The Freedom to Give and Receive
Where is the joy of giving and receiving?
Why can’t we fully experience this wonderful feeling at work?
Do we really live in an exchange economy?
When I was working at PEMTec I used to keep a box of chocolate pralines in the drawer of my desk, Ritter Sport’s yummy Schoggiwürfel. I used to hand them out to colleagues as an expression of special gratitude, for example when a colleague engineer would provide me with a much needed input or when our technician Martin managed to tune an ECM machine to a record level of accuracy. The chocolate was of course of little material value, but it was a wonderful mean to show recognition and foster relations with colleagues.
I also used chocolate as a sweet “bribe” to speed up passage of my paperwork through the bureaucratic mechanisms of the company. The packing of Ritter’s pralines was particularly suitable for this purpose, because they could be easily stapled to documents. Imagine, you sit at your desk and find a piece of paper in your inbox that has a bit of chocolate clipped to it. Of course you’re going to give it higher priority!
As Ritter’s marketing slogan goes: “quadratisch, praktisch, gut” 
Some people say the Transaction Company is about internal markets . I say it’s basically about the freedom to give and receive. The market comes as a secondary effect.
We, humans, are social beings and companies are essentially collaborative efforts. People running businesses gradually begin to understand the importance of collaboration. Today we have wonderful technology that enables us to exchange ideas, to make contacts and work together. But we miss a crucial bit: no matter how good our technology is, no matter how well we understand the various benefits of being interconnected, you can’t have real collaboration in the firm unless you give employees the freedom to reward each other for their contributions.
This is what the Transaction Company is about.
To receive your remuneration from your peers with whom you work with feels much more satisfying and fulfilling than simply getting a formal paycheck from the company at the end of the month. Reward, as is collaboration, should feel personal and engaging, have a human face. It doesn’t have to feel anonymous and distant, wearing the artificial face of a “corporate” entity.
I don’t know about you, but after this post I crave a chunk of crunchy chocolate
I hate to always be the one to throw cold water on your interesting ideas …. but how are you going to download bits of chocolate in this virtual economy?
This is a good reminder that giving and receiving is a natural human response and that a healthy institution would work with this impulse rather than see it as an anomaly. Thanks!
You could, for example, replace chocolate with money
“Ewww! But money is a dirty word… a taboo topic…”
To which I say: “Money has no meaning itself, only the meaning we give to it.”
I want people to change their thinking about money. So Ron, every time you think about money, imagine chocolate… or maybe love
For example: “I receive chocolate”, “I give you love”, etc.
How does it feel now?