WASHINGTON — Channeling her inner David Letterman — and acknowledging that some younger attendees may not know the late-night talk show host famous for his “Top 10” lists — Brandy Stankovic shared these “Top 10 Behaviors That Stop Growth” during remarks at Mitchell Stankovic’s Underground Conference in Washington.
The Top 10 are:
10. Treating the Underground Like a Regular Old Conference.
9. Thinking Size Equals Strength. “Bigger means better in our institutions. There are small credit unions doing very interesting things, and there are large credit unions doing nothing even remotely interesting. Size does not create relevance. Courage does.”
8. Disregarding Diversity. “Diversity is taboo right now. In the 2000s it accelerated awareness but also polarization. It went from being a movement to almost a moral mandate and so, because of that, we moved past inclusion into prescription. Unfortunately, now in 2026 there’s been a backlash. But we are at risk of throwing out meaningful progress along with the excess. We cannot disregard diversity. If every executive in your organization makes you feel comfortable, then we aren’t hiring leaders — we’re hiring puppets.”
7. Protecting Sacred Cows. “‘We’ve always done it that way.’ Or ‘That’s not how we do it.’ Or ‘We’re so much better than banks.’ Or ‘Our members love branches.’ These are the sacred cows. My solution? Hire a young person, because they have no problem telling you what they think.”
6. Hiding Behind the Halo Effect. “Doing good work does not automatically mean you are doing the right work. Philanthropy can be beautiful, but it can get in the way of innovation. Being mission-driven doesn’t mean we’re future-ready.”
5. Adopting Identity as an Identity. “We give too much respect to the devil’s advocate. We don’t want to be in a place where shared grievance becomes the popular community. We shouldn’t criticize without contributing.”
4. Treating Business Partners as Enemies. “Often, as an industry, we cannot outperform the fintechs, but we can out-collaborate. The future winner is not the credit union that owns everything — it’s the one that connects everything.”
3. Preaching Cooperation but Practicing Competition. “We preach cooperation until it becomes inconvenient. Shared services aren’t surrender; they are survival. It’s how we create scale together.”
2. Performing Digital Theater. “This is lipstick on a legacy system. We have online account opening but still require a branch visit for a signature. That’s theater — that’s cosplay. Credit unions exist because people realized what we cannot do alone, we can do together.”
1. Disguising Narcissism as Leadership. “‘My market.’ ‘My philosophies.’ At some point we made it all about us. There is insularity in credit unions. This is so much bigger. We must engage, work together, collaborate and seek discomfort.”
