In Your Best Interest: An ALM First Podcast
Our goal is to give you an insider's view of the latest market trends, explore common depository challenges and share success stories and insights from industry leaders. Join us to gain new perspectives as our experts dive into effective balance sheet management techniques and break down best practices. Visit our website at https://www.almfirst.com/.
In Your Best Interest: An ALM First Podcast
Beyond The Deal: Real Stories from Merger Integration
Merger integration represents the most challenging phase for credit unions pursuing strategic partnerships, requiring careful attention to people, processes, systems, and communication strategies to ensure success.
• Credit union mergers require extensive planning beyond the initial agreement
• Integration typically takes at least six months, even with similar core systems
• Cultural integration proves more challenging than technical integration
• Leaders often struggle to implement "best of both worlds" processes during transition
• Communication needs exceed expectations—consistent, transparent messaging is essential
• Members may complain about changes that didn't actually occur (resistance to change)
• Contact centers face significant challenges during conversion periods
• Project planning with clear phases and milestones is critical to success
• Employee wellbeing must be prioritized to prevent burnout during integration
• Contract management, especially for core processors, requires careful attention
• Documenting the journey through photos helps preserve cultural continuity
If you're considering a merger or currently navigating integration challenges, visit our website for more resources, including our Education Hub, Resource Center, and upcoming webinars. Stay safe, stay healthy, and thank you for listening to In Your Best Interest, an ALM First podcast.
Welcome everyone to the 30th edition of In your Best Interest, an ALM First podcast, a show that explores common depository challenges, gives you an insider's view of the latest market trends and shares stories and insights from industry leaders. I'm your host, mike Ensweiler. Credit union mergers are complex, with integration being a critical yet challenging phase, especially as many pursue strategic partnerships to stay competitive and better serve their members. On the 28th episode, we explored credit union M&A industry trends, finding the right merger partner and sealing the deal. Today we're tackling the next big step integration. Once the ink's dry, how do you bring two organizations together, uniting people, members, systems, operations, facilities, and the list goes on, while keeping the mission and momentum alive.
Speaker 1:I'm joined by Dave Krause, president and CEO of Uniwyo Credit Union, who recently led a merger with Reliant Federal Credit Union and has had some time to reflect on how it went, and John Murata, managing Director at ALM First, who heads our integration consulting practice. Now let's get to it and unpack the best practices for making M&A integration a success. Dave and John, welcome to the show. Thanks so much, mike. Thanks for having me. Thanks, mike.
Speaker 1:So you know it was fun. You know, last time we had a podcast we talked about how do you find a merger partner, how do you incorporate in the strategic planning, you know all of the things that kind of go into getting a deal done. But now the deal is done and, dave, you have recent experience with this and, john, you've been through this many, many times, you know. I'm excited to sit down and talk with you a little bit more about this, because I'm sure this is an area that is not only a hot topic in credit union land, but people are always looking for insights and best practices. So maybe let's start with you, dave, since this is pretty recent. Tell us a little bit about the merger you finished recently and how it went.
Speaker 2:Sure, it's a little bit further behind us. We actually were legal in April of 23,. Little bit further behind us, we actually were legal in April of 23. And then we did our data conversion in August of 23. But that's just the start. It was a lot of work getting up to that point and we were about 500 million. So Univile Credit Union in Laramie, wyoming, and then we merged with Reliant Federal Credit Union in Casper, so center of the state, and they're about 200 million. So it was a big deal for us. I mean, it was, you know, similarly sized organizations.
Speaker 2:And so Steve, the former CEO, he and I had been talking for years about this process. These are years long conversations and you know it just wasn't ever the right time as he was approaching retirement. We started having some more in-depth conversations and then we have a picture of all of us at a Mexican restaurant. We met kind of in a town halfway between our two markets and we had lunch and had a bunch of discussions with all of our teams. And that was in January of 21 when we actually started those conversations. So we're doing great now. You know it's behind us and we finally feel in a good place. But it's some heavy lifting. It was probably, I would say, for almost all of our team. It was probably the hardest thing that they'd done professionally.
Speaker 1:And so since when did full integration occur? I mean when? When do you? When was the finish line in your mind? For we got that deal done. We're one organization now, and now we're moving on to, you know, additional or new strategic priorities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question. I, you know the data conversion was August 1st. We did it over a weekend. You'd think that was sort of it right. But we were both on Scimitar, we were on the same core, so that was nice. We didn't have to do a lot of training, but I would say it was a solid six months until you sort of felt like, okay, we're doing things better.
Speaker 2:I think one of the biggest challenges is you think that you're going to optimize all these things when you're doing a merger, like, okay, we're going to pick the best vendor for this and we're going to pick the best process for that, and we're going to, you know, there's you know why, is process, reliance, process, what's the best one? And that was sort of our mantra going in. And then you very quickly realize like you can't process, improve on the fly. And that would be a huge lesson learned that I would tell people, because Steve and I we kind of preached that to people when we were selling this merger. You know that we're going to take the best of both worlds or maybe this, you know, third option, and you quickly realize that that's just not feasible. Like I'll take a statement vendor, for example. You know, we were both on Scimitar. We took all their records and their data and we put it into our database. Well, our statement vendor was already hooked up to our database and so there was no conversion on the statement side. But we were kind of agnostic about our statement vendor and they love their statement vendor and we're like we get it. But do we really want to do a statement conversion vendor at the same time that we're doing all those other things? And so, yeah, it was a solid six months just working out process and things.
Speaker 2:I think felt like we did a ton of great work on the front end to sort of dial that in and on the system, like when you pay dividends and how accounts get open, all that stuff. But like funny things come up that you didn't think about along the way. And so I would say six months. And you know, attrition is a real thing. We had some attrition along the way and, um, so some of that set us back a little bit. You know we'd thought we'd had somebody in a strategic role that was going to maybe migrate from the role that they were in into their new role, and then they decided to, you know, move on to a different opportunity. So it's a process.
Speaker 1:And it sounds like especially. You know, while you're doing all this, you're still trying to run a business, serve your membership, do all those kinds of things, and you only have so much bandwidth. And so, to your point, finding best of breed vendors and doing all those kinds of things. I could see where that is easy to say. You know what that is important, but probably not right now. That's something we need to tackle 6, 12, 18 months from now, john, in your experience, is that pretty typical?
Speaker 3:Well, I do like the efficiency that Dave set forth and it sounds, dave, like you had quite the plan laid out already as you're rolling in. But, mike, to answer your question directly, it does sort of vary and I hate to sound like a true consultant here, but I'm still going through therapy but the times do vary according to just how complex things are. It's amazing that you had two institutions that had the exact same core and coming in together. The differences in the versions of your core were probably not that far off. So that was a really great efficiency gain there. And there are some other institutions where they are pretty far off, so there's a lot more to get them to feature parity as one moves into the other environment.
Speaker 3:Also, if I may comment really quick so Dave mentioned that it is tough to try to do some process reengineering in the middle of a merger, and I wholeheartedly agree. But I'd like to comment to say that in some cases a merger does give you the opportunity to maybe trim a few things that might've been outdated policies, outdated processes or maybe just some ill-earned behaviors, and it gives us the chance to fix it. So I would say that that also could contribute to added length but also, at the end of the day, totally agree both of you that it's about driving that true value proposition to our members. So wholeheartedly, take that time to do it right, because it just pays off dividends later on.
Speaker 1:So you know, it seems to me as a neophyte that putting the systems together, figuring out some of the vendors, some of that kind of stuff is fairly straightforward. The toughest thing again and please tell me where I'm wrong in all of these things is the people and making sure you have the cultural integration right. So you know I guess you know from Dave and then as well as John, either one of you guys you know, as you're going through this type of a process, you know what's important in maintaining that cohesion and making sure that you know everybody is, you know, singing to the same sheet of music, so to speak.
Speaker 2:I would say don't be scared by differences in systems. That was probably the easiest part of our whole thing our data conversion Granted. We were going from like systems I mean, we had the same core, same LOS. I could list off probably 10 systems that were the same so we got a huge benefit from that. From a training perspective, everybody kind of knew what they were looking at, but that part was super easy. I mean, jack Henry did the integration for us on the data side. They were fantastic. Alm, you guys helped with our valuations. So yeah, it's funny, people are like how was the data integration? Like that was so easy. It is the people part it's so hard.
Speaker 2:You know, steve and I had many conversations about culture and sort of philosophy and approach. We'd worked. You know, we'd known each other being in the state, through association meetings and like things like that. So we're very like-minded in terms of our approach. But you'd be fascinated how different things are.
Speaker 2:One of the one things I want people to take away from this, if anything that we learned, is we agreed early on that, you know why would be the surviving brand and even though everybody knew that, you know, reliant their charters from 1936 and some of those people had worked there for, you know, two decades.
Speaker 2:We did not. We were so excited about the opportunity and so was Reliant, but we had a giant misstep in understanding the sort of loss that they would experience in losing that brand and sort of identity. I wish somebody would have told us that, because we had some huge missteps around that in terms of branding and just sort of kind of keeping the historical flow of like what these organizations were pre-merger into post-merger, and I wish we would have taken a lot more time on that, because it's a huge deal. And I think again, even though you're all in agreement, you know it doesn't mean that it's not hard and people don't experience this sort of loss. And yeah, I felt pretty bad about that. Like I made a lot of apologies to people and I tried to step up and say, hey, you know we had a misstep around that.
Speaker 2:We rebranded really fast, we put up new signs and took down old signage and we could have taken our time and I think it would not have hurt either organization or our members to be a little slower on that side. And then I would just say, lastly, have a lot of compassion and empathy and patience, because everybody as leaders right, you're excited, you see the big picture, everybody else is kind of like well, what's happening to me, and you know how is this going to happen, and it takes a protracted time to get it done.
Speaker 3:And anytime there's a vacuum, somebody fills it with something, right? If they don't know what's going on, then they're going to fill it with speculation. And so let's say it's important to be very communicative and clear about what's going on. And, dave, if I may, I'd like to follow on that idea of communication, because that was actually my point I was going to make, but it sounds like you're already kind of headed there. So, if I may, just let me ask a question really quick. When it came to communication, as you were going through the journey of integration, what was maybe your modus operandi as the topmost leader in over-communicating with the Reliant team?
Speaker 2:So we had a monthly all-hands meeting. So we continued that Even before legal all hands meeting. So we continued that Even before legal we had everybody start joining that call once a month. We did weekly updates. It's so hard because your timing is always off, so most people don't announce until they get NCUA approval. We actually announced before that because Steve had some personal commitments that he had made and he had a very strong deadline on retirement and people started asking questions like who's going to be CEO after you're done? Because they had announced that quite a bit before that there was also somebody that had stepped back from an executive role into a mortgage lending role and so people were getting concerned why aren't these roles being filled? We're not talking about them.
Speaker 2:So we actually announced it to everybody publicly very early and so, even though we weren't legal, we started communicating. We did a weekly email to everybody and just sort of highlighted what things were going on. We tried some videos. I'd say they were sort of not great. And then I would say FAQs. I think FAQs are so valuable, but I think they were very valuable at the staff level. I hate to say this, but they were almost virtually worthless on the member side Members, just they don't pay attention. I'm the same way as a consumer, right Like we're like hey, your debit card's going to work, your checks are fine.
Speaker 2:Day one, people lined up out the door hey, I need new checks, I need a new debit card. We're like no, no, you're good, you don't need those. And so I felt like we did a great job pushing stuff out, no matter what you think it's not enough. Like you want people to be so sick and tired of hearing you say the same thing. That's when you know that you're communicated enough. When somebody's like oh my God, will you please shut up? We didn't get there, and so that was my fault. We should have communicated more, but I thought we were. You know the weekly emails, the monthly meetings. We were pushing those down in team meetings every week, like you know, telling managers to push that information down. So I thought we had a good plan. We executed on it well. Even when you think it's enough, it's not.
Speaker 1:Is there anything else you've seen, john, from a communication standpoint, that's been successful.
Speaker 3:Anything else you've seen, John, from a communication standpoint, that's been successful, Certainly Well, I'll start off with a very strategic item and then I'll get to more of a tactical item. At the most strategic level, I think it's really important that the senior leaders in the organization have the right framework around how they structure the communication, have the right framework around how they structure the communication and that is not to mean that they have to take the boilerplates and use that, but really the framework being how do we want to present our messaging in a way that is consistent across both cultures? I'd say that that's a really great takeaway. And then, at a more tactical level, even before you get to the higher level communication methodology, you got to expose to each other as two entities coming together, like how people will work, and that, in a way, is an outward communication where there's a theory out there called my way of working right, and it's almost like that operating model of how I prefer to interact with folks, how I want to receive feedback, how I will give feedback. Here's a perfect example Dave and Mike.
Speaker 3:At a recent engagement, I put together this very simple template on how I like to interact with people and in one corner in a box on my template I put just my working hours and I was jokingly putting in there like I'm available to everybody at any given time, right, Whether you text me or email me. But then the remainder of the six other folks on the team, when they put in their preferred hours of working, I noticed that somebody just worked from like eight to three. Ironically, I didn't know they were a part-timer. So that in itself just that outward communication was like oh hey, I can't assume everybody's an FTE. So just that small tactical outreach really helped me understand how to communicate with them during certain working hours so that I didn't overstretch their commitment to their contract. I was like that was a good thing to do and it was an unintended consequence of running that exercise.
Speaker 1:Interesting, yeah, that's a good anecdote. So, dave, you touched on something I'd maybe like to expand on a little bit. You said you know the FAQs for your members probably weren't that helpful. So you know it's been a little bit since your merger. I mean, what response did you receive from members other than hey, we need a new checkbook and debit card? And did they get the benefit that was put forth in the merger application?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we definitely realized, you know, some cost savings through the attrition and just we renegotiated our core contract so we pushed that out to members for you know, in terms of deposit rates and loan rates, so I think there was a massive benefit just financially on that front. Service wise, we expanded our contact center, we added some FTE, we sort of reallocated some manager and VP roles into frontline roles and so you know, recognizing that there was probably some deficiency there, so I think wait times went down pretty significantly. I'm not proud to say this. Our net promoter at Inuaio was in the like 72 to 73 percent. We were very proud of that From August to December. So after data conversion to the end of the year, we were in the high 30s to 40s. It was a massive drop.
Speaker 2:Our contact center that's another piece of advice, lesson learned Our contact center we had these plans, everybody that ever had been in the contact center and move on to other roles. We're going to put all those people back on the phone. We had this great plan we put together six months before and all those people ended up leaving before go live operation day one. And so the phone, the contact center, is challenging. Text calls. All that because you get, you will get worked over. That's the only way to put it, and so that was a challenge, right. We staffed that up. Now we're doing great. I mean our average speed of answer is like less than 30 seconds. We're doing great. We have more technology in that arena and so I think members are getting the benefit.
Speaker 2:I would say I would tell other people when you merge, we'd get complaints. I mean I take calls, I merge, we'd get complaints. I mean I take calls, I'll talk to any member I'm happy to and I like to, but people would call and complain on both sides. So you know why I'm reliant about things that didn't change. We're like, well, that didn't actually change because it was the same as it's always been, and so it's just people don't like change, right, and so it's nice. When you get over that hump and everybody does, you will You'll get to the point where, if people really don't like the things that happened or that changed, they'll leave as members and employees. But now we're in such a great spot, our membership is great. We're getting a ton of kudos out of Casper. I mean that was the biggest change from our mid-state markets. That Reliant was in because they went through the name change, they had the changes and so, but yeah, it's really good. Now we get compliments.
Speaker 2:I think we tried really hard to make everything positive. We lowered some fees. Right, we didn't raise any fees. If there was a fee difference somewhere, we tried to put that in the member's best interest. Maybe we charged a fee and Reliant didn't, so okay, can we get rid of that fee? That was some of the optimization that John was talking about. You can't make every process better, but can you change a policy? Those are pretty easy, and so we tried whenever we could, to err on the side of the member, and I think we did a really good job of that, and so that's that's borne fruit. I mean, we have grown in those markets and we've grown in our core markets that we were in before, so I really do think that it mattered to our membership. It wasn't just a gross strategy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it sounds sounds very much like a Cinderella story, dave, so my question for you is would you do it again?
Speaker 2:John, you're too kind, it does. I mean I probably made it sound too positive. It was painful during the process. I mean it really was. I mean I think again, members are generally minimally impacted. For at least for us, they were Again because we tried to err on the side of caution.
Speaker 2:A lot of process and policies were the same, but the attrition is hard and everybody you talk to that does a merger. They're like it's part of the deal, right? People just, you know, even though it feels the same culturally, maybe it's just not for them and so they choose to move on. And that's hard. I think that's hard as a leader. You sort of feel like it's this broken promise. And yeah, there's some. You know that was the challenge.
Speaker 2:I would say today, looking back, yes, I would absolutely do it. And I would say, for the betterment of even me, if I was left tomorrow, I would still say it was a great merger because it was the best thing for both organizations. You know, reliant was they needed some more resources. We needed some more resources to grow as a combined organization. And yeah, I don't, I don't have any regrets. I have some regrets again.
Speaker 2:We, there was some missteps in how we handled some things, but I think everybody's going to have those and you got to give yourself some grace. But yeah, I'm excited. I mean the people that stayed, they're probably some of our biggest fans. I mean they are, you know, absolutely ingrained in the culture and what we all do and they are thriving and so I'm excited about that. And, you know, they get more marketing support. They get more customer service support on the back end, our accounting group is finance group. That combined is phenomenal. So yeah, I mean now and state after it's over, right, it's easy to say yeah, it was fantastic because we're in such a great place now, but it's painful. I will warn people, don't expect that. It's not going to be challenging for you.
Speaker 1:So while you're going through that pain, I mean, could you share generally some metrics that you feel were critical to know where you, as a CEO, you knew where things were at and how things were going during the integration?
Speaker 2:Yeah, john, and I talked about this before the podcast. This is such a great question because if you don't have your metrics in place before which I think we're a pretty data-driven organization, so we had our dashboards and we had our metrics. Day one, we started integrating Reliance, even though we weren't on the same platform. We started manually integrating all that data in our dashboards. Watch the business. It's so easy to get distracted. So easy because you, you know hundreds of decisions every day and you get decision fatigue. Somebody has to be looking at those metrics and making sure that the business is still running. Are you still running marketing promotions? Is your net promoter still, you know, matching what your goal is and your member promise? And so I wouldn't say there was necessarily metrics.
Speaker 2:During, like you know, the the merger itself, we had some metrics around vendors, time of completion. We had a very, you know, comprehensive project plan. Project plans aren't sexy, I'm sure, john, I'll let John comment on that but absolutely critical right, I mean absolutely critical. That was a critical document for us. We used an online system that we could share. It was fantastic, but watch the business. That would be. My biggest advice is because, again, that distraction is so easy, John how do?
Speaker 4:you feel about project plans John.
Speaker 3:You're talking my language today. Project plans, I mean hands down. You have to have it. It doesn't have to be as formal as, let's say, something in Microsoft Project where you have resources and allocations and things like that or burn down rates. It doesn't have to be that complicated, but just having a general idea of where your milestones are that is so critically important. Right, the gating factor that says, okay, the next 60 days we're achieving X, y, z, okay, bang, how do we get there? Are we marching towards the same North Star?
Speaker 3:Another metric I'd also toss out there is just your risk and issues log or your risk and issue tracker making sure that, from the perspective of the integration management office as well as your executive team, that you're watching the volume of those come in, and not necessarily just how fast they're coming in or how many there are, but which ones are high priority, which ones are impactful or potentially detrimental to the core vision that you set as part of your application. So that would be an important takeaway. And then the last one is scope. I would say that a merger can be a long-running endeavor or a journey.
Speaker 3:We often, as executives, obviously want to compress and say, hey, we need to get it done by X, y, Z date, because there are certain things that we have to meet and achieve. So if you do that, then that's your scope right and if you exceed or start to push against that, then you have to have that conversation, that honest and open conversation that says, well, what did we miss and do we press forward to get it done by bringing on more resources or do we punt it for another phase? Those are tough conversations we have to have because in many cases those bubble up into bigger conversations like budget time etc. So metrics are really important to make sure we measure against what we set ourselves out to. And then again having those conversations that are open and transparent and really just honest that say, if we didn't set the metric right, well, how do we course correct going forward?
Speaker 2:I want to tag on that. Such a great suggestion the phases. We had four very distinct phases. Super helpful because if you look at a project plan, it's just all of a sudden, it's just item after item after item. That phasing is critical. That's a great suggestion.
Speaker 1:So you know, kind of throughout the conversation, Dave, you kind of dropped some lessons learned along the way, Any other additional lessons that you've learned that you'd put into your next transaction.
Speaker 2:I highlighted three the phones I talked about. You're not going to have enough people on the phones. Just get ready for that. I talked about the missteps and sort of rebranding I would say. Lastly, contracts that's talked about.
Speaker 2:I think a lot sort of you know in the industry and with folks, but I don't probably just ignorance on our part I hate to use the word stupidity on my part but we didn't really think about renegotiating our whole core contract. And so Reliant was on-prem, on-premise with their servers for Jack Henry Cemetery and we were in the cloud. They were great partners in helping us navigate those contracts. Because they weren't aligned, we basically had to renegotiate it and that was not something. It's complicated to renegotiate your core contract and we weren't necessarily prepared to do that. And so we started that process probably in April and we didn't finish and we signed it like July 25th or something and did data conversion on August 1st, like it was that drawn out. And so you know, some firms want to use a third party to help them negotiate those contracts. We didn't have time to engage in that.
Speaker 2:So I would really say be ready for that, because that was challenging, because it's a big contract, we use a lot of their services and so figuring those out, which ones to keep I would also tell you, watch your invoice post-merger and we got billed for a lot of Reliance stuff that was done and over after the fact. And then I'd say, just just walk around, be able to gauge people's stress, right. We talked about metrics and all of that. I mean, trust your gut, that's a great metric. Go around and talk to people and see if they're fried, tell them to take an afternoon off, like the work will be there on Monday.
Speaker 1:Why don't you?
Speaker 2:hang out with your kids today and and you know get a little peace, because that that will be a huge metric for you too. People will get a little overwhelmed and burnout.
Speaker 1:So oh, that's great. Well, as our, our time, you know, comes to a close, I've got a couple of more questions for you, gentlemen, you know. The first one is you know, what should we be talking about, or what should I have asked you that I haven't yet, and you know, I'd like to ask that to both you guys.
Speaker 3:So, feel free to jump in whoever is ready to answer. Dave, you want me to go first? Sure, go, john. I got one. That just like popped in my head immediately.
Speaker 3:So the one thing I think most people don't consider but is critically important to complementing culture and the continuation of culture is the capture, the care, the saving of key artifacts during your entire journey. And I'm going to focus on one particular one, which is really simple, but people forget to do it, which is just take photos. Take photos of when teams are hanging out together as one right at a restaurant, or your key milestone achievements and your quick wins and you're just celebrating. Or even just pop into a conference room where everyone just like heads down and just snap a quick photo.
Speaker 3:It's these things that define your culture, not not so much as you know what were you, uh, and then you know what are you now, but just the journey that everyone's going through together. Because what I found is that when we don't consider that, then we've lost that historical context, and that's really important because as you continue to grow, you want to have that. So that's one thing I recommend folks look at and we don't ask each other of that too often, but certainly we could. So over to you, dave. What do?
Speaker 2:you think.
Speaker 2:Such a great suggestion. I wish you would have told me that two years ago. Such a great suggestion. I would say it's so funny.
Speaker 2:You know the power, the superpower of credit unions we all talk about is collaboration. You know you can we ask credit unions for job descriptions and how they're handling a situation or what their experience with the vendor is. If they're not in your market, we're all pretty open to sharing. We didn't do a good job of that. I don't know why we asked. We collaborate with lots of other credit unions but we didn't reach out to ones that had already merged and get some lessons learned.
Speaker 2:And I feel like there's a lot of literature and you know things out there about various things that are going on in the industry, but finding like a project plan or a checklist or something like that, even off the bat, it's kind of challenging. So, yeah, reach out to your friends in other states or you know other markets that you're not in and and ask them for some help. And then, lastly, I would say it's expensive, but don't be afraid to hire vendors to help you. Obviously, alm offers that service. Jack Henry, we wouldn't have gotten our data conversion done on our own. I can tell you that right now, with absolute certainty. Don't be afraid of the price tag. It'll be a little bit of sticker shock, but it will bear dividends. We had no regrets about the money that we spent on partners helping us with the integration.
Speaker 1:Any final closing thoughts, gentlemen?
Speaker 3:Well for me, dave, you're so generous with your comment. I really appreciate it. One area that I would love to add on to which is the reach out. You're such a futuristic leader. You have a lot of experience and maturity to reach out to others, I think. If I were to close out on one particular comment, I think we need to do more of these. We need to find ways that we bring practitioners who've gone through a transaction and a merger like we need to share more. So, dave, maybe and I could figure out a way to to find something on linkedin we could create a linkedin group together. We could be the founding members and just like, get it out there, add people to it and we can all start sharing. That'd be I'm happy I'm happy to.
Speaker 2:I just appreciate your guys time I hope I hope somebody gets some. If somebody lists, there's some good nuggets in this conversation we've had, so hopefully somebody takes a few of them away.
Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate your time, gentlemen, and thank you for joining us today and sharing your insights on ensuring success in a merger integration. Mike, john, thanks Yep. Take care, guys, as we conclude our discussion on merger integration. It's clear that strategic planning and thoughtful execution are essential for credit unions navigating this complex process. The conversation with Dave and John highlighted several critical factors that determine integration success. Their experiences offer valuable guidance for institutions considering similar strategic moves in today's evolving financial landscape.
Speaker 1:The three key takeaways I got from today's conversation first, while systems integration presents technical challenges, the greater hurl is cultural integration, particularly addressing the emotional impact of brand changes and acknowledging the sense of loss that team members may experience during this transition. Second, communication must be constant, consistent and comprehensive throughout the integration journey, as Dave emphasized. Even when you think it's enough, it's not, highlighting the importance of transparent messaging at all levels. And lastly, maintaining business focus during integration requires establishing clear metrics. Maintaining business focus during integration requires establishing clear metrics, developing phased project plans and supporting staff well-being, all while continuing to prioritize excellent member service. We hope this discussion provided valuable perspective as you evaluate your own strategic opportunities and partnership possibilities. We have a robust conference webinar schedule, so be sure to visit our website for more details on these, as well as our Education Hub and Resource Center for recorded webinars, articles and more. Thank you for joining us today and, as always, stay safe, stay healthy, and thank you for listening to, in your Best Interest, an A-Long First podcast upon as recommendations or financial planning advice.
Speaker 4:We encourage you to seek personalized advice from qualified professionals regarding all investment decisions. Current and future holdings are subject to risk and past performance has no guarantee of future results. Podcasts should not be copied, distributed, published or reproduced in whole or in part. Information presented herein is for discussion and illustrative purposes only and is not a recommendation or an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities. The views and opinions expressed by the ALM First financialors speakers are their own as of the date of the recording. Any such views are subject to change at any time based upon market or other conditions, and ALM First Financial Advisors disclaims any responsibility to update such views. These views should not be relied on as investment advice and, because investment decisions are based on numerous factors, may not be relied on as an indication of trading intent on behalf of any ALM First Financial Advisors product.
Speaker 4:Neither ALM First Financial Advisors nor the speaker can be held responsible for any direct or incidental loss incurred by applying any of the information offered. Alm First Financial Advisors is an SEC-registered investment advisor with a fiduciary duty that requires it to act in the best interest of clients and to place the interest of clients before its own. However, registration as an investment advisor does not imply any level of skill or training.
