MADISON, Wis. – Credit union leaders will need to make three changes in their mindsets if they expect to adapt to new competition, a new workforce and what is becoming a whole new world, according to one person.
Seth Madison, a future of work strategist and CEO of FutureSight Labs, told attendees at the TruStage Discovery conference that the “push harder, work longer” ethos simply isn’t sustainable for managers or their teams, and offered some strategies for what to do instead.
“The truth is this is a challenging moment in time,” said Madison. “You’re facing intense competition and rapidly changing member expectations that are constantly evolving, an uncertain economic and political landscape, and, of course, for all of us, the relentless pressure to grow.”
Forget the Playbook
Madison said traditional playbooks of simply pushing harder, working longer and extracting more effort will not deliver sustainable success. Instead, he called for “an alternative perspective on high performance growth—one that doesn’t burn people out but lights them up; one that leverages artificial intelligence not to replace human judgment but to enhance it; one that recognizes in a world of algorithms, it’s our humanity—our ability to connect, to understand, to build trust, to create exceptional member experiences—that ultimately becomes our greatest advantage.”
He shared what he described as three “future-ready mindsets” that he said will be critical to meeting the moment. While skills are important, Madison said, “Ultimately, it’s going to be about mindsets. Skills may keep you relevant, but mindsets make you indispensable.”
Mindset One: The Future Isn’t Happening to Us, The Future is Being Created Through Us
“How are you going to prepare for a world that you won’t recognize?” Madison asked. “That maybe seems like a simple line, and it’s sort of like that line, ‘The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.’ A mindset is the lens through which you see everything you do. It shapes what you notice, it shapes what you believe is possible and, ultimately, what you’re able to create.”
He said the antidote to uncertainty is trust—especially self-trust. “When you trust yourself completely you’re not waiting for permission or validation, you’re not looking for someone else to tell you it’s OK to move forward. When you truly trust yourself you stop second-guessing your instincts and you’re willing to take bold decisive steps before all of the data is in. You’re fighting for clarity but you’re not waiting for certainty… It’s like having this unshakable inner compass that says, ‘Even if I’m wrong I’ll learn, even if I fail I’ll grow, even if the path isn’t clear I will find a way.’”
When people trust themselves, Madison said, they stop seeing the future as a wave to brace for or as a fixed destination. Instead, “They realize the fundamental truth that the future isn’t happening to them, it’s being created through them. It is a mindset rooted in agency and ownership. It is the view we are a force upon the world, we are not victims, we are creators of our reality.”
Mindset Two: It’s About Human Expansion, Not Human Extraction
Madison said leaders today face a difficult balance between the demands of the future and the limited capacity of their teams. He cited statistics showing 24% of employees report significant or constant burnout, 82% feel professionally depleted, and 89% of HR leaders say current performance expectations are unsustainable.
“Even though people are feeling like this, as leaders we still have a mandate to drive growth,” Madison said. “We as leaders need more from people today, not less, but we can no longer extract more.”
Seventy-one percent of frontline teams report significant stress, he said, and 40% of manager candidates have considered rejecting leadership roles entirely, largely due to a sense of time scarcity. This, Madison warned, is putting leadership pipelines at risk.
‘Fundamental Shift’
“To meet this moment, we have to make a fundamental shift around how we pursue growth,” Madison said. “The future of growth is human expansion, not human extraction. We’re coming off of 25 years hyper-focused on the idea of how to extract performance, extract productivity. Extraction is no longer sustainable healthy long-term growth.”
Madison said AI can be part of the solution, not just by automating repetitive tasks but by reducing cognitive load.
“When we can partner with our teams to unlock the power of these tools, it’s that to-do list—the half-strategy, half-execution weighing us down—that prevents you from being in flow, from being innovative and creative and thinking about where the future is going. When we do that, something magical happens. AI’s gift isn’t actually about efficiency, it’s about liberating human creativity and imagination.
“Our technology leaders know how to build stuff,” he added. “But you live closest to the problems, closest to our members. You’re seeing where opportunity is to unlock the potential. You have to take ownership of it.”
Mindset Three: It’s About Regenerative Work
Madison said the future will belong to those in regulated industries who can “speak both compliance and creativity,” balancing operational constraints with innovative thinking.
“We’re not negating or denying the reality of the environment we’re operating in, but we are going to push. We’re going to be creative around where we can find possibility and we’re going to be asking questions like what’s allowed and what’s safe, what’s possible and what’s coming.”
He recommended leaders focus on expanding human capacity and using technology to connect people to better work, which he defined as “regenerative work.”
Borrowing from regenerative agriculture, Madison said this kind of work is “life-affirming” and builds human capacity over time.
Renewing the Soil
“In traditional farming, the market dictated what you put in the ground. We extract as much productivity and performance out of that soil until the land is barren, until we’ve depleted all of the nutrients,” he said. “That’s exactly what we’ve done in our most modern workplaces, except the soil is human beings. We are not machines to be optimized; we are ecosystems. If we want to invite humans to bring forward their best parts, we have to recognize that there are ecosystems to be tended.”
