Jay Monteverde: [You have to be] very intentional around articulating carefully what’s the additional responsibility that everyone has because it is a worker self-directed nonprofit, rather than sort of just the shrug like, you know, “everybody is the same” or “there [are] no bosses” kind of a thing.
And then I did want to hat tip to one of the other comments about…emotional intelligence and EQ [emotional quotient]. Somebody made a passing comment earlier—like, this structure isn’t for everybody. And I think that that needs to be carried over into bringing in new folks.
[You have to be] very intentional around articulating carefully what’s the additional responsibility that everyone has [in] a worker self-directed nonprofit.
I would say one of my own personal diagnoses for some of the past conflict that has happened [at my nonprofit] is that the wrong types of folks came in. And once you’re in a place where there is so much that is carried by trust and so much that relies on trust and people acting in good faith together, if the wrong person comes in, there’s the potential for a lot of…if not actual damage or destruction, quote-unquote, just a lot of headache and heartache for everybody involved.
And so, I think there [are] ways that that can be twisted in traditional organizations, kind of twisted into like, “Oh, is this person a fit for the culture?” whatever that means, of an organization.
But I think that cannot necessarily be bad when it really is—there’s a lot of power that every person holds in this organization. You really need to see if this person has the kind of emotional intelligence, maturity, self-initiative, et cetera. Those become kind of key qualifications for them to be suitable to self-direct or be part of a self-directed nonprofit.
