The Weakness: Owner-Boss
Co-management is a move away from the Fiat hierarchy, and that’s good. But it doesn’t last: we must have decentralized ownership, which we call co-ownership, for robust and stable governance.
In a recent Corporate Rebels post, Joost Minnaar identifies ten progressive organizational structures ∇ which he calls Amoebas, Cells, Circles, Chains, Fractals, Honeycombs, Lattice, Micro-communities, Mini-factories, and Squads.
Unfortunately, except for WL Gore, all the organizations given as primary examples have an owner-boss at the top. In these cases, the owner-boss sees himself as a “servant leader” or some other benevolent ”benevolent” crap.
Co-Ownership Brings Robustness
It is great, in fact, that these companies have experimented with co-management. They have shown that it works and that we don’t need the Fiat hierarchical system we live under. Unfortunately, co-management is not enough because it doesn’t last.
Most of these “progressive” companies have fallen back to the Fiat hierarchical model once the benevolent owner-boss.is out of the picture.
For governance to be decentralized in a robust and long-term way, decentralized management must be accompanied by decentralized ownership or co-ownership, as we call it. ∇
Robustness Emerges from a Simple Foundation
Rather than specific practices or strict methodologies, this foundation allows you to discover out what works for you, while helping you to keep grounded on what’s important,
| people | Meaning & Belonging |
|---|---|
| commitments | Decentralization & Transparency |
| practices | Experimentation |
Description,
| Meaning and Belonging |
These are important things to people, finding meaning in what they do and belonging to a community that helps them. |
|---|---|
| Decentralization & Transparency |
I tried, but I didn't find a way to reduce it to one word. You need both. Decentralization and transparency specify a range, they are vectors. You can be mvoe towards more or less decentralization and more or less transparent depending on choices you make, decision you take. |
| Experimentation |
Finally, experiment. Be explicit about what you expect (e.g., tomato paste with 50% acidity) and then don’t be afraid of experimenting. If your results match your expectations, call it an innovation and celebrate. Otherwise, learn from it. |
ENDNOTES
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Joost Minnaar. 10 Progressive Organizational Structures Developed By Real Companies. April 27, 2022. <https://radicals.world/GExvRH>
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Matt Perez, Jose Leal, Adrian Perez. RADICAL Companies for the Impatient. 2021. <https://radicalcompanies.com/2022/03/14/radical-companies-for-the-impatient>
