Democracy@Work: The Case Study of Nilenso
In this episode, Deepak and Sujatha speak to Deepa Venkatraman and Steven Deobald from Nilenso. Nilenso is a 100% employee owned software cooperative based out of Bangalore. They discuss the practicalities, unique workplace practices and decision-making processes that enable Nilenso to practice democracy for over a decade.
Railroad Workers at Høvik by Norwegian artist Borghild Røed Lærum (1877-1959), National Gallery in Oslo.
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About Deepa and Steven
Pic: Deepa Venkatraman
Pic: Steven Deobald
Deepa keeps herself busy running businesses, crunching numbers, learning languages (human and computer), and building robots. She is curious about people, and systems, and how they interact with each other.
At her day job she runs product and web consultancy Nilenso, as well as open source multimedia consultancy, asymptotic.
After a decade at Adxstudio (now Microsoft Dynamics), ThoughtWorks, and DRW Trading, Steven helped start Nilenso Software with the other seven original founding members. After leaving Nilenso in 2018, Steven has written Vipassana for Hackers (https://www.vipassana-for-hackers.org/), started the Pariyatti Open Source Project (https://pariyatti.app/), helped build XTDB (https://xtdb.com/), and is currently working on Endatabas (https://www.endatabas.com/). He lives in Halifax.
Resources
Nilenso, Official Website
Nilenso Legal Framework, Nilenso’s LLP legal document that is available as an open source resource
International Cooperative Alliance, the global cooperative network
Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism, by Richard D. Wolff
Reinventing Organisations, Frederic Laloux
Transcript
Sowmya 00:06
Hello everyone and welcome back to Season Two of the workwise pod. In today's episode, Deepak and Sujatha are talking to Steven and Deepa about the uniquely successful experiment running India's first worker owned software cooperative Nilenso. They discuss the origins of Nilenso the practicalities and the joys of running a software cooperative in India.
Deepak Menon 00:31
Hi Sujatha
Sujatha Rao 00:31
Hi, Deepak. Today, Deepak and I are talking to Steven Deobald and Deepa Venkatraman from Nilenso. Nilenso is a 100%, employee owned software cooperative based out of Bangalore. Chiefly we talk about how Nilenso established itself as a cooperative, and the practicalities of running a democratic workplace, and the story of Nilenso unearth some unique workplace practices, and decision making processes that really help in creating flourishing organizations. Join us for this conversation.
Deepak Menon 01:10
Sujatha
Sujatha Rao 01:11
Hi, Deepak.
Deepak Menon 01:12
Both of us have been very excited about democratic practices at work. You know, ever since my 20s been fascinated with cooperatives, collectors, self help groups. But I think when we met Nilenso, we found one example of a company, which is a software company that is practicing democracy at work. And that's very heartening, but also, you know, really curious about how they run the organization.
Sujatha Rao 01:39
As I was talking to, you know, friends and colleagues about this particular podcast, I think there were a lot of questions not just about, what does it mean to be, you know, see democracy in action in a workplace? What is 100% own software company, employee owned software company, but a lot of questions around, is this scalable? Is this workable? You know, does it disintegrate into chaos and decision making? I'm really looking forward to, you know, the conversation with Steven and Deepa today, and understanding that a little bit more. Yeah, so good time to bring them in. Hi, Steve. Hi, Deepa.
Deepa 02:23
Hi, Deepak. Hi, Sujatha. Thank you so much for inviting us.
Sujatha Rao 02:26
So I will first question, what is Nilenso?
Deepa 02:28
I think before what Nilenso is, I'd like to talk a little bit about what a cooperative is, because there's a lot of curiosity about that. And I think the essential idea is that every employee has a voice and a responsibility for the decisions that affect them. So you have the ability to participate in decision making around things that impact you. And the other side of it, that you're also responsible for executing on those decisions, or you're responsible for the outcome of those decisions. And that's the fundamental philosophy. So Nilenso, so is just an example of an organization that believes in this idea and is kind of trying to put it into action.
Sujatha Rao 03:24
Deepa, starting off with that we've got self help groups, for example, you know, women's self help groups in India, we've got cooperative large cooperatives, like Amul, for instance, was the idea of voice for employees in decision making, as well as the sense of responsibility that they take for decisions. They may, is that very similar to the kind of cooperatives that we are being we know and we are familiar with? Or did this emerge from a different sort of a place of philosophically did it emerge from a different place? I would say there are a lot of similarities across organizations that are trying to empower employees to make decisions for themselves. The fundamental difference is probably in terms of the perhaps the power dynamic that exists. Most of the people that work at Nilenso are in relatively, quote unquote, powerful positions in their lives. They are part of a profession that's very much in demand. They are not necessarily exploited in the same way that some people in other domains might be or might have been in the past that led to this cooperative structure emerging as a way to empower them. But otherwise, I would say that there are certainly commonalities that exist and the fundamental ideas might not be so different.
Deepak Menon 04:55
It's an IT consulting company in Nilenso, right . In the services it provides is no different from other IT services companies out there working out of Bangalore?
Deepa 05:04
Yes, we are a consulting firm. And in terms of the services we provide, I mean, we'd like to think that we do a good job. But essentially what we're offering is similar to what many other consulting firms offer in India, particularly.
Deepak Menon 05:21
So maybe a good point to ask is, How did you come to this decision to say, and we are going to make it a cooperative.
Steven 05:29
The circumstances were partly that a number of us were left unemployed simultaneously. And we were interested in starting a company, there were a number of us who were very interested in the idea of a cooperative, and not necessarily knowing what that would entirely entail. And there was actually quite a bit of debate initially as to whether we should run a cooperative or whether we should run something else entirely. And the initial conversations had little or nothing to do with decision making and direction. For individual members. It had more to do with the ownership model of the company. And so the the initial debates were actually around alternatives, are there alternatives to the cooperative model. And so there were a few of these that were pitched. The obvious alternative to the cooperative model is just owners, somebody owns the company, and it's a private limited, at least in India, and those two or three or four people, they maintain, you know, all the equity, and they maintain the control of the organization. And that model didn't work for us, largely because we'd seen it fail. That kind of catastrophic failure. One person, a founder of a company, an owner of a company would walk away, or in some cases, all the founders would walk away, and then you're left with employees who either don't have jobs, or are left working for a company where none of the owners of the company actually participate in the company's operation, which seems absurd, but it's entirely possible. And so one of the kind of halfway models we discussed, was the possibility of decaying equity. So you could obtain equity in the company by being, you know, an early participant. And over time, if you left, your equity would begin to decay. And so your ownership of the company couldn't last indefinitely, even if you didn't work for the company. But ultimately, we decided, simpler models were better. And there were reasons that people hadn't, you know, constructed decaying equity company models in the past. And so we decided to go with this sort of known shape of a cooperative.
Deepak Menon 08:04
In the 80s, late 80s and early 90s, growing up in Mumbai, it was an action of labor strikes, you know, and there's a company called Kermani, I remember very distinctly close to my house, where the workers had taken over the industry, it was a factory and company was like a very talked about case study, and still is, but there are very few people like that there used to be a retail store called Apna Bazar. Still is, it is it was also employee owned, but you chose not to use the cooperative act to start the start the company, to start Nilenso right.
Steven 08:40
Yeah, that's correct. So the complications around using the cooperatives act in India, they are twofold. So one, the cooperative Act doesn't really address modern companies. And it really speaks directly to agriculture. So if I'm remembering correctly, there's something like 11 kinds of cooperatives, you can start in India, and nine of them are very specifically agricultural, something like five of them are specifically dairy. And so the idea of using the cooperatives act to start an IT firm is basically impossible. But there are other complications. So you can't actually sell your goods from a true cooperative in India, outside of India's borders, and you can't hire foreign employees. So I wouldn't have the option of working for an Indian cooperative. And so since I was one of the folks who was interested in starting the organization, that was sort of a non starter, we had to actually consider that the option very seriously, starting the co-op in Canada, which only requires a minimum of two Canadians to start the co-op and to come up with some sort of strange initial paperwork structure where these other, you know, seven or eight Indian citizens would then have control of this Canadian Co Op. But we decided that that was just too convoluted, which is why we went our own route instead.
Deepak Menon 10:15
And now it's in limited liability partnership.
Steven 10:17
It is yeah, fortunately, or unfortunately, the LLP laws were relatively new at the time, the notion of a limited liability partnership was only six or seven years old when we incorporated Nilenso. And it's certainly not ideal, we basically baked a structure that we felt was as close to a cooperative as possible. And then we open sourced that document, so on the Nilenso GitHub, you can find is basically a document compiler, you can compile your own cooperative style LLP structure, if you like, the document itself is Creative Commons zero, so it's public domain, so you could modify it however you wanted, and come up with other structures.
Deepa 11:06
So the great thing about a limited liability partnership is that it's very flexible structure. That's essentially a contract amongst the partners. So you have the ability to enshrine any value that you hold dear in that document. And every partner that signing up to be a partner is essentially accepting the tenets that you have encoded in your partnership deed. And any change that you would like to make is something again, that you have to get consensus on before you can make a modification. So our LLP essentially says, unlike partnerships, where if you resign, or, you know, if you die, essentially, your stake in the company is passed on to your heirs, or it's something that you need to be compensated for. Our document says that when you leave, you basically relinquish any stake you had in the company. So the idea is that in order to participate in Nilenso, so you have to be a member of Nilenso. And when you exit the partnership, you're essentially giving up any control you have, or any say you have in the decisions that we make, or the policies that we make for ourselves. So by being a member, and once you stop being a member, you basically have no rights with respect to the company anymore.
Sujatha Rao 12:36
And would all employees in that sense of Nilenso, they're all partners slash members of Nilenso, Right?
Deepa 12:44
Yes, so for administrative reasons, we have some people who sign up to be partners in the company, because that's a requirement of the LLP act. But essentially, what our lawyers drafted for us means that you have members who have the same rights and responsibilities as the partners, but for logistical reasons, don't sign up to be partners in the company.
Sujatha Rao 13:07
So can I ask Deepa how biggest Nilenso right now, how many members? And is there a quorum for how many partners you're meant to have, at any given point of time,
Deepa 13:18
we have 20 ish members. And I think this number has remained roughly in the same range for about five years or so we started out with eight partners, and grew very quickly to 12 or so. So that's roughly the size that we have stayed for almost our entire lifetime, close to a decade. Now, we do not have a minimum number of partners that need to stay in the company, but we do have quorums for various important decisions that we might have to make.
Sujatha Rao 13:49
Nilenso has this concept of BDRs, right Business Decision Records, what is the BDR? How, how are you thinking about and conceptualizing this notion of business decision record
Steven 14:05
BDR 's are actually a sort of bastardization of an idea from the software industry. So there's been this idea tossed around for some time. And it takes a number of different shapes, but they're called architecture decision records or architectural decision records. And essentially, the idea is that software developers have for quite some time now appreciated that it's really helpful to keep track of an immutable history of the changes to the software. Every time you commit a change to the software that you're building, you really commit it. So the verb is appropriate. You've committed to that change because there is no going back, you can change the change with another change. So you can always move forward, but you can't undo something that you did previously. And I think that There's a lot of merit to this idea of a crit, only, that you don't have a living document that you modify all the time. And that you don't have a document that you're allowed to go back. And, you know, you get out your eraser and scribble something new in. And so this idea of a creek Creek only this immutable record, a few of us in Nilenso, were quite keen on on this idea in different ways, obviously,because there's always a few different opinions in Nilenso. But if I'm trying to do this for business decisions, and those sort of large decisions that we had, that we'd resolved, at some point early on in the in the organization's existence, we wanted to sort of codify those, there was a real difficulty in starting BDRs, because they were in effect retroactive, because we were essentially looking back over the initial two or three years and trying to say, Okay, what was like, what was the rough order in which these things happened, and what was the actual decision we came to, the better way for BDRs to occur would be for them to happen in real time. So if someone proposes something BDR, much like an ADR in the software industry, could be in a proposed state. And then later on, once it's been ratified, then you say, okay, within the immutable record, this decision is accepted. We've all accepted this decision, it goes on the record, and then you can never take it off the record, you can undo that decision. But that becomes a new ADR later on further down the line. Sorry, ADR EDR, same idea.
Sujatha Rao 16:39
I find this fascinating in some ways, because many organizations take the living document approach, right to the building of physicians, and this sort of constantly changing, and quite connected with that change, because it's sort of living in the present. So we've made those changes. And we are happy with where we are now, I think this notion of not writing over the decisions that have been made, but building on and changing while still recognizing that this decision was made, and it did impact the organization. And it does impact the organization in some way. What was the need that Nilenso have failed to have something like a BDR rather than, you know, a strategy document that's constantly evolving. And if you no one needs to go back and look at decisions in the past, and one has to, you know, sort of trace it back and talk to 100 different people. Why was that so important? Why was that? immutability of that decision to be recorded, important from the lens,
Steven 17:47
Distributed computing problems are difficult, because of coordination. And organizational problems are difficult, for the same reason. So the more people you add to a decision making process, the more opinions there are, the more energy is spent in conversation, just as it is in the computing world. And there's nothing saying that you can't have both. So you you can have an accrete only, immutable record of the past. And you can have a view which is as of now, which is always your most interesting view of the world. So the the records that you keep are the immutable records. And the records that you synthesize are the records as of now. So the living document is derivative of the immutable record. And philosophically, I think that that's the right way to go. I think the reason that it's the right way to go is exactly what you said, Sujatha, that, if you want to go back and distill the history, you have to talk to 100 Different people in a large organization. And you often have to talk to someone who doesn't want to talk to you. And you often have to talk to someone who is dead, you often have to talk to someone who has left the country or doesn't have the time anymore. And it's a lot better to have salient points recorded in such a way that you can go back to them and say, Okay, no, this was, this was a very important decision for us. And we chose to write it down because it was important, rather than saying, Well, okay, we have one version of this document from 2014. And we have one version of this document from 2017. But we don't really know what happened in between them, or when the major decisions actually happened.
Deepa 19:44
Just to add to what Steve said, I think there's value in preserving history as is for the present as well. And that's one thing that you get by documenting decisions that you've made in terms of who participated in making the decision, but also why you chose this path instead of so many other options that were available at the time. So that when you're presented with that decision making point, again, perhaps some circumstances have changed. Perhaps the priorities of the people involved have changed, perhaps the people themselves have changed. And so you can reason about this decision. In terms that may not be possible if that historical context wasn't available as objective fact. I mean, it's, you know, that joke of people who don't study history are condemned to repeat it. So maybe it gives you a little bit of that as well. So it gives it allows you to study history, so you can make better choices. But we very much document and record the decisions we're making in terms of who's participating in those decisions, why we've chosen those parts, what are the values, or the priorities that we're putting at the forefront and so on. So people who come after us can make better decisions?
Deepak Menon 21:11
So would you care to tell us an example of a BDR?
Steven 21:15
The one kind of go to example, I think that I have is one, which was initiated by Nivedita, she believes, still the executive with Deepa, Deepa can correct me if I'm wrong after this, but she had a very open and honest approach to menstruation. And at some point, we started having a wider discussion about what does it mean to have or to want as an organization, menstrual lead for women, because this isn't, it doesn't really fall into any of the other categories, that companies tend to the hypnosis, like, ice cold hand of the corporation wants to sort of put things into buckets. And, and this is doesn't fit any of those buckets, it's not sick leave, it's not vacation, it's not really optional leave for many women. So then exactly what is it? So we decided at that point, that this was a type of leave that deserves its own category, and that it deserved its own category, partly because it deserved a sort of protection. And so we we made a short version of the menstrual leave concept as BDR. And then we made a much longer version as a sort of policy document. I think that this is probably a good example of the delta between this idea of recording an immutable record, and keeping track of something as policy, because it's entirely possible that over the years, you learn that, oh, this policy should change slightly. And slight policy changes don't necessarily need a BDR. But the BDR is a sort of historical record of protection. And it says we have a menstrual leave policy, that menstral leave policy might change slightly. And if it changes significantly enough, then you create a new BDR. Again, for the sake of the historical record, and for the sake of safety, that initial BDR gives you have the opportunity to discuss it openly. And to make a firm record about the decision that you've made, and to know when you're rolling back that decision if that's the thing that you want to do, or to change that decision in a substantial way.
Deepak Menon 23:52
Thank you for that, Steve at this, I got a lot more clearer.
Sujatha Rao 23:55
I think the challenge is not in the creation of the BDR or the the core operating principle, but in the way that that's used for everyday decision making. And that's something I think that I would love to hear from Deepa as well in the everyday ness of Nilenso. So how are decisions made? It's all members, in some sense are equal. So is it the person who's most passionate or are there other principles by which it happens? So just love to hear the operationalizing aspects of this.
Deepa 24:34
So this is honestly something that we learned from overtime, because in the early days of Nilenso, so there were a lot of decisions that ended up being referendums. Everyone was participating in decision making. A lot of people had really valuable inputs to provide as well, but it was probably not worth the time that and the effort that everybody would spending in actually arriving at a decision particularly for things that were everyday in nature and didn't merit the kind of bandwidth that was being consumed. So over time, we've sort of evolved a structure where we have elected representatives who are responsible for everyday decision making. Of course, like Sujatha pointed out, the larger principles and philosophy of the company, drive their decisions, and all of the kinds of outcomes of those meetings are always shared with the wider company for comment, there are no corporate secrets. Basically, there is nothing that's happening behind closed doors that people aren't aware of, or can't participate in if they choose to. But this has made things much easier as you can imagine, we've also more recently set up committees to own smaller pieces of work. For example, let's say we have a hiring drive. So there is a small committee that's deciding, you know, how many people we want to hire, from which colleges? Where are we putting out the job posts? What is the interview process look like? What is the onboarding process look like, and then they make proposals again, to the wider company that we can kind of comment on, and that has also helped a lot.
Sujatha Rao 26:26
So these committees are ad hoc committees, they come together for a particular purpose, they are tasked with completing that task, and then they dismantle, there's nothing permanent about any of these committees, is there?
Deepa 26:41
So there are a couple of different ways in which these committees are set up and toned down one way is, like you said, they're set up for a specific purpose. Generally, it's people who are interested in driving that particular outcome, that are signing up to be part of that committee for that period of time. And then once the outcome is accomplished, there is no need for that committee anymore. And then if there's, you know, let's say next year, you want to set up something similar, you follow the same process more or less. The suits, on the other hand, who are responsible for day to day decision making are elected for a specific period of time. And then at the end of that period, you have elections. Again, occasionally, you have people who are signing up to drive a particular charter, because it's something they are personally very passionate about and are finding the time to do. And then usually, that ends up involving more people, or they're handing off that task to someone else to carry forward once they've taken it to a particular stage.
Deepak Menon 27:46
So elections are held every year?
Deepa 27:48
Every two years now,
Deepak Menon 27:50
every two years now, which decisions are referendum consensus based, and which decisions are majority based.
Deepa 27:58
So we actually try not to run things by majority, we try to arrive at a consensus, even if that consensus is not what every single person would have prioritized individually had they been tasked with making that decision. It's something that you've signed up for accepting that it's the right path to take for everyone at this point of time. So we try not to have things move to just a vote, because sometimes that ends up disappointing a lot of people, it also ends up meaning that the loudest voices get heard. And so that's something we don't want to happen. So there's this really great piece of writing on how you build consensus and what you need to actually achieve that. So of course, you need participation and facilitation, but you also need time, and patience. So you need to go through the process of actually arriving at the decision if you want everybody to feel like they were heard and that they sort of eventually accept the decision that was finally taken
Deepak Menon 29:13
That's really interesting. For me, it sounds like a lot of work Deepa, internally, that one has to do within Nilenso to create the consensus to get people to align the different viewpoints principles, on maybe some of the things that other kinds of organizations may feel a mundane, you know, thing. I'm assuming that could be some fatigue that sets in as well. Right.
Deepa 29:40
So, if you're participating in a lot of decisions and you feel like you're not being heard, then certainly that fatigue can set in. And you know, over time, we've also moved to a place where we don't compel everyone to be a part of every decision. You're coming to the table When you think there's something important, that's being discussed, and you have a point of view that you would like to put forward, and you have a certain suggestion you would like to make or a recommendation you'd like to make as to what way you would like this to progress. So that helps a little bit over time, you'll find that most people trust that the decisions that people are making are being made in good faith, and that they can always speak up if they disagree strongly. So to a large degree, what you need to arrive at consensus is a commitment to arrive at consensus. And once that's there, things become a bit simpler. I won't say that we haven't had really long meetings, that we've all walked away from very frustrated. But I think we've gotten better with that as well over time.
Deepak Menon 30:58
You when you go and meet clients, possible clients, do you say that you are 100%, employee owned organization? Or you just talk about the offering that you can provide? Or is a mix of both? Meaning? How does it actually play out in the external world?
Deepa 31:14
I think there are different categories of clients, there are some people who really don't care how we're structured internally, there are some who care to the extent that the decisions we make affect them. So they're curious about how we decide to start a particular project, how we decide to roll off a project, how we hire onboard, etc. And then there are clients who are totally intrigued by, you know, how we how we are set up, and, you know, the sort of how does this even work? How have you guys survived? And, you know, how are you not in meetings all day is also a question that we've been asked pretty often. So I think we've encountered all kinds of clients.
Sujatha Rao 31:58
I had a question was slightly different track altogether. But what would be the top three, four emotions that you think most people would talk about when they say, this is what it means for me to be a part of Nilenso
Steven 32:12
I think thatany sustainable business with real longevity, has this sort of background emotion of just comfort. And, you know, this idea that you're working with your friends, and I certainly know that while I still worked at with Nilenso,at Nilenso I felt that way that I was working with my friends, and that they you're working with people who see you more as, as a human being, then as an employee, or a co worker, or a boss, regardless of you know which position you're in, and, and that they really, genuinely want you to succeed, and vice versa. So you end up with this emotional state of, I think, a sort of real sense of camaraderie between the people who are working in the land. So it's not the sort of rah rah artificial camaraderie that you sometimes see with, especially the startup scene, the emotions that sort of that stick out for me with Nilenso are the emotions that I would say I was perhaps surprised to see emotions surrounding people's. So I think that the word passion gets thrown around a lot, and it almost becomes meaningless sometimes. And so I hesitate to say people's passions, but there was one point where one person who worked for Nilenso actually cried during a meeting, and it wasn't, he wasn't sad. He was crying because he was a bit overwhelmed with an explanation he was giving about the things that he was excited by and passionate about, as they pertained to the company. And I think that they're when I say comfort, I don't mean comfort, like you can, you know, come into the office and, you know, put your feet up and just relax all the time, but comfort in the sense that he was comfortable doing that he was comfortable expressing himself fully enough that he didn't do I don't think he was embarrassed to have to have that happen in front of his other colleagues.
Deepa 34:38
It's interesting, you said that because when Sujatha asked this question, the two words that came to mind were comfort and happiness. And I was trying to figure out how to characterize happiness, to actually convey what I mean by it. Because it's not Fun. It's more a sort of contentment, or fulfillment. And I think one really unique thing about any really good organization, I would say, regardless of structure, is if you're able to pursue employee happiness as a sort of intrinsic value, in terms of what, it gives you just as of itself, as opposed to how it can improve employee productivity, or reduce attrition and reduce your hiring costs, and therefore somehow impact the bottom line where you don't have to care about that at all. You can actually try to make your employees happy, because that is really what you want to do.
Sujatha Rao 35:47
This is the first time I've heard this come out. So explicitly Deepa and Steve, an organization in pursuit of employees happiness? And it's beyond the aesthetics of it? Right, I think it's the core of what what human beings are the sense of flow that we seek in wherever whichever space we are in?
Deepak Menon 36:10
Thank you, Steve, Deepa. Sujatha that was a very good question, really resonated the idea of emotions at workplaces, because so much of workplaces, just cognitive, and the emotional side does not get inquired enough. So what would your advice be for employees who are on this journey to create a cooperative, from the software space or maybe a consulting space, something which is not primary producer, the areas that you are familiar with?
Steven 36:41
I think that there is real merit to taking the time to examine exactly what do you think the world is. And the reason that I phrase it that way is because I think that, again, at a young age, especially it but even those of us in our middle age, tend to assume that everyone else sees the world as we do, or understands the world as we do. So I look out into the world. And I see food delivery apps, and drones, and all sorts of space technology and mental health issues. That's really a big part of my world. And the other person sees parenting and nursing, firefighters and police, and that's a big part of their world. And I think that there's a lot of value in collectively, especially with people that you plan to spend five to 10 years with building a company, collectively examine the world and say, Okay, which of these things are real? And what is more real? Is food delivery person on a scooter? More or less real than a nurse in a hospital? Can you compare the two, and it's a strange way of creating a partial ordering of activities that are happening in the world. But and you don't have to agree the conversation is the valuable part. But if you can get to the end of that conversation, you can say, oh, okay, we agree, there are some holes here, there is some value that we can create. If you can create genuine value in the space, whatever that space happens to be for you, then you will probably find someone in this day and age who's willing to pay you money to create that value. And I think that that is a good way to start looking at your business, because it's in the name, right? To run a cooperative, you have to cooperate and to cooperate in action, you have to be looking at the same thing first, or at least understanding why someone else sees the world a little differently than you do.
Deepa 39:01
I think my advice is not very different. The only thing you need to start a cooperative is to believe that opinion of the person in front of you counts as much as your own opinion, whether you want to jointly drive towards something that's a decision you have to make. And once you make that decision, the only thing that you have to really sort of hold on to is the fundamental principle, which is that what your opinions count. And so, you know, as you expand, you're kind of holding this philosophy and building the company on top of that. Besides that, I would say something similar to what Steve was saying, which is, think about your career as a 40 or 50 year long period. And think about what you'd like to accomplish during that time, not necessarily the same thing that you're, you know, you're going to start working on something today, and you're going to work on it for 40 or 50 years. But I think that a lot of times we lose track of this scale. And so we're optimizing for the next three years. And then we're starting again from scratch saying now what, and making similar decisions over and over again, working with the shiny companies, maybe making the fat paychecks and then wondering why we're so dissatisfied. And I think it's great advice for us as individuals in the workspaces, but also for corporations and organizations to think of scale, in a sense, almost evolutionary like, right, so it's not three years, but it could be 300 years or 30 years. What is it that we would like to achieve? And how can we go about doing that?
Deepak Menon 40:38
Absolutely. Sujatha, I think the organization design that reflects our values, is critical. So if I don't believe in a cooperative way of working, and then go ahead and design a cooperative, then again, it's not going to work. If I deeply desire a hierarchical structure, and then I go create a cooperative, then you're going to support the cooperative, for the interests of the hierarchy that you're really interested in. But if your values are in sync with the design, then it's the day to day running of the organization is actually not that difficult.
Deepa 41:44
I mean, having worked at Nilenso and also run companies that were not structured as cooperatives, I would say that the challenges you'll face in terms of, of course, running a business, getting clients, keeping your employees happy, building consensus for decisions, encouraging participation, those don't go away. Right, those are the challenges that every business faces. The legal structure, I would say is a byproduct, you don't need to care about the legal structure, as long as you have the intention to run the company in a certain way, as long as you care about involving people in allowing them to make decisions that affect them or participate in decisions that affect them. Of course, if there's a concentration of power, then over time that lends itself to a certain kind of malfeasance, I would say, and that is what you're trying to avoid by legally incorporating in a certain manner.
Sujatha Rao 42:50
So what you're saying Deepa is really think about what matters to you the most in terms of values, in terms of the sustainability of the organization, and in terms of what is meaningful for all the people associated with your organization, and then design the legal form that works best to achieve those outcomes. But I think like you and Steve have been pointing out the structure is only the beginning. In the everyday processes and operating decisions, those values need to come alive. And I think the Nilenso provides a very interesting blueprint for other organizations to examine and see if it would work for them. I think this is of tremendous value. And I really want to thank both of you, Deepa and Steve for this conversation.
Deepak Menon 43:47
Thank you, Deepa, Thank you, Steve, for being part of this conversation and being on the Workwise Pod. I've always admired Nilenso and have having you both come here and share your thoughts. For me, it's been brilliant show that listeners who have had some idea about cooperatives and not really relegated cooperatives to the Agriculture Fisheries space would learn something from this conversation and then hopefully, we seem Dotco cooperatives in these spaces in India.
Steven 44:18
Thanks, Deepak and Sujatha thanks for having us.
Deepa 44:22
Likewise, thank you, Deepak and Sujatha we've really had a lot of fun talking about it and so on this podcast
Sowmya 44:28
Thank you for listening. That was Deepak and Sujatha talking to Steven and Deepa. About running India's first worker owned software cooperative Nilenso will find the resources referred to in the episode in the show notes, but more information at our website. www dot workwisepod.com. Love to hear from you. Comment on the website or write to us at Hello at workwisepod.com. Credits go to Anjali Ranjan for the cover art and Derek for the intro and outro music. Today's episode was mixed and edited by Prashant Venkatesan, Production support from me Sowmya Karun. Don't forget to subscribe to the workwise pod on your favorite podcasting platform