GPS Survey™ - Why Participate?

About GPS Survey™   |   Why Participate?  

“Are we doing the right things and what are they?” This is a key question frequently asked by some of this country’s best community financial institution CEOs. If a CEO could review the strategic plans of community financial institutions that have been perfecting the strategic thinking process for multiple decades, what would they learn?

The answers to these important questions are determined by the GPS Survey™, a pre-planning strategic thinking survey developed and designed to focus any planning process, whether it is the development of a new plan or an updated existing plan. Through demographic and “Importance” sorts, the GPS Survey™ specifically outlines key issues such as the following:

• Do you understand the diversity of thinking between your Board, Management and employees? See their responses sorted by demographic age group, tenure and by region/location.
   

• Is the age and tenure of your Board and Management straight-jacketing strategic thinking? Are you planning for continuity of leadership through effective Board and Management succession? Talent Management is the priority! Retain your top 20%!
   

• Is your institution giving appropriate consideration to the “banking” characteristics of emerging customer groups such as Gen X’ers?

  • Are you considering the bias of these customer groups for convenience through technology and their use of the Internet?

• What are today’s critical strategic issues?

  • How do your Board and Management rank the importance of these issues?

  • How do you compare to peers with respect to relative strengths and weaknesses of these critical issues?

The key to a sustainable increase in earnings is the execution of a clearly focused strategic plan. Community institution CEOs will find that some of the strategies most critical to enhancing shareholder value and future profitable growth are some of their greatest challenges. Don’t do your annual or bi-annual strategic thinking in a vacuum! Reaching “outside the box” requires an objective review of key strategies relative to both importance and positioning.

Regardless of whether or not your financial institution has a strategic plan already in place, just completed a plan, about to update a plan, or has never done a plan and does not know where to start, the GPS Survey™ allows unequivocal, firsthand affirmation:

• Does our institution’s Plan encompass the right things?
   

• When we developed the Plan, did we think about all we should be thinking about… now that we can see firsthand the strategies “other” institutions include in their plans?
   

For additional information, please contact Janet Frankl-Lockwood at jflockwood@parlimentconsulting.com or 508-881-7002 or Kerry Nelson at kjnelson@saberassociates.com or 320-286-5059.