Our way of being. Starting with Unstitution’s governance patterns.
“If you don’t have a moral question in your governing process, then you don’t have a process that’s going to survive.” “Every day you don’t do what’s right is a day you lose an option.” ~ Faith Keeper Oren Lyons
These days the meaning of purpose seems to have lost its way.
What is the purpose of purpose?
A real sense of purpose sets us up to navigate well towards an envisioned, yet unknowable future — within an uncertain non-ergodic world.
Purpose also requires a moral compass that helps us discern what is (roughly) right and wrong…good and bad.
At a personal level, we have and need our own sense of purpose, infused with meaning, while aligning within larger nested purpose that interconnects with our lives and work.
To be fit-for-purpose, organizations, coalitions and initiatives are necessarily directed by some common unifying principles.
The context is vital. It influences sense and meaning-making, purpose and direction and human system values and behaviour.
To be fit for (future) purpose, it’s essential to view purpose through the lens of broader societal needs, taking into account the differentiated and interdependent roles of business, government and civil society.
“It’s time to operate from a deep sense of purpose, that transcends institutions, borders, and boundaries.” ~ Otto Scharmer
Clear, common mission and enabling structures that are fit for present purpose and adaptable for future purpose, are needed to guide the way toward regenerative progress.
And so began our search for an alternative model that will enable the Unstitution commons to stay true to our spirit and driving purpose — to reboot society’s operating system. (A big hairy mission that obviously involves many more of us working along multiple pathways over many years!)
We learned that the purpose problem arises and becomes increasingly problematic when a purpose becomes disconnected from the driver — the deeper context and need that typically inspires original founders to establish their venture in the first place.
Purpose and vision too often drift into insular, self-perpetuating navel gazing instead of evolving, at the speed-of-change, always grounded in context and relevant to needs.
And so …
The driver comes before any purpose. The driver is the combination of the current environment and the need calling to be met. The purpose [alone] is then trivial…(It is essential) to always (adaptively) meet the need, within the constraints and possibilities of the current environment (within an evolutionary context over time.) ~ Drawn from Rebuild: The Economy, Leadership and You
We discovered FairShares Commons (FSC.) This resilient governance model enables the legal designation of stewardship roles and integrates with an operating framework that supports driving fit-for purpose fluid organization design and healthy ecosystem development.
What is a FairShares Commons company or entity and why designing an organization/ecosystem of people using this pattern language is important?
“An FSC is designed to meet the needs of multiple stakeholder groups (not just investors). It operates legally (with existing company law) to protect and enable the regeneration of all capitals that all stakeholders contribute (human, intellectual, social/relational, natural, manufactured and financial). The ultimate driver for this is to create the conditions for a regenerative and circular / net positive economy to rise to our global challenges, (by protecting and enabling the regeneration of the common pool resources that each organisation and community uses, governs, manages and grows.)” ~ Graham Boyd
The FSC reference to company restores the original (lost) meaning and purpose of a company. Western society has led companies down a soulless myopically-driven economic path. We need our companies and institutions to work well and contribute to a (reasonably) balanced (bio)diverse society.
The origins of the word “company” are traced back to the old French term compagnie meaning: society, friendship and intimacy and further back derived from the Latin word companio — one who eats bread with you. Earlier still, its roots go back to Germanic expressions translated to mean with bread and companion.
FSC provides the structure, principles and adaptive practices on which Unstitution’s collaborative commons is patterned. The FSC model will help us carry out our driving purpose and build our collaborative ecosystem development functions.
The FSC governing architecture delineates, enables and protects clear rights, obligations and safeguards. It fosters systemic trust and aligns with the spirit of Unstitution — the seriously-playful operating principles that inspire our code of conduct.
Trust as a design principle?
The quality of trust between humans plays an important role in relationships and the functioning of interactions and their impact on the system of engagement.
There are different kinds or thresholds of trust, whereby (interdependent) people can count on one another with reasonable assurance, of what to mutually expect from the relationship and the exchange.
The context in which relationships function plays a powerful role influencing, shaping, valuing and rewarding behaviour.
The formal, legal governing and operating systems of the entities (organizations) involved provide crucial context-setting parameters that can safeguard a minimum threshold of systemic trust, facilitating working relationship conduct.
Sadly, most of us have grown up in a world with institutions and organizations that have steadily eroded trust. The context and conditions that foster and sustain systemic trust are generally missing.
Good intentions and big hearts are important ingredients, but not enough. Many of us have learned this through painful disappointments…
The FSC governance model and structure offer an alternative that intentionally builds systemic trust into the legal (patterning) framework. The decision process of shaping and defining the FSC framework, aligned with the entity’s purpose and needs, is itself necessarily highly participative.
Indeed, the FSC is founded on trust as a design principle, based on the original intended reason that companies were formed — to create trust between and among (prosperous) people, from multiple, instead of just one ‘wealthy’ family. In the FSC, that is expanded across all stakeholder groups, capitals, or asset classes. This design principle is based on the original source of capital — a wider interpretation that naturally includes all the capitals or capacities that hold value and are required for exchange or flow that contributes to the regenerative health of the whole.
While there are many variables, including informal elements, that affect the level of trust between people, that cannot be designed (as hardware) into living systems, the governing context goes a long way to building trust-enhancing conditions and preventing trust erosion.
Why incorporating as a FSC is important
The FSC incorporation builds systemic trust between organizations, communities and individuals to work together to meet the needs of all life.
Incorporation enables:
🌏 Systemic trust between individuals and groups of people who need not necessarily like, agree or want to collaborate with each other.
🌍 Multiple stakeholders are incentivized to work together and regenerate whereby the capitals they contribute/grow can create truly circular economies
🌎 The whole system to prosper — regenerating all capitals in balance
🌏 Limited liability to its members — whether creators, builders or users of the common pool resources — what DAOs are currently missing
🌍 Built in commitment and adoption of democratic/sociocratic organizing principles and consent-decision-making processes — rebalancing power and abolishing extracted and consolidated wealth
Important note: Ongoing inner and leadership development is vital for the health of the whole system. The FSC journey builds in and tailors this development in the context of the specific coalition, venture or pilot initiative work. Those involved collaborate and jointly decide how best to include and fund this work that enables the ecosystem and constituent parts/members to function optimally in accordance with the FSC’s life-affirming principles and practices.
There’s lots more to all this, including:
🌏 Clarity of multiple stewardship roles that safeguard our governing principles
🌍 Specifying the value flows/exchange of multicapitals or capacities — way beyond financial
🌎 Many ways to reward/recognize different contributions
🌏 Various ways to enable and protect our core mission — the essence of the entity
We sure had lots of questions when we embarked on this path and initially thought it might lead us down a deep rabbit hole.
Then we discovered how adaptable the FSC governance framework really is — designed to suit specific current needs and flex to changing emergent requirements over time. That adaptability is crucial. It means that — apart from the key constitutional elements established from the start — there are many decisions that can be made and adapted as we evolve, based on shifting needs, learning and ongoing development.
In short, FSC is helping us define our minimum, yet critical structural requirements — just enough binding twine and glue so that the really important stuff can hold together and stick!
And while we are here, a few words about our moral compass…
We are always putting our decisions and actions through a filter, to ensure alignment with our why — driving purpose and congruence with our how — Living Operating System. Not perfect…but we work at it every day.
While we care deeply about the social, environmental and economic issues that underlie the world’s and humanity’s serious challenges — the meta-poly-perma-omni crises— we don’t have a vested interest in any one particular issue or set of solutions. We are relatively subject and methodology agnostic. We do not assume fixed ideological or subject expert positions. This is intentional, given a very polarized world and no lack of expertise, experience and methodologies on which to draw.
As a commons entity working from the space between, we maintain a relatively neutral (omni-partial) position, keeping an open mind and resisting making assumptions and judgments. In essence, we are on the side of all parties, stakeholders or participants toward common(s) purpose in the best interests of the whole.
We do, however, draw some red lines that we don’t cross. Here are a few:
🌏 We don’t work on behalf of any one organization, sector or interest group to gain advantage over other organizations, sectors or interest groups
🌍 We don’t accept funds that might compromise our ability to stay true to our mission or operating principles or make sound congruent decisions
🌎 We don’t participate in partisan political affairs or advocate from political platforms
The coalitions, communities and initiatives we co-catalyze and co-convene can also have their very own FairShares Commons governance framework — as a preliminary guiding pattern — and in order to fully benefit — as a legally incorporated entity.
This is an ongoing evolving journey. Having learned some basics, we’ve cleared the way for others to embark and shape the pathways that best suit their purpose and needs!
More information about the way a FSC can be shaped and set up for other coalitions or entities can be found here.
Reach out to learn more and explore synergies.
This article was updated April 2024, reflecting additional perspectives and ongoing action research, as we continue to observe, listen, assimilate, curate and adapt — a learning journey for us all.
Unstitution was birthed as a collective creative commons and nested ecosystem. We (co-)catalyze and support collaborative communities, initiatives and coalitions where people from across sectors, disciplines, cultures, generations and walks-of-life work together on mission critical issues. From readiness through to regenerative progress — moving beyond polarization — is how we roll. The links embedded throughout this article are a warm invitation to go a bit deeper, at any time. For more insights reflecting our ongoing journey, our suite of Unstitution articles are published on Medium. They portray a small sample of the ways we are adapting and contributing among ever-expanding commons-based communities and initiatives inspired and fuelled by citizens — perhaps better described as denizens — anywhere in the world — living into the principles and spirit that govern our collaborative work.
You can follow Unstitution and engage with us on LinkedIn. Many of our posts and perspectives also pop up under hashtags #messyhumanness and #wisdomwithteeth.
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