The Work Collective

A work collective is a network of selected individuals who contribute as collaborative partners on projects. It's a working community that responds to and extends the productive capacities of the individual.

Aligning Objectives

We looked at the dynamics of the B2B relationship and found a pyramid, between "Executive" (corporate ownership), "Production" (labor/employee), and "Patron" (client or customer). Notice in the illustration depicted on the right that the Executive's objective is met when the company maximizes fees to Patron and minimizing payments to Production, so that by achieving their objective, they are hindering the progress of Production and Patron. But Production and Patron, meet each others needs without needing to exploit the other, but in fact, by benefitting the other greatly.

From Corporate to Cooperate

We found that executive-based companies, by supporting chains of management, real estate and staff required to sustain the system, and by claiming intellectual property over Production, limit creative and innovative ability of Production, and hide unrelated fees inside marked up invoices, responsible by the Patron.

In the work collective, the employment relation is replaced by the membership relation, stripping Executive salaries, dividends and corporate overhead out of the cost of the relationship and other similar fulfillments, so that all that is left is the lowest possible cost of material, labour and delivery to fill the order.

And while pyramids are closed networks and are slow to respond to changes in the environment, work collectives are fluid, flexible and engaged.

See also:

Performance and reward research findings

The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low’ÄêOverhead Manifesto (PDF)