Some time ago I received comments from a reader who was concerned that The Transaction Company would require ‘intelligent’ people to run. Yes, the concept does demand a certain set of skills, but they can be acquired. Moreover, the environment is actually very much conductive to learning.

Fig. 1. Traditional enterprises tend to compartmentalise their economic intelligence

Businesses have traditionally been organised in a way that compartmentalises economic decision making within the enterprise, constricting it to a group of people called the ‘managers’. This group has the task to be the ‘economic brain’ of the organisation, taking care of the economic survival and growth, while the rest are to be devoid of all economic thinking.

This division, however, requires a good communications channel between the ‘brain’ and the ‘body’. As corporations grow and responsiveness begins to matter more in our fast paced age, this channel becomes overloaded and noisy. The solution? Add more brain cells? Make the channel fatter? No, I would rather say “decentralise the economic reasoning of the enterprise!” But is this possible?

This long-standing status quo has created the unfortunate perception that employees generally have low economic intelligence and cannot be entrusted to deal with money matters. But at the same time, these same people, in their private lives, go shopping every day, seek out the best holiday packages, and sign contracts for car leases or house mortgages. Nobody was born with these particular skills, people have learned them.

It doesn’t take much to obtain the skills to work in The Transaction Company. We just have to bring sensible and simple economic feedback mechanisms into the workplace. This, in fact, is precisely what the concept is about, thus creating a self-learning environment where people can quickly orient themselves and progress much on their own. The higher degree of both independence and interaction, the simplicity of monetary transactions, the overall transparency of the organisation, all these factors contribute to a great place, not just to learn, but to have fun too.

This would gradually lead to the collective economic intelligence of the enterprise becoming both more evenly spread across it, as well as having a higher overall level compared to traditional businesses. Transaction companies will still have their ‘economic brain’, but it will be relieved to pursue more pleasurable and higher-level tasks.

Fig. 2. Distribution of economic intelligence across the enterprise

The greater independence, responsibility and social skills that The Transaction Company teaches would also benefit people beyond their jobs, in their personal and social life. Do not be surprised if we eventually witness some profound shifts in our society too!

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