How (Not) To Do Business

About How (Not) To Do Business

Stories of breaking convention. Practitioner stories from worker co-operatives and other businesses run on democratic, egalitarian lines — how the model works, and the challenges they face.

Publisher

Changing the Narrative

Category

business · business · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

11 Jun 2026

Latest episode

6 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

6 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   6 Oct 2026

   Impact Before Profit, and Still Growing: Inside a radical publisher - Veruschka Selbach, Pluto Press

   A small publisher can’t buy paper by the warehouse-load, so it can’t price books the way the corporate houses do. Pluto Press makes up the difference another way. Some titles carry others, and when a book matters more than it is likely to sell, Pluto looks for an organisation to buy copies at a discount, which raises the print run, lowers the cost of every copy and lets the book go out at a fair price. Its ownership was shaped by similar constraints. When Pluto needed investment in 2018, staff on publishing salaries couldn’t put money in, so the Pluto Educational Trust, a charity, invested and took a 60% stake. Three former staff hold 30%, and the current staff hold 10% through their own co-operative, with a seat on the board. The trust also lends to Pluto when the banks won’t. Veruschka Selbach, Pluto’s managing director, joined me to talk through how that works day to day: why a split decision on a book goes back for more work rather than to a vote, why she counts long service as an asset, what the business side of a values-led publisher actually demands, and what it takes for a book to change how people think. Watch in full on the Changing the Narrative website: https://content.changingthenarrative.media/impact-before-profit-and-still-growing-inside-a-radical-publisher/ (https://content.changingthenarrative.media/impact-before-profit-and-still-growing-inside-a-radical-publisher/) Changing the Narrative is independent and has no advertisers and no sponsors to ensure that remains so. Paid membership is what helps sustain the work we do and helps change the narrative at a time when it’s needed most – Become a member (https://changingthenarrative.media/support) Follow Changing the Narrative on social media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/changingthenarrative.media/ (https://www.instagram.com/changingthenarrative.media/) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/changing-the-narrative-media/ (https://www.linkedin.com/company/changing-the-narrative-media/) BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/changingnarrative.bsky.social (https://bsky.app/profile/changingnarrative.bsky.social) In this episode How Pluto keeps impact-first titles viable: some books carrying others, and partner organisations buying discounted copies to raise the print run and lower the cost of every copy Why an independent publisher prices at the top end of the market, without the economies of scale the corporate houses have Staff first: equal parental leave for fathers and mothers, two months’ sick leave on full pay, a four-and-a-half-day week, and five of a team of 18 who have stayed more than 20 years Who owns Pluto since 2018 – a charitable trust, three former staff and a co-operative of current employees – and why it isn’t a full worker co-op How the biggest decisions need the agreement of every shareholder group, staff included The weekly meeting, open to anyone in the company, where Pluto decides which books to publish, and what happens when the room is split What a managing director does when she is one voice among many Opening a US office in Las Vegas in 2022, and bringing Lawrence & Wishart, founded in 1936, under Pluto as an imprint What it takes for a book to shift how people think: accessibility and timing About the guest Veruschka Selbach is managing director of Pluto Press, the independent publisher founded in London in 1969. She has worked in publishing for more than 20 years, mostly on the academic and trade side, after answering a newspaper ad in Cape Town, South Africa, for a marketing assistant at Oxford University Press. In 2012 she co-founded Do Sustainability with three former Earthscan colleagues, publishing short, practical books on sustainability for a business audience; it published 50 titles before it was sold in 2015. She joined Pluto as managing director in 2017, after working with the press as a consultant. Links mentioned in this episode Pluto Press (https://www.plutobooks.com/) (London, England), the independent publisher Veruschka leads The structure and governance of Pluto Press (https://www.plutobooks.com/blog/the-structure-and-governance-of-pluto-press/), Pluto’s own explanation of how it is owned and run Pluto Educational Trust (https://plutoeducationaltrust.org/), the charity that holds 60% of Pluto, and the Decolonial Centre (https://decolonialcentre.org/), one of its projects Lawrence & Wishart (https://www.plutobooks.com/lawrence-wishart/), founded in 1936 and now a Pluto imprint Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain (https://www.plutobooks.com/product/staying-power/) by Peter Fryer, first published by Pluto in 1984 Red Prepper: Building Collective Resilience in an Age of Collapse (https://www.plutobooks.com/product/red-prepper/) by Eric Shonkwiler Chapters 00:00 – A book’s impact, found years later 00:47 – Companies that break convention, and succeed 01:07 – Impact before profit, and still growing 02:40 – From a newspaper ad in Cape Town to publishing 04:41 – Co-founding Do Sustainability after Earthscan 05:27 – Joining Pluto Press 06:04 – Taking out less than you put in 08:47 – Why people stay: long service as memory 10:10 – What sets Pluto apart: a mission that holds it to account 12:11 – How some books pay for others 14:33 – When crises bring new readers to the backlist 16:22 – What to do with profits from crisis-driven sales 17:34 – A not-for-profit in practice 17:56 – Who owns Pluto: a trust, former staff and the team 19:45 – Why not a full worker co-op? 20:58 – The board, and how the biggest decisions are made 22:28 – Why slower decisions are worth it 23:54 – Growing by acquisition: Lawrence & Wishart 25:44 – Making your own luck 27:53 – The spreadsheets behind the mission 30:43 – Passion, creativity and partnerships 33:40 – Sharing without money 34:22 – How a book gets published at Pluto 37:13 – When the room is split: the bring back 38:19 – What a managing director does 39:58 – Opening a US office in Las Vegas 43:24 – One editorial team across two continents 44:01 – US demand for books on mutual aid and care 45:29 – What it takes for an idea to change minds 47:02 – Be realistic, then prove the alternative works 48:22 – Building the case for something better

2. 

   1 Sept 2026

   Neighbourhood Care: The nursing model where better care costs less - Buurtzorg

   A patient in a fragmented home care system can have twenty or thirty different people come through the front door in a month, each delivering one timed task from a list. Buurtzorg sends one nurse, who does whatever that person needs – and whose job includes teaching them to need less of it. That inversion is the model. Jos de Blok started it in 2006 with a single team and nobody above them. It now runs around nine hundred teams of ten to twelve nurses, who hire their own colleagues, run their own rounds and split in two when they outgrow the neighbourhood. There are still no managers. The first objection it met was that nurses qualified to work that way would cost more – what happened instead was that doctors started sending Buurtzorg the most complex patients they had, because they trusted the nurses with them. Changing the Narrative is independent and has no advertisers and no sponsors to ensure that remains so. Paid membership is what helps sustain the work we do and help change the narrative at a time when it’s needed most -https://changingthenarrative.media/support (https://changingthenarrative.media/support) In this episode • How home care was reorganised into billable products and tasks, and why that left patients more dependent rather than less • What a Buurtzorg team actually is: ten to twelve nurses, one neighbourhood, no manager • Why Jos argues that doing the right thing costs the system less rather than more • The two objections the model met first – that higher-qualified nurses would be more expensive, and that it only took the simple cases • Growth without marketing, and teams that split like cells once they reach twelve • April 2016, when around 2,400 domestic care workers moved across and left their managers behind • What happens when a team can’t resolve something on its own, and where the coaches come in • Taking the model abroad – Taiwan, China and the turn towards primary care – and what “humanity over bureaucracy” means in practice About the guest Jos de Blok is the founder of Buurtzorg and a community nurse by training. He started a business-school degree, left it, and qualified as a nurse instead, working as a nurse for fourteen years before moving into management as a director in Dutch home care. He founded Buurtzorg in 2006 with a single team; it now runs around nine hundred neighbourhood nursing teams with no managers, alongside arms for mental health (Buurtzorg T), youth care (Buurtzorg Jong) and domestic care, and he puts its turnover at around €600 million. Links mentioned in this episode Buurtzorg (Almelo, Netherlands), the neighbourhood nursing organisation Jos founded in 2006: https://www.buurtzorgnederland.com/ (https://www.buurtzorgnederland.com/) Buurtzorg International, which supports the model outside the Netherlands: https://www.buurtzorg.com/ (https://www.buurtzorg.com/) Buurtzorg in Taiwan, the partner organisation marking its tenth year: https://www.buurtzorg.com/buurtzorg-in-taiwan/ (https://www.buurtzorg.com/buurtzorg-in-taiwan/) The World Health Organization on primary health care: https://www.who.int/health-topics/primary-health-care (https://www.who.int/health-topics/primary-health-care) Full show notes and the archive: https://content.changingthenarrative.media/corporation-tax-how-you-know-if-a-company-is-good-or-bad-regardless-of-its-size (https://content.changingthenarrative.media/corporation-tax-how-you-know-if-a-company-is-good-or-bad-regardless-of-its-size) Chapters 00:00 Introduction 02:13 Meeting Jos: from business school to the nursing round 03:14 Why he built something different: care going “industrial” 06:33 When care became a product: fragmentation and dependency 10:10 The first steps: a model with every answer, and a five-year plan 12:19 What Buurtzorg is: neighbourhood nursing, and how a team runs 15:56 Why self-organisation: trust, autonomy and learning from experience 20:34 Overcoming resistance: “it’ll cost more” and “only the simple cases” 26:53 A €600m organisation on a strikingly simple financial system 27:05 Growth without marketing: teams that split like cells 29:36 The 2016 takeover: 2,400 workers leave their managers behind 32:19 When teams struggle: coaches and the “self-cleaning” process 35:53 Going global: Taiwan, China and the turn to primary care 39:44 Can it work anywhere? Demography, prevention and the WHO 42:45 The takeaway: humanity over bureaucracy 43:45 Closing reflections and outro

3. 

   18 Aug 2026

   Making locally-grown organic food more accessible - Unicorn Grocery

   Unicorn is a wholefood supermarket in Manchester, UK, owned by the roughly 50 people who work there. Every member is a director, and every member is paid the same hourly wage, whatever job they do. Two-thirds of what it sells is organic, including all the fresh fruit and veg, and it chalks its own prices up on the shop wall next to Tesco’s, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons’ and Asda’s so customers can check the gap for themselves. Thirty years on, it’s still trading. My guests are Debbie and Kellie, two of Unicorn’s worker-owners. We get into how they hold those prices where they are; the money the shop gives away each year, worked out from its wage bill rather than its profit and taken out of takings before profit is counted; a no-strings grants fund for the UK farms they buy from; the farmland they bought and the farming that didn’t work; why they have never opened a second shop and published a free guide instead; and why “owner” turned out to be the wrong word for what they are. Show notes, links and the full archive: https://content.changingthenarrative.media/making-locally-grown-organic-food-more-accessible (https://content.changingthenarrative.media/making-locally-grown-organic-food-more-accessible) Unicorn Grocery - https://www.unicorn-grocery.coop/ (https://www.unicorn-grocery.coop/) Grow a Grocery, Unicorn’s free guide to starting a wholefood co-operative - https://www.unicorn-grocery.coop/about-us/grow-your-own-grocery/ (https://www.unicorn-grocery.coop/about-us/grow-your-own-grocery/) The Kindling Trust and Kindling Farm - https://kindling.org.uk/ (https://kindling.org.uk/) How (Not) To Do Business is from Changing the Narrative - a show about companies breaking convention on how they’re structured and run, and how they engage with their communities. It’s member-funded and ad-free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Chapters 00:00 The 1% and 4% funds 00:39 How Not to Do Business 00:59 A whole food supermarket that competes on price 02:15 Meet Debbie and Kellie 03:35 The Solidarity Fund 04:46 How they both ended up at Unicorn 07:21 What a co-op gives you that a normal job doesn’t 09:48 From weekly meetings to sociocracy 14:02 What Unicorn actually is 16:22 Flat pay, no hierarchy, low overheads 20:43 Growers, climate and the Growers Fund 25:26 How this differs from a supermarket 27:43 Is organic really more expensive? 28:41 Price boards and word of mouth 30:31 Why there’s only one Unicorn 36:29 Growth to what end? 38:07 Stewards, not owners 40:25 Why the language changed — and shrinking back from 75 members 42:48 Recruiting for a co-op 47:19 Raising money from customers: loan stock 52:20 The farm: what worked and what didn’t 58:37 Is the UK hostile to worker co-ops? 1:02:47 What happened after the co-op heyday 1:04:12 The one thing to take away 1:06:49 Close

4. 

   14 Jul 2026

   Outlandish - The tech agency with no boss and no shareholders

   Outlandish is a digital agency in Finsbury Park, London with no boss and no shareholders - a worker co-operative, owned and run by the people who do the work, that puts its profits into social projects like the community workspace Space4. In this episode Chris spoke with two of its member-owners, Natasha Natarajan and Maddy Neghabian, about running a business by consent rather than hierarchy, and about a strange new problem: now that “it’s almost become mainstream to be good,” how do you explain why a genuinely democratic model is different? We get into surviving a shrinking market and the arrival of AI on their own terms, why co-ops remain so hard to fund, and the cultural barrier beneath it all - a business world still built around the lone entrepreneur. As they put it, “we take the risk together and we support each other.” Listen and browse the full archive at https://content.changingthenarrative.media (https://content.changingthenarrative.media) Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 01:43 Exploring Outlandish’s mission and services 04:18 What sets Outlandish apart? 05:52 Outlandish’s unique selling point 09:13 Challenges in the co-op sector 11:59 Adapting to AI in the workplace 13:46 Maintaining cooperative values 16:41 The two-tiered system of membership 21:29 Funding challenges and the co-op model 25:30 The struggles of co-ops in a competitive landscape 29:18 Fostering collaboration and new business models 31:59 Co-op vs conventional business experience 34:56 Challenging conventional business narratives 35:23 Promoting co-op awareness and education Outlandish: https://outlandish.com/ (https://outlandish.com/) Space4: https://space4.tech/ (https://space4.tech/) Co-operatives UK: https://www.uk.coop/ (https://www.uk.coop/) CoTech: https://coops.tech/ (https://coops.tech/) New episodes of How (Not) To Do Business are available every second Tuesday. If you’d like to support the show, please consider becoming a paying member.

5. 

   30 Jun 2026

   Calverts - How a worker co-op outlasted the collapse of London's print trade

   This week on How (Not) To Do Business, Chris King sits down with Cherry Haynes and Siôn Whellens of Calverts, the East London design and print co-operative founded in 1977. Calverts has no managers and complete pay parity — everyone earns the same — and it has outlasted almost every other printer in London. Cherry and Siôn explain why the co-op is happy to hire people who are sceptical of co-ops rather than true believers, how it survived the collapse of London’s print industry by refusing to compete on price, and why they care more about who controls a business than who owns it. Along the way: a 16-year average staff retention, what happens when someone has to leave a place with no line managers, the difference between co-operatives and Employee Ownership Trusts, and practical first steps for anyone thinking about starting one. Chapters: 00:00 Show introduction 01:14 Introducing Calverts 02:27 How Calverts works as a co-op 03:07 Who they hire — and why 06:56 Surviving London’s declining print industry 09:37 How the culture has changed 12:57 Staff retention and tough decisions 17:35 Learning from other co-operatives 20:17 Managing informal hierarchies 23:00 New generations and systemic change 25:54 Barriers to wider co-op adoption 31:02 Hope and agency in the face of systemic change 35:19 Co-ops vs Employee Ownership Trusts 40:57 How to get started 44:13 The business myth Calverts challenges 45:44 Further resources Resources mentioned: Calverts - https://www.calverts.coop/ (https://www.calverts.coop/) workers.coop (Worker Co-op Federation) - https://www.workers.coop/ (https://www.workers.coop/) Stir to Action - https://www.stirtoaction.com/ (https://www.stirtoaction.com/) Centre for Democratic Business / 21st Century Social Clubs - https://www.democraticbusiness.org/ (https://www.democraticbusiness.org/) CoTech (tech co-ops network) and forum - https://www.coops.tech/ (https://www.coops.tech/) / https://community.coops.tech/ (https://community.coops.tech/) Find this episode and the full archive at content.changingthenarrative.media (https://content.changingthenarrative.media), where you can become a member and sign up for the newsletter.

6. 

   11 Jun 2026

   Suma - Inside Europe's biggest equal pay workers' co-operative

   Discover how Suma, the Europe’s largest equal pay worker-owned co-operative, challenges conventional business paradigms and proves that ethical, egalitarian practices can sustain a thriving enterprise. This deep dive explores their innovative approach to ownership, pay equity, decision-making, and resilience in a capitalist world. This episode offers practical insights into building sustainable, ethical workplaces that defy traditional hierarchies. Whether you’re a business leader, entrepreneur, or activist, understanding Suma’s approach can spark ideas about reimagining work for fairness, resilience, and community benefit. Subscribe and Support: https://content.changingthenarrative.media (https://content.changingthenarrative.media) BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/changingnarrative.bsky.social (https://bsky.app/profile/changingnarrative.bsky.social) RESOURCES & LINKS Suma: https://www.suma.coop (https://www.suma.coop) workers.coop: https://www.workers.coop (https://www.workers.coop) PunchCard Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@workerscoop (https://www.youtube.com/@workerscoop)⁩ The Hive Cafe Huddersfield: https://hivecommunity.org.uk (https://hivecommunity.org.uk) Guest: Beau Bulman Host/Creator: Chris King MAIN INSIGHTS INCLUDE Suma’s origins in the late 1970s countercultural movement, emphasising community and vegetarian ideals. The core principle of equal pay regardless of role, tenure, or hierarchy How a decentralised, democratic decision-making process works at scale with 250+ members Recruitment practices focused on shared values and work ethic, not just skills The internal and external barriers to adopting models like Suma’s in traditional businesses The impact of culture and collective responsibility on organisational resilience Strategies for integrating democratic principles into conventional business structures The importance of transparency, feedback, and collective accountability Challenges related to growth, decision-making speed, and geographic autonomy How worker cooperatives like Suma can influence wider societal narratives about work and ownership TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Introduction 03:07 What is Suma 09:05 The source of Suma’s resilience 10:59 How to recruit for the right people 14:08 Are there opportunities for the older and less able? 16:20 Adaptability and Resilience in Operations 17:23 Attracting Specialists in a Cooperative Model 21:01 The Impact of Equal Pay on Workplace Culture 23:09 Feedback Mechanisms and Performance Reviews 25:44 Informal Hierarchies and Team Accountability 28:46 Challenges of Direct Democracy in Business 31:30 Balancing Autonomy and Decision-Making 33:34 Implementing Sociocracy and Team Autonomy 35:38 Empowering Workers and Redefining Roles 39:12 Barriers to Egalitarian Workplaces 43:37 Challenging Traditional Business Narratives 44:36 Other co-op-related organisations to explore

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