Hierarchy of Class&Power Perpetuates Cycle of Alienation, Division, and Hate But America is Great!
Neoliberal Bipartisanship: Dems and GOP Can Both Continue to Screw The Nation Equally with an Orange Human Face.
The Spiritual Crisis of the Modern Economy
The main source of meaning in American life is a meritocratic competition that makes those who struggle feel inferior.
What is happening to America’s white working class?
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The Spiritual Crisis of the Modern Economy
The main source of meaning in American life is a meritocratic competition that makes those who struggle feel inferior.
What is happening to America’s white working class?
( Read more )
I work in the tech industry. I have since the 90s. I have worked both as individual contributor and as "manager", and have experienced a lot of companies of different sizes. Setting aside the fact that the tech industry is basically an adult daycare for overeducated white men, funded by the most evil of capitalists, I want to share some thoughts on management.
I don't believe co-ops work for everyone. I think perhaps they only work in a hypothetical world where everyone is exactly equally motivated.
When I moved to Germany one of my biggest culture shocks was how the workplace works. Germans like to have meetings about everything. They like to discuss everything. And no one wants to make a decision unless there is consensus. This can result in decisions taking a very long time (by Canadian/Australian standards), and often once they are made the business has moved on. Either people worked around the problem, or something more important came up. It leaves very little room for a sense of accomplishment, and greatly favors both academics and extroverts - people who are more interested in forming exploratory task forces and talking about problems than actually solving them.
One of the "hip" things in tech right now is autonomous teams. The idea that teams should have control over their own destiny. They get their own resources; "management" should just give them the tools and get out of the way. I think the idea perhaps comes from Toyota, kanban, lean, bla bla, filtered down through the privileged knowledge economy of Silicon Valley.
Without question, there is a certain type of person who thrives in this environment. In the tech industry that's usually a self-important nerd who truly believes he is smarter than everyone around him, so God forbid anyone else tell him what to do. If you are lucky enough to find a team of those guys who gel, then you have your perfect little co-op without management - all you do is drop problems in one end and wait for solutions to come out the other.
And then the resentment starts.
No matter how decentralized you try to structure your organization, there will always be some shared resources, some dependencies. Maybe the team who values mathematical purity is going to slow down the team who prefers duct tape solutions, or the duct tape team is going to cause problems that the purity team has to fix down the track. How to resolve that conflict? Do you get both teams in a room to come to a consensus? Then what about all the other teams who are now picking up the slack for these two while they work shit out? Do you ask each team to elect a representative to talk it out? Then how is that different from a traditional management hierarchy? And are we really assuming that there will be no interpersonal challenges inside the teams themselves? Who solves that?
(to be continued)
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As a manager i see it as my duty to understand the individual needs of each and every one of my team members. It's my job to make sure that each of them are challenged just as much as they want to be, that they are developing professionally in the way that they want to, that they are happy and productive and contributing positively to the team's output. They all look for very different things out of their job. And i know, when i meet other team leads, that there are similar challenges in those teams, and all the way up the chain to C-level. But i also know that it is my job to make sure my team doesn't hear about all of those other challenges elsewhere, not because i am hiding things from them, but because many of them will actually get LESS job satisfaction and feel less accomplished when they have to deal with everyone else's shit all the time.
I am lucky enough at my last two companies to have lived through a transition from a "flat hierarchy" with no managers (or no managers under C-level/department head) to small teams with clear leads. In both cases it was largely a "bottom up" decision. People were sick and tired of spending all day discussing stuff and trying to reach consensus across 10, 20, 30 people. Better to focus on the things they actually wanted and let a manager handle the "boring" stuff like dealing with staffing and the figuring out how to balance personal/professional growth with company goals/finance/funding etc.
When you start working in groups larger than a handful, with a diverse bunch of people with different backgrounds and different skills and different motivations, consensus decision-making does not always work out. Sometimes it is not in the interests of every individual in a group that everyone else be involved in decisions affecting them. It can lead to the alpha dogs getting overwhelmed and disheartened - especially when granted the opportunity to try solve a problem outside of their niche, only to crash and burn when they realize the job is much harder than they thought. And it can lead to the more introverted or less ambitious getting lost in the cracks because they do not have the energy or motivation to fight for every little thing that they need. Having managers - people whose primary responsibility it is to look out for the individuals on their team - can address many of these issues.
I can definitely see the point that once you get to several levels of management it can be hard for for people at the top to understand all the concerns of people at the bottom. But i think that is perhaps more an argument for small businesses than for co-ops. Or perhaps if we had a universal basic income a lot of people who struggle in the corporate world right now would just drop out of it - which may remove some of the need for management, since companies would likely become less diverse. But, eh. I am all for green anarchism, squatters' rights, lets go antifa, vegan straightedge, genderqueer punx, oi oi oi .... i mean, it's a nice idea. I understand that there are a few successful co-ops out there, but in reality i am not sure that it would work for everyone.
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"I don't believe co-ops work for everyone. I think perhaps they only work in a hypothetical world where everyone is exactly equally motivated."
I would agree it is not for everyone, at least during this early period, but I would say the same things about trying to be a (venture) capitalist, let alone figuring out economics. Our society lacks the proper education, and the culture to work in a cooperative environment. Our schools are creations of the Industrial Revolution, the education mindset from such institutions kills creativity and an altruistic cooperative mindset. However, even with the proper conditions I think it may be possible for a small population to develop the foundation to build a coop system. Another issue would be personality problems or egos. Some people would do well under a capitalist hierarchical system, some wont, people should be given the choice but for the moment there is no choice. The problem I see for the moment is that we lack the proper theories, which could develop the right formulas, which could then lead to stablish state/federal/national policies to encourage the investment and creation of coops, and for that it would require a political party willing to support the coop movement, but for that to work it requires enough data to support the idea, and you can see the problem, there arent enough coops data to develop a theory. Also the US has a good coop tradition but not enough records to work with because of the lack of interest on it. This needs to change. Another possibility is that the coop movement could thrive with the right tools or technology, thanks to the internet and digital technology it may be possible to overcome certain hurdles that handicaps the development of coops.
"One of the "hip" things in tech right now is autonomous teams."
I have no idea how the tech world works, so I would just work with what I read. The problem I see with that is that is that they just got a bunch of strangers together and toss them into a room and told them to work together. Democracy doesnt work that way, let a lone the formation of a coop. The coop has to be a free voluntary association of individuals with similar background or interests or goals. If you put a group of people who arent interested of working together and told them work together it would never work. Another problem is that the people were divided in groups, which sadly, leads to the development of factionalism or tribalism which is not very productive. The creation of a coop has to be organic, the workers 1st of all must have a financial stake on the formation of the coop, that means they must be owners of the business, and at the same time they must be their own managers/bosses, this creates an incentive for economic responsibility. If there is no ownership let alone a sense of responsibility, it wont work, because there is no interest let alone incentive.
""management" should just give them the tools and get out of the way."
If the workers are not their own owners/managers, it wont work. That just means the workers are not really responsible for their own destiny because most of the decisions is out of their hands and are forced to work with a limited set of choices. This just means the workers get all of the responsibility but none of the rewards let alone the ability to change directions without consulting with "management"
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This is why coops develop mechanism to deal with members, 1st there is a trial period for new members, if that person cannot function on a coop environment that person is asked to either change their attitude, adapt, be given a different task, if none of that works, it is let go. Coops have a trial period that could last to six months, to a year, or even years regarding the conditions, so this is not an issue as far as I investigated. The issue is mostly getting capital resources and enough interest. The second issue is developing the mechanism of how to operate a coop when it increases in size without becoming another capitalist business.
"No matter how decentralized you try to structure your organization, there will always be some shared resources, some dependencies."
For coops the ideal would be to develop of coop businesses that are co-dependant to each other to develop a Cooperative Network, a sort of chain-system where one coop business depends on the success of other coops. Not only do they help each other, but protect each other, rather than compete with each other. The idea is that coops under capitalism and the "free market" system are vulnerable, but by developing a network system they can create mutual support. For the moment this is difficult, but not impossible, an example is the Remilia Romagna in Northern Italy.
Each coop develops its own check and balances, along with their own mechanism on how to function democratically. So there are many different ideas and tools that coops have developed, there is no current unified idea to use as a blue print for coops so it is a lot of trial and errors at the moment so I wouldnt know what to tell you in regards how coops solve disputes because they use many different methods and they are all different from what I read. Most coops spend only once a week for meeting, or once a month. In Mondragon they have a large workers meeting once every six months or a year, and they get a large folder with the information regarding what decisions to make. Now, Mondragon is a different animal, because the workers hire and fire their own managers, the workers dont do most of the management work (they own the business, but they dont do most of the day to day operations, they just operate the machines). Now the mondragon model is different and is just one example of how to deal with management and operations.
"When you start working in groups larger than a handful, with a diverse bunch of people with different backgrounds and different skills and different motivations, consensus decision-making does not always work out."
True, but not impossible if the right tools, and theories are developed otherwise it devolves into factionalism. As I said more data and experimentation is needed, which sadly we have little to work with. In the history of early capitalism they had the same problem and it was solved (sort of) in its own ugly way. I believe the coop development will develop a formula and theory to deal with some of these issues. In some places it kind of was solved, but only because of the quirks of history. In Remilia Romagna the coops that emerged was lead by communists and catholics and both groups worked together to form a coop in their communities, this happened after WWII, when Italy was in turmoil to rebuild their society, both groups reached a consensus to help each other by compromising, the communist ditched out some of the ideology (their dislike of private property and markets) and the catholics embraced communal ownership property and a system of "socialist market" (this is as far I was able to guess from my readings, I could be wrong). The War and Fascism forced these two groups to work together for survival (it also helps they have a long coop tradition dating back to the middle ages and the 19th century). Given the right circumstances diverse individuals working in a group could reach democratic consensus but it would require a strong vision, goal, and idea to support behind. Right now there is none in the US... but
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Why not both? there is nothing wrong with small businesses, unless they are ran like capitalist institutions, then there is a problem, why? Because as capitalists there is an incentive to grow and grow without stopping. In Remilia Romagna many of the coops are either small or medium size, and some few are big. There is a strong incentive to remain small but stable as a coop, because you want to give room for similar coops to take some of the burden or share, instead of expanding the small coops into bigger monsters, that way it creates a network of small coop businesses working flexible with each other. This way it takes away the destructive behavior of gobbling up smaller businesses, and instead tries to find ways how to cooperate and live alongside similar businesses. Now, granted the world is not ideal, and sometimes it doesnt work, and for what I read it is difficult to do and maintain, but this is a more humane way of doing it in. In an idealistic world if it could be done it wouldnt be difficult, but under the global capitalist system it is difficult to accomplish so they try many different methods to minimize damage given the choices.
It is my suspicion, or at least a guess, that the coop model could work in the US in certain locales. There are many coop businesses already (small and scattered, with no network to work with), but there are not many industrial coops to use as a foundation for the movement, like in Mondragon. I think the Emilia Romagna model could work in the Rust Belt if given the right tools, capital, and formula, but for the moment it is still a struggle, since there is not a lot of support on the National level, but at the local level it may be possible given enough time and pressure...
I am saying this as someone who has little familiarity with coops, since I am still reading this stuff but I think it is a good idea, an idea that should be given a chance.
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Outside of my work life, several of my friends have passed through hippie communes while traveling, and I learned a lot more about communal living since I moved to this hood and started following the politics of the historically squatted apartment buildings in the area. In these cases, I think what helps them survive is that the people who are in it for the long haul are the ones who have share similar life goals. Stuff like The Farm might be a good American example - a lot of people left that commune because they couldn't work it out, but the ones who remain appear to be making a decent go of it. Does that make it a success because it's still around 40+ years later, or a failure because of everyone who had to leave?
The idea of a blue collar co-op is an interesting one. You will have to correct me if I'm being prejudiced here because I only know blue collar workers as (close) friends and not as my own family, but I get the impression that a lot of the people working in industrial/manufacturing industries have fairly similar life goals. Work hard, get married, have kids, buy a house in the suburbs, dog in the yard, have enough cash left over for a unique hobby on the weekend. I think if you can get enough people together who all want those same things, then they can probably find a way to create sustainable co-operative.
My concern is that this won't work when you have also have young people who want to rave hard every weekend and are still having a comedown Tuesday mornings, or people who are just passing through and have no intention of putting roots down, or people in polyamorous relationships, or people who choose to live child-free, or people whose family lives in another country and they want to send cash back there instead of buy locally, or whatever. It's this diversity in really fundamental life goals that can cause conflict in the office, if there is not a management structure that takes it into account and makes sure everyone's career journey is tailored. (Trendy companies call that career journey "tour of duty" btw, see HBR https://hbr.org/2013/06/tours-of-duty-the-new-employer-employee-compact and prepare to cringe hard.)
For instance, if my boss asks me which of my reports should get a bonus this year, and I think everyone did equally good work, I won't say everyone should get 25% of the bonus, I will make a value judgement and suggest it go to the person to whom that bonus will mean the most this time round. Maybe because I know they just moved house, or had a kid, or their parents are sick. Or - sadly - because they are a douchebag who just wants to buy some bling to pick up chix, and has made noises they felt undervalued this quarter. If they don't get the bonus they may be at risk of leaving to work somewhere else, and then everyone will suffer because - professionally - the douchebag is actually a solid team member. I dunno, maybe thinking about that kind of thing makes me an "unfair" boss, and maybe it's not very egalitarian, but I am trying to balance all these very different needs and motivations to make sure everyone has a good time at work, and that the work (or the money from the work) helps them achieve their personal goals outside of work.)
(to be continued)
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But I might be thinking of this all back to front. I mean, if this was the fantasy world where there were co-ops everywhere, then maybe there would be a co-op of ravers, and a co-op of people who just want to travel, and a co-op of people who are only working in the first world so they can send money to their family back home, and the white picket fence co-op too. Maybe the only reason all those people work in the same company right now is because they don't have any other choice. And - assuming the government has a proper safety net for people who don't want to take part in a "40 hours a week hard labor" co-op - maybe that would be alright? I mean, it's gotta be better than now, right?
On one hand, I don't want to lose diversity at work because it helps to open people's minds, on the other hand, my personal dream would be to work for a company where everyone is totally onboard with the idea of not working 40 hours a week, and takes regular sabbaticals, and never spends more than 3 years in the same country... I mean, if all my colleagues truly understood what I needed out of my work life that would be awesome. But I doubt a co-op would do that right now, for me. Maybe because I am a bit peculiar. Though I can definitely see how it would benefit a group of people who all have similar and perhaps more "traditional" life goals.
Sorry for rambling, I think this stuff is very interesting.
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