Who Needs a Boss?
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
It is the seventh-largest Spanish company in terms of asset
turnover and the leading business group in the Basque
Country. At the end of 2012, it employed 80,321 people in
289 companies and organizations in four areas of activity:
finance, industry, retail and knowledge.
There will still be companies trying to push miniscule improvements, but eventually those incremental improvements won't be enough to justify using them over older cheaper technology (for most use cases). We're already getting there by the way-- just look at the number of cheap embedded CPUs with relatively large transistors produced each years.
Say we get to the point, call it x nanometers, where we can't really get any smaller because we've reached physical limitations. 50 years after what will the cost to produce an x nm chip be compared to 50 years before--even if we've moved beyond silicon 50 years later there will still be countless applications capable of being performed by older cheaper technology.
Answer: the boss isn't for the employee, the boss is for the people who are spending the money on employees they don't trust. Putting in a boss is the first of many measures to protect capital. Most of these measures are very flawed.
But even in a cooperative scenario, protecting capital is still a concern because an employee of a cooperative can also fuck off rather than working, thereby squandering jointly-owned capital. Big difference, not really.
Only if you have ways of doing business without requiring any capital, or where the worker puts their own capital on the line, is it going to stop being a need
* Sitting in on meetings of things that might be, and calling me in when he feels my input would be useful
* Being a first point of contact for the "customer" when they want to find something out but don't want to poke dev directly (they do poke me directly on occasion when they know it's appropriate)
* Being a first point of contact when I need some information (Who should I talk to to get more information about X? Can you schedule a meeting with the folks from Y so that we can discuss the technical details of something? etc)
He's there because he knows enough about my work and the work of everyone else we interact with that he can handle the management of non-technical details. I, for one, am very thankful that he is there.
Honestly, it runs similar to the argument for an Administrative Assistant. Sure, I could schedule my own trips, and order my own <stuff>, and such. But having someone there that does such things on a regular basis is a huge benefit. The AA(s) at every company I've worked for have always been someone I am very thankful to have, even if we could get by without them. It's all about efficiency.
* Sending random IMs to the entire team throughout the day about funny stuff he finds on the Internet "to maintain team cohesion."
* Regularly interrupting individual team members and asking them about their projects "to make sure things are getting done and nothing is falling through the cracks."
* Nitpicking on small, often inconsequential details as a way of giving "constructive feedback" while insisting that everyone should be able to think "big picture."
* Occasionally saying racist/sexist stuff in weekly meetings "as a joke"
* Claiming that there is nothing wrong with asking an interviewee about their personal life because "culture fit is an extremely important part of the hiring process."
* Dismissing complicated front-end customizations as "just scripting" and insisting that "real programming" is done by our software developers (most of whom are fresh out of college).
Ah, sorry. That quickly turned into a rant...
I'm all for AA's, and I see the value of managers, but is it not possible to have a structure where they have some power where required, but not so much that they basically 'own' you (as is usually the case)?
I'd love to work in a place where managers are not formally 'in charge', but mostly serve the purposes you describe. I might be missing something though, so I'd love to hear arguments why this is not done or not possible.
So another symptom of the alienation of labor and capital? Stupid capitalism.
To make each worker personally absorb 100% of the risk involved in their production has a certain upside... but also a pretty obvious downside.
Say I'm a weaver, I buy supplies and I rent coworking space and I take whatever hours I want, I have full creative control and I get 100% of my own profit to work with. Yay no boss. But if my supplies or product get stolen, or eaten by moths, or are just bad, or become unfashionable, or cashflow kinks prevent me from selling... pay-to-work sounds less attractive when put that way, to lots of people.
This was thrown as an aside, but I'm wondering what they exactly mean by that. What are these regulations? Are they government imposed or member imposed? What exactly do the regulations say? I wish the article didn't just throw out "there's regulations" without explaining what said regulations are and how they effect co-op lending.
That being said, I'm a pretty big fan of credit unions and they usually rank higher in customer satisfaction,[1][2] and tend to have better rates. They tend to be more community oriented. Though some credit unions can suck too.
[1] http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=842677&...
[2] http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=855037&...
Due to their community charters and nonprofit statuses, CUs have regulatory and statutory limits to the amount of business loans they can hand out (12% of total loan portfolio, with loans up to $50,000 or SBA-backed loans not counting against the cap). Bankers and smaller credit unions argue, I believe reasonably, that increasing commercial portfolios by CUs would create an unfair playing field (the bankers' argument) and increase CU accountholders' risks (the smaller CUs, which generally aren't going for large commercial portfolios and see this as a way for the largest CUs to reduce the smaller competition).
Lending restrictions on CUs work well -- post-2008, credit unions were considerably more stable than commercial banks, with the exception of CUs that took on outsized commercial portfolios. For example, Texans Credit Union had a waiver that allowed up to 20% of its portfolio to be commercial (and then bought a subsidiary that had billions of dollars in CRE loans that didn't count towards its cap). Even before the crash, its bad debt ate up a majority of its equity, and consumed the rest in the 2008 meltdown. As a result, the board and executive leadership were summarily canned in 2011, after three years of steady deterioration, and the NCUA took over running the institution.
I think the intention there is to avoid a "company store" situation when a bunch of employees fund a credit union, and end up loaning their money to their employer or favored business. If the employer goes bust, the Federal government is left holding the bag of paying back the depositors.
I ask because teachers in secondary schools seem to be under much more pressure to ensure their students pass standardised exams to enter higher education, whereas there's much more wiggle-room for alternative methodologies at younger ages. It'd be good to see some innovation at the secondary level, rather than just attempting to keep up with what examiners require.
Minnesota's charter system is (or should be) a model for other states. There's lots of interesting education innovation going on here. Lots of failures too, but that's what happens when you open the doors to innovation.
Besides being a co-op, Avalon is a project-based learning environment. This requires a great deal more personal responsibility on the part of students for their own educations. It wouldn't work for most students, but for those who do well there, it shines gloriously. That's what I love about charters, really - the opportunity for educational diversity, and finding models that work well for different kinds of students and different kinds of teachers.
What I really don't need is owners that are not personally involved in the business, yet can somehow tell those who are involved how to operate. Those guys are the ones that merge sick leave with vacation, slice off 6 days from the total, and then pay themselves an extra dividend.
Why can't coworkers do that?
MJ Ray of Debian fame is part of this. He's also very much involved in promoting the cooperative as a concept.
The beauty is that, majority of these farmers own one or two cows and that is their main means of income for their whole family.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amul [2] http://www.iitk.ac.in/ime/MBA_IITK/avantgarde/?p=1018
I don't know how it works in other countries, but I can give some more detailed info about the requirements in France, if anyone's interested :
- A partner can own 50% max. of the company.
- Whether you own 1% or 50%, every partner has the same voting power.
- You can have a maximum of 1/3 non-employed partners, and the combined non-employed partners cannot own a majority of shares (49% max). This assures that the "power" stays within the people that actually work in the company.
- This also means that 2/3 of the partners must be employed with a contract and a salary. This can be quite difficult when you build the company as you must, technically, start paying yourself and your partner (since you must be 2 partners minimum) on day 1.
- You need a minimum of 2 partners, but can also have as many employees as you want. This means you can technically be a co-op even if your company has 2 partners and 1000 employees.
- There are rules as to how you distribute your benefits : a maximum of 33% can be distributed as dividends to the partners, a minimum of 16% must be kept in the company for investment (reserves), and a minimum of 33% has to be distributed amongst all employees (following a calculation the employees can decide upon, like according to time worked, salaries, how long one's been in the company, or a custom calculation...). This tends to lead to high employee motivation and better ensure long-term health.
- Co-operatives have a few tax deductions that other companies don't. If you don't distribute any dividends and distribute it all to your employees + keep some for investments, and follow a certain number of other rules, you can practically be exempted of taxes on the company's benefits.
- On the other hand, you must go through a bunch of red tape to prove every year that you follow the rules of a co-operative, which costs time and a bit of money.
We built the company 2 years ago, and right now we're only 3 partner/employees so our day-to-day life is basically the same as any other similar-sized company, but we liked the philosophy, and it has actually been an interesting marketing feature.
Also, Arizmendi Bakery is in fact delicious.
If, for instance, technology shifts over time such that a large-scale corporate system becomes optimal, the capitalistic society can shift with it. And if technology changes so that the optimal situation becomes a much large set of smaller, nimbler competitors, which is probably where we're currently going, we don't have to have a bloody revolution to permit new organizations to be adopted. And at no time is there a contradiction between a co-op, a centrally-managed company, a hierarchy-less Valve-style company, and a non-profit all operating in the same space.
I worry about coops in the business world for the same reason. They have limited defense against massive corporations that decide they are enemies. But that's true of any small business.
By my reading, this is an overstatement. My understanding, having dug into the issue a bit some years back, is that he was skeptical of the reporting; arguably overly skeptical, and certainly incorrect in retrospect, but that's not quite the same thing as supporting or condoning.
What I find amusing about John Lewis is that although they are employee owned they are actually a key part of respectable middle class life - even more so their upscale Waitrose supermarket chain which has close links to the Royals (the Duchy Originals brand was started by the Prince of Wales and is now exclusive to Waitrose).
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/owner-multi-million-dollar-company-...
>Moore said he's gotten countless buy-out offers over the years, but he couldn't envision selling the business to a stranger.
>"It's the only business decision that I could make," he said. "I don't think there's anybody worthy to run this company but the people who built it. I have employees with me right now that have been with me for 30 years. They just were committed to staying with me now and they're going to own the company."
> "There's a lot of negative stuff going into business today," he said. "It's a good old basic Bible lesson -- love of money is the root of all evil. And unfortunately, our entire philosophy today is get all the money you can and whatever way you can. It's caused many corporations to bite off more than they can chew. And it causes people to do a lot of things just for money that they feel in their hearts is not the right thing to do."
>With his own company, Moore has tried to do just the opposite. In a refreshing twist to the typical tenets of corporate America, Moore thinks of his employees and customers first and foremost.
He also believes that there isn't a secret for building a successful business, it is just hard work and luck.
Sounds like an incredibly down to Earth guy.
Co-ops are a great structure when profit is directly related to work input, but that's not a requirement.
I haven't read it yet, but this might be of use.
http://www.geo.coop/story/why-some-worker-co-ops-succeed-whi...
What they do is shift workers from non performing sectors to performing ones.
They have economic cycles in Spain, and within the org itself, like the rest of the world but they deal with it more equitably.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutterite
The colonies are very successful, so much so local farmers have often lobbied successfully to make made them illegal.
Amazing pizza and scones.
Most people just don't have the discipline to work on something for 8 hours/day without being told what to do.
I have also joined many meetup groups for various activities /meeting new people. When a group doesn't have a leader, it pretty much doesn't go anywhere until someone takes up the lead and keeps everyone on track.
If you ran a company this way, you would either vote on all decisions (which would be painful and slow) or you have a group of people make these decisions on your behalf (IE: leadership).
It's a small example of human nature and why we still need bosses.
In addition to the passive masses, things like meetup groups tend to attract people who want titles or to boss people around or to take credit for things, but at the same time are really not offering anything that is of value to members. (demanders, not providers)
And unfortunately lots of companies are run this way too; the nominal leadership is parasitic and the majority of the constructive force is provided by people who have lower titles, less authority, less control of the environment and don't get credit for anything.
Leaderless isn't great but parasitic "leadership" by demanders isn't either.