Connections Online November 2011 Newsletter |
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Connections Online 4.0 Advanced Features Webinar Tuesday, December 6th at 1:30 ET This 30-minute training webinar highlights advanced functionality of Connections Online 4.0 and Q&A.
Connections Online 4.0 Application Training Webinar Tuesday, December 13th at 1:30 ET This 60-minute training webinar dives deeper into an overall “how to use” Connections Online 4.0.
Past Educational Webinar Recordings For a listing of our past Educational Webinars, use this link: http://www.connectionsonline.net/news/events.aspx
Training Library Click here to link to our Training Library
Informational Webinar If you know someone outside of your company who may be interested in learning more about Connections Online, we have an informational webinar scheduled on Wednesday, December 14th at 1:30 ET – Please pass this link on to them to register: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/936286274
Connections Online Migration If you have not already done so, and are
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The following is the first in a series of articles to help improve the Connections process:
Are You Playing “Moneyball?” I just saw the movie Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt. Wow, what a great movie. It demonstrates the decision process the Oakland A’s baseball management used to try and leverage their limited resources to put a winning team on the field. They didn’t recognize that their actual decision process was flawed. They used the same “flawed” decision-making process every season and would always get the same results: Not a sustainable winning team.
Credit Union management has a similar objective – a winning team that provides a sustainable financially viable institution for their members. So how can credit unions improve the odds of winning with “Moneyball?” By improving their decision process... Paul Nutt, author of "Why Decisions Fail: Avoiding the Blunders and Traps that Lead to Debacles,” has researched more than 400 decisions made by top executives of large companies. From his research, Nutt found that half of all decisions fail. Failed decisions result in continued setbacks, which prevents you from achieving your business goals. Nutt says the failed decisions share three common blunders. Managers (1) rush to judgment, (2) misuse their resources, and repeatedly use (3) failure-prone tactics to make decisions. First Not Always Best Rush to judgment means managers use the first remedy that they come across, meaning they don’t take time to think through the issues that “need” a decision. This behavior often happens whether it is a simple decision with few consequences or a highly complex issue requiring a disciplined, analytic approach. Reasons are numerous, but this blunder is due to job pressure – getting it done now is more important than the outcome of the decision. Nutt found that failure is four times more likely when decision-makers quickly embrace the first idea they come across. To counter this issue, it is best to follow a five-step decision making plan:
Use Your Resources Right Misuse of resources occurs when managers spend their time and money on the wrong things during decision-making. For example, an organization decides to introduce two new products (which have high resource costs associated with them), and then don't make resource trade-offs by stopping other projects to free up resources. To minimize this blunder, before you decide to deploy resources for a decision, create a quick "case study" for the decision. Ask yourself the following questions.
Prone to Failure With this blunder, Nutt found that two-thirds of all decisions are based on failure-prone tactics. Success, however, increased up to 50% when better tactics were used. For example, most managers are aware of the importance of collaboration in the decision-making process. Nutt's research indicated decisions based on collaboration succeed more than 80% of the time. Unfortunately, his research found that collaboration is used to implement only one in five decisions. In addition, Nutt discovered that 60% of the time, managers use only their position, power or "charismatic personality" and expect employees to do what they say. Examining the Decision Process In our fast-paced business climate, it is easy to get in the habit of using these three decision blunders. Here’s some subtle advice. - Avoid these bad habits. Use the following checklist - for yourself, or for your direct reports - when you need to make a decision for the benefit of your organization:
10.Have you learned anything about your decision making process that you can apply to this decision? So if you want your members to benefit from your organization's success, to be sustainable, and win with “Moneyball”. Avoid the easy-to-fall-into-blunders and make winning, collaborative decisions. Your organization and membership will not disappear in the next decade but will, conversely, prosper for a long, long time. Karla Norwood would welcome any comments you may have related to this article or topics you want explored… knorwood@cardwellgroup.com
COL IQ – Templates We have just completed the Project Template and it is ready for beta testing – you can enter the project tasks into the Excel template and it will sync with Connections. We also have a Basic Role Template ready for beta testing. This allows you to create multiple Basic Roles without having to retype them i.e. Tellers, MSRs, etc. You can also enter employees using the Basic Role template. Coming soon will be a Business Case template so when you have finished completing the Business Case, you can sync with Connections and it will update the project without having to retype the information into the application.
If you are interested in helping us test any of these templates, please call Karla at 800-395-1410. The templates will work with Office 2007 or 2010. They will not work with Office 2003.
If you have not already subscribed to COL IQ, please contact Karla Norwood at 800-395-1410 or karla.norwood@connectionsonline.net
Initiative/Project for “Person-to-Person Electronic Payments” If anyone is working towards an initiative for Person-to-person (P2P) electronic payments, Donna Lewis, Arkansas Federal CU would be interested in speaking with you. Her email contact information is: Donna Lewis - DLewis@AFCU.org
4.0 Tips of the Month Using Connections with Outlook Technical requirements – you must have the latest Internet Explorer installed on your machine (IE7 or IE8 – it will not work with Firefox) and Office 2003 or 2007. On your main Outlook view, open “Shortcuts” and “Restore Window Down” – make the Outlook window small, open Internet Explorer and open URL http://my.connectionsonline.net. Enter your log-in information and check the “Remember Me” check box. “Restore down” the IE page, click to drag the URL to the Outlook Shortcuts Group list. Rename as appropriate. Here is a short movie showing how this is done. http://www.connectionsonline.net/docs/outlook.mht (Click the “next” button below the word “steps” to view the process for adding Connections as a shortcut to Outlook). Once this is added, you will be able to click Shortcuts in Outlook, click the Connections shortcuts, and edit Connections within Outlook.
Client Care Notes To view previous Connections Online Newsletters, go to http://www.connectionsonline.net/News/Newsletters.aspx
Monthly Calendar of Webinar Events Link: Click here to see our upcoming webinars or to register for a free training webinar.
Connections Online (440) 892-1410 or (800) 395-1410
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