Colleague Letter of Understanding

As an individual, why are you here?

I’d like to build a large web services firm that’s cooperatively owned by its users. My social goals for this business simply cannot be achieved by a traditionally structured company. Once I began questioning what factors were truly necessary and sufficient for my organization to succeed, I quickly began to believe that a non-hierarchical, self-managing organization was an ideal fit, in terms of my personal goals, my values, and my skills.

I initially joined this class to develop my skills for leading such an organization, but I’ve quickly found that this group also provides an opportunity for me to explore and develop those values and goals as well!

I’m also hoping that this will be a valuable opportunity for me to make connections with people who might share my vision.

What does a great experience look like for me as a participant?

I already feel much more confident in my ability to achieve my goals — as such, I feel like I can already call this experience a success. All I’m looking for going forward is more of the same — more opportunities to learn from my peers, the coaches, and the guests they bring in every week.

How does my participation support the mission of this project?

In one sense, I’m taking the class for essentially selfish reasons: I wish to learn some skills that I think the class can teach me, and the value of the class to me exceeds the price charged for it.

On the other hand, in the group projects as well as the ongoing Slack chats, we’re all teaching and learning simultaneously. I certainly hope that my classmates can learn as much from me as I have been learning from them! I hope that my own ideas and experiences are valuable to others — not to mention that sharing them is essential to my own personal development here.

In addition, my reason for wanting to learn these skills is to apply them, by building a company based on the values LeadWise promotes. LeadWise sums up their goal on their website with the phrase, “changing how work works.” By applying what I have learned in the class to my own company, I am in a very real sense directly promoting the mission and values of LeadWise.

What support do I need to ensure I achieve my personal participation mission?

I’m already getting lots of implicit support from the coaches, simply from the awesome work they’re doing: leading the twice-weekly video sessions, assigning relevant and interesting work, and providing useful feedback.

I’m not great at meeting deadlines for personal work — this assignment, for example, is being completed a day late — and some leniency and understanding around this challenge is very valuable to me.

Eventually, as I start my own company, I’d like to work with Enspiral, and I hope the connections I make during the class help me to make that happen.