brad garland

As many of you know, we run a banking community site called Banktastic.com and have for a little over a year now. It has been a fun experience. Very difficult to predict, at times, but very fun nevertheless and our community is great. Over the past few months I felt like, despite our community growing steadily, that it was beginning to feel a bit like a 13 year old boy as the community was trying to figure out what it was all about and what it wanted to be. I debated whether to step back and let the community define itself but the less we got out of the way the more the community was not sure how to proceed. So I decided that we needed to, like Madonna, redefine (or perhaps just define) ourselves a bit. I didn’t know how or what it should be at first but figured it would present itself.

And sure enough, it did…

I was watching a documentary on Ralph Nader (via Netflix through my Xbox 360 which is awesome btw) and although I don’t agree with all his views I was impressed by the man and his ability to push things through just as a private citizen. That’s right, he never held any political office and did things like help establish rules for seat belts in all vehicles, the freedom of information act, and clean air act. He inspired me to think big and find themes that could get resolved in what we’re doing. After a bit of brainstorming I came up with three major themes that even though they could work independently would be even more powerful as a whole. Transparency, Innovation, and Education. TIE.

These three principles will be at the crux of everything we do moving forward (as a community and as a company). We want to find those that are being TIE and tell everyone their stories. We hope by sharing their stories it will inspires other to do the same. It feels so good to have something so clear to look for and work towards to me. It’s just refreshing. We just released the news (video below) about the TIE principles at the beginning of the week and will be subtly making changes to Banktastic to accommodate this vision. I would love to learn about how you found your purpose too so please comment below. Thanks everyone!

At least once a year I like to go through a what I’m calling a ‘State of the company’ review that answers questions as if we are starting this company from anew. It should be noted that what I try to avoid is being generic. Avoiding those scenarios like meaningless, adjective-heavy mission statements and over generalized goals that don’t “walk the walk”. If we don’t take these values with us and live and breathe them, what’s the point? And beyond all that, I want a company that stands for something. It is a wonderful exercise that brings what we do back to its roots and I’d like to share with you guys what I’ve been working on.

What kind of company do you want to build?

Our company is expanding in both services and people. We are getting into software development now and want to provide the same high level of software services as consulting services do today. If we look at everything we do (technology audits, risk assessments, security testing, community platforms) all of these services common denominator is rooted in education. Our services provide more of a coaching experience than the judging people or organizations. So our vision/mantra/belief is all tied together in the phrase,

“Service through education.”

It’s short and sweet but with meaning. Everything we do ties back to this mantra.

What are our shared goals that everyone in the company exudes?

Next step is establishing through every single person in our company what we belief in. I see this as a ‘sales-side’ of the company. Not from the getting deals standpoint but from the ‘this is how we’re built’ standpoint. To say it in another way, it’s our Commandments.

• Quality service regardless of client - We treat everyone, regardless of size of organization, the same way.


• ‘Our word’ should mean something - Many people today don’t let a handshake or a verbal promise be a commitment to something, we do.


• Honest but realistic - We want to shoot people straight but also temper it with realistic expectations due to their situation.


• Give openly - We want to better this world so giving openly will always open more doors than close them.


• It’s not what ‘I’ accomplish, it what ‘we’ accomplish - We know this isn’t all about us, this is about the success of our clients and their customers.


• Success is defined by happiness, not $$$ - I’m most proud of this one. We define success based off of our clients and employees happiness, not by the size of the paychecks. This is why ROWE thinking excites me so!

I’m in the middle of this exercise and have started at the company level and I’m now working on the business levels and then down to the product level (then lastly, people level). Each level down gets easier due to the foundation the previous level left before it. I’d would LOVE to hear your feedback to this and how you are helping your company become a world class organization.