Cooperative by Design: What if it was designed into the system?

For those working in strategy, innovation, digital, organisational development, delivery management, participation, missions-based working, and change management, this shift is critical. We need structures that make cooperation the default rather than the exception. I’ve blogged about my time in Lambeth embedding cooperative ways into the organisation and place, but how we can do this elsewhere?

Three shifts towards designing for cooperation

1. From transactional partnerships to embedded collaboration

Partnerships often rely on contracts, SLAs, and KPIs — but true cooperation goes deeper. It requires designing structures that make collaboration instinctive and mutually beneficial.

→ The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) highlights how community wealth building can redesign local economies to prioritise cooperation between councils, businesses, and residents (CLES).

Step to apply: Map out how your organisation currently collaborates. Where are partnerships purely transactional? How could funding, decision-making, or governance structures be redesigned to foster deeper cooperation?

2. From centralised control to distributed decision-making

Many organisations talk about empowering teams, but real cooperation requires redistributing power. When decision-making is shared, cooperation isn’t just expected — it becomes necessary.

→ The Royal Society of Arts (RSA)’s ‘Democracy in Our Hands’ report (RSA) explores how distributed governance models build stronger, more resilient communities.

→ In Amsterdam, the city government has embraced citizen assemblies and participatory decision-making, giving residents real control over budgeting and policy priorities (Amsterdam City Government).

Step to apply: Identify where decision-making in your organisation is overly centralised. Could teams, partners, or communities take a bigger role in shaping outcomes?

3. From competition to shared success metrics

Most performance metrics reinforce internal competition — between teams, departments, and even partners. But cooperation thrives when success is measured collectively, not individually.

→ In Barcelona, the city’s municipal policies have introduced cooperative housing and community-led energy projects, ensuring success is measured by collective well-being and sustainability rather than profit alone (Barcelona City Council).

→ The Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL) supports cities and businesses to redesign success metrics based on social and environmental thresholds, shifting organisations away from competition towards mutual benefit (DEAL).

Step to apply: Look at your organisation’s KPIs. Are they reinforcing competition, or do they encourage cooperation? What would happen if teams and partners were measured by shared outcomes instead of individual success?

4. A call to action: Let’s build cooperation into the system

If we want organisations that thrive in complexity, cooperation can’t just be an expectation — it needs to be embedded in how we work, decide, and measure success.

So ask yourself: Where in your organisation is cooperation a challenge? What structures could shift to make it the natural way of working?

Let’s stop treating cooperation as an afterthought. Let’s design for it from the start.