 |  |  |  |
Guest: Rick Weber, the President and CEO of CBC Federal Credit Union in Oxnard, CA. CBC ranks among the top credit unions in the country based on member survey net promoter scores.
Overview: A friend calls, offering you a CFO position out in California. You move your family across the country, thinking this job will provide a relaxing glide path from your 50s to retirement. But then you find out the firm is losing money, the culture is “every man for himself,” and when a health issue forces the CEO to retire, suddenly you’re sitting in the BIG office … just as a pandemic breaks out.
On today’s show, Rick Weber explains how working with a CEO coach helped him to engineer a major turnaround at his company and in his personal life that’s put him on the path to BIG growth.
Rick Weber on serving his team and his clients:
“During the pandemic, we came into the office every day. I said, if we’re going to be an essential service and be open every day, let’s at least show up in the back office to support them. I felt like me sitting around a pool telling them to work just wasn’t going to help my leadership style. So we came into work every day. And the back office caught fire because we felt like we were on a mission and we were serving our members, and members were excited. We were opening new accounts and I’d ask people, ‘Why are you here? It’s a pandemic.’ And they said, ‘Because I feel like you’re going to be open, you’re going to be consistent, I need service, and my bank doesn’t have it.’ So it gave us a golden opportunity to prove ourselves.”
Rick Weber on the power of CEO coaching:
“When the pressure was on, I said, I’d better have this meeting with Sheldon Harris of CEO Coaching International. And connecting with him, I started realizing how powerful a coach is, because I can actually confide in him. He’s not my board of directors, he’s not my employees, and he can help me rethink some things. Sheldon helped me stay disciplined so I could stay organized. We had this pandemic meeting every morning where we’d talk about ‘the sky is falling.’ And they were never successful. And Sheldon called us out. He said, ‘Follow the RPI framework: Results, Progress, Issues.’ I did that and all of a sudden the meetings were 20, 30 minutes. We stayed on task and finally we were having meetings once a week as opposed to every day for an hour going through the negatives.”
Rick Weber on falling in love with the CEO role again:
“When I left being a CEO in my 30s, I was burned out. I was just exhausted. I felt like I was carrying the weight. Now I’m actually enjoying it with more energy than ever. I think CEO coaching helps put things in perspective. I didn’t have a framework before. I was personally jumping into everything. But coaching is helping me build the teamwork, build it around me, trust the individuals, and develop them. I realized how important it is to develop energy for other people and to empathize and make it exciting and make that mission purposeful. And that’s something that I didn’t do before. I thought just being smarter was better. But it’s totally about techniques. I’ve learned more in my 50s than I ever did in my 30s. You can only develop yourself so far. And CEO coaching has been helpful.”
Links:
Say Goodbye to “Failure to Communicate” CEO Coaching International’s Sheldon Harris says there’s a specific cadence of meetings and a structure that enables leaders at all levels to be highly effective communicators.
Former Israel Defense Force Captain Says Here’s How to Stay Cool Under Enemy Fire Dr. Gill Heart discusses the mental training that is necessary to deal effectively with extremely stressful situations.
About CEO Coaching International
CEO Coaching International works with CEOs and their leadership teams to achieve extraordinary results quarter after quarter, year after year. Known globally for its success in coaching growth-focused entrepreneurs to meaningful exits, CEO Coaching International has coached more than 1,000 CEOs and entrepreneurs in more than 60 countries and 45 industries. The coaches at CEO Coaching International are former CEOs, presidents, or executives who have made BIG happen. The firm’s coaches have led double-digit sales and profit growth in businesses ranging in size from startups to over $10 billion, and many are founders that have led their companies through successful eight, nine, and ten-figure exits. Companies working with CEO Coaching International for two years or more have experienced an average revenue CAGR of 31% (2.6X the U.S. average) and an average EBITDA CAGR of 52.3% (more than 5X the U.S. average).
Learn more about executive coaching | Meet our world-class coaches
