vid 6

PGE Methodology Levels

• The PGE methodology, a post-growth entrepreneurship incubator, combines personal development and business school content, akin to a startup boot camp.
• The curriculum comprises three levels:
  • Micro Level: Focuses on personal attributes like vulnerability, patience, communication, listening, and self-care.
  • Meso Level: Emphasizes practical business tools for collaboration, business practices, and management.
  • Macro Level: Explores macroeconomic and supply chain systems. Finance will be covered next week.

Micro Level: Personal Development

• Vulnerability: Vulnerability and shame are key to business leadership. Brene Brown highlights courage rooted in vulnerability.
• Listening: Active listening, crucial for success, often overlooked in business schools, fosters understanding and mitigates toxic work environments.
• Communication Styles: Effective communication combines active listening with expressing needs, not just assertive speaking.
• Self-Care: Entrepreneurship demands sustained effort; self-care prevents burnout and business failure.

Meso Level: Business Practices

• Collaboration over Competition: Collaboration, exemplified by "survival of the friendliest," fosters mutual support and outperforms raw competition.
• Non-extractive Businesses: Establishing legal entities and contracts prevents resource leakage, promoting long-term social enterprise success and preventing founder exploitation.
• Hybrid Entity Forms: Foundation-owned companies with golden shares are foundational models for non-extractive entities.
• Open Source Business Model: Offering products for free while charging for services fosters community and reciprocity.
• Legal Contracts as Human Relationships: Legal contracts are reflections of human relationships, making mediation a more effective dispute resolution approach than adversarial approaches.
• Cross-subsidization: Charging higher prices to those who can afford it, then subsidizing services for those who cannot, encourages equitable market access.
• Taxes: Tax contributions benefit society, leveraging the social safety net for entrepreneurial risk mitigation.
• Retirement: Alternative retirement models – good salary and pensions – exist beyond the traditional cash-out approach.
• Entrepreneurial Risk: Overestimating risk often justifies excessive compensation and wealth accumulation, creating inequities.

Key Figures

• Brene Brown: Researcher on shame and vulnerability.
• Suzanne Simard: Forest ecologist highlighting tree interdependency.
• Herbert Spencer: Sociologist who promoted Social Darwinism.
• Michael Nichols: Author of "The Lost Art of Listening".
• Marshall Rosenberg: Founder of Nonviolent Communication (NVC).
• Chris Voss: Former FBI negotiator; author of "Never Split the Difference."
• Frederick Laloux: Author of "Reinventing Organizations."
• Brian Robertson: Author of "Holacracy."

Key Concepts

• Post-Growth Entrepreneurship (PGE): Focuses on social good and sustainability over financial growth.
• Social Darwinism: Applying Darwin's natural selection to human society, often justifying economic inequality.
• Symbiosis: Mutualistic relationship between organisms.
• Scarcity Mindset: Limited resources perception.
• Abundance Mindset: Sufficient resources for all.
• Foundation Owned Company: A company owned by a charitable foundation.
• Golden Share: Share with special voting control.
• DevOps Movement: Collaborative software development.
• Earned Media: Publicity achieved through impact or newsworthiness.
• Horizontal Management: Management focused on equality and collaboration.
• Holacracy: Self-organizing management by circles and roles.
• Sociocracy: Similar to holacracy, emphasizing consent-based decision-making.
• Teal Organizations: Self-organizing, purpose-driven organizations.
• Open Source: Free, modifiable software.
• Intellectual Property (IP): Legal rights to creative works.
• Patents: Legal rights to inventions.
• Copyrights: Legal rights to creative works.
• Trademarks: Distinctive symbols for products.
• Mediation: Neutral third-party dispute resolution.
• Cross-subsidization: Pricing strategy combining high and low-cost services.
• Socialized Costs: Societal costs (e.g., education).
• Socialized Benefits: Societal benefits (e.g., open-source software).

Takeaway Message

• PGE encourages personal development with practical business skills, advocating social impact and collaboration over competition.
• This method challenges traditional business practices, fostering critical thinking about institutions, regulations, and ethics in entrepreneurial ventures.