co-op culture

Who’s Driving the Bus? Bringing cooperation inside the store walls

By Carolee Colter|2023-05-05T20:08:33-04:00September 5th, 2012|

By Carolee Colter, Jeanie Wells 162 September-October 2012 As we go about our work of assessing organizational structures and conducting employee surveys in food co-ops, we frequently encounter an ongoing struggle between the marketing department (or lone marketing staff person) and the heads of the sales departments. Comments we’ve heard from marketing staff: The departments just don’t seem to understand that I’m trying to [...]

Balancing Employer and Employees

By Jeanie Wells|2023-05-05T20:33:16-04:00March 30th, 2012|

By Jeanie Wells 159 March - April - 2012 Food co-ops are known for being compassionate employers. Unlike some of our big competitors in the grocery industry who only work to maintain their organization's interests, food co-ops seem more likely to try to accommodate individual interests and preferences alongside the organization's priorities. This is a great thing, something that food co-ops should be proud [...]

Building a Positive Board Performance Culture 2 of 2

By Arthur Sherwood|2023-05-05T20:33:36-04:00November 1st, 2011|

Building a positive board performance culture takes continuous work and vigilance on the part of the board. Part I explored the vital concepts of Shared Understanding of the Job of the Board & Shared Expectations for Board Performance, but every year boards have an election and end up with a ‘new’ board. This provides the board with the opportunity to take advantage of a [...]

Building a Positive Board Performance Culture 1 of 2

By Joel Kopischke|2023-05-05T20:21:30-04:00November 6th, 2010|

Imagine a board that moves positively forward with a shared understanding of board purpose; following their own words about how they will operate and doing so in a way that respects individual diversity and voice, on the way to making decisions as a unified and intentional whole. Boards that do this over the long haul have built a Positive Board Performance Culture (PBPC) and [...]

Encountering Cooperative Extremists

By Marilyn Scholl|2023-05-08T14:43:55-04:00July 4th, 1999|

By David Fowle, Marilyn Scholl 083 July - August - 1999 Do the following statements or situations sound familiar in our cooperatives? "The co-op shouldn't carry (X), because these products are not natural." "This is a co-op, so all the members should have a voice in operational decisions -- otherwise I may as well shop down the block." "This decision is too controversial, so [...]

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