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We took part last week in the 36th annual meeting of the Association des directrices et des directeurs généraux de caisses Desjardins (ADGC), who reprensents de general managers (GM) of more than 200 credit unions in Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick members of the network known as Mouvement Desjardins. Set in the beautiful landscape of La Malbaie, this year's conference was "Drawing the future," an invitation for members to collectively reflect on the topic of innovation and their role in shaping the future of Desjardins.

Our message to the Desjardins general managers was that the future of the now 113-year old cooperative is in their hands, as long as they recognize that the world has changed and actively rethink their business model. Each "branch" of the credit union is independent and root in a variety of socioeconomic contexts. In many towns and villages, the general manager is a central figure and a rallying force for community actors. As such, gthe branches are as many laboratories of social, economic and financial innovation. While the Fédération des caisses Desjardins, the overarching body federating the individual cooperatives, is striving to raise the global performance and interoperability within the group, it must also leverage the rich potential of dedicated managers and employees who are anchored in their community and the torchbearers of their founder's vision. There is important social capital in the extensive presence of Desjardins across Quebec (and even beyond) and its deep knowledge and understanding – probably even more fine-grained than the government's – of the socioeconomic fabric that can only be transformed if GMs and their teams are empowered to become change agents, not just drilled into running more efficient banking branches.

Our conference, Complexity and co-creation, was the kick-off of this day of reflection. It took stock of this world reconfigured by the social and technical transformations of the last years and suggested a few threads for reflection and action to help managers re-center and better mobilize collective intelligence to take advantage of this emerging complexity. Our exploration followed four tracks – time, information, networks and dematerialization – which we will explore in a four-fold series to be published on blog.fandco.ca.

Following our talk were a number of interventions and workshops. Claude Desjardins, former partner at Secor now at SAGE Consulting, spoke about change through strategic leadership. Christine Lanthier, assistant editor-in-chief at Jobboom Magazine, explored the management of introverts. Sylvain Sénécal, professor of marketing at HEC Montréal, looked at the mobile revolution in the banking sector. The grand finale was left to Éric Bourget, president and founder of Half Serious, who hinted at ways that the dynamics of play could completely change the way we do banking. Throughout the day, master of ceremony Daniel Lacombe challenged particpants with all sorts of tests, dilemmas that had them question their acquired worldviews. He even submitted them to the Marshmallow Challenge!

We had been working with several months with the organizing committee, led by Manon Goudreault and her dynamic team at Dada communications, Daniel Lacombe of SAGE Consulting and Jean-Pierre Dubois at OPC événements. We wanted to create a program that would force general managers to envision a world that had changed not for the worse, but that was rather filled with opportunities for these central actors of the economic development of Quebec – as long as they remain innovative!

The ADGC corrals Desjardins general managers since 1977, with a networking and development perspective. Over the last few years, it took on a leadership role in empowering its member-directors and contributing to the evolution of Mouvement Desjardins. On top of this annual conference, it publishes a bi-monthly magazine, Leader, and holds many development and networking activities throughout the year.