Grace
Vandecruze, an accomplished leader in the
financial services industry, recently answered that question for us when she
visited our campus to speak to our Consumer Experience team.
Not only is Grace a trailblazer among insurance executives, she's also an avid mountaineer and has summited
some of the world’s highest mountains.
Along her journeys, she has learned many lessons about success and how to
achieve it as part of a team—and she shared a few of them with us.
Here are three key takeaways we’re applying to our
transformational journey as an organization:
1. It takes a team
to achieve a major goal.
You can’t climb a mountain alone. It
takes an entire team, and each person has a role to play that helps everyone
successfully complete the journey. Make sure you connect and leverage
relationships and the strengths of others.
In business, it’s no different. At CUNA Mutual Group, we
exist to help people achieve financial security. As we build new capabilities
and transform our organization to better meet the needs of today’s consumers,
we’ve faced challenges and learned we can overcome these challenges when we’re
aligned and working together.
2. Understand the
value of small steps.
When you reach the top of a mountain,
your journey is not complete. In fact, you’re only halfway there—you still need
to make it back down. It’s crucial to keep your focus every step of the way.
Summiting a mountain is not a linear
journey, and neither is an organizational transformation. As we work to design
better experiences for our customers, we’ve experienced many twists and turns
along the way. However, taking an agile approach throughout our teams has
helped us navigate more efficiently, and we’ve seen the value in taking iterative steps to move closer
to the end goal.
3. There is no
failure—only learning and adapting.
 |
“In mountaineering, there is no failure. Mountaineers
view
any setback or challenge as an opportunity
to
learn and rethink the strategy.” -- Grace Vandecruze
|
“In mountaineering,
there is no failure,” said Grace. “Mountaineers view any setback or challenge
as an opportunity to learn and
rethink the strategy.” Adjusting your approach doesn’t mean failure, it means
you learned something.
There are many lessons from mountaineering that parallel with
the business world. For us, the biggest takeaway is that success will come as
the entire team moves forward together. It’s not just about making it to the
top—reaching any long-term goal takes time, teamwork, and the ability to learn
from mistakes.
Which
of these lessons will you follow as you climb on to reach your major goals?
