Pivot Labs are CEO-led working sessions focused on a single, clearly defined economic constraint. Each lab begins with operating reality, not theory.
Pivot Labs are addressing the affordability crisis, environmental challenges, and community economic fragility. Each lab is designed around exploring and solving - redesigning systems to create a more equitable future.
Define the constraint or challenge clearly.
Map incentives and tradeoffs.
Design potential solutions and run bounded experiments.
Model outcomes before scaling.
Implement, document, and analyze results.
Make the case to appropriate governmental officials and policy makers as necessary.
Rigorous documentation of each experiment and its conditions.
Interventions designed to be adapted and applied by other organizations.
Clear models of tradeoffs so leaders can make informed decisions.
Evidence ready for broader application across sectors and contexts.
Evidence that informs InterNality OS, enabling comprehensive simulations of business systems.
Accumulation of a corpus of business innovation for transformation to a new economy.
FIRST PIVOT LAB — NOW FORMING
Our inaugural Pivot Lab is forming in western Michigan, bringing together CEOs of mid-to-large privately held companies to tackle a shared constraint: how to make compensation and benefits work for employees and businesses in an era of rising costs and stagnant real wages.
The problem is concrete. In the Grand Rapids region, $30/hour is what's needed to live without financial stress — yet a significant share of employees at even well-managed companies are barely making it paycheck to paycheck. The current system forces employees to navigate a complex maze of wages, benefits, and government assistance programs that were never designed to work together.
This lab won't produce a white paper. It will produce tested interventions: new approaches to compensation structure, benefits design, and cross-company career mobility that participating CEOs commit to implementing in their own organizations. Academic partners will rigorously evaluate the results. What works gets documented and shared through InterNality OS so other companies and regions can adapt and adopt.