Power & Capital in the 21st Century Organization
Last updated
Last updated
Nathan Schneider (Writer, Activist, Platform Cooperativism)
3 key insights / quotes:
His new book to be published in fall: Hours to hack and to own (?) Introduction: Studying the effect of digitalization on societies Until now internet is about broader access and not about ownership and governance Increasingly the online economy becomes “the” economy, monetizing our lives Problems are reflected in strikes of Uber => what if the platforms would be our?
All along in the past there was a real sharing economy the cooperative economy, such as the Rochdale Principles in UK, but also way back => that’s real democracy, to run a business with people which are working for If you just trying to get rich, democracy get lost
A part of the cooperative tradition has already relied in internet business => such as wikipedia It seems that we can
Central question: Who owns the tools and how are they governed?
First conference in New York in 2015 about Platform Cooperativism, more than 1.000 attendees. Example for platform cooperativism: fairmondo, loconomics
Challenges for platform cooperativism: Financing is hard, a lot of investors don’t know about cooperative models, counselling in legal aspects is hard to get
The more the platform becomes public utilities, the more we need democracy, governed by the users themselves => imagine Facebook would be governed and owned by ourselves.
How we see ourselves? Do we trust enough on ourselves? Its a matter of social organizations. It’s time that we own and govern what we own already!
Danny Spitzberg (Principal, Peak Agency Collective)
3 key insights / quotes: Lifestyle (fun) is not livelihood (function)
Problem of general platforms: Lifestyle gets suboptimal until painful
Something fairer would be: Fun and functional should come together in a balanced way
Examples:
a) Freespace in San Francisco: open space for people, doing lots of difference things, open for everybody (Now in Paris, Barcelona ) => so called: Pop ups (free spaces) => they are temporary spaces which travel from place to place, stewardship is not so important
b) Place for sustainable living: People liking art, community and ecology: a real experimental space, workshops => more sustainable in time than example a)
The places are runned by volunteers, and are cooperatives: => the stewardships
There are a lot of digital tools around commons, but I think the most important is the culture, the idea (“Commons first, tools second”).
Volunteering is not the same as working for free, it's to build an infrastructure, experimenting, trying new skills, practicing, stewarding..
How to do an effective stewardship? Effective stewardship in the commons governed by volunteers depends on: An initiative “Working groups” (is transformative and important) Welcoming culture => embracing of people which what they are brining, not asking for task or function they could do, so it stays fresh, new ideas are coming in
Marguerite Grandjean (Connector, OuiShare)
Introduction:
Marguerite is presenting a part of the study of Ouishare which she is carrying through on 40 collaborative entities.
Value can only be created when an organization and its stakeholders have a good relationship. Therefore, a collaborative organization needs to integrate its stakeholders in accordance with their organizational needs.
Definition of the term “Collaborative organization” Relies on external stakeholders to provide its service/ its product to the end users => there is a network of contributors (= stakeholders) Example: Blablacar relies on its contributors which offers car rides
Definition of the term “Governance” Used here to describe the relationship between the distributed contributors and the collaborative organization they work with => therefore, describes the nature and quality of the relationship
Presentation of three organizations:
Example 1: France Barter => trust It's a credit system between French companies (companies are borrowing/lending between them). The core problem is the risk that France Barter fails and then the participating companies could lose their investment Governance model: legal form of a cooperative (SCIC), by that transparency is created as the members decided upon crucial questions (cooperatives are legally bound to that). Consequently, members can develop (mutual) trust to the startup and between the members
Example 2: Mon petit voisinage => reward Is a neighbourhood social network in order to contact neighbours (relate to them) and to use or offer services/products. Governance model: Rely on a network of ambassadors which are volunteers (=> members of the community who belief in the values and mission of the startup, they nurture the community). How to reward the volunteers? => they are represented in the strategic committee as one of the five different stakeholder groups (investors, ambassadors, employees, external experts, founders).
Example 3: Practishare => transparency it’s a non-profit sharing platform, which It is for Marguerite an excellent prototype for future collaborative enterprises Aim: to be a common (they want to be as light as possible in order to avoid property) Therefore, they established as an association (by that they avoid possession on assets of the association) => control without approbriation Yet, so how do users know what is happening? Practishare is based on maximum transparency => all online It permits the startup to have a light legal structure AND stay true to their vision (which is control without approbriation).
Summary: Different degrees of integration of stakeholders, based on different priority The three organizations are focusing on different aspects within their governance model (=> reward, trust or transparency)
All the information is found in Ouishare, open source
Francesca Pick OuiShare Fest Chair, OuiShare
3 key insights / quotes: The leaders of today understand the discrepancy between the idea that supports a technology, that is the concept behind it and the way people actually use it.
Ouishare values OPENNESS but with technology it is difficult because this tool is different to use. In fact we had to train the members of Ouishare. This is why the experiment involved only 10 people. These are the transaction costs. This is why even If it’s open it is not really open.
People don’t have time to go online and insert their contribution. In particular, those who bring coffees. Difficult to evaluate and take into account the work of all people.
“I am surprised about how we centralized our thinking. Just because we have the tools, this doesn’t mean that the work is done. How centralized do you think you are?”
Clément Epié (Cellabz) Primavera de Filippi (CNRS/Harvard)
Moderator: Benjamin Tincq (OuiShare)
2 key questions: What is the impact that blockchain can have on organizations? Isn't’ the DAO similar to investment fund? What is the first project you can do with DAY? If DAO does something wrong, what/who do I suit ?
3-5 key insights / quotes
The DAO is not an investment fund. It’s an investment project to realize projects, devices, goods… (Clément)
The DAO, like Bitcoin, creates a technological solution that if on one hand replicates an old model, on the other hand it also creates a space, a debate where you can think and discuss what a currency is. So realize that anybody can create and design a currency. (Primavera de Filippi)
The DAO steps out the blockchain and shows that things are changing (Clément)
The current limit of the DAO is that currently is market driven. The goal is to find a way to invest in a specific project. So we should design a different model where decisions are not taken by those who invest money. So we should create a decentralized model that separates those who invest the investments and the decisions. That is adding the human judgement and values to decide how to invest the money. (Primavera de Filippi)
The DAO is misunderstood. Education is the best way to eliminate biases. You can go on the website DAO.com (note from the transcriber: this website doesn’t exist), download the app and play with it. (Clément)
The DAO is not an organization so it’s not recognized by the legal system. It is dangerous to be part of a DAO in this cote (?). The legal aspect is a grey area. (Primavera)
In terms of governance there’s a lot to be done. The best output there is if there’s cooperation between projects instead than competition (Clément).
Jean-Louis Bancel (Crédit Coopératif) Catherine Coupet (Up Group) Dominique Mahé (MAIF)
Moderator: Marguerite Grandjean (OuiShare)
2-3 key questions:
The size of your business requires you to have representative democracy, but knowing all the flaws that exist in our democracy (abuse of powers, lack of representativeness), do we really need to keep this model?
How do you keep that confidence in the company? Does clarity mean transparency? What you do to build confidence?
Can the governance model of your business be tranposable to the political model? Or is it impossible because of the size?
Public Q:
How is democracy applicable across the system and not only within your company?
CC: We have 3 representatives per region, customers are not yet parties. DM: For employees, 3 directors elected by employees. No outside directors, they must be chosen by and from among the members (according to law) JLB: The functioning of a bank is to lend and if we give power to depositors who want to earn a lot without taking risk it is not good.
What are the blockages of employees and how to overcome them?
DM: You have to leave the management policy by the trust to release the energy. CC: The employees are all looking for something. JLB: Listen to the voices of the most quiet, it is the most complicated! (Escape to the question)
Question on self-governance (Frédérique Laloue: the book "reinventing organizations") MAIF: there is a dimension at the MAIF regarding management by trust. We try to adapt our model taking into account what is successful elsewhere, as best practices of management... but we are still far from self-governance.
JLB: Be careful not to underestimate the people above.
3-5 key insights
CC: In our democracies unlike political democracy, we put more resources into the decision-making and sharing processes, but also into the concept of trust. How do we manage to gain that confidence? We do all that is needed to the shared decision (vs. political democracy where time is only destined to the voting system).
DM: Our democracy is intrinsically representative by nature and need. It is truly alive when decisions are clear. Good corporate democracy is a delicate balance between political and executive power.
JLB: People should not resume democracy to voting (eg Turkey). The principle of democracy is to express a point of view. We are not in unanimity. In our cooperative, mutual systems (slightly different) we try to find the mechanisms for listening and accessing. People should not get overwhelmed by those who complain. We must find the way to listen.
CC: A democracy only works if there is confidence enough for power and decision to be a source of development. I am convinced that full transparency is not only possible but necessary. Confidence is transparency. You should make known why certain decisions are taken in certain ways, we must express democracy on the Statutes and we must be open for the debate.
CC: We create spaces of exchange. Exchanges are organized otherwise expression may not be positive. (For example, minutes of open discussion). I myself spend two to three hours per week listening. → create and encourage spaces of exchange.
JLB: "All cooperators, all bankers." It's been three years that we vote on the salary of the boss and the general secretary. Do they work for what they earn? We create events when people realize their investment. Full transparency is called totalitarianism and I do not want to fall into that.
DM: Trust is at the heart of the MAIF model. Trust is earned over the years of membership. We must have the same point of view regarding where we need to go. We are transparent in the AG (wages).
JLB: The way we structure the business in Germany, for example, is very inspired by political models. Today there is no more democratic control over finance. Since two years, the presidents of the advisory board do not have the authority in the banks. Bureaucratic drift is about to invade our lives.
DM: Regarding insurance, we are in a relatively constraint universe with the dimension of representative democracy. We have businesses' logics/constraints and in a world that goes faster and faster, we need rapid and informed decision-making processes. How to keep our members involved, and animate this company beyond the vote (e.g. exchange site)?
Maro Horta (FairCoop) Peter Langmar (Lab.Coop) Chelsea Robinson (Enspiral)
Moderator: Alda Marina Campos (PARES)
Maro from Faircoop: Is an open cooperativism model organized at global level including all stakeholders Aim: create a new global economic system How: based on fairecoin
Key element: democratic decision making, transparency (publish all the minutes of our assemblies), free to join for anybody, independence of governments/public sector Decentralized local groups dispose of full internal autonomy, which are organized in open assemblies, using collaboratives tools (like trello etc) to organize the workflow
Current Projects: Faire Funds for Refugees, Faircoop economic system, Freedom Coop, Faircoin2, Fair market; Outlook on future project: how to develop reporting system and reputation
Chelsea from Enspiral (New Zealand): Aim: Help people to work in meaningful works Around 300 people working in New Zealand or around the global Governance: How much members have a say, how do we reuse our resource (budget allocation, decision making etc) Different levels of involvement within the organization: Enspiral members, contributors, friends & Partners, and a Board Decision making: is based on “loomio” (online tool), not everybody has to agree to decisions (no consensual decision making) There are voluntary financial contributions: 50% goes to the running expenses, and 50% for co-budgeting
History: started as a loose group of freelancer in 2010, then started a coworking space, then an academy, there is constant change and evolution!
Concerned by the question: How does leadership looks like if you are deconcentrating power, money and decision making?
Handbook (Gitbook) on how Enspiral works can be found on the website.
Peter from Smartwaretech: What they are/doing: Digital agency, school, digital tools
Founding circumstances: Quite hard to get IT talents who want to make everybody in the team to think as the founders in terms of openness & No capital Our approach is market driven, because we believe in Self Management of the organization: based on holacracy
Ownership & legal form: => employee owned corporation (legally not a coop), its a hacked limited liablity company (was easier to realize) Market Salary: 80% paid, and 20% re-invested in the company You have shares according your duration of belonging to the association and interests. As Smartware Tech is growing through new workers, the founders are automatically and gradually diluting their percentage in ownership (hold shares)
=> Current challenge: working on scalability
Central topics in the panel:
Challenges and questions: Smartware: Were not aware how much we have to “educate” and explain the model to new members
Enspiral: Importance of facilitating processes, how do you bring the female qualities (emotions etc.) inside the company? Recognizing within the network things which make it thrive to make the new economy.
Smartware: governance questions are central: if you start evolving on governance you will gain a competitive advantage within the market, you will get faster clients
Enspiral: How do we think on platforms on, that it is not only value for the members, but also for society? How to have a protocolled leadership structure, so that is not only relying on the founders, so this allows that everyone become leadership on everywhere: stop thinking like a organization but start thinking as a platforms
Faircoin: We are currently working in developing an holistic thinking, rethink the way how we behave in society and how we are going to use the new tools => rethink everything in a holistic way (linking society, economy and spirituality)
Smarware Fech: Our current challenge is changing the employee- employer-relationship within our organization
Questions from the audience:
How did you get your first investment for your platform?
Smartware Tech: we convinced a company (their clients?) to invest in us
Faircoin: We had our own money with Faircoin, our work is free and voluntary, so we don’t need high resources
Enspiral: Freelancer invested their savings
2) What happens when somebody is leaving?
Smartware Tech: we don’t pay bonuses, we pay salaries, of course you still keep your shares and it dilute slowly
3) How do you design your contracts.? Smartware Tech: Every one has two contrats: everyone is signing a ownership contract and an employee contract, but we want now to shift only to ownership contracts (because the employee contract is destroying the relationship within the organization)
What questions are burning in our organizations:
Enspiral: How do you have really a heart and deep trust, but with a remote team. Still exploring ways
Faircoin: How can we deal with capitalism in time of transition, how we can change our minds do have more solidarity
Smartware: Scalability of the competitive advantage, similar thinks like Enspiral
Nicolas d'Audiffret (Alittlemarket) Rodolphe Dutel (Buffer.com) Camille Panassié (Groupe POULT) Emanuele Rapisarda (Cocoon Projects)
Moderator: Pascal Jouxtel (L'internome)
Topic: “Liberated companies”, 3.0 management
Round of presentation:
Camille: Innovation Manager at the Biscuit manufactory (Group POULT) 10 years ago the company decided to change the management, so they introduce share governments, so there is no strategy management, there are now groups of employees who decide on where to invest the capital, on wages, on manufacturing processes A third of the group is turning each year and it is a volunteering position (not paid)
Nicolas: Co-founder of A Little market Marketplace of handmade product, it's a software company very committed to their community, so we have no marketing department Before the change we used to have three kind of groups: a) project managers building project managed, b) product managers, to decide what we should decide first and c) Engineering group: to execute the plans in technical way Yest our project didn’t take into account the engineers, so they felt they were only executing.
The change process: What is a community? A group of people sharing the same ambition so they need to collaborate, so there it is not fitting strategies of the 19th century. => So we changed totally. For instance created startups within our company and the way how we work together.
Rudolphe: Operations at Buffer.com Consisting of around 100 people, 50% from the USA, the rest from other countries Started within sharing our salaries, everybody who is applying can see what everybody is earning etc. (Transparency most important to us) So are working remotely, we have no offices. HOW ? => we become inspired by Frederic Laloux books “Reinventing organizations” We want people to make, people getting connecting to create things within the company, creating products, “taskforce” are created Team are sharing the earning and losses No need for Human Ressources, it’s more about what strives people what decides who will participate. Mentally, to be ready for this kind of organization.
Emanuele: Agile Coach, Coocon Projects Rethinking what is personal and professional growth. So it’s more about how this project is creating, its about a new culture, it's central to talk about culture on which than, the tools and processes are build on
Insights in failures they experienced within their organizations:
Emanuele: We worked 5 people together to disrupt the education system, we were a bossless team, yet after 3 month the group split up, it ended up in a big dispute Lessons: Be sure that people want to be part of a self organized group, be sure to be based on the right people
Rudolphe: Bless doesn't mean chaos, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have leader, leadership is time connected. Having no boss, may call to even more structure! We had the problem that making decision took too much time. So we decided to take some management tools, we are now a flat decisions, management is one component.
Nicolas: We want to fast to go on quickly, basically we want to switch from the 19th century structures to anarchy, now we choosed the middle way. We should not forget what is the objective, it's empowerment of the people, so they can reach their full potential. So we kept the small startups within the company, we need to give them the infrastructure (=tools), every two weeks we are changing the “boss” of the team (can be an engineer, marketing etc..)
Camille: Ten years ago we thought it's enough to remove two levels of the hierarchy levels, we underestimated the change management (we are existing since more than 100 years), we overlooked change management. It's not easy to change from one day to an other day from the hierarchical system to an non-hiercharchy. Many people had to change their functions and their mind. So it's like throwing into the pool without knowing to swim. The company has to train the employees to train themselves to be autonomous.
Lessons for the recruitment and change:
Camille: Our selection process is very large. The people have the opportunity to speak to a lot of people in the company so they gain a realistic impression on how we work together.
Nicolas: We try to make sure that we have the same values and aims. We attracted a lot of people. We are looking also for people who don’t think we are the best company of the world.
Moderator: Culture is gardening. It's something which is something on a long run. The ability to change, to abandon old things this is a delicate balance.
Rudolphe: We are looking to people who are mentally flexible and who are open for diversity.
More Questions:
How do you ensure that the groups don’t compete which each others?
Nicolas: At the beginning we failed on that
Camille: It's a good question. You have to make sure that transparency exists. Each team is saying what are they doing and which strategy they are using. Each person is a member of several teams so we make sure their is no competition between the teams and that we have a global strategy in mind
Rudolphe: In our company it is very important that everybody knows what they are doing.
Mourad Kolli (Thanks and Share) Claudia Pellicori (Cocoon Projects) Derek Razo (Cobudget/Enspiral) Chad Whitacre (Gratipay)
Moderator: Francesca Pick (OuiShare)
2-3 key questions:
Why is experimenting different ways of value measurement important?
What are the things that have not really worked? What failed? What worked?
Is there the need of a framework to process those tensions that arise around money and learn from them?
3-5 key insights:
Experimenting different ways of value measurement is important because we wanted to empower people. Usually the crew decides about the budget distribution. This means decentralization of power and money. We wanted to let people choose where the money goes. It’s an ongoing experiment. (Derek Razo)
In our governance you can choose in which ways you ways (?) you can enter and contribute. Everybody decides what is the value of the laste(?) In this way the group gets power! It gets power also because everybody can learn a lot from the feedbacks we give to each other. This is the liquid model. We wanted this model of value measurement to involve people and be transparent (Claudia Pellicori)
It is good to work with a gradual flow of activity instead of evaluating big hestes (Claudia Pellicari)
A framework to process the reusians (?) that arise around money is useful but it’s just a tool that gives visibility to what happens. What we need is the social ability! (Claudia Pellicori)
Adopt new ways of value measurement is not for every company or organization. It’s for those that are ready for it and are willing to work this out, trust and change (Claudia Pellicari)
Willy Braun (Daphni) Imandeep Kaur (Impact Hub Birmingham) Laurence Mehaignerie (Citizen Capital) Armin Steuernagel (Rooted Internet and Purpose Foundation)
Moderator: Benjamin Tincq (OuiShare)
2-3 key questions:
Which business model is best for what?
How do we move the startup capital beyond paris, london, capital cities?
3-5 key insights : “We need to be financing change and movements in a much broader sense” Future of finance: will deliver scale & impact
Armin “Within the next 20 years we’ll see a reinvention of ownership.” Investors will have less voting rights - All in all we’ll change the view how we percieve companies. Ownership understanding that we have today is still coming from the Roman empire. Economists are much further, talk about a bundle of rights. We probably have to rebundle ownership rights.
Laurence Ownership is one of the key issues of this century. Three barriers for finance today which are not adapted to economy Ownership Profitability Sharing a purpose
Marc-David Choukran (La Ruche Qui Dit Oui) Yassir Fichtali (Up Group) Nathan Schneider (Platform Cooperativism)
Moderator: Marguerite Grandjean (OuiShare)
2-3 key questions:
Nathan How do we involve the right people in a platform cooperative that has the power to change whole big city areas? -> Crucial, we don’t have the right people yet.
3-5 key insights (specify which speaker said it):
We can observe a convergence between a large co-op and a small start-up that is experimenting with cooperative methods without being a co-op.
Added value of being a set up as a co-op. Engagement, independence from competitors
Nathan Two strategies to highlight in developing strong cooperatives Start-up building from scratch, i.e. with crowdfunding Challenge of conversion, engaged community of stakeholders -> we have to find tools to convert them into more cooperative structures
Nathan It can make sense to get startup/companies to a certain level (security, when being founded) and then apply cooperative values (because a lot of risk divided on each member of the co-op).
Co-ops mainly seen in certain communities, sectors, aim is to widen that.
Ralph Boeije (Entrepreneur, Part-up) Julek Jurowicz (co-founder, SMartBE) Claus Skytte (Co-founder, Resecond.com) Emmanuel Soulias (Director, Enercoop) Felix Weth (CEO, Fairmondo)
Chelsea Rustrum (Founder, Sharers Talks) Jean Luc Chautagnat (Coordinator, Manufacture Coopérative - BIGRE) Juho Makkonen (CEO, Sharetribe) Nathan Schneider (Writer, Activist, Platform Cooperativism) Prosper Wanner (Gestore, Hotel du Nord cooperative)
Lieza Dessein (Project manager, SMartBE) Thomas Doennebrink (OuiShare Connector & Freelancer Collaborative Econ, OuiShare)
Can an old model be the basis for a new economy? Can the cooperative status and the #PlatformCoop movement offer an alternative to a capitalistic, value-captating model?
In practice, how can we build cooperatives for the digital age? In this workshop, founders of digital cooperatives and leaders of citizen-owned infrastructure cooperatives will share their experience. At the same time, entrepreneurs who wish to convert their collaborative organizations into full-on cooperatives will share their interrogations.
Come raise your own questions! You will be invited to discuss them during a World Café, with the help of featured experts.
Bernhard Resch (Research Assistant, University of St. Gallen) Bilal Ghalib (Channeller, GEMSI, Nuries)
Description of workshop format (how is it being run?):
The workshop took place at the floating boat and outdoor on the green grass nearby.
The attendees were divided into small group of which each group was composed by two storytellers, several listeners and one host (= moderator). Each storyteller, listeners and the host got different instructions from Bernhard and an information sheet.
Within the groups the storytellers told their personal story of tensions and emotions in a decentralized organization and the listeners had to train themselves in listening according to different dimensions (relationship, breakthrough etc.). In a second step, they should share back what they listened from the storyteller.
Finally, we come all together in the plenum so that members of each group could share the main lessons of their group.
Key learnings:
Concerning on 1) How can we facilitate a climate of direct peer-to-peer conflict transformation?
by introducing rituals in our decentralized organization such as “The inner weather”- rounds (= each one express how he feel as a person)
by reserving time for emotions/speaking about processes and rules in our decentralized organizations (this gets often forgotten in the rush)
2) How can showing emotions strengthen collaboration?
The unsaid and the one showed emotions are present in the interactions between people in decentralized organizations and creates often tensions, therefore it is necessary to develop the capacity and tools to show emotions and to have room for the unsaid.
3) How to deal with tensions and conflicts productively in decentralized organization?
It happens that in decentralized organizations to few importance is giving on processes and rules for decision making
Any take-aways / next steps?:
The role of the host (= moderator) in the small groups helped to keep on the subject and to give a framework for this small decentralized workshop group. It discharges emotionally the participants to get lost in the discussions.
Often people come together to change the world, but then they end up with changing themselves (=> which seems to be the important step for changing the world)
Readings being recommended:
Reinventing organizations from Frédérick Laloux (as an introduction)
Theory U from Otto Scharmer (MIT)
Art of Hosting
CC: Why not? Political democracy can learn from corporate democracy because ultimately it is the same citizen who is in the center of it. It can inspire economic evolutions... so why not political evolution too?