Centering People, Not Products
In most organizations, you start by defining a specific need or set of work requirements and then finding a person that matches those needs. In some ways, centering skills could be perceived as a way to avoid building organizations based on bias. (For example, we should not exclude people that we don't get along with.) But in the name of products and outputs, we:
Put health last: push our own bodies too far and ask team member to, as well.
Treat people as expendable: laying people off or firing people without regard for its impact on their future
Miss how performance - based qualifications can encode biases. Systemic obsession with conforming to templated skills often end up reducing diversity, and blinding us to people's unique brilliance.
Deteriorate our humanity: practicing dissociation from feelings or objectification of people.
MJN is wondering what it looks like to bring a practice of humanity to the center of our work. How can we operate and relate with a spirit of abundance and generosity, even when times are tough? How can we design work for people, not people for work?
Designing for an alternative
There is no question that certain kinds of productivity will matter for the foreseeable future. We have to finish tasks to earn incomes, and we do believe that people should be rewarded for their hard work and labor. But productivity metrics should not be prioritized at the expense of collective well being. (See here for more on why we think this is also a matter of justice.)
We're asking how each of our values can be a primary framework for how organizations embrace new members into an organizational system. Layered on top of this primary framework, we hope to build secondary frameworks tied to tasks. For example:
How does deep values alignment express itself, in our life journeys and commitments?
Is it possible to provide a baseline of universal basic income solely based on deep values alignment and deep, personal commitments to justice?
How could values aligned support be enhanced by project-oriented income where specific, time-bound deliverables are important?
“One cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one's own.” —James A. Baldwin
