How can I talk about Radicals to people who don’t know anything about it? What are its Principles? Does Radical have a structure?
Note that principles and structure are a reflection of Fiat concerns, and these questions really are about centralization and would translate to who defines these principles and structures? Who is the boss?
Nevertheless, you can address these types of questions by talking about the Radical tools you do have,
You can read about the first two in previous posts. This post is about the Radical Foundations.
Radical Foundation Template
Our deepest problems are the inescapable side-effects of the system we live in: our collapsing climate, the expanding wealth, and wellbeing gap, discrimination against people of color, the exploitation of women. Instead, we need a generative way of relating to one another, a different paradigm. As we see it, businesses are the place to start. Businesses-as-dictatorship are the root of the problem, so they must be the incubators for what comes next.
In the Radical model, a company is simply a group of people who come together to build something bigger than themselves. The word "company" comes from the Latin prefix con-, meaning together, and pan, meaning bread. A company then is a group of people who work and socialize together.
Every company is different because the people who embody it are different. What fundamentally makes a Radical company different from a Fiat business is that it starts from this simple Foundation.
| people | Meaning & Belonging |
|---|---|
| commitments | Decentralization & Transparency |
| practices | Experimentation |
Description
| PEOPLE | |
| Meaning |
Can I find meaning in what we are doing together? Do I trust these people to help me find meaning in my work, in my life? |
| Belonging |
Do you want to work with this group? Does it feel right to be part of this project? |
| COMMITMENT | |
| Transparency |
This is not absolute: you can move towards Transparency or away from it. Also, transparency goes both way: form the group to the individual and from the individual to the group (aka, vulnerability) |
| Decentralization |
This is not absolute: you can move towards Decentralization or away from it. Just be transparent to yourself and others about what you are doing. |
| PRACTICES | |
| Experimentation |
Means never having to say you’re sorry, but you must tell what you’ve learned from the experience. I expected X, but got Y, because…. Even saying, I don’t know why it went wrong means we have learned something from it. |
ENDNOTES
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Matt Perez. rTools: RADs App. 2022. <https://radicalcompanies.com/2022/09/20/rtools-rads-app.html>
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Matt Perez. rTools: Agreements. 2022. <https://radicalcompanies.com/2022/09/19/rtools-agreements.html>
