The Greaterthan Collective
CASE STUDY
The Greaterthan Collective, founded in 2018, became a purpose-driven organization through the adoption of the Golden Share governance model, aligning its values with its innovative approach to organizational transformation and serving as a role model for clients seeking alternative management systems.
Organisation inception and background:
The Greaterthan Collective was founded as a private limited company in 2018, and today, it has partners and associates in Aotearoa, USA, Canada, UK, Germany, Austria, Hungary, France, Spain, Portugal and India.
Known for its innovative approach to organisational structures and cultures, Greaterthan practices and models innovative and progressive ways of working. It supports leaders, practitioners, companies, and networks that seek alternatives to dominant systems of management.
The collective runs an academy dedicated to growing knowledge and skills around new ways of working and organising. Their work includes organisational transformation, collaborative governance, network building, participatory process design, and dynamic leadership.
What was the inspiration for Golden Share governance?
In 2017, founding partner Francesca Pick heard Sharetribe founder Juho Makkonen talking about the Golden Share approach: “I couldn’t wait until I was part of an organisation where we could do this! From the start, the plan was for Greaterthan to become a purpose company; however, being a small, bootstrapped business, the team opted to incorporate as a standard company in 2018 and then transition to the Golden Share".
“We were taking a very MVP (minimum viable product) approach to get operations going, but we did decide pretty early on to make that shift because it just seemed important to signal that this is something we care about. It helps people understand what type of organisation you're developing, which, for us, is, in many ways, post-growth or beyond business as usual.
The concept brought into the constitution something that was already 100% our culture and values; it helped make explicit something that was already there. It didn’t feel like a transition, but utilising some legalities to help anchor something we care about was great.”
“There was an element of wanting to support the purpose movement and this approach in general to make it more known, and we work with clients to be able to say oh, we do this ourselves; this is how we’ve implemented it.”
Why has it been important to Greaterthan’s work?
Greaterthan is known for ‘walking the talk’ - in other words, continually experimenting and ‘working out loud’ as they create their path. This approach brings a unique efficacy to their work with clients across all aspects of the organisation. They are also deeply committed to supporting other organisations in the broader ecosystem of healthier distribution of value and power.
What has the impact been?
Being a purpose organisation has been an attractor for members and clients. “As Francesca says, it makes the implicit explicit - it’s safe to put your all into an organisation that is clear about what it is and what it does, without the risk of that being superseded by the whims of the partners or a potential merger or takeover.”
That ‘safety’ has allowed Greaterthan to stay focused even in a sometimes tumultuous market, continuing to learn and contribute to the broader ecosystem of organisations re-inventing workplaces.