ISBN: 9781933392196 Year Added to Catalog: 2006 Book Format: Paperback Book Art: 60 b&w illustrations, appendices Number of Pages: 6 x 9, 328 pages Book Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing Old ISBN: 1933392193 Release Date: May 15, 2006
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The Company We Keep
Reinventing Small Business for People, Community, and Place
I want to thank John Abrams for writing The Company We Keep. Two themes of this book bring me hope for the future. The first is the successful steps that have been taken towards affordable housing on Martha's Vineyard. I live on Eastern Long Island in the area that is commonly called the "Hamptons," and the affordable housing issues here are extremely similar. I am hopeful that some of the same steps that were successful on Martha‚s Vineyard can be applied here. The second is the success of South Mountain, the employee-owned company that John founded. I have just completed 20 years working for a Fortune 500 company, and although others would consider my career a success, I really feel very little satisfaction working for such a company. I hope that one day I too will experience a work environment similar to that of South Mountain.
--Reader from Sag Harbor, NY
The Company We Keep is an intimate story about the birth and transformation of a small design-build firm from a partnership to a sole proprietorship to a privately held worker owned cooperative business that continues to evolve while its owners learn about the entity they are creating by creating it. The story is presented humbly by the original owner who continues to learn as much about facilitating group decision making, as about running a successful business, as about the importance of place based business and investing in the local community as about the craft of designing and building and South Mountain Company continues to mature. When individuals take on the responsibility of co-ownership their confidence builds and they experience and develop skills as persons and professionals.
You will learn how the philosophy, commitment to values and traditions that have grown organically out of the process of doing it together support the ongoing success of this unique small firm.
John Abrams presents a compelling model for organizing a business in a way that empowers the individuals who do the work that their business depends on to stay viable. As co-owners work together the incentive to do well as workers is interrelated to the success of the business and experienced directly by all as their own success. Such a model stands as a challenge to the "dog eat dog" competitive business model where success is defined as "getting ahead" and depends on impressing some higher ranking boss. John gives ten reasons why it makes sense for employees of a business to be its owners. Number 8 is Justice;
"The inherent injustice of our current economic system (all wealth goes to the shareholders) can be tackled, through employee ownership, by shifting wealth to the real stakeholders, those who actually create it."
While this book is essentially about a model for business ownership it is written as a memoir that allows an inspiring glimpse into the way the business operates, making a strong case for changing the way we think about commerce and what really matters.
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