Organizational Democracy

Frequently asked questions:

Q: Why have a company with organizational democracy?
A: Have more fun, get more done. 

Q: Okay.  I’m a project manager.  I was hired, with a title and responsibilities, for an owner.  What do you mean when you say people in companies should choose who represents them?
A: The people you’re managing, they should be able to choose who is their project manager.  They could choose to hire from inside their group, or from a pool of project managers, or from outside.

Q: But they were hired to do a job.  I’m managing people to make sure they get the work done that the boss hired them for.  Why should the people choose me, instead of their boss?  Let’s say I own Dan’s Auto Shop.  I’m hiring you to work for me as my employee, right?
A: What if instead, it’s like a partnership.  As a partner, I’m still making $12/hr or whatever you pay employees.

Q: Okay, that makes sense.  So organizational democracy is not something that can be strapped onto an existing business structure?
A: Well, it can work with big companies too.  But keep picturing when you have Dan’s Auto Shop with yourself and one other person. 

When I worked with this company that sold TV’s, the sales and designers and marketing guys weren’t talking with each other, because whatever work they did would need to get approved by the guy who was President.  And he would tell them to make changes, and he’d hold off on his approval, and they would get frustrated and stop trying.  So my role was to help him back off. 

He said, “What, you’re making democratic teams?”  I said, “Yeah.”  We boosted profits by a million dollars, literally, in a short time.

Q: And these people chose their own managers?
A: They were able to start their own groups, and within the groups, they’d choose their own managers or leaders or representatives.”

Q: So the President said, “Basically, I’m going to stop micromanaging.  You guys self-organize if it makes sense.”
A: Within limits, which expanded over time.  So the groups couldn’t do just anything.  They coordinated.

Q: “Talk with each other and other departments.”
A: One way I got agreement from the President was for him to say, “I trust you to make decisions as a group if you all agree on how to proceed.”

Q: So you could say, “The people choose their leaders.”
A: Or, since everyone is responsible for leading in their own way, “The people choose their representatives.”

[Thanks to Tony for his help with editing.]

In January 2006, I was marketing director at a company that sold TV’s.  I got frustrated because I would do work and, assembly-line style, it would get passed along, one person to the other until it came out the other end, none of us proud of the result.

So I went around, found out what my coworkers wanted, and got us into teams.  In two weeks, we redid a sales display from start to finish.  This project hadn’t gotten done in the past 9 months, yet now we were finally working together, it took us two weeks.

Our success inspired our coworkers to start their own projects, which I helped guide in my new role as project manager.  Every two weeks, a new breakthrough would be finished.

Customers got called back in new ways to ensure their satisfaction.  Inventory got listed through a new quality-assurance program.  Sales associates invented new ways to upsell and cross-sell products, including a great new interactive product display that helped customers find which accessories to buy with their TV.  The checkout process was improved to make it easier for customers to buy, and sales increased.  The sales manager saw the need for, and organized and led, a new HR workshop.  A complex issue with product delivery was resolved.  Suppliers partnered with us and worked side-by-side.

I helped coworkers prepare, act, and evaluate each project.

The cost of all these innovations was less than zero — we saved money and time.  Let me write that again.  The cost of this work was so low, sometimes free, and the benefits from increased sales were so great, that even over the few weeks we worked, we recouped costs.  The time we spent prepapring, getting things done, and evaluating, saved us more time than the time we’d wasted being frustrated.