Restoring the Soul of the Movement: A Forgotten Book Every CU Leader Should Read

By Ed Speed

For the past year and a half I have been flogging our movement for what I see as our most destructive faults. It’s time for me to stop criticizing and offer some solutions. 

Anyone in business during the 1990s or early 2000s was exposed to Jim Collins’ masterpiece, “Good to Great.”  Nearly 25 years later, it remains the #1 business book on Amazon, with worldwide sales of almost five-million copies. Its language–including “Level 5 leadership,” “the Hedgehog Concept,” “the Flywheel,” ”getting the right people on the bus,” —have become boardroom strategic planning dogma. 

Yet few in our movement ever heard of, much less read, Collins’ powerful follow-up work, “Good to Great and the Social Sectors.” 

An Unfortunate Neglect

That neglect is unfortunate, because this slim, 35-page monograph may be the most important leadership and governance document ever written for our cooperative world. For credit unions struggling to reconcile growth with purpose, it is a must-read. It offers a disciplined path for restoring the soul of our movement—especially for boards and executives who still want to “keep the faith.”

After I retired in 2012 I was often asked how our team grew assets from $700 million to $2 billion, loans from $400 million to $2 billion, and branches from two to 30, in just nine years, all while delivering world-class service and employee satisfaction. 

Collins’ little-known work was first published and printed in 2001, four years after G-T-G.   I discovered it two years after I became CEO.  It became my roadmap for the future: 

Greatness Redefined: Impact, Not Income

Collins begins by dismantling a misconception that has quietly corrupted the cooperative spirit: the belief that greatness is measured by financial performance alone. In the social sectors, he argues, greatness is measured by impact—superior performance and lasting results in service to mission.

That single reframing is revolutionary for credit unions. It calls boards and executives to move beyond the comfort of ratios, ROA targets, and “wallet share.” Those are tools, not trophies. The true measure of a credit union’s greatness is whether members’ lives are improved, especially those whose stories don’t fit neat underwriting models.

In this light, the question before every credit union board should not be, “How big can we get?” but rather “For whom are we indispensable, and how do we prove it?” Greatness is not a matter of scale; it is a matter of faithfulness to purpose.

First Who, Then What: Getting the Right People on the Bus

In Good to Great, Collins offered one of the most enduring ideas in modern management: “First who, then what.”

Before deciding where to drive the bus, get the right people on it, the wrong people off, and the right people in the right seats.

In the social sectors, Collins acknowledges that this becomes more complex. Nonprofits and cooperatives, including many credit unions, often seem reluctant to hire and fire freely; therefore, they must instead “inspire, align, and redeploy.” The “right people” cannot be defined by credentials alone, but by character—those drawn not by the opportunity to make money, but to make meaning.

The Heart of the Matter

For credit unions, this is the heart of the matter. Our movement began with people who believed in cooperation over competition, stewardship over status. To “get the right people on the bus” today means finding—and forming—leaders, staff, and directors who still burn with that moral conviction. It means recruiting not just for competence, but for conscience.

A credit union’s survival now depends less on its capital ratios and more on whether its bus is filled with people who believe that service is “sacred” work.  In the last half of my CEO tenure, I stopped hiring senior-level candidates from banks and credit unions. I could teach banking and finance but not character and passion. 

The Hedgehog Concept: Passion, Purpose, and the True Resource Engine

Collins’ original “Hedgehog Concept” is about disciplined simplicity—discovering what lies at the intersection of three questions, especially for social sector entities:

1. What are we deeply passionate about?
2. What can we be best in the world at?
3. What drives our resource engine?

In “Good to Great and the Social Sectors,” Collins redefines that engine. It is not merely financial—it includes stewardship of time, money, and brand capital.

For credit unions, this means our “resource engine” is built as much on trust as on capital. Members give us their money, but more importantly, they give us their confidence. “Best at” doesn’t mean the lowest rate or the flashiest app—it means being best at relationship-driven service, ethical lending, and fast, fair, compassionate problem-solving.

A credit union that builds its Hedgehog around “high tech that becomes high touch when life goes sideways”will win not by volume, but by loyalty.

Level 5 Leadership Without the Crutch of Power

Collins describes “Level 5 leaders” as those who blend fierce professional will with deep personal humility. In the social sectors, such leaders cannot rely on positional power. They must lead by persuasion, credibility, and moral authority.

In credit unions, this is the kind of leadership we desperately need—leaders who use influence, not ego, to move people. This means boards should not be dazzled by executive charisma but animated by member mission. Executives who understand that the authority that matters most is earned, not conferred.

Leadership in our movement should look less like command and control and more like stewardship and service. As Collins might say, “You can build greatness without executive power, but you cannot build greatness without discipline.”

The Flywheel—and Its Twin: The Stop-Doing List

Collins’ “Flywheel” describes how consistent, disciplined actions build momentum over time. Each push—small, deliberate, aligned—makes the wheel spin faster until the organization becomes nearly unstoppable.

But there is an often-overlooked twin: the “stop-doing list.” Without pruning distractions and reducing friction, momentum never builds.

For credit unions, this is tough medicine. It means:

• Stop launching copycat products that add noise, not value.
• Stop chasing vendor-driven “partnerships” that erode control and accountability.
• Stop mistaking automation for service.

Technology can amplify service, but it cannot replace compassion. In Collins’ terms, and through my theological lens, service is our “sacrament,” the outward sign of an inward commitment to members.

Every board should ask at least once a year: What will we stop doing? Greatness is not achieved through addition, but through disciplined subtraction.

Measuring What Matters

Collins warns that in the social sectors, “performance” cannot be reduced to money. The challenge is not lack of measurement—it’s lack of the right measurements.

Credit unions should measure what truly reveals mission impact:

• Member outcomes: debt reduction, savings growth, first-home ownership, responsible small-business lending.
• Access and equity: the time and ease it takes to say “yes” for credit-challenged borrowers, hardship reversals, and complaint resolution speed.
• Relationship durability: member tenure, depth of relationship, and referrals rooted in trust.

This is not softness; it is rigor of a higher order. When we measure what matters, we improve what matters.

The Social Sector Resource Engine: Resisting Today’s Temptations

Collins helps expose the false idols that tempt every mission-driven organization:

• Scale as a substitute for mission. Bigger can serve better—but only when size deepens intimacy, not dilutes it.
• Technology as a substitute for touch. Digital tools can extend reach, but only people can heal trust.
• Partnerships as a substitute for competence. If our name is on the card, app, or loan, we are responsible for the member experience—period.
• “The official credit union of . . .” serves only egos, not members.

Our resource cooperative engine—time, money, and brand capital—depends on integrity. Once squandered, it cannot be rebuilt with slogans.

Why This Book Matters Now

The credit union movement began as a moral and social alternative to the market’s indifference; a people’s banking system built on mutual trust and shared responsibility. In recent years, that clarity has blurred. Trade associations tout scale as virtue. Executives chase relevance through mimicry. Too many boards confuse safety with sameness.

Collins’ monograph offers the antidote. It calls us back to disciplined fidelity—to measuring our worth by the lives we improve, not the assets we amass. It insists that moral purpose and operational rigor are not opposites but allies.

If we read this little book with humility, we might rediscover what “credit union” truly means: a union of members, not a brand of institutions nor a now undeserved tax status.

A Practical Reading Plan for Boards and Leadership Teams: “Good to Great and The Social Sectors”

• Assign the monograph to all directors and senior staff. It’s just 35 pages—readable in one sitting.
• Hold two working sessions:

1. Session 1: Define your Hedgehog (passion, best-at, resource engine).
2. Session 2: Adopt three outcome measures you’ll track quarterly—member outcomes, access, and trust.
3.  Adopt a “stop-doing” list. Each quarter, retire one practice that adds complexity without serving members.
4. Name your flywheel. Identify five or six daily actions that drive your culture forward. Celebrate repetition, not rhetoric.

Final Word: Mercy with Mastery

After a lifetime in this movement, I have learned that the credit union’s power is not its capital—it is its compassion. But compassion without competence becomes sentimentality, while competence without compassion becomes cruelty. Collins helps us reunite the two.

“Good to Great and the Social Sectors” is not a business book—it’s a guide to moral clarity through managerial discipline. It teaches that greatness in service organizations comes from a thousand small acts done with purpose, humility, and courage.

Read it. Read it as a board. Then live it.  Base strategic plans on it. Our members—and the movement’s soul—deserve nothing less.

Edward Speed is the retired CEO of a multi-billion-dollar credit union and holds a master’s degree in theology. These days, he spends his time serving food, washing dishes, and sweeping floors at a Catholic Worker House, helping homeless senior citizens. [email protected]