GUIDED BY PRINCIPLE

THERE’S THE WAY THINGS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN DONE

THERE’S THE WAY THINGS OUGHT TO BE DONE

WE BELIEVE IN THE LATTER

Business management should be directed by effectiveness, not tradition.

Success is often confused with skill—just because you were promoted to be a boss doesn’t mean you are a good one. The number of commas in your net worth measures wealth, not talent.

Obtaining a management position is not a final destination, it is the beginning of a new journey that is unlike what came before. The traditional approach treats being managed as management training. Flight attendants are not pilots in training. When you promote someone to management, you’re introducing them to the cockpit. It helps if you teach them how to fly.

Our traditional view of management is informed by the behaviors of untrained pilots. Using the threat of termination as a motivational tool. Micromanaging every detail of a project. We have come to accept turbulence and hard landings as necessities. They are not.

Financial literacy should be treated as essential as literacy.

We often glorify people who, despite all odds, lifted themselves out of poverty. They are the proof that it can be done. Yet we ignore that they are the exception proving the rule of systems and structures that make poverty the norm.

Those who suffer from financial distress work within a different set of constraints where the struggle to survive is constant. Traditional financial literacy programs, although positioned as stepping-stones to prosperity, fail to even ease the burden of the poor.

Financial literacy needs to be taught in schools, but there are millions of adults who were never taught these basic skills. Credit unions and social services agencies provide a pivotal link to reaching individuals who desperately need the stability financial literacy can provide. By building their confidence and competence in navigating financial challenges with a partner invested in their success, they will be less likely to fall victim to the pitfalls that lead to greater financial obstacles.

Business should be treated as community service. Always.

We believe in servant leadership, where success is not measured in how high you climb, but in how many people you bring up with you. Real leaders in a sea of change don’t buy themselves yachts, they raise all boats.

Working together by strengthening the pivotal link is good for business, good for the community, and will lead to the creation of real social capital.

We’re The Pivotal Link.