Changes at Cooperantics

There’ve been some changes at Co-operantics. Nathan has moved on to greater things and can now be found at our sister co-op: Culture Co-op . We hope to be able to continue our productive and supportive relationship. Contact nathan@culture.coop

And I’m delighted to share that I’m now an Associate at People Support Co-op.

People Support Co-op is a registered co-operative society. Established in 2021 as a sociocratic worker co-op by three founder member directors, all women in the North West of England and each bringing many years of experience in the worker co-op movement. Our purpose is to provide a broad range of advice and support services related to human relationships in the workplace, and to support the co-operative movement in its role as a key player in economic and social change.

We are a workers’ co-op practising collective management within a non-hierarchical, sociocratic governance structure. We make decisions using consent decision making – a participatory approach that ensures everyone’s voice is heard and enables the organisation to move forward with the consent of all. All of our workers are empowered to play a role in the development of our business while being able to draw on each other’s experience and expertise.

from Conflict to Co-operation revisited

It’s hard to believe it was over 10 years ago that I wrote these booklets, together with the excellent cartoonist and illustrator Angela Martin and our patient and knowledgeable editor, Sarah Alldred (then at Co-operatives UK) now at the Co-operative College.

I’d started thinking some time before that helping co-ops set up effective democratic governance structures wasn’t enough – that within ‘flat’ organisational structures, different behaviours are needed. I realised that would-be cooperators will bring their own assumptions about the way work is organised and about the way decisions are taken, based on previous experience – in private enterprise, local government, education, or the charitable or voluntary sectors. Such assumptions if unchecked could lead to conflict or at the very least undermine attempts to establish a ‘co-operative culture’ in the workplace.

I’d also been working on conflict resolution in co-ops, and thought it would be useful to have an accessible and fun resource that people could dip in to for tips and techniques for handling conflict.

So the idea of ‘from Conflict to Co-operation’ was born. There are five booklets: Continue reading “from Conflict to Co-operation revisited”

Peer appraisal in worker co-ops

– or “how do you tell your co-worker their work is crap?” (Hint: You don’t)

Many moons ago, at a worker co-op conference, someone asked me: “how do you tell your co-worker their work is crap?” Good question, I thought, but I hadn’t the slightest idea how to do it. Except I thought then – and still do – that you should never tell your co-op co-worker their work is crap!

Worker co-ops are run for the benefit of the employees – their members – so of course the very last thing you want to do is fire someone. But you do need a way of providing support to your members – and a means of getting everyone on board with quality, timeliness and commitment to your mission and aims.

Appraisals provide members with support as well as providing a structure for holding them accountable. Any kind of business with employees (or volunteers) needs to carry out regular staff appraisals. But it’s how it’s done that interests us here. In a worker co-op you will find a flatter, more democratic organisation. You may find that all the employees are Directors and you may find a variety of organisational structure – management by General Meeting (GM) or Management Committee, which may have delegated powers, or be representative of different teams or departments. There is also a growing body of worker co-ops adopting Sociocratic tools and structures. So we are not looking for a ‘one size fits all’ solution.

Continue reading “Peer appraisal in worker co-ops”

Who’s afraid of leadership?

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to co-operative leadership, because there are so many varieties of co-operative, depending on co-operative type, organisational structure, and sector of the economy.

In a consumer retail co-operative for example, the hierarchical structure pretty much dictates who holds what power and while of course there are opportunities for career development and promotion, there is less flexibility and those at the top of the tree can control the way authority is delegated to those below them.

I often remember an early lesson in co-operative leadership – or the lack of it! I was a member of a co-housing group, run as a co-operative and we held an event to promote the co-op and recruit new members. All the members – eight or nine of us – turned up at the community centre to arrange the room and get ready for our audience. Continue reading “Who’s afraid of leadership?”

the what, why and how of multistakeholder co-ops

Co-operatives are set up for the benefit of their members – be they shoppers in a consumer retail co-op, employees in a workers’ co-op, tenants in a housing co-op or savers and borrowers in a credit union.

These are single stakeholder* models, where there is just one class of member, but they do not take account of the range of different stakeholders that might be interested in the operations of the co-operative, for example in the case of a worker co-op that might mean suppliers, users of the co-operative’s services, customers, or local people who might be willing to invest or buy loan-stock. In the case of a consumer co-operative that might mean employees, suppliers or local community groups.

*stakeholders can be described as: ‘individuals or groups that can affect or be affected by an organisation. Stakeholders can come from inside or outside the organisation. Examples include customers, employees, members, shareholders, suppliers, non-profit groups and the local community, among others’.

The multi-stakeholder co-operative model addresses a multiplicity of stakeholder interests and turns it into a strength and greater sustainability for the co-operative.

(image courtesy of http://bcca.coop/momentum/info-centre/multi-stakeholder-co-ops) Continue reading “the what, why and how of multistakeholder co-ops”

some thoughts on leadership in co-ops

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Who’s afraid of leadership?

I was once at a housing co-op event, held to promote the co-op and recruit new members. All the members – 8 or 9 of us – turned up at the community centre to arrange the room and get ready for our audience. There were chairs stacked against the wall, and we all started lugging them to the centre of the room – but it was soon apparent – not just to us, but to the early arrivals who began to sit down, that we had no idea how to arrange the seating, no idea how many people would turn up, no previous agreement whether we would make rows of chairs or a big circle – it was chaos. So much so that some of us began to laugh to try to make a joke of it, while others got more and more frustrated and anxious. We finally got it sorted, but it was obvious we’d made a pretty negative impression on our audience who – no matter how impressive and persuasive our subsequent presentation – had had a clear demonstration of our inability to work as a team and our lack of leadership skills.

I have often remembered that moment and wondered why it happened like that. We were not totally lacking in team skills – in fact one of the impressive things about this group was the way in which they were able to pull together to organise things – but I think there was a fear of showing leadership. An idea that perhaps in a co-operative, showing leadership is wrong. I believe this is due to a misunderstanding about the nature of leadership, and an assumption that a ‘command and control’ style of leadership is the only way.

Leadership theories

Nothing can be further from the truth. It’s interesting to review the many theories of leadership but for our purposes here, let’s look at commonly-held assumptions about what leadership means and what leaders do. In ‘traditional’ hierarchically structured organisations, power is located at the top, and leaders lead from the front. Leaders have authority, take control and attract followers. Line managers tell people what to do, who then have others that they manage in turn. In such a structure it’s hard for individuals to be innovative and creative. Someone at the top who doesn’t understand the day to day realities of work at the ‘coal face’ takes decisions which workers may not agree with but must comply with if they want to keep their jobs. Of course employees can and should join a trade union which will support them and lobby and campaign to change things, but in some circumstances, confrontational approaches can be counter-productive.

So perhaps we need to get rid of the structure and the leaders and all decide everything together? Apart from the impracticability of such a step (you’d never get any work done) Jo Freeman, in ‘The Tyranny of Structurelessness’ explains how misguided it is to assume that without a structure, there will be no leaders. Leaders will always emerge, attracting followers by dint of their charisma, power, or resources, but without a structure or a system of accountability, you’ll have no way of getting rid of them.

Leadership in worker co-operatives

So we need a structure. And of course co-operatives have such a structure, where people can be elected to a Management Committee, or Board of Directors, but will have a specific term of office, and will only be re-elected if members feel they are doing a good job. However, like every democracy, it only works if people have information accessible to them about how the co-op is doing and how successful it is in achieving business, social and environmental goals. The MC then is accountable to the members, but they will also need Terms of Reference so they understand their roles and their delegated powers.

“Run the group delicately, as if you were cooking small fish”

So how do you show leadership in a worker co-operative?

In contrast to a typical hierarchy, leadership in a worker co-operative is collective. It’s not just the MC who need to be leaders – anyone can show leadership at any time. But what does this mean and how can it work?

The Tao of Leadership, by John Heider provides simple and clear advice on how to be an effective leader: be unbiased, trust the process, pay attention, and inspire others to become their own leaders. For example:

lead in a nourishing manner	give away control look for opportunities to give others control try to ensure that decisions are taken by the people most likely to be affected (subsidiarity)
lead without being possessive	lead by example rather than by telling people what to do avoid egocentricity ‘be’ rather than ‘do‘ be aware of what is happening in the group and act accordingly “specific actions are less important than the leader’s clarity or consciousness. This is why there are no exercises or formulas to ensure successful leadership”
be helpful without taking the credit	be modest, allow others to take the credit.
lead without coercion	promote collaboration provide tools for collective working clarify roles, authority and accountability delegate create an environment for thinking “Run the group delicately, as if you were cooking small fish. Too much force will backfire; the leader who tries to control he group through force does not understand group process. The wise leader stays centred and grounded and uses the least force to act effectively”

The result will be thinking, passionately proactive and creative people who communicate effectively, who understand how to work as a team, how to respond positively to conflict and how to help new members feel at home and hit the ground running.

So in our housing co-op example, should we have been dreaming about the best seating layout for our meeting? Well perhaps not, of course there are circumstances where simply delegating a few tasks will avoid such a muddle. If someone had shown leadership by asking everyone what would be the best layout, then suggesting we divide up the tasks between us: someone to stick up notices so people know where to come, a couple of people organising chairs, a couple of people making tea, someone putting the recruitment leaflet on every chair – etc. Simple stuff, but someone does need to take that initial lead.

Here’s some useful reading on leadership in collectives by Alanna Krause

The People’s Railway – first thoughts from a co-operative perspective

21^st January sees the 4^th Ways Forward Conference in Manchester: ‘Building an Economy to Serve People not Profit’. Follow developments on twitter at #WF4.

The conference – organised by Co-operative Business Consultants – aims to explore and debate responses to the challenges presented by Jeremy Corbyn’s call for democratic co-operative management of the public sector and other national industries, such as the railways and the energy sector:

Exploring how workers and users can be effectively involved in public sector management
Facing up to management capture as a major challenge for co-operatives
Considering Co-operative viability in the global economy

I’m facilitating the ‘People’s Railway’ session, with speakers Christian Wolmar, award winning writer and broadcaster specialising in transport and the author of a series of books on railway history and John Tilley, RMT Regional Organiser, North West & Eire Regions.

So I’ve started considering the issues from a co-operative perspective, and of course they are many and significant. (Thanks to Jean Nunn-Price and Alex Lawrie of www.go-op.coop for input).

Perhaps the biggest question is what could replace the present franchising system? Franchises are a high stakes gamble and for a co-operative the stakes are too high. No co-op could justify to its members the multi-million pound gamble that is tendering for a franchise. We need a different system, such as for example micro-franchises? Or core routes state-owned, and other routes open access?
Then what could be the role for co-operatives? Co-operatives need to be entrepreneurial, and that means they need to be able to alter their geographical remit at will, as business opportunities permit. So their role might be to complement a national publically owned and democratically accountable rail service.

As ever, a focus on international co-operative principles provides a useful starting point:

Autonomy: a co-operative is an independent organisation, not owned or linked to the state or any other organisation
Democratic Member Control: Who would be the members? The main stakeholders would be:

o Travelling public

o Staff &/or Trade Unions

o Investors

So the co-operative could have representation from each category – which suggests some form of multi-stakeholder co-operative. GO-OP Co-operative is a bona fide co-operative, registered using Somerset Rules, and has User (passengers and employees) and Non-user (investor) classes of shares, and voting arrangements are organised such that the User members always retain control of the co-operative.

Membership in a co-operative is voluntary – no-one can be forced to join. So what about staff who don’t want to join?
Member Economic Participation: You wouldn’t have to be a member to travel, but member benefits, for example dividend on spend, need to be part of the deal. Of course members will be able to choose Directors and attend the AGM. There could also be local member groups to give feedback on the quality of the service and hold social events.
Organisational structure: UK Railway management is structured on a hierarchical model, with pay structures that are highly inequitable. How could management structures be converted to a more equitable model without losing experienced staff?
Collaboration with other rail industry organisations – specifically Network Rail: Network Rail would need to be re-structured to become democratic and accountable to its passengers. The Co-op Party has called for Network Rail to become a consumer mutual, where passengers would be represented on the Board, be involved in the development of a strategic plan and have powers to control remuneration and appoint and dismiss the Chair and non-executive directors.

These are just some of the issues that need to be considered – but I’d be glad to hear thoughts and comments from co-operators & and anyone interested in making our railways more efficient, democratic and accountable.

Kate Whittle, January 2016

@cooperantics

Can co-ops offer their members a better work/life balance?

In private enterprise 58% of those in full time work believe they have no influence in the workplace, increasing to 70% for part-timers. (Source: YouGov polling, commissioned by Co-operatives UK May 2015). So it’s only if your employer offers good terms and conditions of employment, including flexible hours, that you will be able to benefit from good work life balance. And of course in private enterprise, employers need to prioritise return on investment for owners and shareholders.

Co-operatives on the other hand are run for the benefit of their members. So in worker co-operatives, where employees are the members, we might assume that one of the benefits on offer would be working hours flexible enough to ensure that members can meet family, education, leisure and social commitments – in other words, a good work life balance.

But there are different types of co-operatives – offering membership to tenants, savers or consumers – and it’s useful to distinguish between them. Consumer retail co-operatives (the familiar high street ‘Co-op’) are run for the benefit of the consumer – or shopper. They are managed like any other supermarket, except that profits are shared with members rather than external shareholders, and members can be elected to the Members’ Council and have a say on business issues. Although employees can be members, the co-operative is not run primarily for their benefit. Issues like work life balance will be covered in a contract of employment and dealt with through the HR department.

In a worker co-op however, the members are the employees and the co-operative is run primarily for their benefit. Members will have influence in the workplace, and will be able to contribute to discussions on the products or services that are sold, on the way work is carried out and on terms and conditions of employment, including work life balance.

“If only …”

But does it happen? Frustratingly, it can be challenging for worker co-op members to be able to achieve good work life balance, for several reasons, for example:

In the start-up period, founder members will often work for very low or no pay, in order to get the co-operative off the ground, so any talk of work life balance will be accompanied by a rueful smile …
Members have a responsibility to contribute to management decision making, leaving less time for other commitments
the co-op may decide to support the local community or people on low incomes and keep their own wages to a minimum, so members may need to work long hours
there may be a limited understanding of the enterprising nature of co-operatives, with a lack of research into potential markets which could provide the financial sustainability to permit members to achieve better work life balance
the co-op may be going through a period of change, cutting back on costs in certain areas to spend on new premises, additional equipment or raw materials

How easy is it for members of a large worker co-op to achieve good work life balance? Bristol’s Essential Trading is a worker co-op with over 80 members and is one of the UK’s ‘top 100 Co-ops’ according to Co-operatives UK.

Richard Crook from Essential says:

“… the realities of running a democratic business mean there are increased time demands over and above operational needs that might ordinarily be expected from an employee. Things like reading minutes, attending meetings, writing proposals, reading proposals, dealing with ‘people management’ issues, etc. all seem to add to the ‘work’ side of the see-saw – but at the same time because they can occupy the cerebral side of work rather than the physical, they do have an annoying habit of popping into one’s head during what should be ‘life’ time. Hence it often feels like the line is blurred between ‘work’ and ‘life’ in a worker co-op. People do really commit to the worker co-op they are members of, arguably sometimes too much for their own health and well-being, but this is done I think because they feel they are genuinely contributing to something alternative and often life-changing.”

What we can do to help co-ops be more sustainable?

Join them! Co-ops make an important contribution to the solidarity economy, they have an important part to play in that they (especially worker co-ops) offer an alternative form of business to the capitalist model. Business doesn’t have to be like Dragons Den or The Apprentice!

Buy goods and services from them! Co-operantics has (home) offices in Southampton & Bristol and in Bristol that means saving with Bristol Credit Union, buying organic vegetables from Sims Hill Shared Harvest , eating in Café Kino! Showing international solidarity at Kebele, enjoying music & workshops at The Folk House, reading news and views via The Bristol Cable, getting open source ICT from Bristol Wireless, going to the movies with Cube Cinema, reading about Re-enchanting the Forest with Vala Publishing, taking a trip round the harbour on a Bristol Ferry Boat, buying wood from Bristol Recycled Wood Co-op, and wooden gifts, logs and charcoal from Forest of Avon Products. We also get electricity from Co-operative Energy and phone & internet through the Phone Co-op (also the only UK supplier of the Fairphone – the first mobile phone made with materials from non-conflict zones). And too many more to mention – check out the CUK Directory for more UK co-ops.

So let’s do it! Let’s make 2016 the most ‘co-opy’ year yet!

Seasons Greetings and all the best in 2016 from Co-operantics.

How to set up a Freelancers Co-op

The rise of the “precariat” is well documented. Young people find themselves freelancing more and more (not just young people we might add!) and there is a real desire for structures that provide solidarity and insulation from the poor treatment an individual can suffer at the hands of unscrupulous quasi-employers or customers. A Freelancers Co-op can be many things. It can provide marketing of members’ services to customers with more reach and punch than an individual; the ability to tender for larger pieces of work; a “whole offer” for customers combining the skills of many members in one package; back office services like invoicing, accounts or factoring; shared office space; mutual support etc. Whatever the members want to source or provide collaboratively can be made available to members either as a “take it or leave it” offer or as a menu of services.

Having met when we co-delivered a weekend workshop with Alt Gen for young people setting up co-ops as part of the Stir To Action summer events programme, Jonny from Stir To Action asked if we could put together an overview of the key steps people might take to put together a freelancers’ co-op, to empower, inform and inspire people. Jonny got one of the STIR designers to turn our clunky diagram into a thing of beauty (excerpt below). We will make it available in the new year (update: available as PDF to download) but meanwhile if you want to see the goods you need to order the magazine.

Freelancer Co-op Guide excerpt

Strategic planning in worker co-operatives

or ‘How to make God laugh’ – Woody Allen

Participative strategic planning is a means for engaging all members in planning the future direction of the co-operative business. In this way we can avoid conflicts caused by lack of information or misunderstandings about goals, aims or ‘how we do things here’. It’s strategic planning done in a co-operative, collaborative and participative way.

Strategic planning is a way of coping with change and planning for the future. It aims to accomplish three tasks:

to explore and clarify direction for the medium to long term, identifying desired outcomes
to select broad strategies that will enable the co-operative to achieve those outcomes
to identify ways to measure progress

Co-operatives use the process to build member commitment by involving them in the creation of the plan, but how you go about it will depend on your co-op’s structure, how long you have been established, your economic sector and the complexity of your business

One approach is to hold an annual Away Day aiming to integrate new members, facilitate interaction between different teams, and discuss co-operative performance and future plans.

It’s helpful to clarify the language of strategic planning before you start – so you can at least agree a common understanding. For example:

Strategic work is about where you want to go, it’s about the long term and involves setting aims and objectives, goals and outcomes – or draining the swamp?

Tactical is about how you’re going to get there, agreeing a route or a map. It’s more reactive and perhaps opportunistic, involving setting milestones towards the achievement of goals and organising timetables, action plans and rotas.

Operational is about the journey, it focuses on the short term day to day outputs, crisis management and fire-fighting – or fighting the crocodiles?

So make sure you look up from time to time from fighting the crocodiles to see if you can find time to drain the swamp!

Strategic

‘Drain the swamp’

Tactical

Operational

‘Fight the crocodiles’

• Goals

• Aims and objectives

• Long term

• Outcomes

Where you want to go

• Milestones, KPIs

• Timetables, rotas

• Reactive, opportunistic

• Map, route

How you’re going to get there

• Day to day

• Crisis management

• Short term

• Outputs

The journey

Key questions for strategic planning:

are your co-operative vision and values clear, agreed and owned?
how well do you understand the market? Is it growing, shrinking, or flat-lining?
how well-informed are you about suppliers & competitors?
how fit is the co-operative organisation? Purring along nicely or bit bumpy?
are members ready to act?

Strategic planning – beyond the systems approach

Traditional management tools are inadequate for worker co-ops, since they are based on ‘systems’ thinking, which assumes controllers and controlled. Instead of thinking about organisations as machines, controlled by managers pulling levers, Ralph Stacey of the University of Hertfordshire talks instead about ‘complex responsive processes’ with high participation and constant change. He describes organisations (including co-operatives) as processes of human relationships and communication where people create and are created by the organisation and where no one can plan or control this interplay.

Here are some tools and techniques based on this understanding of business as a series of interactions and conversations between people at all levels of the business.

Tools and techniques for participative strategic planning

Active Business Planning uses project management techniques, researching information on size and characteristics of the market, acceptable pricing, level of sales, etc. simultaneously and using the knowledge gained in one area to amend others. Active business planning uses a timeline (GANNT) chart to identify the dates of starting and ending each business planning action.

Agile is an approach to business planning based on techniques typically used in software development as a response to unpredictability. In contrast to traditional project management, with its sequence of: define aims – market research – product development – market strategy – implement strategy, the Agile approach is iterative and incremental, with all activities blending into several iterations and adapting to discovered realities at fixed intervals.

RISK ANALYSIS is a slightly different approach, involving looking at all the risks to your co-operative business and quantifying them in a table according to:

1. How likely it is to occur, or probability
2. What impact would it have on the business if it did occur?

You then multiply (1.) by (2.) to get a rough and ready way to prioritise action. The final two columns in the table encourage you to think about how to prevent the risk from happening and if it does happen anyway, how to minimise the impact on your business.

RISK	PROBABILITY 1-5	IMPACT 1-5	RISK SCORE	MITIGATION How to stop it happening	CONTINGENCY If it happens anyway, how to minimise impact

Appreciative Inquiry is a more positive, ‘glass half full’ approach. It involves four stages:

DISCOVERY Focus on what’s working, build on success. What are our strengths? What do we enjoy? What do we want to do more of?
DREAM Use our strengths and what we want to do to create a shared vision of the future – what might be?
DESIGN Co-create a design to make it happen, based on our values & principles
DELIVERY What will be? Sustain the vision through empowering people, learning, adjusting, improvising