In practice, MAYA ORGANIC's learning approach enables members to develop their professional skills as a group for adapting to the market. Engaging in this process spurs collective members to begin to actively plan for material, production and finances for their collectives. Rather than passively accepting their circumstances, members start to plan for their future. They begin to visualise alternatives which they will be expected to enact. This requires questioning the status quo, and looking beyond simple, ready-made options and realities. Participation in the collective learning process similarly requires that people assume responsibility for their own actions, and are proactive, rather than reactive. In contrast to other work and life scenarios in which people have little or no idea about how institutions function, members themselves devise their own institutional structure, and gain the capability to run such institutions independently. In stark contrast to previous work structures, transparency is the norm.
When collective members successfully put their ideas into practice, they acquire the capacity and self-confidence to address and envisage change, both as a group and as individuals. This kind of experience induces fundamental changes in members, which extends to their families and, hence, their communities. In fact, through the learning in collectives, collectives grow toward addressing social transformation at multiple levels. When the working poor have the opportunity to start taking responsibility for their own lives and work, while building their collective capabilities to address social transformation in their favour, they will be able to access not only markets, but any of the resources, grants, or training they might need.
2.33 Values Underlying the Collective Structure
There is a set of particular values or principles that have influenced MAYA ORGANIC in developing a structure for worker-owned collectives. These values have evolved over the last two years and are examined in greater detail below.
Member-Based Structure
As member-owned enterprises, the collectives promote mutual support in learning and production process. Each of the members is an equal shareholder and decision-maker in the collective. Shared leadership and shared responsibility amongst all members fosters cooperation, equity, democratic leadership, and group decision-making. People come to realise their importance as a part of the group, and understand the concept that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Non-hierarchical, Horizontal Leadership
MAYA ORGANIC has recognised the need for a distribution of leadership and responsibility in place of a hierarchical system or a system in which one or two members are over-burdened by most of the work. Thus, MO has institutionalised ‘functional groups’ as learning mechanisms that reach into virtually every aspect of the collectives' work. Each functional group is made up of three to four members within a collective. Each group manages one of four areas: production, business processes, skills and quality, and institution-building. Being a part of functional groups, members take clearly-defined roles in running the collective. Over the period of a few months, members learn the different tasks associated with their functional group. Functional groups are not fixed; that is, members rotate through functional groups over time.
