With Ryszard Stocki – psychologist, prof. of the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow and co-author of the book “Full Participation in Management. The secret to the success of the world’s largest management experiments” is what full participation in management is and why it is inactive not widely applied.
Richard Stocki
Dr hab., psychologist, researcher, talker and consultant. He helped in almost all types of organisations to introduce participatory systems that let respect for the dignity of all man. Currently, the main subject of his investigation is the impact of organizational pathology on everyday life of people. As part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Outgoing Fellowships programme, he conducted a three-year investigation task entitled "Co-operative Isomorphism", in which he explored the impact of lifestyle changes on the abandonment of cooperative values. He cooperates with the universities of Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, NS Canada, Mondragon University in Spain, with the Academy of Ignatian in Krakow, Pope John Paul II University. He late published the book: “An incalculable experiment. How to live wisely in the 21st century?”
Rafał Górski: What is full participation in management?
Richard Stocki: The simplest definition of a company with full participation in management is that it is simply a friend company.
Currently, thanks to technology, up to a fewer 100 people can participate in an online meeting, which allows for maintaining participation despite the dispersal of the team. However, erstwhile the company has respective 100 employees, it must be divided into separate pieces.
The largest labour cooperative in the world, Basque Mondragon Corporation, employs around 50,000 employees, but consists of 200 different cooperatives and tiny companies more or little participatory.
Jack Stack, founder and CEO of SRC Holdings Corporation, which began with the regeneration of interior combustion engines, besides divided it into tiny subbusinesses, forming independent units. Similarly, the Polish company Semco works, in which e.g. a group of receptionists creates something like a mini company and sets out their work schedule. Xtech from Krakow, which deals with online commerce, besides divided its multi-member company into 3 or 4 independent business units – teams.
The book, which you are co-authored, says that “no renowned business school has the courage to teach management approaches that would make these companies close to excellence, even though almost all usage these companies as a case survey in the education of managers. Those curious in the subject know that these organisations affect their employees in management, introduce systems of participation in financial results, make workers highly powerfully identified with the organisation, becoming highly innovative." What benefits do companies derive from the doctrine of full participation in management?
If the company wants to make as much profit as possible, and so the company's objectives are defined in the Commercial Companies Code, slavery is the most profitable. This is best illustrated by not the largest but the richest countries in Europe. Poland is much bigger than Belgium, but Belgium has an incomparable amount of assets due to the fact that it is simply a power built on slave labour in Belgian colonies.
After more than a 100 years, it turns out that countries specified as the United States, which employed mass slaves kidnapped from Africa, gotta pay a price for their past by facing immense amounts of immigrants from their erstwhile colonies. If at the beginning of the colonization they had introduced a strategy of full participation, this problem would not have existed.
The strategy of full participation is very old, and 1 of my favourite examples are Paraguayan reductions [the settlements founded and managed by the Jesuits in South America in the 17th and 18th centuries in which they lived, worked, prayed, and educated Indians—red]. erstwhile the Portuguese redeemed the Spanish colonies, they immediately introduced very harsh colonial rules and a strategy of exploitation. alternatively of continuing the Paraguayan reductions, they began to look for gold mines, which they thought were behind the amazing improvement and flourishing of these areas. They did not realize that the gold was people whose vast majority could read, and the inhabitants ruled themselves.
When we talk about the benefits of full participation in management in modern companies, we frequently point to human innovation and creating absolutely exceptional things that bring incredible financial results.
Unfortunately, the greater the material success, the greater the interior demolition of people. Therefore, I would remind you that full participation in management is only a certain phase in the improvement of the company before money is managed by employees.
At a time erstwhile they see immense amounts of money generated around them, they begin to master their greed, causing them to lose their full participation. I know quite a few stories like that. For respective years I worked with various Canadian cooperatives, of which my favourite was the MEC, Mountain Equipment Coop, or the Mountain Equipment Cooperative, which developed into a immense chain of shops with about 3 million members. To buy simple shoelaces, you had to complete the membership declaration and deposit $5. In time, the individual boards began to remove old cooperatives from the structures, until yet the process of transforming the cooperative into private property took place., usually in the form of a capital company — ed.] and the sale of cooperativesa private investment firm.In Poland this process could be seen on the example of the sensationally functioning “Muszynika” cooperative, which was besides transformed into a limited liability company.
The opposite, before the war, Polish example of specified “non-sold” was the “Gazolina” worker company in Borysław, whose 30% of shares belonged to employees, and for which he had a desire for abroad capital.
If the individual had sold his share, he could have built a home or bought a fresh car. Despite specified large benefits, employees decided not to sale their shares and “Gazolin” remained in their hands until 1939. The company benefited greatly from the fact that its workers made very good money, due to the fact that erstwhile the bets in Borisława declared a general strike, “Gazolina” was inactive working.
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In the book "A stack in the outside: building a culture of ownership for the long-term success of your business" Jack Stack wrote that the company “with exceptional corporate cultures, [...] can be seen immediately after crossing the threshold of any of its [its] factories or after spending even a short time with employees. There's a sense of pride, identity, direction and purpose. People know they're part of something bigger than just what they do overnight. They belong to something, just like this thing belongs to them. Property always works both ways."
What are modern examples of abroad or Polish companies that could be a model for those who are reasoning of changing their approach to management?
SRC Holdings corp is simply a full participation company that is simply a global promoter of full participation. It organizes conferences and encourages another companies to do this model, which is sometimes called Open-book Management, or Open Book Management. Another example is the Brazilian company Semco, which promotes this system, setting up schools and educating. The Dutch company Fairphone, however, boasts that no metal, but gold, was utilized to produce their smartphones, was mined in a mine that exploits its employees. On the another hand, in the English wellness food cooperative, SUMA Wholefoods, there is no president position, and all decisions are made by employees.
The Ecolan improvement and construction plant from Tricity is simply a company with full participation. erstwhile I was auditing this company, I asked to meet with the marketing manager. I've been told that executives have all the marketing staff who make decisions together. any elements of participation are besides introduced by the fresh Court RTCK publishing house.
What does it mean that ignorance is simply a large obstacle to the organization’s functioning?
Two years ago, Victor Vroom, a Canadian-American motivational and organizational researcher, described 11 factors that affect the team's efficiency. Among them he distinguished 2 types of competence: processal, which means we know how to do something and substantive, which means we know what we do. erstwhile I look at colleges and various institutions, I find that people who are prominent in substance, frequently do not have procedural competence, so they will not get satisfactory results.
According to Ricardo Semler, a Brazilian entrepreneur and promoter of full worker participation, “the engagement of workers in the management process does not necessarily mean the failure of power by the owners. We only eliminated blind, irrational autocratism, which adversely affects productivity. We are pleased that our workers are self-government. This means that they care about their jobs and their business, and this is good for all of us." What does it mean that in full participation and management nothing is swept under the carpet?
Full participation is that all worker has cognition about the operation of their company and understands how profits are generated.
One pioneering example of this approach was 1 of the global Harvest plants, later converted into SRC Holdings, led by Jack Stack. erstwhile the company received an order to regenerate the interior combustion engine, the decision to repair it was made by a simple mechanic. So he had to know the prices of individual parts and show business competence, not just method ones.
Jack Stack was known for having come to work in the morning, reading the Financial Times and explaining to the workers, which meant for their company increases in copper ore prices on stock exchanges. I erstwhile told this story, conducting training for trade union workers in the Polish Copper Basin, and I learned that the workers there do precisely the same due to the fact that they realize that their wages depend on copper quotations on the planet market.
Ricardo Semler, whom you quoted, erstwhile granted increases to his employees. However, they criticised this move, arguing that companies could not afford it yet. In the average system, the worker – the company, this reaction is unimaginable.
Since 2016, we have been trying to advance Staff councils in Poland. shortly we will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Act on informing and consulting employees, which is commonly referred to as the Staff Councils Act. Unfortunately, despite the passing of so many years, it can be seen that the heads of Polish companies do not see employees as sources of innovation, and the advice of employees treat them as an indulgence of God and a 5th wheel at the car. How would you comment?
Let us go back to 1989, erstwhile we and the first free trade unions believed that we could make social capitalism.
Unfortunately, during the First National gathering of Delegates of the NSZZ “Solidarity” among experts there were people who did not want labour advice or social property, but average capitalism. I fishy that moving towards conventional capitalism was due to ignorance of the workers and society of the time. 1 of the founders of the Labour Property Union in Poland proposed to president Lech Wałęsie to advance worker property, to which he replied: “You want to introduce cooperatives here?”
In the text “Local Republic – a silent way to Poland“ on the website of the Weekly of civilian Affairs, we published the “Regional Republic” programme, which was adopted on 7 October 1981 on the occasion of the conclusion of the First National gathering of NSZZ Delegates “Solidarity”. Given its reality and times, this program is inactive incredibly innovative. It was created by people who had multidimensional thinking, acted in spite of different tendencies in the planet and went their way. So what happened to the thought that it failed?
In Gdańsk there utilized to be a large Cooperative of advanced Services "Swietlik", which employed Donald Tusk among others. In 1989, it was replaced with a limited liability company, resulting in the disappearance of the cooperative ethos. Why has this cooperative ethos and social economy been abandoned? I think this is an example of a certain allergy to cooperativeism and longing for unknown capitalism. The people who led this change of thought were not stupid, they just wanted to claim State property that could have passed either on to employees, which would have been fair, or to corporate directors and organization secretaries. It should be remembered that after 1989 the presidents were inactive the people of the nomenclature who said, "If we introduce labour property and the social economy, the workers will take over the workplace, then we will be left with nothing." Signals about the acquisition of state assets were inactive reaching us.
A friend of mine told me that he was ridiculed erstwhile he competed for a tender for a PGR buyout, which was equipped with a rainwater tank, which means a large number of vegetable irrigation tubes. individual else won this tender and all the rainwater and pipes were cut into scrap and sold.
For the nomenclature, the only form of capitalism was the pursuit of profit, which coincided with Milton Friedman's thesis that the best social work of business was profit. This is nothing but a mechanics to justify your sin. erstwhile I sin and steal, I find an excuse for myself that this is the norm. 1 of the first parties proclaimed the slogan: “The first million must be stolen”, justifying themselves in this way.
Poles do not realize that, for example, France, Italy, Finland or Spain are inactive countries with a large number of cooperatives. Before the war, Poland was besides very cooperative.
What another question has no 1 asked you, and what is the answer?
How do I value the contributions of the stakeholders that form part of the company? Let me give you an example. There is simply a company, its owner devoted his life to its development, but besides its employees received tiny salaries at first, the first permanent customers saved the company's existence. The existence and functioning of this company is the consequence of the contributions of many people, everyone should have the share of the profits that their contribution was. So far, I haven't been asked how to value their participation. The FairShares strategy was created in England, which is simply a tool for measuring specified shares. Although this is specified an crucial matter, no 1 is serious about it in the West or in Poland.
