Transform your Team’s Work through Effective & Joyful Collaborative Action and Shared Leadership
Apply to the Remote Cooperative Leadership and Management Training!
Attend the free informational call for Level I!

Strengthen Your Cooperation

Invest in your collaborative leadership and apply to Level I today for cooperative practices and tools. This online course is designed to tap into YOUR brilliance as a grounded cooperative leader to handle the complexity, conflicts, and joys in your team.

Some highlights of the training are:

  • Democratic Management Tools
  • Increased Leadership Capacity
  • Real Solutions to Harmful Dynamics
  • Beyond Delegation to Ownership
  • Better Manage the Never Ending Tasks

Learn more and apply here!
Apply to be considered for the next cohort starting October 2023

Tension-Driven Meetings for Coops in Uncertain Times

Try reframing your next few online meetings with gathering the “tensions” from the team to get at the heart of the matter. Over time, you’ll find yourselves more human-centered and agile as you source your agendas from your team to align on the work together, tap into the needs of those on your team, and build engagement across space.

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Visiting Mondragon: 7 Lessons on the “Sovereignty of Labor”

In the Fall of 2019, I visited the Mondragon Cooperatives through the Saint Mary’s Masters of Cooperative Management Field Research course taught by Marcelo Vieta. Before I left for the field research trip, I was attracted to the Mondragon Principle “Sovereignty of Labor”. There is so much to say about this worker cooperative operating at such a large scale. I decided to dive more deeply into how the Sovereignty of Labor shows up in multiple aspects of life, work, and...
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3 Collective Decision-Making Pitfalls to Avoid

 Decision making is such an important part of our teams and of life. We make decisions all the time! Some of us take these actions quickly, snapping our fingers and heading off in the direction of our choosing. Others take longer to deliberate, examining every factor like a precious gem.What is your decision-making style when you have a big opportunity ahead? Do you trust your gut? Do you do a lot of research?How does your team make decisions? Do you tend to defer to...
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7 Solutions for Accountability in Cooperation

Accountability. It's a topic that comes up over and over again in our cooperatives, non-profits, organizing spaces, and even relationships. So, how do we support each other with clarity, care, and movement toward accountability? Well, often, you can integrate processes, patterns, and morale that support you and your team members to be more accountable to each other. We've designed the Cooperative Leadership Certification Program (CLCP) to integrate micro and macro...
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10 Keys to Collaborative Leadership In Action

  Erica Buswell is the VP of Programs at Maine Farmland Trust and she is one of our most recent graduates of the Cooperative Leadership Certification Program. Maine Farmland Trust is a member-powered statewide organization that protects farmland, supports farmers, and advances the future of farming. Erica does food systems work because she knows that good things happen when people come together around food. In her completion of the program, she shared some of her...
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As someone whose background is in racial equity and social justice, I work with a lot of folks who are interested in shifting power structures and collaborative leadership. I appreciated how this course gave structure to sharing power in collaborative spaces and processing tensions in a way that feels generative rather than harmful.

I think it can benefit anyone who is open to learning and willing to spend the time and effort in creating a space where all voices are valid and heard.

Lia Carpio, Level I Graduate 2022
Former Regional Project Administrator at The Colorado Trust

If you want to learn a practical system for collective decision-making, mutual accountability, collaborative governance, and self and group reflexivity in a supportive and patient environment, I highly encourage you to enroll in this course.

If not for the wealth of content, then for the community we built that was, for me, a model of what a work environment attentive to our humanity could look like.

Alyssa Moncure, Level I Graduate 2021
Former Northeast Grocers Project Coordinator at Groundwork Northeast Revitalization Group

This course helped me see all the ways I'd been blocking my own dreams for more democratic organizational structures just by relying on the same old ordinary meeting practices I'd been used to.

This was life transforming. And in the most powerfully practical way.

Omar Freilla, Level I Graduate 2020
Co-Founder at Collective Diaspora

The Collab system is an exploration of power. As a member of a self-organizing team for 12 years I have seen so many different manifestations of power in a non-hierarchical setting and wanted to know how do we really organize ourself in an efficient way without replicating toxic social norms?

The tools we explored in this course aim to increase autonomy and accountability while building better business strategies that are actually driven by the workers. I highly recommend this course for any leadership team.

Kristin McRay, Level I Graduate 2020
Community Bicycle Mechanic at BICAS (A Worker Self Directed Non Profit)

“This course was super informative and practical - it gave me some really important tools for working more clearly and compassionately in group/collective settings and facilitating collective decision making. These lessons continue to inform my work and facilitation.”

Lila Arnaud, Level I Graduate 2020
Cooperativistx & language justice worker

The Collab CLCP course allowed me the opportunity to hone my understanding and experiences of cooperative and democratic governance and leadership that I've internalized over decades of participation; while also providing me with new models and templates of autonomous interdependence and accountability which I perceive as a constant and major failing of many group processes and participants. 

Frank Cetera, Level I Graduate 2020
Advanced Certified Business Advisor at New York Small Business Development Center

This was a great course, something that I will continue to use and refer to. I appreciated the theoretical framework but was grateful that we had the opportunity to implement with each other and to apply with our organization. This [implementation] is usually the difficult part that I have been finding as I've been researching and learning about the cooperative structure.

Edith Arias, Level I Graduate 2019
Co-founder, Semillas Wellness

Through the implementation of several Collab documents, I can visibly see my own team’s efficiency and organization coming together rapidly and with pinpoint accuracy. We better understand the work we each need to do, and we know how to go about doing it; without checking in upon one another’s own table. 

Kirsten Sunesen, Level I Graduate 2019
National Claims Specialist, The Co-operators

On a chilly Sunday afternoon with some tea and mellow music in the background, I have read through Cecile Green's article, "The Organizational Power Matrix". I immediately reflected how much more I now understand about power. What a fantastic resource in learning for me in thinking about this area - informing my somatic response to delving into this work with you all...no wonder my body knows through shivery excitement that THIS is what I needed to dig into.

Elly Wood, Level I Graduate 2018
HR Assistant, Hunger Mountain Food Coop  

Learning to use Collab tools has dramatically increased my level of confidence in addressing complex situations in my organization and with our clients and partners. Where before I had vague intuitions and far more desire than knowledge about democratic processes, now I can competently assess trouble spots, suggest processes that address people’s needs for participation as well as structure, and use these processes myself to make concrete progress.

Noemi Giszpenc, Level I Graduate 2017
Former Executive Director, Cooperative Development Institute

My time with Round Sky and the Collab model has completely changed the way I move and work in the world. It is so comprehensive in it’s attention to detail as well as the big picture, in understanding how business works well and efficiently as well as understanding the psychology of whole human development.

Amanda Franz, Level I & II Graduate 2015
Somatic Movement Educator and Embodiment Activist

The Collab course has really broadened my horizon in the space of organizational management for effectiveness and efficiency. I have begun implementing the Standard Meeting Practice with my team, and everyone seems to have found the "Aha" moment in their professional journey.

Francis Ghunney, Level I Graduate 2018
Managing Director & Mining Consultant, Mining Tool Ghana Ltd

 

I found this training incredibly inspiring, mind expanding, practical, and life changing. The scale of what this system can do, and its capacity to reshape and upgrade how we work together cannot be overstated.

Jamie Kearney, Level I Graduate 2015
Certified Massage Therapist, Holistic Bodywork and Integral Coaching

Collab makes the conversations we're all already having distinct and identifies exactly-right processes to turn those conversations into actionable outcomes. Collab is the most powerful set of tools I've encountered for empowering well-intentioned people and teams to streamline the processes of doing great work, while retaining the humanity that makes the work worth doing.

Jan Sage, Level I Graduate 2018
Learning Experience Designer, MediaSage

Collab is a holistic approach to personal and group development that harnesses creative tension through well structured practice. It celebrates and leverages different ways of knowing and embraces embodiment as a tool of self-awareness.

Mike Crowley, Level I Graduate 2015
President, Yestermorrow Design/Build School

The Level 1 training, in particular, helped me to focus on my own work practices and development as a leader, deepening my effectiveness and my conceptual grasp of how and why Collab works. Also, it’s sharpened my commitment to leadership development for myself, my coworkers, and our clients. We can all be better leaders, and it’s not a mystery how that can happen!

Noemi Giszpenc, Level I Graduate 2017
Former Executive Director, Cooperative Development Institute

Learn More About the Level I Training!