or attention, due to small staff sizes. Inherent in that is “I don’t have the ability to go to run club. I have to tend to the fire in my own house!” Which is often true—but it can also be a convenient excuse to avoid the vulnerability of sharing.

Using the money dials concept, look at your credit union values and determine where the control dial should be set highest; consequently, give yourself permission to allow areas where it can be lower. Will your mission allow for fewer face-to-face interactions with members? Perhaps not. But might it consider sharing the creation of policies you need to help those members? 

So, Why Don’t All Credit Unions Share Things?

I’ll bet most do!

How much and to what degree are the differences, but if we want to go back to my own shortcomings in trying new things, the one place holding some folks back is the element of control.

Once you decide to share, you then have to relinquish the grip you have on process and outcomes. You have to accept the community’s foibles as your own, and you have to fit what you want into what the community wants. No easy thing, but when/if you decide to do it, some cool things will start to happen:

• You’ll have new credit union friends whom you trust
• You’ll have newfound freedom to think about and tend to your mission/values instead of all that other stuff you used to have to think about 
• You might even save some expenses along the way

___

I’ll be attending my first run-group session as a result of writing this. I will thank the industry I’m in for cajoling me, but if you see me on LinkedIn, please ask how it went!

To learn more or connect with rekindle, please visit their website at https://www.rekindlecuso.org/.

About the Author: 

Nate Anderson
President & CEO
rekindle

Nate is the President & CEO of rekindle – a CUSO dedicated to helping small credit unions thrive through shared knowledge and services. Before joining rekindle, he held a strategic seat for the birth, growth, maturation, and exit of the ticketing start-up PatronManager–now part of Leap Technology. Nate holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and a Master of Business Administration from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. 

Craig Parker explains the key differences, pros and cons, and how to start a living trust or will.

In this video, Craig Parker, Assistant General Counsel at Trust & Will, explains how wills and trusts work, their key differences, and how to decide which option fits your situation. Whether you’re just starting your estate plan or exploring a living trust, this guide walks you through the basics in clear, simple terms.

Key Takeaways

• What a will does (and what it doesn’t)
• How a living trust works during your lifetime
• The pros and cons of a living trust vs a will
• When it makes sense to have both
• How a pour-over will and living will fit into your estate plan
• How to create a living trust online from the comfort of your home

To learn more or connect with Trust & Will, please visit their website at https://trustandwill.com/.

About the Author: 

Craig Parker
Assistant General Counsel
Trust & Will

Craig Parker is Assistant General Counsel at Trust & Will, a California-licensed attorney certified as a Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust, and Probate Law with over 25 years of experience representing individuals, fiduciaries, and public agencies in complex probate, trust, and conservatorship matters. He now serves as a subject matter expert at Trust & Will, helping modernize estate planning nationwide.

Across the credit union community, I’m seeing renewed energy around HELOCs and closed-end home equity loans. Rising rates have slowed first mortgages, but they’ve also created an opportunity for members to tap into the equity they’ve built over the past several years. For many credit unions, home equity feels like the most logical place to focus.

But here’s something I’ve noticed in conversations with lending leaders: we’re often trying to run modern home equity programs on infrastructure built for first mortgages.

On the surface, that makes sense. The mortgage LOS is already in place. The team knows how to use it. There’s history and investment there. Why reinvent the wheel?

The challenge is that home equity isn’t just a “smaller mortgage.” Operationally, it behaves very differently.

Home equity borrowers aren’t buying a home. They’re accessing value they already have. They’ve usually shopped around. They’re often ready to move quickly. And increasingly, they expect a digital, transparent experience that doesn’t drag on for 45 days.

When we run those loans through mortgage-centric systems, friction shows up in subtle ways.

I hear it in things like:

• “Our cycle times are creeping past 30 days.”
• “We have strong application volume, but pull-through isn’t where we want it.”
• “We’re using a lot of manual tracking to keep files moving.”
• “It feels harder than it should be.”

None of those issues necessarily point to bad teams. In fact, most credit union lending teams I work with are incredibly capable. More often, they point to systems that weren’t designed for the speed and variability of home equity.

Mortgage platforms tend to assume a linear, milestone-driven process. Home equity often requires parallel workstreams. Mortgage applications are detailed and exhaustive by design. Home equity borrowers typically don’t want to answer dozens of questions that aren’t relevant to their situation. Service ordering in a mortgage workflow can be rigid, while home equity frequently calls for more dynamic decisioning based on LTV or loan size.

Individually, these don’t seem like major obstacles. But collectively, they slow things down.

I sometimes refer to this as the “mortgage mindset,” recognizing that many of our processes were built around purchase-driven lending cycles. When that mindset carries over into home equity, we risk overcomplicating something that members expect to be straightforward.

From a leadership perspective, this isn’t just about technology. It’s about alignment.

If home equity is going to be a strategic growth area for credit unions over the next several years (and I believe it will be), then we have to ask a few honest questions:

• Are our cycle times aligned with member expectations?
• Can we clearly see where loans stall in the pipeline?
• Are we making it easy for members to complete applications on their phones?
• Can we adjust workflows quickly when policy or product changes?

If the answer to those questions is “not easily,” the issue may not be staffing or effort. It may be infrastructure.

One of the strengths of the CUSO model is that we don’t have to solve these challenges alone. Collaboration and shared services have always been part of how credit unions compete effectively without losing their cooperative identity. That same spirit applies here. Modernizing home equity operations doesn’t necessarily mean ripping out core systems. It means layering in tools, refining workflows, or partnering differently to reduce friction.

What I’ve learned is this: small operational gaps compound quickly in home equity. A few extra days waiting on a service order. A manual handoff between departments. An application that’s harder to complete on mobile than it should be. Each seems minor. Together, they shape the member experience and determine whether growth is sustainable.

Credit unions are well-positioned in this market. Members trust them. They value the relationship. That’s a significant advantage over purely digital lenders.

But trust alone isn’t enough. Execution matters.

If we want home equity to be more than a short-term rate-cycle play, we have to ensure our operational model supports scale, speed and consistency. That requires stepping back and asking whether we’re designing processes around how members behave today — or around how mortgages have historically worked.

My perspective is simple: home equity deserves its own strategy. Not just in pricing and marketing, but in workflow, reporting and member engagement.

The good news? Most credit unions don’t need to start from scratch. They need clarity on where friction exists and a willingness to rethink long-standing assumptions.

That conversation is already happening across the CUSO community. And I think that’s a healthy sign for where home equity lending is headed next.

To learn more or connect with Coviance, please visit their website at https://www.coviance.com/.

About the Author: 

Omar Jordan
Founder & CEO
Coviance

Omar Jordan is the Founder & CEO of Coviance, a Credit Union Service Organization (CUSO) and lending experience platform purpose-built for home equity. Omar is passionate about helping credit unions compete effectively while staying true to their member-first mission.