On today’s episode, our guests are Susan Basterfield and Gina Stevens-Rembe, collaborators in the Enspiral Network, a collective of social enterprises, ventures, and individuals working collaboratively across the world to support people who want to spend their lives changing the world. Enspiral builds collaborative tools and processes to facilitate the sharing of money through participatory budgets, the sharing of control through collaborative decision-making, and the sharing of information through their Handbook of agreements and guidelines. Aside from her role as Enspiral’s Foundation Director, Susan also co-founded Greaterthan, a professional training and coaching organization at the forefront of decentralized, self-managed, and participatory work. Gina’s passion for equity and justice led her to her current role as Operations Lead of Enspiral’s Developer’s Academy. We speak to Susan and Gina today about the work they do, the vision they bring, and how they are leveraging both to transform the way we think and go about work. Part 2 of our conversation continues our discussion with Susan and Gina and delves into the examples of initiatives and ventures within the Enspiral Network and how they are building cultures that support agency, autonomy, and self-organization.
During our conversation, Susan, Gina, and I referenced the following resources and topics:
- The network’s book, “Better Work Together“
- “The Tyranny of Structurelessness” by Jo Freeman
- The Enspiral and Loomio Cooperative Handbooks,
- Software Mill’s Handbook for New Employees
- A company in the US called Ouishare questioning and experimenting with social models based on collaboration, openness and fairness
- Mingyur Rinpoche‘s book, “The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness” and his Tergar meditation community who is featured in the recent Netflix special, “The Mind, Explained“
- Frederic Laloux’s “Reinventing Organizations“
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