The Obran Cooperative Management System
The cooperative’s primary purpose is to coordinate resources across its platform groups and to deliver products and services to better the lives of individual cooperative members, their customers, and their communities. We believe that by devolving power and resources as close to a customer or challenge as possible while still remaining true to our mission is our “secret sauce” to building our culture of ownership. Further we believe that while our structures of working together must be fluid and responsive to meet new challenges and compete a few first principles will always be true.
First Principles
Below is the working management model at play at our businesses today. We use these common set of terms and structures to understand each members relative position within the cooperative.
Leaders are given charge by the led
Every service unit should be a self sustaining or profitable micro-enterprise
The cooperative serves its members who in turn serve their customers
Individual Member
Our base unit is an individual member. Members are recruited and onboarded through either a specific team, company, platform, or the cooperative.
Members
Get as close to the customer as possible
Are worker-owners of the cooperative (W-2 employee or 1099 contractor-member)
Can join and lead any team
Can elect and join the Board of Directors of any company where they do work
Can elect and join the Board of Directors of the cooperative
Teams
Members are able to join teams through an internal job market. Team leadership is fluid and based on the team's working process.
Teams
Are self forming (IE ad hoc)
Generally use consensus to make decisions
Are accountable to defined metrics
Are generally made up of 3-5 worker-owners
Example
Erin, Louis, and Greg recognize that they might be able to service an internal client with sales support (cold calling, content development, in-person visits) so they create a team by setting up a zoom meeting to talk over what they might do for AFS (a company owned by the cooperative). They approach David (the executive leading AFS) and propose a meeting with the board of the company. If the company agrees to the offering they draft a simple contract with AFS (forming sales “service unit”). They recognize a need to include a campaign that requires some external marketing support (ie. a paid advertising campaign) but they don’t have that expertise on the team. They could; develop that skill set, invite in another team member to join the team, contract with an outside company, or if there is another team in the cooperative that has those skills partner to add more capabilities to that service unit contract (this would all need to be within the budget set in the contract.)
Service Unit
When a team has executed a contract to do work within the cooperative and has defined a set of capabilities it can offer to an internal or external customer, we call that a services unit.
All Service Units have capabilities statements, contracts for services rendered, and maintaining their own unit level profit and loss statement. Each service unit has one or two leaders who are responsible for goal setting for the unit based on their contracts and tracking performance against those goals. Each unit leader is recognized through a simple vote of confidence from the team (IE the worker-owners “speak with their feet” and do not have to work for the service unit leader).
Service Units
Meets a business need
Are self forming (IE ad hoc)
Are defined by capabilities statement
Generally use consensus to make decisions
Carries its own profit and loss statement
Contracts with any company (generally within a platform group)
Generally 5 - 10 people (no more than 15)
Example
Two members of Appalachian Field Services see an opportunity to create furniture for customers in Western Maryland. They create a small team dedicated to testing this market by inviting another member who has some skills creating websites. They pitch the idea to AFS’s executive leader (which we call a Coordinator) and get approval for a set number of hours to dedicate to the project. They ask customers what type of furniture they might buy and create a price sheet and simple website that they begin to show customers. They start to get orders and strike up a contract with the other members of AFS in the Western Maryland Service Unit to construct the pieces (being careful to only create pieces they have orders for), keeping track of their hours. At this point they need to develop a sales forecast and start to track expenses for the units they are creating and the labor they are using. They create a folder in the cooperative’s drive and work with the coordinator to develop a profit and loss statement, an initial balance sheet based on the spent capital, and a very simple cash flow statement to track income and expenses and any capital requested from the company and what cash they have on hand.
Company/Workplace
A company's role in the cooperative is to leverage a common mission, shared infrastructure, and visibility in the market to meet the needs of external clients or customers.
A company generally must contract with a sales, marketing, accounting, and administrative service unit to function. Each company is led by a Coordinator who helps form and carry out company-wide strategy, goals, and tracks performance of each service unit against those goals. The coordinators are staff members of the cooperative and are placed at each company through a management services contract. Each company has a Board of at least three individuals elected by the other worker-owners employed by the company. The board sets company-wide strategy, goals, and tracks the Coordinator’s performance against those goals in service of its mission. Each company is responsible for maintaining its own profit and loss, balance sheet, and cash flow statement.
Companies
Create a common mission aimed at serving a need for an external customer
Have a Board of at least 3 individuals
Are lead by an hired executive that we call a Coordinator
Is comprised of multiple service units
Example
Some of the cooperative’s current companies include: Tribeworks, Core Staffing, Appalachian Field Services.
Platform Group
Companies within industry or market vertical that can benefit from similar shared services and supports form a platform group.
Platform groups coordinate shared service units between companies, intra-company contracting, and the flow of financial resources to expand and deepen the group's market penetration. Platform groups are led by a team of coordinators from each company within the group. The coordinator team sets group level strategy and goals and tracks the performance of each company against those goals. Each platform group team is led by one or two coordinators who are recognized through a vote of confidence from the platform group team and join the cooperative’s leadership team. Each platform group leader is responsible for maintaining platform level profit and loss, balance sheet, and cash flow statements.
Platform Groups
Are comprised of companies within a specific industry or market vertical that can benefit from shared services or support
Coordinate financial resources to grow and develop the platform group
Are led by a team of coordinators from each company within the platform group
Appoints a team leaders to join the cooperative leadership team
Are accountable to the Board of Directors of the cooperative.
Example
Our founding group focussed on staffing. Obran Health is the newest group to form under the cooperative.
The Obran Cooperative System
Individuals join teams that form service units within companies to fulfill a mission in service of a customer while leveraging the shared resources of platform groups.
The cooperative’s primary purpose is to coordinate financial resources across its platform groups and to deliver products and services to better the lives of individual cooperative members. Three stand alone service units, member services, business services, and credit services operate within the cooperative to create and deliver our shared member and company facing products and services. Member Services create educational programs, crafts policies and administers payroll and benefits, financial services, and direct support to members. Business Services provide strategic insights, market research, mergers and acquisition support, and consulting services to cooperative companies. Credit services acts as a central bank/financial clearing house for the cooperative managing internal lending and access to credit through the cooperative. The cooperative leadership team, made up of the leadership of each platform group and leaders of the member, business, and credit Services unit, is responsible for developing and executing strategies to further the goals set by the Board of Directors.
The cooperative’s Board of Directors is composed of individual members who are democratically elected (using one member one vote) by other individual worker-owners, regardless of company or service unit affiliation. The Board sets cooperative-wide strategy, goals and objectives, and tracks the cooperative leadership team’s performance against those goals in service of the broader cooperative mission.
The Cooperative
Purpose is to coordinate financial resources in service of its members
The Board of Directors are democratically elected individual members of any company
Members and companies are supported by shared service units (member services, business services, and credit services)
The cooperative leadership team, made up of platform group leaders, develop strategies to execute on the goals set by the Board of Directors
