How can we rewire the master-servant relationship that exists in traditional business governance models, while still increasing profit and sustainable growth?  How can employees become enfranchised in their organizations and truly committed to their work?  Smart Nuts Technology, a Kootenay-based website company, is trying out new answers to these questions by becoming the first company in BC to adopt Dynamic Self-Governance as their governing system.

What is "Dynamic Self-Governance"?  Dynamic Self-Governance comes to us from Holland where it is known as Sociocracy and was developed by Kees Boeke and Gerard Endenburg.  Kees Boeke was the director of the Workplaats Kindergemeenschap - The Children's Community Workshop, a school based on Quaker Principles.  Gerard was a graduate of that school and went on to study electrical engineering, systems thinking and cybernetics. When looking at the governance system in his family's electrical construction business, he saw that it did not mirror the strength and efficacy of the technical systems it was selling or the elegance of systems found in the natural world.  So, he took his experiences from Boeke's school and his knowledge of systems thinking and cybernetics and created Dynamic Self-Governance, using his family's business as a living laboratory for his new governance system. Today, over thirty years since implementing Dynamic Self-Governance, the business operates like an organism, a "free whole" of investors, management, and staff that has no traditional owner, i.e., it owns itself.

"We think Dynamic Self-Governance will be a framework that supports the team spirit and high creativity we are depending on to succeed," comments Andrea Scholz, Manager and Director of Smart Nuts Technology. "Also, Dynamic Self-Governance gives us an integrated way to have a triple bottom line: profit, staff welfare, and service to our community. We're pleased to be the first business in our community to try out Dynamic Self-Governance."

Dynamic Self-Governance offers a number of innovations borrowed from technical sciences such as policy-making circles for each level or department of the organization, double-linking of circles so that information and power flows both from top to bottom and from bottom to top, and consent decision-making for circle meetings, including for selecting  leaders and other roles.

These innovations improve accountability, adaptability, trust and growth, and lead to greater profit, greater access to everyone's intelligence and creativity, and greater commitment from everyone to the shared goals and vision of the company.

Georgia Argyle, a member of Smart Nuts, is enthusiastic about the 1½ days of training in Dynamic Self-Governance that she recently completed. She quipped, "It is so interesting that Dynamic Self-Governance supports greater equivalence while keeping the useful aspects of hierarchy.  I'll continue to have a leader who gives direction and makes operational decisions,  and I'll  have a voice in choosing our leadership and an orderly, meaningful way to influence the policies our leadership follows. I've always enjoyed working for Andrea, and now I'll be working for myself, too. I'm excited about how Dynamic Self-Governance will support our vision."

There's even more to Dynamic Self-Governance. It encourages an orderly, integrated approach to quality and accountability, and a systematic approach to designing workflow from idea, through the production phase, to the feedback, measurement of results, and continuous development.  Also, there is a remuneration system, which includes a guaranteed set income for all employees and a fluctuating income proportional to the financial growth or loss of the company.  With the fluctuating income, each person experiences tangible feedback on how well or how poorly their company or department is doing. Through the Dynamic Self-Governance circle structure, each person has real power to improve matters if loss of income signals a problem.

Smart Nuts Technology is betting that Dynamic Self-Governance will make a big difference for them. If the bet pays off, their dream is not only to carry their technology to the support the way the Nelson community operates but their governance system, too. "We'll give progress reports," says Andrea Scholz, "As our experience unfolds I dream that our new web technology and our new governance methods will provide a new way for our community to connect, harmonize and thrive. We need to enjoy our work, have time with our spouse and kids, celebrate community, and not worry too much about the mortgage."

Eric Bowers, a Nelson resident and the consultant who introduced Dynamic Self-Governance to Smart Nuts, comments, "Dynamic Self-Governance is just starting to be used in North America, and it is not surprising that such an innovative and dynamic system has been welcomed in the Kootenays."