In this interview, Jim Bouchard talks with Mike Neill, founder of Service Star Consulting, about building a member‑centric culture—especially in credit unions but applicable to any organization. They explore the true purpose of credit unions (improving members’ financial well‑being), the pitfalls of treating members as sales targets, and the importance of never selling something a member doesn’t need. The conversation moves to the widespread employee‑engagement crisis (71% disengaged in the U.S.) and how leadership can become myopic, focusing on short‑term profit rather than purpose. Neill argues that leaders must insulate front‑line staff from regulatory, compliance, and operational chaos, emphasizing “controllables” and introducing an internal effort score (a service‑survey that measures how easy internal departments make each other’s work). They discuss the danger of an overly employee‑centric model, likening it to a child‑centered home, and propose treating employees as customers on equal footing with members. Authenticity, charisma, and personal transformation are highlighted as essential leadership traits, with practical anecdotes from credit unions, healthcare, and other sectors. The interview ends with Neill’s appreciation for credit‑union culture and contact information for Service Star Consulting.
Chapters
When you create a culture of excellent customer experience, great things happen. How do you create this culture? Mike Neal, founder of Service Star Consulting, walks that walk, and that's what we're talking about on today's episode.
Inspire, empower, and guide people to their very best. These are the people who are walking the walk. Your host, the original Sensei Leader, Jim Bouchard.
Mike Neal was a highly successful credit union exec when he founded Service Star. Designed exclusively for credit unions, Service Star Consulting offers a program that develops a member-centric team of employees that exceed member expectations and grow profitable relationships. We like those words around here. While Mike's work focuses on credit unions, I believe any business can benefit from his ideas. So Mike, let's start with a little bit about your member-centric philosophy. How does that work?
Well, for credit unions, I believe that we understand that I think at least intellectually that the purpose of our business is to improve the financial well-being of our members. I think we lose sight of that tactically sometimes due to influences that are significant, you know, the NCUA, other regulators, compliance issues, right, profitability issues, uh, interest spread issues all types of things. And so we begin, if we're not careful, to run the credit union as a not-for-profit bank, doing virtually the same things but just doing it in a not-for-profit way. And I do believe that credit unions are constructed purposefully differently, with the entire idea being we're here to improve the members' financial well-being. And so When we think about the member-centric model, it's not just a term that I came up with to make sales sound less threatening. You know, I mean, we've been, you know, not we, but other people have been trying to say for years, it's not selling, it's telling. It's not selling, it's member education, the sharingness, giving thing.
Yeah, and it's still selling when you get right down to it.
So don't worry, don't worry, calm down. But the reality is that we take it very seriously because of the member-centric model. What do we do? Well, then you never sell something to the member they don't need. So what that means is we are going to be— we are not going to be dependent on promotions. Now that doesn't mean we can't have advertising, we can have promotions, but we're not going to be dependent on promotions such that, you know, January's Visa Mania, February's Auto Refi Madness. And so we're talking to the same people about the same product, because that's the month we're offering the deal. And we got research to back it up, and I can go into it if you want, but I've got research to back it up which shows members hate that, and employees in credit unions are generally not wired to be engaged in that. So it becomes self-defeating that we build a really good system that nobody wants.
No, you know, that's part of the reason that I was excited to talk to you today because when we first talked, you know, everything you were saying, I said, well, obviously this has application in the credit union space. You know, we do a lot of work with credit unions ourselves and we hear the same things, but I also saw that this translates well everywhere, and there's two points. You know, first one is, of course, if we're doing our job right, yeah, we can talk about the euphemisms and the semantic tricks, but, you know, at the end of the day, any organization has to sell something. It has to create some revenue to stay alive, so if we put that aside for the second second, right? If we're giving them something of value, then we really don't have to do a sell job, do we? That becomes a gimmick. And by focusing on the needs of the members, right? And I would translate that, well, you know what, it would be better for other businesses to think of their customers more as members, wouldn't it?
Well, I would think so. Let's look at healthcare. I mean, if we're not looking at the client, as the purpose for our existence, then that can get sideways really quickly, right?
Right.
They're under the same pressures credit unions are— regulatory and compliance issues and turnover issues and all the insurance issues. Add that on top of it. And so it's very easy to begin to look at things in functions, as functions of how much profit are we deriving off this Right now, that makes, that makes shareholders excited and that makes board members excited and that makes C-level people excited. But unfortunately, what happens is the people who are on the front line, be they nurses, people checking in the patient into the hospital, volunteers, which hospitals desperately need, or whether it's a member service representative, you name it, uh, they are engaged generally by creating positive outcomes for the people they're serving. And so they don't get excited about the fact that the organization has become more profitable thanks to you. They generally get more excited about your work has meaning and value.
Exactly.
And that's why we have such an engagement crisis in the United States and Canada, but United States particularly, in employee engagement. 71% of the employees, the latest Gallup Group research, 71% of the employees in the United States say that they're disengaged in their work.
Oh, it's global. It's global. It's all over the world now. Yeah.
And a large percentage, I think 16% of those, or a significant percentage, a significant percentage say they're actively disengaged.
Frightening, isn't it?
Well, it not only means that I don't care about my work, it means I don't want you to care either. And if you care, it makes me look bad. So stop it.
Yeah. Yeah. No, that's the ultimate expression of waste. If you think of the expense of labor and these are people that are cashing their checks and doing a little more. Yeah. I love what the CEO of Marriott recently said. You know, we take care of our people, our people will take care of our customers and everything else will take care of itself. You know, I thought that was just a brilliant way to say it. You know, that again, that's that. Member-centric or customer-centric forward-thinking type of philosophy. And I love what you're saying there too, but your leadership can get myopic about the bottom line, right? Particularly short-term. And you know, that's a challenge that we see very often. Then they wonder, they wonder why this, all of a sudden there's this disengagement bubble, right? Or a lack of inspiration or motivation. And you know, I think folks like you and I, we look at that and we see, well, it's quite obvious. We can track it back to a certain point, right? And say, you lost your folks there, right?
Mm-hmm. You know, when you said leadership can get myopic and you said some other words, you could have just put a period there, right?
Right.
Leadership doesn't necessarily get myopic about, it gets myopic. Now, I will say this. I can do that as well. I'm a leader. I lead my organization of several people. And so I can get myopic and just ask the people that work with me. And So we're all subject to it. But for example, I think this is ideal example. You take what Bill Marriott said, and what we have a tendency to do is then whiplash from the focus being on X to now the focus is on the employees. And we want to have an employee-centered workplace. And so I'd like to just say that I'm not a proponent of an employee-centered workplace. That does no better or creates some of the same problems that we're experiencing in culture today by child-centered homes. When you have a child-centered home, you create a selfish, self-centered, self-focused, overly confident child who cannot deal with challenges because the whole family has been focused on How do we make things okay for our child and put them in the best position? The same thing in the workplace. I do believe that we should look at our employees as our customers on an equal footing, or in a credit union terminology, with our members in an equal footing. And so the leadership is serving now a 360-degree constituency. We have an obligation to improve the financial well-being of our employees as well by providing the best possible pay reasonable for the job within the limits that we can pay. In other words, we're not going to think, how little can we pay them so we can make more money? And what we're going to do is we're going to say, what's the best possible benefit plan we can negotiate? And we'll renegotiate if we need to. What can we do to help them be physically well? Can we facilitate them becoming more well through different programs? So I'm not opposed to doing some of the same material things. But I'm a big believer, Jim, that words mean things. And when we say we're going to be employee-centered, what then happens is We then begin to make decisions about things that will positively impact the employees, which may negatively impact our customers.
You know, I think if Mr. Marriott was in the room with us, I think we'd all be singing in harmony, right? Because—
Absolutely.
I like what you say. It's not— again, it's not to be blinded in such a way, right? You know, it's funny. There's so many— lessons. I'm so blessed that most of what I share, you know, comes from my life as a martial artist and as a fighter. And I remember when I was a boxer, I had a trainer who— I was in a fight and I got angry in the middle of the round, right? This guy was really tagging me and I got angry. And I got to the corner and he said, it's like looking down a paper towel tube, isn't it? And he couldn't have been more right. It was just, you know, I had tunnel vision. And I hear this all the time with leaders, right? And you're right, if they get fixated on one that particular point. But there's a big difference, right, when you're taking care of the different constituencies and looking at them as customers, as members, and you're trying your best to serve them, then that's where I think we really jump to, you know, we're going to empower our employees, right? We're going to make sure they have the tools and the resources, and you touched on something just a few minutes ago, that sense of purpose, right, that drives us much, much more than short-term financial incentives or anything else, or punishment, right?
Mm-hmm, right. And so, hey, I count the money, right? I'm a for-profit organization, I count the money, so it's important to me. But what I've figured out over the years is I give more value than my clients feel they're paying for, and I seem to make more money doing that and have been doing it for over 20 years now. Yeah, isn't it amazing?
It's funny, isn't it? Because there's lots of ways to make money. We have different choices, but there were very few things in one lifetime that really excite us, right? That really give us a sense, you know, an energizing sense of purpose that, you know, really, especially as entrepreneurs, that drive us to put up with all the stuff we have to, to keep our business going, right?
Yeah, sure. Absolutely.
That's a crazy world.
No question about that. And so that's— I think that's the challenge as leaders. It's a crazy world and it's going to get crazier.
Oh, amen.
Because of mergers and regulation and things of this nature, global markets, it just gets more complex. And the most talented leaders, I believe, are the ones that don't get caught up Now, it's not that you're not aware of these things, but you don't get caught up in these things and you don't use them as excuses.
There it is.
And so then what do you do? You control the controllables. So what can I control? I can't control the economy and I can't control global markets and I can't control regulation and I can't—
I thought you were the guy. I thought you were the guy.
Right. And we like, we like to think we are, right? We like to think we are. But the truth is we're not. That's why there's so much stress and depression in the world.
We— Sure.
This information that we take in and we can't control it and it just stresses us out.
Or we elect somebody or hire somebody we think can, right? And that's a grand illusion, right?
Then we get disappointed with them after 2 months because they didn't fix everything, right? So, but the truth of the matter is, as leaders, I say this to my leaders all the time, um, a part of your job— and I'm going to say this in a very straightforward fashion. A part of your job is to insulate your employees from craziness.
Oh, that makes sense.
And so, because the truth is, the way the, you know, the food's put together is a little crazy back in the kitchen, but it's got to be beautiful when it comes out. But, you know, if the server is going back and hearing the cook yell at the manager and throwing pots and pans That is going to impact their interactions with their members. And so what we're going to do is we've got to create an environment so as leaders, we are encouraging, empowering, developing, training, affirming, and redirecting where it needs to occur our employees and refocusing them on what they need to be doing. And We need to insulate them from all the other crazy stuff that's going on. And I believe if we do that, then we'll wind up having a sustainable organization because then we are laser focused on the things that we can control. And so when we put our mind toward those things, then we're going to be better than our competitors who have their minds placed on 100 other things.
You know, I think we just found another chord. And I want to come back to the regulation thing in a second because, gosh, now, if you've been watching the— the reports about different municipalities in particular going after kids with lemonade stands, for God's sake. Kids selling lemonade are dealing with regulation. Now credit union world, I know that's a big challenge, but you hit something really important too, and regulation's a great template for this. It's extremely complex, it's extremely volatile, right? And it is confusing, it's crazy, it's chaotic. Let's see if we're singing in harmony on this. To me, there's this great conundrum in leadership. That a leader, particularly as— and we make a clear separation between a leader and someone in a position of authority, but let's for the time being assume that a person has both, right? And so you're in a position of authority, you're a genuine leader, you're dealing with extremely complex, volatile, dynamic issues, and yet your job as a leader is to simplify, right? To clarify, to bring it down to understandable terms to each person that you serve, right? Or each group that you serve. Are we singing in harmony?
We're in violent agreement.
That's a tough job.
Oh, there's no, there's no question about it. And that's why a small number of people are really great at it. Right. I mean, I think the idea that we can teach everybody leadership is a little misleading. There's no question we can teach leadership skills. But there are certain wirings and attributes that make some better than others. And so as a result, for example, if I go to a class on 7 best practices of tactful people, but I have very low emotional intelligence naturally, right? I'll be able to improve my tactfulness in many situations. But my real me is going to come out at some point in time during the day when there was nothing in the class to handle what I'm about to—
You just struck at the heart of what we work on here. You know, it's interesting because first of all, I think one of the greatest lines is the willing for one thing, right? I can't help anybody who isn't willing. And then we talk about, and I don't know, I always joke about this at the beginning of a presentation. I say, you know, I'm a two-time college dropout and a former drug addict. Aren't you glad you paid me all this money to be with you? And the point is, you know, I used to think I used to think that that was a really lousy resume for someone that was helping leaders develop. And then I realized, no, it's not. Because if someone is going to— and I'm, again, I'm going to distinguish between position of authority, right, and leadership, because I do believe everyone that's willing can learn to be a better leader at any level. You don't want to assume a position of authority. To assume a position of authority, yes, then a whole bunch of other stuff goes along with it. Not the least of which is this elusive thing we call charisma, right? Let's face it, there are people who are very charismatic, who attract willing followers almost, it seems almost effortlessly, right? Whether they're good at doing anything for them or not, that's a lot more in your world, right?
Right.
But that idea that, you know, can you assume, can you train yourself to that? Yeah, but I agree with you. If you're gonna really, you gotta embrace this process of transformation. Right. And that's serious business. If you really want to change and you really want to develop into somebody that you're not presently, and that's not work that everybody wants to do.
Yeah, I completely agree. And we'll just use your example of charisma. You can read a book and you can understand, ask people about themselves.
Yeah. Yeah.
Less about you. Make eye contact daily. Ask people how they're doing.
Elizabeth Holmes did that very well, didn't she? And she built people out of how many billions of dollars? Yeah.
There you go. And so, but it's got to become authentic. So you have to be willing to allow yourself to be transformed in that person from someone who's naturally maybe less interested in people and more interested in numbers and concepts. Because if you don't eventually transform yourself into someone who wants to implement those behaviors, then I find that people, especially our millennials and Generation Z, they can detect a lack of authenticity from 10 miles away.
And so it's not hard to spot, is it? It's just sometimes we put on blinders, I think.
Yeah, right. I actually had somebody say this and they meant it, but they just didn't think about what they were saying. They would— they asked me, how could you teach somebody to be authentic?
Well, that's a big project. That's a big project. And so you don't really— that's an interesting question because you don't—
yeah, exactly.
So yeah, just recognize what's authentic in you, and then again, then you can decide, do I want to transform? Do I want to change some things?
Absolutely. And so for leaders, it's not just about learning skills and going to a class, back to what you said, and it's not just a desire to learn it. It's a desire to become it.
There you go.
Because I find that leaders generally lead in some way in almost every aspect of their life. Now, they may not have the authority in the, uh, Fayette County Youth Lacrosse League or with their 2-year-old kid, right? Right, right. But they, they don't have the authority. They're not the president of the association, but people naturally begin to draw to them because they naturally put themselves in places to contribute and help, right? Fill in gaps, which is what leaders naturally do.
I want to get back to that regulation. We have a lot of folks from the credit union world that listen to this, so I want to make sure we hit that regulation again because I know that's something you're big on, that you're helping people navigate this. How do you help? And now we're going to combine that leader in that position of authority again, right? How do you help these folks navigate this volatility? I mean, it seems, you know, you read CU Journal or CU Insights every single day, that regulatory world is changing, isn't it?
Yeah, it is. And I think depending on where you are in the organization, if you're the CEO, I think your best bet is to hire somebody who does that and you stay out of it.
I'm glad you said that because there's what I want to get to. You know, you're so focused on that member-centric philosophy and those people on the front lines, do they even need to know all the minutia or, you know, how much do they have to deliver to the customer? How much, I like that concept you said about insulating from the chaos. Is that something the folks, leaders on the front line should be doing when they're dealing with the members face-to-face?
Oh, absolutely. I mean, nobody wants to hear how hard it is for you. Nobody wants to hear how hard it is for you. Um, in fact, the number one driver of repeat business, as we know, is how easy did you make it to do business with me, right? Which is the customer effort, uh, score that's, uh, you know, been shown to be even more compelling than the net promoter score. So how do you make it easy? And so how do you make it easy for your employees to do their job? How do you make it easy for your your members, your customers to do business with you. And that's really going to have a great deal to do with how much they're willing to reinvest back into your organization through more purchases or through staying with the organization and wanting to advance and, and share ideas about ways that can be better. But I really do think, you know, we need a an internal effort score. In fact, we have an internal service survey that we use with our clients to measure the service delivered by individuals to each other within the organization and departments as well. And so we have a section that we call the internal effort score. And so I will rate accounting on how easy do they make it to do business with me, because accounting may know all the regulations and they may have all the answers, But if they won't return my call, right, right, then that's information I can no longer share with a member in a timely manner.
No, you know, you hit it again right on the, on the head because I was, as you were talking, I was thinking about a, it was a healthcare group I was working with and they had, they had a regulatory issue. There was the nurses dealing on the front lines weren't filling out the, these people deal mostly with end-of-life care. So if somebody dies, there's paperwork that needs to fill up. Be filled out right. And if it isn't filled out right, it creates a problem. So the people that were in compliance, you know, they were complaining, well, the nurses aren't filling out the paperwork properly. It doesn't seem like they care, blah, blah, blah. Now this had been going on for 3 years and we're sitting in the room and there's the department heads, you know, from each. And I just said, well, do you like her over there? Oh yeah, yeah. I like her. Do you like him? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys eat lunch together? Oh yeah, sure. I said, okay, well that isn't the problem. I said, how about this? I said, oh, it cut to the— I was trying to get them to come up with it, but So let's cut to the chase. I said, how about if you just go, can this person come to one of your meetings and explain how to do the paperwork and communicate the importance of it? And the other department heads, oh sure, that would be great. Within 3 minutes, the problem is solved, right?
Exactly.
Yeah. But that's getting people to, like you said, to be, how would you say it, to make it easy to work with each other sometimes. And it's not, you know, tough thing, isn't it? It's not always, not usually bad intentions.. It's just people get siloed. Right. How do you, how do you help people navigate, navigate through that?
Right. And I believe the siloing comes from this end. Jim, I think so many people, and I think this will bring us back to our beginning about mission, because we don't talk about our purpose and our mission. What people do is they get more associated with their work. And their department than the overall purpose of the organization.
Right.
And so now my job is to make sure that people don't bother the accounting department and to make sure we get our work done and that they do it the way we need it done. And that if they're going to call here, we're not going to be very nice because we're not set up to take calls. And Why are they sending this over here now? Why are we having to do this? Why are we the dumping ground? Why does everybody disrespect accounting? And what happens is then you— IT feels the same way, marketing feels the same way. And so ultimately what happens is we begin to see our job as protecting our department and preventing it from being overused, misused, abused. And now we are in conflict because we're not working toward the same purpose. But if I understand my role within accounting is there to improve the financial well-being of my members, credit union, or to improve the outcome of patient care such that we will be rated in the top 10% of all healthcare providers in our market, then now and you can explain to me how my job impacts that, now I have a definitely different perspective when somebody calls me with a question.
Right, exactly. Mike, we need to do this again, obviously. But as we wrap things up for today, there's one thing I really wanted to hear from you. You know, you do so much work with credit unions. That's the focus of Service Star. What do you love the most about working with the credit union folks?
Credit union people are humble, They feel like they have a higher purpose and calling, and that is a great combination. When you take somebody who's competent and focused on doing right and also humble about it, it makes it so easy to work with them. You know, I find credit union people amazingly receptive to information, amazingly receptive to the ideas that you share. And they're not fighting with a new idea or concept. Is it going to make us better? Let's listen. And so I just think they're such solid people with very little pretense that they're more, let's roll up our sleeves and do the right thing rather than how do we appear. And that just really aligns with my vibe. But I love people that go about their life with a positive purpose, and it drives them. And so it's just a natural attraction for me.
I couldn't agree with you more. And that's why I'm so excited about, you know, working together with you to help credit union folks because they just, to me, they're the salt of the earth. Let's make sure before we wrap it up, how do people get in touch with you if they want your services?
Well, we'd love to hear from them. Uh, our website is www.servicestarconsulting.com. I'm sure that you'll have that displayed somewhere. Uh, it's S-E-R-V-I-S-T-A-R consulting.com. And of course I'm Mike at servicestarconsulting.com. And, uh, if you need to reach me by phone, uh, 678- 409-2977. So please check us out on our website, give me a call or email me, and we'll be happy to talk about how we might be able to assist what you're doing to be done even better.
That sounds wonderful. Thanks so much for sharing all that information. And hey, if you want to hear from Mike again here on Walking the Walk, just shoot us a note in the comments or send us an email and we'll make sure we get him back on. And if you have specific questions based on what he said Shoot those to us too, and we'll talk about those next time. Mike, thanks so much for being with us today.
My pleasure, Jim. Thanks for having me on. Keynotes, workshops, retreats, webinars, and ongoing training. Each program customized to your unique needs, interests, goals, and budget. Inspire, empower, and guide people to their very best. Learn more about Jim Bouchard and The Sensei Leader at thesenseileader.com.
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