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COWORK Entrepreneurs uses
THE COMMONS Business Model to Achieve
Social Responsibility, Self-Management and Equity
Our Favorite Video Among Hundreds
In this video Margaret Hefferman, entrepreneur and keynote speaker, explains how organizations often run according to “the super chicken model,” where the value is placed on star employees who outperform others.
Why Franchise?
Our Business Model
Is Disruptive
and Complex
Changing Way Capitalism
Works Takes Lots of Savvy
The COWORK Entrepreneurs’ business model changes everything for both labor and management. Everyone involved will have to relearn everything they’ve been taught about a command and control environment based on hundreds of years of history.
Company Gets People on the Right Side of Capitalism
Halfway through the development of his NotMyEconomics (NMÉ) online course, Professor Jerry Ash has concluded that changing the way workers work would only solve half the problem of capitalism gone mad.
“Changing the way workers work,” he says, “would not be enough.”
NMÉ teaches the causes and effects of out of control American style capitalism. Then students learn how to gain the advantage — one at a time — in the economy as it is. That is, in a place where capitalism is for the capitalists and workers are disposable commodities.
“My students are encouraged to start thinking independently, like capitalists.” Ash says. “I encourage them to become capitalists as Indie employees. To get on the right side of capitalism. Make it work for them, not against them.”
In the current workplace, he says, there is no commitment or loyalty on either side of the employer/employee divide. No promises. No real incentive. No room for independent thinking or innovation. No corporate ladder to climb.
Business Model Has No Bosses
Self-management, Opportunity Rule
In COWORK Entrepreneurs and its franchises, everyone owns his or her own work. Therefore there is no need for bosses. Independence and personal opportunity are the forces that drive performance.
The idea of “companies of one” first appeared prior to the new millennium when knowledge management (KM) was to be the next best thing after information management (IM).
Information, as it had turned out, was just data. When corporate archives filled to overflowing, the Information Age was a disappointment.
Saving Capitalism; Restoring Democracy
In the beginning capitalism and democracy were sisters. Our forefathers created a Constitution and a Supreme Court that would discipline one sister. But the other sister was mollycoddled with a system of laissez faire. In other words, capitalism was allowed to follow her own course without interference.
With Independence Comes Responsibility
People will be people. The old saying is true: “If you give some people an inch, they’ll take a mile.”
So, how can COWORK Entrepeneurs with no bosses assure competence and performance? Owner and Head Coach Jerry Ash has the answer:
Incomes Vary by Role
Under the current style of management, you are hired with a wage determined by the value of the job. After that your future wages depend on arbitrary judgments on how well you do. Or how much less the company can pay while demanding more work.
COWORK Entrepreneurs does it differently.
Leaders Take Ownership
of Company Divisions
Those who take ownership of the components of the parent company will manage them as COWORK Entrepreneurs franchisees.
They will pay no startup fees or annual royalties for so long as their contracts with the parent COWORK Entrepreneurs continues.
Social Responsibility
at the Company Heart
In communities where franchises abound, “what goes around comes around.”
Our claim to social responsibility starts with our profit-sharing. But it doesn’t end there. We are committed to boosting the local economy where we live and work. And for good reason.
Connecting to Socially Responsible Investors (SRI)
The majority of franchisors don’t help franchisees obtain the necessary funds to start up or build up existing enterprises. COWORK Entrepreneurs will be among those who help franchisees — perhaps the first through socially responsible investment (SRI).
SRI, also known as sustainable, socially conscious, “green” or ethical investing, is a mutual funds strategy that considers financial return as well as social and environmental good.
Governance Of
and By the People
In democracy people rule in the polling place. Not so with capitalism. Organizational charts are drawn like spider webs. And the spiders rule.
COWORK Entrepreneurs is a democracy and its people share the power of governance.