CHICAGO — Credit unions looking to foster innovation should have leaders that speak last, according to an executive who has made his career in fostering the development of ideas.

Scott Belsky is CEO of Behance, a New York City consulting firm which helps companies and individuals create ideas and then see them through to become innovati

He made his comments Tuesday to credit union executives attending CO-OP Financial Services' THINK 2013 conference, which runs through Thursday at Chicago's Swissotel.

Belsky used a noted corporate leader, retired General Electric CEO Jack Welch, who was known not as much for asking his staff what they thought about a given problem but instead giving his opinion about a given solution to a given problem.

What that meant, Belsky observed, is that the staff either parroted back what Welch had said or appeared to agree with his ideas whether or not they actually did.

“If he had not done that, he would have heard some wacky ideas from the newcomers, some ideas from other perspectives from others and he might have heard someone who already had the idea he had as well,” Belsky said.

Belsky's talk focused on what organizations and individuals can do to keep the good ideas they might have from being swallowed up by day-to-day pressures and concerns. Ideas ranged from further tweaking ideas that already work well to identifying the different roles colleagues play in fostering or failing to foster ideas.

The challenge an organization has, Belsky explained in a question-and-answer session afterwards, is to both address the things that genuinely need to be urgent, pare down the things that don't and then focus on the long term important.

“The ATMs have to run,” he pointed out, “so that is necessarily urgent. But are there things that are not so urgent that can be discarded so that you can work on longer term ideas that are very important?”

Also from THINK 13:

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Onsite Coverage: Leaders Should Talk Last, Creativity Consultant Advises

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