opinion
What can Canadian co-operatives learn from an agricultural journalist in Minnesota? Possibly a great deal, in the case of Lee Egerstrom.
Egerstrom recently published a thought-provoking book on the U.S. co-operative movement, Make No Small Plans: a cooperative revival for rural America. His conclusion is that co-operatives can play a major role in helping rural families cope with the current and future massive waves of social, economic and technological change.
The book, published by Lone Oak Press of Minnesota, has accounts of co-op success stories in both North America and Europe. It also provides a useful reminder that the co-op movement is still strong in the U.S., where almost half the population is involved with some form of co-op each day, including credit unions, co-op housing, employee stock option plans, co-op insurance companies and co-op daycare centres.
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The challenges facing rural co-ops are also outlined in a chapter by Terry Frederickson, president of Agribank and former chair of the board of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives.
Frederickson is at times blunt in his criticism of co-operatives’ weaknesses, saying many of them lack clear goals:
“Most cooperatives have extreme difficulty setting forth a mission statement to serve as the initial element of a strategic organization. In some cases, writing a mission statement to guide the organization becomes a political exercise needing consensus. In other cases, many co-op stockholders and directors are ambivalent about the prospect of financial success.
“The result, again, is a mission statement which, when reduced to its essence, says ‘We exist to do good things for good people’.”
Part of the solution, Frederickson says, is for co-ops to focus on customer needs and customer service:
“Customers, until recently, has not been a term typically used by co-operatives. The strategically oriented co-operative will be customer driven. Customers shop. The cooperative that premises its existence on member loyalty ignores this reality. It is engaged in the deadly sin of wishful thinking.”
Frederickson challenges directors of co-operatives to think of themselves more as risk-taking entrepreneurs, rather than as conservative trustees concentrating only on protecting asset value. Directors’ role “is to direct or oversee how, where and when corporate resources are to be deployed at risk for the purpose of creating value.”
Not all co-op leaders or members will agree with all the views in Make No Small Plans, but the issues it raises are worth careful thought at all levels.
