My parents purchased a speed boat when I was slightly younger than my 13-year-old daughter MacKenzie. Ahead of that, we relished Michigan’s majestic summers on our pontoon boat. As we enjoyed time on Lake Baw Beese in my hometown of Hillsdale and observed other boaters, we all thought it would be fun to have the opportunity to water ski, and the newer boat brought that possibility to life.
My family had little experience water skiing. I got up on two skis and quickly wanted to transition to slalom skiing. It was hard. My dad would spin around and around as I’d attempt, fall, and then attempt again. Luckily, a kind student of my mom’s had been skiing for years, saw my woeful efforts, and offered to ride with us and coach me.
He showed me how to hold the rope handle. He encouraged me to lean back. He watched my mistakes and gave simple and digestible suggestions about what I could do the next time. After several hours of his coaching, I got up. My memories of slalom skiing are some of my life’s best. How it felt to come up from the water and glide across the lake energized me. I remember leaning back after getting up, feeling the wind in my face, and smiling as adrenaline rushed through me from head to toe. I learned to push out of and use the wake, especially in calm water, to build a “rooster tail” of water and nearly splash the boat. On days when the lake was empty and the water was as calm as glass, I would hang on until my hands couldn’t take one more second of gripping the rope handle to enjoy another curve around the lake.
Although my parents generously invested in a slalom ski, and over time, I improved my capabilities; I was never a great skier. It was, however, a joyful and athletic endeavor that I cherished. Through high school, my family would head to the lake nearly every weekend we could, and occasionally, we would head out during weeknights after my dad wrapped his day at the CPA firm. My best friend Amy skied for years before me, and we’d leap into the lake together to be pulled in tandem. In college, I anticipated returning home with the promise of heading to the lake. Even as the time gaps between skiing grew, I felt exceptional delight each time I rose out of the water.
It's been years since I enjoyed that feeling. In my 20s and 30s, I never questioned hopping into the water and throwing on my ski. After a relatively minor knee injury nearly six years ago, my appetite for adventures in unusually practiced sports waned considerably. As a runner in my late forties, my goals for athletics have narrowed from running marathons and waterskiing to ensuring I protect my six-day-per-week commitment to endorphins lasting as long as possible from riding my Peloton or running. While I don’t run daily, I’ve fallen in love with Peloton and alternate riding with running. I lift weights more frequently and read a lot about what it means to maintain fitness as I age.
Last week, I had the opportunity to enjoy time away with my family on the West side of Michigan. MacKenzie has yet to fall in love with water skiing. She has fallen in love with wakeboarding. I watched with a smile all week as she ran out to ask her grandfather if he’d take her out on the boat, put on gloves to protect her hands, throw the wakeboard in the water, and swim after it, easily lift out of the water and cross the wake. Her face lit up as she went around and around on the lake. I took pictures. I cheered, “Go, MacKenzie, go!” I smiled at my mom as she enjoyed observing her granddaughter take on another challenge and master it.
One day, as I was singing encouragement to MacKenzie, as he does every summer, my dad said to me, “Hey kid, you going to get that ski out and show her how it’s done?” I remembered as he asked how much that question stung the first time he asked it, and I had to say, “No.” Last week, when he asked, my stomach did not flip. The shame I felt during the transition from skier to encourager had faded. I laughed and said, “Not anymore, Dad. This runner is going to protect what’s left of her running career.” I know that he and others wonder why I’m so cautious.
Across our careers, we experience these shifts in our roles, which can be painful. In Harvard Business Review’s “Why Starting a New Job Feels So Awkward,” Art Markman writes about the awkwardness of starting a new job. “The most significant source of awkwardness is you just aren’t sure what to expect. The brain is a prediction engine. It wants to accurately forecast what’s going to happen, and a lack of confidence about the future creates anxiety.” Despite having worked for more than 20 years to earn the opportunity to lead as the president & ceo of Community Financial Credit Union, I felt that awkwardness on June 1, 2022. Even for those of us who love and embrace change, the experience of change creates uncertainty.
Transitioning through life and career phases does not always feel like gliding across the wake of a smooth lake. It can feel as bumpy as the wave-colliding experience of a busy July 4th boating excursion. In his book, “The Coaching Effect’ Bill Eckstrom shared a construct called “The Growth Rings” that gives language to the experiences we navigate in a changing world. Eckstrom helps us see that the space where we might flourish is in the “complexity ring.” He focuses on how complexity can lead to growth when “order is changed or challenged.”
For years, order for me included a grounding in my first business love, storytelling (what some describe as marketing). The creativity, opportunity to create, discipline to understand human needs and drivers, and the glory of being surrounded by beautifully designed work brought me incredible energy. As my career grew and I stepped toward my goal of being a president & ceo, I put the practice of storytelling in the hull of my career boat for seven years. Order was definitely changed and challenged. I craved it, and I found ways to continue expressing that passion for storytelling, yet the opportunity to create space for new learning and experiences mattered deeply in my leadership journey.
This week, our Community Financial Credit Union feels extraordinary pride to have two new Filene Research Institute i3 participants. In the early 2000s, my participation in i3 changed my career. At the time, the program was three years long, and I was devastated when those three years ended. I could not imagine no longer meeting with my team, growing new ideas with peers from across the country, and sharing them in front of industry leaders. The loss of that season ending felt agonizing. Today, my role includes identifying talented and growing leaders to raise their hands and apply to engage in that experience. While engaging in i3 changed my career, in this season, supporting those who will shape the future of our industry is a tremendous honor.
The stages of our career challenge us to take off our water skis. I felt awful the first time I told my dad I wasn’t going to ski. I debated in my brain what it meant. I thought of myself as weak. I considered how it might not hurt my knee. I breathed through the shame and sat on the boat. I enjoyed my run the next day. The next time he asked, it was a little easier. Last week, with just a twinge, it was easy to focus on this next season in my life: Being the best supporter of MacKenzie’s wakeboarding interest turning into passion. Like giving up marketing for seven years, the transition bumped me, and I felt bruised. Those years helped me to gain experience and expertise and supported a dream and opportunity.
I cherish my memories of skiing. I see pictures and smile. I feel the rush of the wake. I also feel tremendous gratitude for supporting myself in this season with the gift of six days of biking and running. There may be a day when my body cannot sustain the length or nearly daily commitment to endurance workouts. I will mourn that transition fully, celebrate the many years I could sweat with glee, and shape another season that makes my human experience even more complex.
As we imagine the future of work, our Community Financial Credit Union People team is actively building a pilot to test transition options for those who may be nearing a retirement season and yet have more gifts to share with the organization in a reimagined capacity. This creates space for succession planning and opportunity for those in earlier career stages to grow with the credit union while maximizing engagement, subject matter expertise, and historical context. We are building a bridge between current and future talent while celebrating and honoring both.
According to the World Health Organization, “life expectancy has increased by more than 6 years between 2000 and 2019 – from 66.8 in 2000 to 73.4 years in 2019.” As we enjoy more time living, we will see more seasons and shifts in our daily experience, roles, and how we identify our space in the world. As credit unions, we have a unique opportunity to model cushions to support those transitions and the grief that goes with navigating them, as well as wings to create space and opportunity to shape what lies ahead for team members across the arc of their careers. Let’s show the world how epic our organizations are by rooting for and coaching new water skiers and encouraging those who take off their skis and find new roles as the very best supporters of skiers.
