Shut the Duck Up: From Telling to Coaching for a Future-Ready Workplace
Telling people what to do is easy, but it is rarely the most effective way to foster insight and accountability. A future-ready workplace depends on people at all levels who can shift from giving advice to asking powerful questions that spark problem-solving, ownership, and growth.
In this light-hearted, brain-friendly session, you will learn how to quiet your “inner duck,” foster richer conversations, and build stronger relationships by holding others capable. This approach strengthens influence without relying on authority, helping ideas land, decisions stick, and action follow.
Key Takeaways
• Shift from advice-giving to asking questions that influence thinking and ownership
• Build trust, accountability, and confidence by holding people capable
• Apply the coach approach to inspire action and strengthen relationships across roles
The Innovation Panel will be a “can’t miss” discussion that brings together thought leaders and practitioners to explore how innovation drives organizational effectiveness. Anchored in the conference’s focus on future-ready, this discussion will highlight how creative approaches and cross-disciplinary collaboration fuel strategic problem-solving and elevate the human experience at work. Each panelist will bring their unique expertise and experience to offer practical insights that help people-work professionals lead with agility and confidence. Attendees can expect a lively exchange on how to spot emerging opportunities, overcome barriers to new ideas, embed innovation into everyday practices, and strengthen people, processes, and performance across their organizations.
A future-ready approach to personal development requires a return to fundamentals that actually sustain impact. This session draws from the core principles of discipline, growth, resilience, and empowering others to reframe personal development as a long-term leadership strategy rather than a short-term performance exercise. This session challenges participants to move beyond surface-level self-improvement and toward a values-driven approach to personal development that strengthens character, credibility, and lasting influence.
Join us for AI & Us – Innovating with Integrity, a conversation designed to help L&D and HR professionals understand and experience AI in a practical, responsible way. This session will explore how AI can serve as a thought partner rather than a replacement, and how it aligns with our values of innovation and integrity. Attendees will gain hands-on exposure to AI tools, share ideas for improving member experience and internal efficiency, and leave with actionable insights to navigate the evolving workplace.
Why Your Culture Can’t Be Benchmarked…and Shouldn’t Be Borrowed
Credit unions have always talked about being different; people helping people, community, purpose. Over time, those ideas can start to sound like slogans rather than strategy. But in a workforce shaped by Gen Z, Gen Alpha, and rapidly advancing technology, that difference is no longer philosophical. It is operational and it is cultural. As many organizations look to benchmark culture or borrow “best practices” in response to workforce change, credit unions face a unique opportunity and responsibility. The cooperative mission cannot simply be communicated; it must be experienced—by employees and members alike—through how work is designed, decisions are made, and leadership shows up. Culture, in this moment, is not a supporting initiative. Culture is the work.
In this session, we will explore why credit union culture cannot be standardized without losing what makes it powerful and why co-creation, rather than replication, is becoming essential. Drawing on shifts in leadership expectations, organizational design, and employee experience, we will examine how mission-driven organizations translate values into lived culture in an era of changing work, new technology, and rising expectations.
Participants will be challenged to rethink how culture becomes a competitive advantage in the war for talent not through perks or policies, but through meaning, belonging, and authenticity. When culture is intentionally co-created with the people who live it, retention becomes real again—not as a metric to manage, but as a signal of alignment between purpose, people, and work.
The Future of LX: Transforming Training Beyond Slides
Learners today expect more than static presentations, they crave dynamic, immersive experiences. This session explores how to break free from traditional slide decks by applying principles from marketing and experience design to create training that captivates and engages. Participants will discover why conventional methods fall short, learn strategies for making learning memorable, and practice turning real training moments into interactive, learner-focused experiences. Leave with actionable techniques to design sessions that resonate, stick, and inspire lasting behavior change.
What does it truly mean to build a future-ready workforce in today’s credit union environment? This highly interactive session invites participants into table-based activities designed to spark deep thinking, curiosity, and meaningful dialogue that both strengthen and challenge existing viewpoints, ideas, and behaviors. Together, credit union professionals will explore what the Future of Work looks like—sharing insights, experiencing collective “aha” moments, and learning from one another while honoring the unique needs, cultures, and strategies of their individual organizations. Rooted in reflection and action, this session harnesses the power of shared purpose and passion for the credit union movement to generate practical outcomes participants can take back and apply immediately.
Innovation & Community: The Human Advantage reframes innovation as the intersection of people and technology—where progress happens not through tools alone, but through the relationships, trust, and collaboration that bring them to life. In this session, we will explore how HR, L&D, and OD professionals—uniquely positioned as people experts—can influence far beyond their functional roles to drive organization-wide change. Attendees will examine how a people-centered approach to change, supported by strong professional networks, enables credit unions to adapt faster, leverage technology more effectively, and build capability across the entire organization. Rooted in the cooperative spirit of the credit union movement, this session highlights how connection and community create a powerful human advantage in evolving a truly future-ready workforce.
The Unlearning Advantage™: A Framework to Release Outdated Patterns
In today’s rapidly changing workplace, the greatest barrier to progress isn’t a lack of skill or effort, it’s the outdated patterns leaders and teams continue to operate from without realizing it. The Unlearning Advantage™ introduces a powerful framework for releasing these habits, assumptions, and default behaviors that quietly shape decisions, relationships, and organizational culture.
Grounded in neuroscience and real-world experience with executive and mission-critical teams, this presentation reframes leadership development as a process of unlearning before relearning. Participants explore how identity, conditioning, and long-standing norms drive automatic responses that often conflict with the future organizations are trying to build.
Using the POCA® Model for Unlearning (Pause, Observe, Choose, Act) leaders learn how to slow down, surface what’s operating beneath the surface, and consciously redesign how they show up. The result is greater clarity, adaptability, and coherence, within themselves, across relationships, and throughout the system.
Creating a future-ready workforce requires more than bold ideas—it demands sustainable change rooted in people, purpose, and execution. This panel-style breakout session brings together expertise in Change Management, Training, Communication, Innovation, Data Analytics, and more to explore how organizations can intentionally shift cultures and programs by starting with the end in mind. Through guided discussion, panelists will unpack what true success looks like, examine what genuinely holds change efforts back, and outline practical processes to move from vision to reality. With a strong focus on the “people work” of change, this session will dive into navigating resistance, uncovering root causes, and building the human-centered strategies needed to make future-ready cultures stick.
Today’s workforce spans Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z; each with distinct motivators, work styles, and expectations. As retirements accelerate and younger cohorts drive demands for flexibility, technology, purpose, and DEI, HR must evolve. This session reframes the generational gap as a catalyst for innovation, sharing actionable practices; cross-generational mentoring, reverse mentoring, flexible work, tech adoption, and inclusive culture that improve recruitment, retention, and engagement.
Generational change isn’t a threat. It’s your best opportunity to innovate. In this session, we map the current five-generation landscape and highlight the talent shift reshaping recruitment, retention, and engagement: retirement waves, leadership transitions, and evolving expectations for flexibility, technology, purpose, and DEI. We’ll confront common pain points: knowledge transfer, communication gaps, resistance to change—and then move straight into solutions you can implement: cross-gen and reverse mentoring, multi-gen team design, flexible work models, and tech-enabled feedback loops. You’ll see case examples where generational diversity accelerates digital transformation and knowledge retention, and you’ll leave with a concise action plan to foster open communication, invest in continuous learning, and encourage innovation at all levels.
This session will provide a clear overview of key information related to California labor and employment laws affecting employment policies, compliance requirements, and workforce management. Cristina will communicate practical information and insightful analysis of:
Newly proposed bills to watch
Caselaw updates
National trends
Managing risk in employment decisions
This session is not designed to provide a complete analysis of the various cases, statutes, and regulations which may affect financial institutions. Nor does it constitute a final opinion on any of the legislation, regulations and/or cases addressed. It reflects key areas to keep an eye on in California, as of the date of presentation.
This interactive breakout session explores emerging L&D and OD industry trends shaping the Future of Work. Designed as an open, facilitated discussion, the session brings together professionals across experience levels to share insights, challenges, and real-world practices. Guided by key trend data and thought-provoking prompts, participants will engage in social learning that surfaces what’s working, what’s changing, and what’s ahead. Through collective expertise and shared experiences, attendees will gain fresh perspectives, spark innovation, and uncover practical ideas to strengthen their organizations for what’s next.
2026 Key Business Partner & Gold Conference Sponsors
Bronze Conference Sponsor
2025 Conference Recap
Visit our Past Presentations page to access previous Conference resources.
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