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Co-operative Management - a Starter for 10
(This article was prepared by Chris Cooper, Director of Learning and Development for MagMa, the Co-operative Groups’ in-house magazine for managers.)
What does it mean to be a 'co-operative' manager - and is it any different from being a manager in a plc? Chris Cooper, Director of Learning and Development with the Co-operative College, provides us with a starter for 10.
Some years ago, before ethical trade had the profile it has today, a PR firm organised a seminar to introduce the concept. During round-table introductions participants from across the UK retail sector explained their reasons for being there. "I need to know more", "It seems like a good idea", "My boss wants me to find out what it is about" were common phrases. A very honest manager from a major food retailer said, "We need to know all about this. If our shareholders find out we are getting it wrong it will hurt our share price." Then it was the turn of the person from the Co-op who said, "We believe in Ethical and Fair Trade. We have done since modern co-operatives were founded; we are a values-based, ethical business. Ethics are in our DNA." Imagine silence before the flurry of questions, "How do you do business and ethics at the same time", "Isn’t it just window dressing", and "We all have to make money and does it really matter how?"
Management Types
Across many other forms of business, managers could be said to fall into three categories: ethical managers, senior and middle managers for whom ethical trade is an add-on and managers who know little or nothing about ethical trade. The first group are usually totally committed to developing ethical approaches and have often joined retail organisations after spending time with campaigning organisations such as NGOs. The second are often traders or business managers who understand the importance of ethical trade and want to use it to build market share and organisational profits.
And the thirs category of managers tend to be front line, concerned with day-to-day operations, who have heard of ethical trade but more often from the back of a product packet rather than in a planned way.
The Co-operative Difference
Managers in co-operativess have to be different because in co-operatives across the world ethical trade has been espoused for more than a century and a half. It was the reason the Rochdale Pioneers opened their first shop and why many other co-operatives have been founded on that same basis since. In making ethical approaches, the paradigm at the centre of all forms of co-operative business we have sought to develop a market leading approach rooted in our co-operative difference that met the concerns of our members and customers. This meant we have had to develop and recruit managers who have both a wider and deeper understanding of the strategic and operational issues involved for whom ethical approaches become part of the wallpaper, integral to all decisions. Managing in a co-operative business is complex and tough and requires managers to have a greater awareness and a broader range of skills than their counterparts in other businesses.
Co-operative stakeholders take on a greater significance largely because of our heritage and the high levels of engagement we have with our members, customers and their communities. Engaging with these groups is not just a job for membership managers but a job for all co-operative managers, whatever their level. From the Rochdale Pioneers onward, co-operative managers have had to provide a rich mix of radical vision, commitment, enthusiasm, drive and ambition. That is the DNA that links eight million co-operators in the UK and more than 800 million co-operative members and employees across the globe. It sets us apart from other forms of business and gives us an entirely different reason for being a successful business – so that co-operative managers can go on contributing to changing the world whether it be about food standards, climate change and the environment or striving to improve the everyday lives of members, employees, their families and their communities.
In future editions, MagMa is going to be looking at the modern practicalities of co-operative management. For instance, how does working for a co-operative influence your decision-making on a day-to-day basis? We're going to be looking at how managers behave and asking whether co-operative managers behave differently from managers in other larger, arguably similar organisations. We're also going to be looking at the way co-operative managers are treated and asking whether co-operative organisations treat managers differently.
Date Published: November 2007
If you would like to contribute to this debate, please contact Peter Wild at the Co-operative Group.
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