Sep 1, 2026 · 1 hr 43 min · 16 segments
Subtitle: And, How Can We Be More Like Dolly and Less Like Donald? In this episode of All American Why, Michael asks why America still organizes so much of working life around systems designed…
Maybe a deeper question
The Department of Labor has been promoting employee ownership models, including ESOP, worker cooperatives, and employee ownership trusts.
In 2026, the Department of Labor reported that ESOP participation had grown about 8% over the previous decade, while the number of worker cooperatives had more than doubled.
So what happens if the people creating the value also own meaningful pieces of the enterprise? Maybe part of this conversation is not whether businesses should make money, but who owns the thing making the money? Then we have the thing about time.
The traditional workplace sometimes operates as if every human being received the same factory brain.
Researchers use the term to describe differences in people's natural sleep-wake preferences.
A 2025 systematic review examined 65 studies and found evidence in many of them that some cognitive performance was better when people were tested closer to their preferred time of day.
That does not mean that everyone has one magical productivity hour, but it does suggest something pretty obvious.
Human brains do not all operate identically on the same clock, meaning not everyone should be working at the same time or working nine to five.
What I don't particularly care about is unnecessarily controlling every hour between assigning the work and receiving the result.
Accountability asks whether you did what you said you would do, whether it was good, whether it was on time, whether you communicated, and whether you took responsibility when something went wrong.
Maybe a deeper question
The Department of Labor has been promoting employee ownership models, including ESOP, worker cooperatives, and employee ownership trusts.
In 2026, the Department of Labor reported that ESOP participation had grown about 8% over the previous decade, while the number of worker cooperatives had more than doubled.
So what happens if the people creating the value also own meaningful pieces of the enterprise? Maybe part of this conversation is not whether businesses should make money, but who owns the thing making the money? Then we have the thing about time.
The traditional workplace sometimes operates as if every human being received the same factory brain.
Researchers use the term to describe differences in people's natural sleep-wake preferences.
A 2025 systematic review examined 65 studies and found evidence in many of them that some cognitive performance was better when people were tested closer to their preferred time of day.
That does not mean that everyone has one magical productivity hour, but it does suggest something pretty obvious.
Human brains do not all operate identically on the same clock, meaning not everyone should be working at the same time or working nine to five.
What I don't particularly care about is unnecessarily controlling every hour between assigning the work and receiving the result.
Accountability asks whether you did what you said you would do, whether it was good, whether it was on time, whether you communicated, and whether you took responsibility when something went wrong.
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