Video Field Guide: Four Pillars: Intro To Accountable Empowerment
Understand how accountable empowerment of the board and general manager works in practice.
Board’s Role in Cooperative Growth
Since River Valley Market in Northampton, Mass. opened seven years ago, the co-op has been in a continual growth cycle. Current president of the board, Dorian Gregory, said that when the co-op opened they’d hoped it would be a success. By all accounts, the cooperative has outstripped projections, and now she said, “The question for the board is what is our co-op’s vision for [...]
Nominating Board Candidates
“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” -- Thomas Jefferson “You have to remember one thing about the will of the people: it wasn't that long ago that we were swept away by the Macarena.” -- Jon Stewart Why screen and nominate? Screening and nominating candidates makes sense. More and more, co-op boards are recognizing that finding [...]
Getting Ready for General Manager Succession
By Thane Joyal, Jeanie Wells 178 May-June 2015 Whether or not your cooperative expects to hire a general manager (GM) in the next year, your board should have an awareness of the skills and resources that would be needed to accomplish this essential task. Even if your GM is doing great and has no expressed plans for retirement or other career changes, your board [...]
Simplify the Success Equation
Ruffin Slater believes that the success of our cooperatives can be distilled down into a formula. In fact, he's done it! Watch as he shares with us his equation for cooperative success and delves deeper into how co-ops can make a difference for our stakeholders.
4 Pillars of Cooperative Governance Self-Assessment Tool
Boards can use this survey tool to do a broad, self-assessment of their own work. It utilizes the 4 Pillars of Co-op Governance as an organizing lens with some broad, key characteristics to fit under each Pillar: Teaming, Accountable Empowerment, Strategic Leadership and Democracy. By asking team members to fill out the survey and then reviewing the data, a group can build a broader [...]