Coffee with Katie - Feb 22, 2024

Cooperative Dialogue - for meaning-filled communication with Jon Steinman

Jon Steinman is the author of Grocery Story: The Promise of Food Co-ops in the Age of Grocery Giants and a publisher of resources supporting food co-ops nationwide. Jon is also a past board director and board president of the Kootenay Co-op - Canada's largest food co-op specializing in natural foods. In recent years, Jon has drawn his attention to the modes of group communication used within cooperatives - specifically, internal communication among and between boards, management, staff and member-owners. As democratic organizations, Jon believes cooperatives require more spacious modes of communication. His interest in this question has led him to become an Accredited Professional Dialogue Practitioner through the Academy of Professional Dialogue and he now brings his experience into cooperatives through what he calls 'Cooperative Dialogue'. This approach invites inquiry into how people associate with one another and it can help bring forth the common idea. 

How might your cooperative weave the web of democracy with your member-owners? With management? Staff? Board? As the pioneering management theorist Mary Parker Follett said, "to have democracy, we must live it day by day."

At the February Coffee with Katie Jon will introduce Cooperative Dialogue as an approach for your co-op to consider. 

Coffee with Katie is a virtual and FREE monthly networking and educational event hosted as a way for me to P6 (Co-ops helping Co-ops) some of the great information I've learned over the years.