[futuravenir]

I'm in the middle of reading "Reinventing Organisations" and it's absolutely wonderful. It examines a handful of organisations that are doing it differently (including Holocracy) and takes notes about how their techniques compare and what they might have in common.

It's basically the blueprints towards building the next most efficient organisation. I highly recommend it. http://www.reinventingorganizations.com/

[swombat]

Not sure why you're being downvoted. I am running one of those companies. Calling it structureless is as misleading as calling agile chaotic.

The "Green" stage can feel a little like the tyranny this article describes, but the "Teal" stage is anything but. It's comparatively light on arbitrary rules compared to your traditional top down company, but it's certainly not unstructured.

I have written a numbe of articles on this topic at http://danieltenner.com/open-cultures/ in case you want to read more.

[dalke]

Does it cover the cooperative model, like the Mondragon Corporation, or the Wobbly shop? I can't find a table of contents, and DDG finds no reference to Mongragon or Wobbly on the web site. I figure that a book which doesn't discuss those two alternative forms of business organization is hiding something. For examples, hiding who owns and controls the capital, or hiding that it's not really a new model but has been around for a century.

Personally, I take the warning at https://books.google.com/books?id=IKZVKMPEQCEC&pg=PA131&dq=%... to heart:

> Industrial democracy: By analogy with political or state democracy, a description of democratic practices as applied to workplaces. There are two major ways of thinking about this concept. The first involved some liberal conception of representative structures that allow workers to have influence over decision making, responsibility and authority. The extent of such influence can vary substantially, from an employer's 'suggestion scheme' through workplace methods such as 'team-working', up to the various forms of consultation and co-determination exemplified by Kalmar, Semco, or the John Lewis Partnership and the Quality of Working Life movement. Whilst these examples provide illustrations of alternative forms of organizing, they all largely rely on the idea of empowerment as something which management does to workers. In other words, management and owners still have the ultimate sanction, and could withdraw democratic privileges if they wished.

> The more radical way of thinking about industrial democracy would be in terms of worker self-management. In this case a cooperative or an employee share ownership plan (ESOP) would mean that all those working for an organization would have a direct share in its profits and losses. As a result, they would have a clear interest in participating in democratic mechanisms to elect or deselect those who coordinate organizational activities; to dictate strategy; to take profits or reinvest, and so on (see Mondragon; Suma). Both forms of industrial democracy have been credited with increasing the motivation and commitment of workers, as well as increasing productivity and decreasing labour turnover. Whilst advocates of the liberal version might suggest that those were good things to achieve because they can increase shareholder or owner value, for the radicals all these would be secondary to the idea that labour might escape alienation in a Marxist sense. In other words, liberal ideas about job satisfaction are pale reflections of the conception of work as a form of human expression (see Fourier).

[futuravenir]

I'm about a third of the way through the book. It's tough to say whether it covers 'the cooperative model' because so far, it approaches aspects of business quite individually.

Here's the table of contents: https://i.imgur.com/OS9XGhN.jpg

[dalke]

Thank you! It's hard to tell from the list if it covers coop models. It would be in Board/Ownership, starting on page 251.

One clue earlier might be if the workers can fire the CEO and decide CEO pay.

[futuravenir]

Well, in the context of traditional orgs, the board can fire the CEO. In this book, he speaks about making certain that the CEO & board members are all on board with the 'teal organisation' mentality.

In other words, I don't believe it addresses the legal structure as much as the organisational one. Unfortunately, I have to bring it back to the library today...but I'll be buying my own copy that I can cover in highlighter. It's really interesting for anyone interested in organisational structure and offers a lot of insights into potential workarounds to problems you might run into.

[walshemj]

John Lewis is a coop like Mondragon - which makes me doubt the source your quoting.

[jarofgreen]

Knew someone who worked for them years back. They said the co-op thing meant very little to individual workers like them, it basically amounted to a newsletter regularly. I don't know enough details to argue either way, except to observe that just because something says it is a co-op doesn't mean individual workers really feel empowered.

[walshemj]

If its 50% plus 1 owned by the employees its a coop - and I think your forgetting the yearly bonus.

Not that JL was not a bit naughty in outsourceing its cleaners.

[zby]

How does it relate to Elinor Ostrom ideas? I find her "Design principles for Common Pool Resource (CPR) institutions" much more applicable than just CPRs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom