Every January, I hear some version of the same thing from credit union leaders:
“It just feels like everything is changing at once.”
Technology is accelerating. Member expectations are evolving. Margins feel tighter. Competition looks different, and sometimes unrecognizable.
There’s a sense that the ground is shifting. And it is.
But here’s what I keep coming back to: It has always been shifting.
Every generation of leaders (for thousands of years) has felt this tension. New tools disrupt old systems. Economic cycles test assumptions. What once felt stable begins to feel uncertain.
Change isn’t the exception to leadership. It’s the environment leaders operate in. The real differentiator has never been whether disruption shows up. It’s how leaders respond when it does.
For credit unions, that response is everything. Because what happens to you this year, macroeconomics, AI, rate pressure, and competitive noise, is largely outside your control.
What you choose to do in response is not. And that response will shape your strategic plan far more than the headlines will.
I’ve seen two credit unions face nearly identical market conditions and end up in completely different places three years later. Not because one avoided disruption. But because one leaned into clarity and disciplined action while the other defaulted to hesitation.
One treated strategy as a living framework. The other treated it as a document to protect. As you look at your plan for the year ahead, it’s worth slowing down long enough to ask:
Where are we assuming the world will cooperate with our plan? What decisions are we quietly postponing because we’re waiting for more certainty?
If member expectations shift faster than we think, how quickly could we adjust?
Are we building a credit union optimized for stability, or one built for evolution? Those questions aren’t meant to create anxiety. They’re meant to create awareness.
Because one of the greatest risks I see right now isn’t AI. It isn’t fintech. It isn’t even rate competition. It’s hesitation.
It’s the belief that if we just hold steady long enough, things will normalize. But stability doesn’t come from standing still. It comes from disciplined movement.
It comes from leaders who are willing to challenge their own assumptions. Who listen more closely to members. Who make thoughtful decisions even when certainty hasn’t fully arrived.
That doesn’t mean reacting to every trend. It means building an organization capable of learning and adjusting in real time. The year ahead will move quickly. It always does. There will be surprises. There will be opportunities. There will be moments that test your confidence in the plan you worked hard to build.
That’s not a sign the plan failed. It’s a sign you’re leading in the real world. Your results this year won’t simply reflect what the market does. They’ll reflect how ready you are to adapt when the market moves.
We believe credit unions don’t lose relevance because the world changes. They lose relevance when they assume they don’t have to. The year will not wait.
The only question is whether you’re prepared to move with it.