Story of the egalitarian experiment:

I have been providing vocational/educational services for many years. After working for several agencies in various capacities dealing with vocational services, I got a wild hair to go out on my own and start a business providing these services. At first I structured the business as a sole proprietorship and worked out of my home. This went well for some time, but as the business began to grow, alone I couldn’t handle all the work that was coming in. So I decided to take on a partner. The business then formed a partnership. I did not want to become an employer, because in my egalitarian frame of mind, that kind of power structure was alien. My partner however convinced me that we needed clerical help, because the partnership was also growing. As the business grew, I convinced my partner that rather than hire more help, we should take on more partners. She conceded, as I can be fairly persuasive on occasion. We took on three more partners, and at the highlight had five partners and one clerical person in all. Of course the office was no longer in my home, we had moved to a downtown office early in the original partnership.

I was very suspicious of power structures, and wanted to make sure everyone was on equal footing as far as how the business was run. With five people we tried to run the company on a consensus basis. It was work, and not always fruitful either. Sometimes when we could not come to a consensus, the other partners would look to me for a final decision, which I loathed. I had already conceded that functionally I would take the title of president after we reformed into an S-Corp, but I looked at myself as merely a figurehead, not having real power. At least not wanting to exercise real power. But in the absence of leadership, a vacuum will be filled, and my cohorts gravitated toward me. So I intentionally pushed the agenda of consensus, and was even willing to go down with the ship if the consensus decision was against my better judgment and posed great risk. I would express my concern as a participating member, but would not exercise my position to control. The company has had its ups and downs. But I don’t think it’s any worse off for the position I took. However I believe that it takes a certain kind of person to function well in that environment of shared power structure. Almost all of my partners eventually left the company, and mostly because they couldn’t handle taking on the responsibility of their decisions. While they wanted the shared power, they also wanted someone else to be in control, especially when things were not going well.

Today there are only two partners, my wife and I, and we have several employees. I have had to modify my ethic of egalitarianism, because running a company requires that someone be in charge, and a consensus run company of more that five would grow increasingly impossible. Our current power structure resembles a family, a real “mom and pop” operation. We have practiced a multiple bottom line philosophy, where our highest profit is the welfare of the people we serve, and the people we hire to assist us in serving them. The financial bottom line merely serves as the lifeblood of the organization to maintain existence to perpetuate the goodwill we strive for. So far we have not become blood thirsty, nor do I think we are likely to. We have felt various pressures to grow bigger, but are resistant because we believe that to best maintain the priorities that we have chosen we need to keep small.