Intro
Co-ownership may be the most difficult thing to fully get. How would the, the unwashed masses, know what to do? How would they set a strategy? It is going to be chaos or at best very ho-hum.
Ho-Hum?
Let’s start with the last concern: It is going to be chaos or at best very ho-hum. That would be true if you assume that people cannot or will not learn, but that is wrong headed. People learn. It may take more time to arrive at a decision the first few tries until they, the people without a boss, start to figure out to trust. If they never get to that point, they never became a team and will disband.
But people like to learn. Within the Fiat system we learn to do what the boss says. But that is not ”human nature” or any such, it is simply what we have been taught to do and to expect by the people we trust the most: our parents, our teachers. The Fiat systek is in our heads and simply pass on. We pride ourselves to be individuals, to beat the other guy and enjoy a crushing win. Those are all part of the Fiat system and we will even go to war over it.
The Radical system offers alternatives,
- To learn and keep learning
- To not be negatively surprised, but to learn from unexpected results
- To embrace our ignorance and ask questions.
Radical also teaches us that action happens only in community. Even when we are working alone, we benefit and get inspirations from the community (e.g., books, documentaries, even fantasy movies)
Triple
People may see Radical as a way to make more money, but that is a secondary side effect. The main purpose of the Radical model is to make people the highest priority. Yes, you can make more money not having managers. And, yes, you can increase revenue by having everybody think in terms of making more revenuel, but, again, that is not the motivation for the radical model. People and their communties are the primary motivation.
Yesterday I spoke with Haluk Can Hur, who happens to own four businesses, all of them co-managed. He told me that Latro Kimya, his first business, has tripled its revenue since he elimanted the CEO job and fired himself. This comes from people managing the business, knowing the ins and outs of it, and not having to ask for permission.
And that is for a co-managed business, without co-ownership. He is giving away his shares to the workers over time, but the ownership and the decision of who-gets-what is centralized and not transparent.
The Radical Foundation
As a reminder, this defines the Radical Foundation. It is all you have to remember,
Idealistic?
Businessess don’t work for the community, they work for their owners. Radical companies are free to run financial circles around them, but that is not their main goal. Their main goal is to decentralize wealth according to people’s contributions, not capital. The goal of companies is not to compete but to be the training ground for collaboration.
Other things that are business hostile,
- Being number one
- Crushing the competition
- Iindividual wins
