Reinventing Organizations
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Reinventing Organizations
Laloux also gives an excellent example of trust himself. You can download his book on the website shown below: www.reinventingorganizations.com for free or you pay what you feel is right (which is very Integral thinking)!
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The way we manage organizations seems increasingly out of date. Survey after survey shows that a majority of employees feel disengaged from their companies. The epidemic of organizational disillusionment goes way beyond Corporate America-teachers, doctors, and nurses are leaving their professions in record numbers because the way we run schools and hospitals kills their vocation. Government agencies and nonprofits have a noble purpose, but working for these entities often feels soulless and lifeless just the same. All these organizations suffer from power games played at the top and powerlessness at lower levels, from infighting and bureaucracy, from endless meetings and a seemingly never-ending succession of change and cost-cutting programs. Deep inside, we long for soulful workplaces, for authenticity, community, passion, and purpose. The solution, according to many progressive scholars, lies with more enlightened management. But reality shows that this is not enough. In most cases, the system beats the individual-when managers or leaders go through an inner transformation, they end up leaving their organizations because they no longer feel like putting up with a place that is inhospitable to the deeper longings of their soul. We need more enlightened leaders, but we need something more: enlightened organizational structures and practices. But is there even such a thing? Can we conceive of enlightened organizations? In this groundbreaking book, the author shows that every time humanity has shifted to a new stage of consciousness in the past, it has invented a whole new way to structure and run organizations, each time bringing extraordinary breakthroughs in collaboration. A new shift in consciousness is currently underway. Could it help us invent a radically more soulful and purposeful way to run our businesses and nonprofits, schools and hospitals? The pioneering organizations researched for this book have already "cracked the code." Their founders have fundamentally questioned every aspect of management and have come up with entirely new organizational methods. Even though they operate in very different industries and geographies and did not know of each other's experiments, the structures and practices they have developed are remarkably similar. It's hard not to get excited about this finding: a new organizational model seems to be emerging, and it promises a soulful revolution in the workplace. "Reinventing Organizations" describes in practical detail how organizations large and small can operate in this new paradigm. Leaders, founders, coaches, and consultants will find this work a joyful handbook, full of insights, examples, and inspiring stories.
Red organizations are classic power systems that developed 10,000 years ago and you can still see them in mafias. Selfishness, exploitation, authoritarian hierarchies, and power imbalances are the characteristics of these organizations. Tasks are given with chains of command but with short term perspectives. Long term vision has no value in these organizations.
Evolutionary purpose: Instead of predicting and controlling, organizations should sense and respond. The old school practice in organizations is to visualize five years ahead and plan for the next year but in Teal, organizations should look twenty years ahead and plan for the next day.
When talking about self-management, one should keep in mind that self-managing organizations do not make everyone equal, but they let employees become the best version of themselves. Overlapping hierarchies can be seen here, in the matter of development, skill, expertise, etc., where employees can help each other and add value.
Frederic called these organizations "teal" as a reference to the different stages of human development. He denoted these stages with different colors (e.g. orange, green, and teal) and described the 'breakthroughs' of each stage of development. For teal organizations (the most developed stage according Laloux) the breakthroughs are "evolutionary purpose", "self-management" and "wholeness".
Ever since, we have been deluged with references to his book, his theoretical framework, and case studies. These have emanated from organizations who have set out to "become teal", from conferences focusing on the "teal paradigm", and from fans around the world who feel they have (by reading a book) magically entered "the next stage of human consciousness".
Let's be clear. We're not saying the book is wrong. What we are saying is reality is more nuanced than the way it's being interpreted. Laloux himself warns: "Let's be careful not to oversimplify! [...] No organization is ever a pure breed." But many (people and organizations) ignore this crucial disclaimer.
So, we warn people and organizations about taking these paradigms too seriously. We add: do not embark on a journey "to become teal" without understanding there is no such thing as a totally teal organization in existence.
What's our concern with this? Well, because the theoretical model offers such a spiritual way of looking at the world, many people think that "teal organizations" are strongly focused on spirituality. We need to burst this bubble and tell you that this is simply not the case.
What is maybe the most important point we want to put forward is this: a theory is often a reflection of its creator. In Laloux' case, we experienced this first hand in his home last year. We felt Frederic's and his wife's spiritual side when we discussed, over diner, his life and his perspective on these organizations (see this earlier blog post for our reflections on that meeting).
Although the ORANGE model is common at big, multinational companies, GREEN organizations have also emerged. GREEN companies break hierarchies down even further, centering work around a strong shared culture.
Other CEOs and leaders who have introduced self-management to their organizations have had similar experiences, noting that lower-level employees, or those typically with little influence in a traditional organization, are the most positive about the prospect of implementing TEAL practices.
The authors help leaders and managers understand major scaling challenges and show how to identify excellent niches, spread them and cultivate the right mindset within their organizations. They also set out scaling principles that guide leaders in their daily decisions.
According to Laloux, Teal organizations, like many schools, view themselves as places of deep introspection; sharing; consensus and approval; collegiality; trust; passionate commitment to the development of character and wisdom; the strength of personal connections more than a fountain of dogma. This profile means that where we WANT to be as school organizations is somewhere in the Green-Teal end of the organizational spectrum.
This is a book that I will refer to many times; I will skim my highlights and add them to my slide deck. I have already had a communication with Laloux, and promised him that he will find some examples of Teal-leaning schools in my upcoming book, #EdJourney. Maybe he and I can collaborate in the future on just how this evolution might/will take place within K-12 education. I have sensed this world of Teal-leaning organizations for some time; it is exciting to name what we knew was there all along!
The infographic shows that greater trust and consciousness leads to higher engagement and better results. Better results is proven out by case study after case study. As organizations develop from one stage to the next, they develop a more human approach that leads to greater trust.
ValueMatch has applied the definitions of Laloux in the explanation of the culture assessment so organizations that want to change to "teal" can measure how far they have come along this path. This is done by mapping the development level of both the present and the desired situation. It also makes clear what steps need to be taken in self-management, wholeness and evolutionary purpose to bridge this gap. In addition, the culture assessment brings the dominant values of the employees to the fore. This makes it clear to what extent the employees can easily move towards a teal culture and who the potential pioneers are when it comes to introducing this culture. This in turn helps accelerate the transition towards teal and avoid potential pitfalls during its implementation. For example, if teal is missing, employees need more guidance to reach the desired level of self-management. After all, the growth towards more independence and competencies should keep pace with the development of more self-responsibility.
The first premise of teal organizations is that they assume that the employees are willing people who, when provided with the right working environment, can be trusted, are motivated and willing to contribute to the organization. The degree of trust is considerable when compared to traditional organizations and also means that there is a high level of transparency in which, for example, all salaries are known.
In the book, presentations and other forms, the Reinventing Organizations principle is presented as a primary method of creating a people-friendly work environment, we also see that it tends more towards green harmony-driven cultures than yellow. Yellow, in line with Graves' work, has the primary focus of creating sustainable solutions for people and society. Graves' drive in this matter, is that our current status quo (in time) is no longer tenable and will create environmental and financial crises. The great value of Laloux's research is that he has found many practical examples of teal (yellow) in organizations that were still unknown in Graves' time. ValueMatch makes grateful use of this in its assessments, but clearly distinguishes whether it is an expression of yellow or green. 041b061a72