Barron Conway:
While we do have a roadmap and a grand strategy, you have to do it in bite-sized chunks. By not doing it in bite-sized chunks, and it doesn't mean you can't do several initiatives in parallel, but you can do everything all at once. Because if you do, you are setting yourself up for failure.
James Robert Lay:
Greetings and hello. I am James Robert Lay and welcome to the 177th episode of the Banking on Digital Growth podcast. Today's episode is part of the Digital Growth Journey Series, and I'm excited to welcome Barron Conway to the show. Barron is SVP and head of digital and product management at Nuvision Federal Credit Union. And today, I look forward to diving into the progress that Barron has made along his own digital growth journey, so that together through our discussion, we can educate, empower and really inspire you to keep moving forward and making progress along your own digital growth journey.
James Robert Lay:
Welcome to the show, Barron. It is so good to share time with you. You've got a great digital growth journey story. I'm wanting to dig in together with you, but first as always to open up on a positive note, what's going well for you personally or professionally? It's always your pick to get started.
Barron Conway:
Well, first off, thank you very much for having me, James. This is an honor and a privilege. I'm very excited to be part of this. And so thank you for that. That's a great question. What's going on with me? Well, let's start with the professional side of things and we can touch on the personal as well. But professionally as you know, I am working at Nuvision Credit Union. I am the SVP of digital and product management.
Barron Conway:
I've been there for about two years, coming up to two and a half years. And my focus over this time has really been about helping Nuvision, embrace digital transformation. And as you and I have sort of chatted about over time, digital transformation is more than just about what do you do with a website?
Barron Conway:
What do you do with an app? It's about how do you rethink your organization? How do you rethink and reenable those capabilities to deliver the right type of member experience, right? To deliver something that is truly of value to our members and of value to the organization. So really what I've been doing is working on creating a really comprehensive strategy and a roadmap. And then a deployment approach so that we can realize that roadmap, right?
Barron Conway:
Because as we all know, right, these large projects, whether it's digital transformation or any other sort of multi-faced, multi-dimensional engagement or initiative, they're complicated. Their risk of failure is high. So it's really about a couple of things. How do we build a framework that is trying to deliver success in bite size chunks so that we can always be moving forwards in a productive and proactive manner. And also aligning ourselves that this is not a project. This is not really initiative. This is a new way of existing, right? This is not something that has a beginning, middle and end. It's a continuum.
Barron Conway:
I don't know yet if some of these we have, or some of these capabilities have a five-year life cycle or a three-year life cycle, but we're going to constantly revisit and reenable and change what we're doing. So much of my focus over the last few years has been helping us get to a place where we can truly be aligned in what we're trying to accomplish from our members, what we're trying to accomplish for our team and actually deliver that type of value.
James Robert Lay:
Well, I like this idea. You are coming from Nuvision. You're helping Nuvision have a vision for the future. And a lot of it does start with vision, helping others see what they might not be able to see, helping to provide them with clarity, maybe to even give them some hope. And what I want to do, I want to go back in your mind here, hop into the DeLorean, if you will. We'll go back in time and maybe we'll set the stage in just three years. We've had some conversations over the years about just your journey.
James Robert Lay:
Go back three years. The world really was a different place at that time, pre-COVID. What did digital, the conversation around digital, digital growth, digital transformation? Where were you at that time? Can you set the stage there and then we'll work from that point in time and move up to where we're at today?
Barron Conway:
Yeah, sure. So it's kind of interesting because as you know, I don't come from a credit union or banking background. While I started my career many years ago in banking, in investment banking, since then I was out of it and I've worked across variety of different industries. Most of the time whether it's been on the client side, on the industry side or on the consulting side, really looking at how do you enable change? Right?
Barron Conway:
Sometimes it's been about organizational change, but a lot of the time it has been around sort of digital transformation. How do you digitally enable an organization? So when I came to Nuvision while I had a title and a role, what my real underlying premise was being a change agent. So looking at the organization and seeing that there was... We'd implemented a number of digital capabilities and platforms. However, they've been done more out of a need to have those capabilities versus having an underlying strategy around how should we truly understand who our members are, how we want to engage them and what type of value do we want to deliver to them? And how do we want to use that both for our members advantage and for ourselves so that we can be the type of organization we want to be.
Barron Conway:
So when I first started at Nuvision, there was really a lack of some early work had been done, but there was a real lack of clarity in where we were going digitally and what we wanted to create in terms of how we wanted to create value. So I spent a lot of time working with my peers across the organization whether it was folks who at my level, more senior in me, not a senior as me, but really understanding who we are as a company.
Barron Conway:
I mean, this is really, really important here, right? This is who we are as a company. Who our members are and how we want to engage in the type of relationship we want to have with those members. And where we see ourselves, right? So like so many industries within financial services, everything is increasingly commoditized. And so the real opportunity is how do you create that differentiation and what is our differentiation? So really trying to understand how can we take our brand value proposition, our brand purpose, and actually weave that into who we as an organization from an overarching strategy and how we deliver value and deliver our services.
Barron Conway:
So out of that, we actually used our time and we worked with it. We worked with a really great external partner to do a lot of research, a lot of sort of investigative analysis, looking at a lot of data to really come back with a point of view in how we wanted to move ourselves forward. Now, that's kind of where we are today.
James Robert Lay:
I think it's important to know the perspective that you're bringing here. You didn't come from a credit union background, but you're an agent of change or an agent of transformation. And it's this idea of transformation that I'm really interested in because it's not just "digital transformation". Yes, that's the technology, but it's also human transformation as well through the context of digital and the tools and the way the capabilities that we can apply this technology going forward.
James Robert Lay:
I'm curious, every great transformational story starts with some type of, we need to do something. We can't stay where we're at. What was the, we'll call it, the ignition, the spark that started Nuvision down this journey and really said, "Hey, we got to do something. We can't just wait, we need to take some action going forward"? What was that, if you think back?
Barron Conway:
That's a really good question. And I think that... Well, I know that. There were a couple of forces at play here, and it's not that there was a sudden aha moment or organizationally, right? They'd been sort of [inaudible 00:08:55] batting around this need to carve out or craft a better Nuvision from a digital experience perspective. And I think the things that really brought it together was, number one, from a user perspective, our members, right? The more we engage with our members and we do an awful lot of research with our members, in terms of understanding their needs and speaking to them. Right?
Barron Conway:
Twice a year, we have these very, very in depth services. And every month we have regular interactions. What we noticed was this hunger for a better digital experience. Right? And we're going back three years here and three years doesn't sound like a long time, but it is actually it's an eon ago in our world.
James Robert Lay:
Yes.
Barron Conway:
Right? So what we started to notice increasingly is this... While there'd been some great investment in some of our capabilities, increasingly there was the, "Why can't you be more like Amazon? Why can't you be more like Apple? Why can't you be like Uber? Whatever it might have been." And really that to us, what that really distilled was that people were looking for... Our members were looking for something that understood them.
Barron Conway:
Now, I'm not necessarily talking about personalization yet or anything like that. What I'm talking about is when there are certain brands that when you interact with them, they make it so easy to interact with and to do business with them, that you actually... It's an enjoyable experience. And you forget about the interaction and you're doing what you are there to do, right? When you're shopping on Amazon, you're not worried about what you are clicking, you're focused on the shopping, right? So what was missing, and I think it's still missing in many, many areas of financial services is when you are engaging in a digital channel for financial services, you spend a lot of time thinking about the, how I'm engaging versus what you are trying to do.
Barron Conway:
So one of it was that driver from our members, right? Our customers. The second was this realization that in the financial services space, let's say we take the world of FinTech, this kind of revolution that's been ongoing and continuing to speed up, there were an awful lot of change agents out there. Some of those folks are in it for themselves, right? They're building their own capabilities. They're going after their own parts of the value chain. Others though are out there offering a series of capabilities and services.
Barron Conway:
Two, places like Nuvision and other financial institutions, to basically leapfrog where you are. So we realized that there were a few particular areas, and there was one in particular that we started with that we thought if we could get this onboard, we could actually help to sort of kickstart some of our thinking and some of our approach to where we want to go and how we want to add value to our member experiences. And that for us was in our mortgage space, actually.
Barron Conway:
It still is, right? It was three years ago. As we all know, it's been such an important part of every financial institution's business. We saw that how difficult it was for our members to engage and go through the application process. And here you are, someone, a person's most significant financial transaction or transaction in our lives, and he here we are as an organization, our job is to make it as seamless and easy as possible. And really that the technology and capabilities we're using were throwing barrier after barrier in front of them.
Barron Conway:
So we basically found a FinTech partner that basically transformed that experience. And that helped align and solidify the thinking that if we can do this in one area, we should be able to do this across our entire organization to rethink how we engage.
James Robert Lay:
I think that's a key lesson. That's a key takeaway is you work trying to do this across the entire organization. You picked one area of massive opportunity. In this particular case, mortgages. You looked at a pain point that you saw in that buying experience. In this particular case, it was the moment of truth. It was the application. And then you went and found a capability because there's a couple of options. You can either bill it, you can buy it, acquire someone, or you can look for more of a collaborative opportunity.
James Robert Lay:
And that's what you did. And knowing the platform that you worked with, with Blend, I've seen that particular experience with Blend has tested so well. When we conduct digital secret shopping studies, I typically make the recommendation of like, "You can build it. You can acquire it and buy it, or you can go and collaborate and partner with it." And it's typically that's that third recommendation that I see people executing against the most because it's the fastest. It diversifies risk and it creates the greatest amount of value in the shortest amount of time.
James Robert Lay:
When you think about that experience, what was the biggest win, for yourself, for your team, for the organization, looking at this through the lens of collaboration, not necessarily competition? Because that to me is just such a growth opportunity throughout this entire industry of looking for collaboration, not just for competition.
Barron Conway:
Yeah. Actually, I want to come back to a couple of the points here you mentioned as well. But I think that the biggest win for us... So when you think about, let's use that word, collaboration. What's really interesting... I'm sure you've bought a house. Many of us bought houses, bought multiple houses, right?
James Robert Lay:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Barron Conway:
The purchase process is highly collaborative in its very self. Whether it's with your realtor, yourself, your lending officer. And that relationship goes back and forth continually. What we found is taking that relationship and applying it to how we've partnered with Blend has been absolutely essential. They have been a really great partner, super collaborative. And that partnership has sort of manifested itself in really helping us create a really, really fabulous set of experiences that have helped both how our members engage with us and collaborate whether it's directly through a straight through digital experience or a co-browsing or a shared digital experience.
Barron Conway:
And equally it's helped us internally, organizationally, really see the type of value. So the whole idea of collaboration, I think it's very central to who we are as an organization. And we've seen that really come to life with the relationship we have with Blend, but also the relationship we have with our members and the relationship we've had across our organization and different departments really enabling us and helping us to get there.
James Robert Lay:
Yeah. I'm curious as a change agent, a transformational leader, training and education is key because things are constantly at a macro level and also at a micro level. But something new is always coming down the pipe. And in a way, it's almost, we have to be somewhat futurist and try to make the best predictions upon the data that we have to bring the future into the present moment so that we can make decisions accordingly.
James Robert Lay:
What has helped you just continuously be aware of the opportunities that are available out there to create, to capture, to collaborate together with?
Barron Conway:
Yeah. Let me answer that. I also want to go back, just tie to this. A couple of points you said, if that's okay.
James Robert Lay:
Yeah, absolutely.
Barron Conway:
In the run up to this. One is that whole, do you build it, do buy it, do you partner? If you think about building and buying, fraught with, very, very... Building is fraught. You've got to have a deep bench and a big pocketbook, right?
James Robert Lay:
Yes.
Barron Conway:
And a big wallet to do that. The buying equally has its own challenges. Right? The beauty of a partnership with a provider like the Blends of the world is that you get the benefit of all that time and money they've put into building something and all the partnerships they have. So for organizations like Nuvision, what we do is we have to make some very strategic decisions about how we invest our money to get the right return, to deliver the right type of value.
Barron Conway:
So I think that the partnership is absolutely crucial for decisions like that. There are places where you may decide to buy something or build something. And those are big, at times almost sort of fundamental decisions. So when you're not making those decisions and you still need to make a lot of progress, to your point, we're still going to make change. Now more than ever, there's more effective ways to do it.
Barron Conway:
The second point you said while we do have a roadmap and a grand strategy, you have to do it in bite size chunks. By not doing it in bite-sized chunks, and doesn't mean you can't do several initiatives in parallel, but you can do everything all at once. Because if you do, you are setting yourself up for failure. And failure, isn't just not delivery of a project or an initiative. Right? I really want to be clear on this. Failure is really costing an organization money. And is costing our members a flawed experience.
Barron Conway:
So really, really focusing in, on how can you deliver value in bite-sized chunks and build up to something. You may think it's going to take you longer, but the actual net result is that you actually get there faster by doing that. So that's just something I wanted to add into that.
James Robert Lay:
No, I think there are great points to make. And it's the bite-sized chunks, I think to connect the dots about this idea of continuously learning and through a lens of looking out at the marketplace, looking out at opportunities for collaboration, because things are changing. You can have the best roadmap, but then something changes something. Maybe it's a new threat. Maybe it's a new opportunity. How do you continuously just be aware of what's going on? Because I find a lot of times in conversations that I'm having, they're like, "James Robert, I'm just busy. I don't have time for this." What's your take? What's your recommendation?
Barron Conway:
That's a great question. I do this a few ways. One, I read as much as I can. Right? I'm online, I'm searching, I'm scanning, I'm looking for opportunities. I'm always thinking about where we're trying to go, what's happening, where the changes are. I'm professionally so interested in trying to work out how does change as a concept move an organization forward?
Barron Conway:
How do you create the right type of environment for customers and for employees? It's one of the things I'm always looking at. Also though, I'm fortunate enough to have a pretty good network of colleagues, friends, acquaintances, associates. I've been doing this for a long time across any number of industries.
Barron Conway:
So I am constantly reaching out to people whether it's like, "Hey, do you know any companies that do X, Y, and Z? Or what's been going on here? Or how have you been working here? So while as much as I do my own research, oftentimes the most valuable insight I get or the most valuable I get from this is actually speaking to others. Right?
James Robert Lay:
Yes.
Barron Conway:
So really leveraging my network. Really tapping into the people I know. And not being afraid to ask... I don't believe there's any... There are no dumb questions, right?
James Robert Lay:
No.
Barron Conway:
You're trying to understand how can I affect change? How can I move the world forward? It took me a long time to work this out. Right? I'm not so arrogant to know that... Or think that I know everything. I actually comment it from the premises that I know very, very little, but what I do know, I know how to apply really, really well. So I want to find other people that are strong in the areas that I'm not, or I haven't yet learned about. And I want to tap into that wisdom. And that really for me, is, yeah, I do a load of reading. I do a load of research, but, it's the network of folks that I know, folks like yourself, right? That I know that really become invaluable to me. It's the force multiplier of the world.
James Robert Lay:
The older that I get, the more that I know, the more I know that I don't know. And it's the paradox of knowledge. I think once you come to that realization, and I wish it's like, I think anything hindsight is 2020. I wish I had that realization when I was younger, and I'm still young. My age, if you will, like I'm 158. I'm going to make it to 158. If I can make it to 158, I'm going to live a really, really good life. So I'm just getting started, because I'm looking at the future is so big. There's so much possibility out there that it really comes down to the mind. It comes down on to what you know, and not just what you know, but back to your point, who you know.
James Robert Lay:
It's the people, it's the network, it's the community. And if we're all aligned to kind of work together, competition starts to go away. Collaboration becomes that next natural norm, the operating model. But at the same time, you can know, but then you also have to create space and time to just simply think. And as a digital leader, it's so easy to get sucked in to the technology.
James Robert Lay:
I've gotten to the point now to where I will literally do digital detoxes and I will step away. I have a working cadence now. I take what I call a me day every other Friday. So every other Friday, I have a three-day weekend, and a lot of that is a digital detox to where I'm not on LinkedIn. I'm not on social media. I have taken my internet browser off my phone. I have no email. I have a dumb smartphone at this point because I have found that it's just so easy to fall back on old patterns. You got to change the environment.
James Robert Lay:
But by doing so, I get downloads, man from like, I don't know, the super conscious mind or something or the subconscious, it starts to bubble up because I'm just thinking differently. As a digital leader, how important is that for you and what's your methodology to create space and time, not just to do or to learn, but also just to simply create space to think?
Barron Conway:
Great question. And it took me half a lifetime to work that out. I was a workaholic when I first started my career, crazy workaholic. And then I realized one day I had to work in a different way. So I am very much into that, the detox, the switching off, finding time for yourself. I do this a few different ways. One is I like to run. Right? And so to your point, how the universe will suddenly speak to you about stuff. I've often found that on my runs, all of a sudden, all the thoughts I've had, suddenly coalesce and I'm like, "Okay, I have an idea."
Barron Conway:
This is the solution to the problem, or why can't we do this? So all of a sudden it's sort of like, it's this creative energy, this drive to change as you're pounding the street. It's absolutely exhausted. And all of a sudden I get this spark. And that for me is a big deal. I get very antsy when I can't run and things like that. Sometimes, it's not just because from the fitness perspective, it's just because it's how I organize and sort out my mind. And that's a big deal for me.
Barron Conway:
Now, the other way I do this is almost the absolute opposite of running. It's my indulgence. Right? But it's my indulgence in a way of being, I think, creative in a very visceral and tangible way. So I love cooking. I mean, I love it. I do all the cooking in our household. So I love to cook. I find cooking a very... We live in the world of the intangible, right?
James Robert Lay:
Yes.
Barron Conway:
So for me, cooking becomes this incredibly visceral experience that allows me to truly unhook. I don't know if I'm a good cook or not, but I can tell you, I have to put all of my thoughts and all of my energy into doing something well when I'm cooking. And therefore, I don't think about anything else. And that helps me a lot as well. It helps me sort of just... Doing something for people that you love and care about. Right? And really, really sort of being part of that.
Barron Conway:
So that's a big thing. Those are my two other way. I love whiskey and wine. So I'm avidly researching and collecting those two things, those two areas. So that's another area. That sort of deals into my whole, I like to research. I can't help that part of myself. But that's a way of researching without thinking about work. It's a more of a different pursuit there.
James Robert Lay:
I love it. I love it, the running. And I'm a runner right there with you. And I can vividly remember two instances. One was in Costa Rica and I wasn't running, but I was sitting in... They had like a hot cold therapy at the hotel and I was doing hot cold therapy. And I'm looking over the canopy of the jungle. I literally got to download for how to write banking on Digital Growth. It was an experience I'm always going to remember. And then the same thing happened last summer. I was in Galveston, which is outside of Houston, it's the beach, and I was running in Galveston.
James Robert Lay:
We were there. It was the 4th of July week in family vacation, and I'm running. I get this other download that really kind of inspired the outline for banking on change that I'm writing now. And it's just these little things that you're like, "Wow, we probably need to do more of that."
James Robert Lay:
And like you, I mean, I was 60, 70, 80 hours a week, if not more for the first 10 years of my career, to the point, it almost cost me a marriage. And I'm like, "Yeah, let's not do that again." But I found the more that I disconnect, it's a paradox. The more I disconnect and reconnect with those around me, and then also back into just other things personally, the more that I'm being inspired from ideas, insights that I don't think would be possible. So I'm curious just personally, since you're cooking, and I love food, what's something good that you've cooked recently?
Barron Conway:
It was last night, actually. A little bit of a project. I recently got this book, Italian American. This couple from New York. So they had a recipe in there which was this stuffed rigatoni in a red pepper, onion, tomato sauce. So I said about the project, made it. It's absolutely delicious. But it was a project. I mean, it was literally... What I underestimated was how difficult it was to stuff the rigatoni with a sauce made that I had to sort of put together. But I made. It's been delicious. So that was my last one.
Barron Conway:
I'll go through the process of either going through a series of cookbooks and copying recipes from that or using recipes from that, or just going off and saying, "Oh, I want to make this. And let me see how I can throw it together."
James Robert Lay:
But the neat thing about food, and for me, it's just my wife and I, we love to eat good food, which is why I have to run as much as I have to run-
Barron Conway:
Same here.
James Robert Lay:
... on the opposite side of the spectrum, but whiskey, wine, I'm right there with you. Food, whiskey, wine, it brings people together. Running brings people together, marathons. And I think when you think about the idea of Digital Growth being a journey, it's a journey from good to great, but it's a journey you cannot do alone. It requires a team effort collaboratively internally across the organization.
James Robert Lay:
What have you done to help get buy-in, alignment, connections with others so that you're committing to move forward together? What does that look like for you?
Barron Conway:
Yeah. That's a really good question. And so the concept of like, it's a team effort, is really central to how I work. Because you can't accomplish anything in what we are trying to do without the team. And that really is an important component for me. So the way that I've sort of tried to do this is through a... It's not about command and control. It's really about the collaboration and the partnership. So it's sitting down with my peers. It's spending time going through discussing and understanding what their needs are, understanding how they interact with our members and what their needs are to deliver those types of experiences.
Barron Conway:
It's understanding what their frustrations are. It's understanding how they're working within the organization, where they're trying to get to. And actually framing an approach and a direction that helps them be successful. Right?
James Robert Lay:
Right.
Barron Conway:
Whether we have challenges getting our pre-approved offers out to our members and therefore our members are frustrated, or we have challenges in how we're automating a set of experiences that enable our back office to work more effectively, it's really sort of sitting down and not coming at it from any dogma. It's not saying, "Well, I have the answer for you. This is what we're going to do." You meet resistance that way. What we're trying to do... Change has got to start with... It's not just about coming on and saying, "You're going to do this and this is how it's going to work." Because I don't necessarily know how something is going to work.
Barron Conway:
But what I do know is there's better ways of doing things. I think one of the advantages I have by not having had a career, let's say, in financial services is I get to ask the most obvious questions. I get to say, so why do we do it this way? What led to that? And that then allows me to really understand where folks are coming from. And then that allows come back with the, have we considered this? And can we try this together?
Barron Conway:
So the real simple thing is here. The way I've sort of tried to do this is ask a lot of questions, be super collaborative and show how you can make the experience better than it was before, while at the same time empowering those you are working with. So everyone wants to feel that they're not being disenfranchised in some way, right? So if you can help someone understand, "Look, if we were to automate this process, you can move from being someone who is moving a piece of paper from A to B to becoming a subject matter expert in this area."
Barron Conway:
Or if we can now have our members easily accept their pre-approvals, you can now spend more time developing a relationship with a member that furthers their connection to us and helps them meet their needs. It's really about trying to work out how you can help those who are impacted actually get to a better place. And through that, you get the buy-in. At least that's how I've seen it work for me.
James Robert Lay:
I think that's key and I've seen the same thing for financial brands in the program. People will fight and they will resist change. Change typically that also comes from the outside, but they will support almost 100% support transformation that comes from within, and that they had a role in helping to shape and form. A lot of that comes by just getting good and asking some really good questions to help others see, once again, they cannot see.
James Robert Lay:
Speaking about seeing things that we can't see just yet, I want to leap ahead in your mind and just do a little future thinking, future visioning. Let's leap out, well, two years, two years. Two years into the future. You're in a really good place. Nuvision is in a really good place. Thinking about the progress you've made so far, but also looking ahead, leaping ahead, and looking back to this conversation, what is just one thing that you would like to see happen to continue to make progress, to move forward, and ultimately just achieve and success in just your own journey of growth here?
Barron Conway:
That's a good question. For me, I'm going to say one word and I'm going to explain why this is the case. And let me just do a little bit of context here. I think over the next couple of years, we're going to get in place most the foundational aspects of our digital transformation that we're going through, changing our organization to deliver the right type of value to our members and to ourselves, at the baseline. And then the next step is really going to take courage, right? Because the courage here is about what comes next, right?
James Robert Lay:
Yes.
Barron Conway:
How do we move beyond some of the obvious experiences that we've been trying to do? And for me, what that looks like is about how do we move beyond a transactional experience and relationship with our members and move it to something that's a lot more relational? And when you think about where capabilities are going, the ability for a digital channel to understand a member, a customer in a way that is consistent and meaningful, that is sometimes more powerful than an even an individual can. And how you bring that to life, I think, is going to be really where I see the future and the opportunity for us is how do we take that to the next level.
James Robert Lay:
That's a great point. When we were preparing for this, you also had a question for me, which I thought would be fun to do a little bit of dialoguing around as we get ready to wrap up here, Barron. So that question that you ask me, because I know it's going to help the dear listener, because it's one that I've been asked before, what is one question or what one question does a brand need to ask itself as it embarks on a digital transformation journey? Can you provide some context? And then I'll give you some of my thinking to answer this question? And I love turning the tables like this.
Barron Conway:
No, that's fine. This is beyond, before, let's say outside of Nuvision. I've been fortunate enough where I've worked in automotive. I've worked in pharmaceuticals and biopharmaceuticals, et cetera. And there have been times where I've worked on different places in my career. Very significant initiatives. When you try and get to the crux of the, why are you doing this, you actually see the answer not answered correctly, right? You don't get the answer. It's for the wrong reasons.
Barron Conway:
So what I've tried to learn over time is how do you align what you're trying to do with the why you are trying to do it? So for me, the answer is always go back to... I think some of the earlier things we were talking about. Go back to what is your purpose? I'm a big believer of Simon Sinek and the why. Understand your why.
Barron Conway:
And if you can truly describe your why, that helps you determine what you should be doing and how you should be doing it. And I think that not enough places do that.
James Robert Lay:
So let me expand upon that thinking, because I think there's a lot of alignment which why I should get your context here to give you my perspective of this. Real time. Right now we're doing a diagnostic study for financial brand. He's been in the program. They've gone through some training. They have some into what the future possibilities could be, but then they're needing to get some objective outside opinion. And the question that I'm asking, and this is being surveyed to about 30 people, why should I open an account at your financial brand?
James Robert Lay:
And it's the same answer I see. I've got probably data points now all close to 3,000 people. It's the same thing over and over again. We have great rates. We have amazing service to sell that down. I'm like, "That's not compelling enough."
Barron Conway:
It's a commodity.
James Robert Lay:
It's a commodity. Exactly. It's the commoditization that you were talking about before. So back to your question is what one question does a brand need to ask itself when it embarks on a digital transformation journey? And my thinking is this. It's the why. It's why do you want to go down this path in the first place? More importantly, what's hurting you or what pain are you trying to resolve?
James Robert Lay:
And I think even deeper into that, it's almost like the five whys, like someone answers, "Well, why? Well then why? And then why?" And you keep going down, and I'm looking at this from like a pain perspective. What's hurting you? What pain are you trying to resolve? And more importantly, is it your own pain internally or is it the pain of your customer, your member, your account holder? I think if we can lean into that. And that's where I've taken the thinking of Simon Sinek with his whole golden circle, I've optimized that just a little bit to where he talks about this is why you do what you do. This is what you do. This is how you do it. But I think he forgot something in their critical to it's to who.
Barron Conway:
The who, migrate.
James Robert Lay:
Who are we doing this for? Because if you can answer, this is why we do what we do, and then this is who we're doing it for. That gives you even that much more clarity into the what and the how to align it back to the who which then ultimately helps you to fulfill the why. A bit of a philosophical ideal, but I think once again, if we don't know who the who is or who the ideal account holder is, then we just risk going down this exercise of transformation ending up in commoditization.
Barron Conway:
And I agree with you. So I've seen this brought to life, not in financial services, but in a different industry where we went through this exercise. And I can honestly say that while it was difficult and painful, it was pretty transformative for the business. And they're now reaping some very significant benefits with this. And they went through this. I couldn't agree with you more that understanding your why, which is basically what's my purpose? Why am I here? Who am I trying to do this for? Getting that right becomes central to me. Giving you a chance at success really is what it's about.
James Robert Lay:
It is. And I want to come back to that point. Is it easy? Absolutely not. Are they going to be hard conversations? Yes. It's going to be tough. It's going to be painful. But you used this word here before. You said courage when you were looking out at the future. I think those that have the courage to have these conversations come out on the other side with far more clarity than the vast majority of their peers have, and it's that increased clarity that leads to increased courage that allows them as an organization to move forward in lockstep with confidence, to create the future that they best see for themselves, their organization. But it's also a future that they will create value for their members, their account holders going forward.
James Robert Lay:
Barron, this has been a lot of fun. Let me ask you know, to send off the dear listener with a little bit more clarity, something practical, all transformation that leads to future growth starts with think small. What's one small recommendation that you would make for the dear listener that they can apply so that they can move forward on their own journey of growth with confidence? What would one small, simple thing be that they could do next?
Barron Conway:
Start with the user. You've got to be selfless. You've got to understand who are my users? What do they need? What are their challenges? And let that be your driver. It's not about you and your organization, it's about, we only exist cause of our customers. We can call the members, whatever, right? But nothing exists without a customer, right? So start with them. Understand what they need and what their problems are, what their challenges are, what their desires are, and then you have a fighting chance.
James Robert Lay:
Start with the user, put people at the center of your thinking, put people at the center of your doing. To quote Ryan Holiday, ego is the enemy. And if we can die to ourselves and really... I mean, this is empathy to its finest. When we put the needs, the hopes, the dreams of others, and we just help play that role of the helpful guide, there's so much good that we can do. And to back to your point, go beyond the transaction and put the transformation of people at the heart of our organizations.
James Robert Lay:
Barron, this has been a great conversation. Congratulations on all the success that you've made on your own journey of growth. If someone wants to continue the dialogue of the discussion that we've had, what's the best way for them just to reach out, say hello and connect with you?
Barron Conway:
Yeah, please. You can reach out to me on LinkedIn. It's Barron Conway. It's straight there. You can reach out to me on my work email. That's absolutely fine, which is barron.conway@nuvisioncu.org. Or actually personally. Hit me up on barronconway@gmail.com. So in all nice and easy ways to get ahold of me.
James Robert Lay:
Connect with Barron, learn from Barron. Barron, thank you so much. It's been a lot of fun. Great conversation. Thanks for joining me for another episode of Banking on Digital Growth. I appreciate it.
Barron Conway:
Thank you, James. It's been a privilege. Thank you very, very much.
James Robert Lay:
As always, and until next time, be well, do good, and make your bed.
