Teal organizations are challenging everything we know about organizations. It pushes the boundary of the known organizational and management models.
Organizations, as humans, go through different stages of development, resembling the changes in the society and in our ability to collaborate. For example, the ability to collaborate, defines the organization’s behavior when facing uncertainty. The color Teal is a symbol for one of these developmental stages. The Teal worldview was introduced by Frederic Laloux in his book Reinventing Organizations after studying organizations that had already for decades been operating from this next-stage paradigm. Teal expresses a totally new way of thinking about work and the work life.
Typical organizations operating from the Teal worldview, are fully self-organized around their evolutionary purpose. This means that organizations are serving sustainable and human goals equally with business goals . The organization is able to disconnect from “the ego” and connect with the society and people’s intrinsic motivation. Unlike from traditional business, the organization does not consider to be important in itself. Teal organizations are able to see money, growth and even the company culture just as means for the purpose. When people feel that they have a shared meaning for the work, they can bring out new levels of trust and new means for organizing the work effectively.
In Teal organizations people can feel as whole, being able to bring out all of who they are to help the organization thrive. It means that in addition to the efficient and rational part of humans, all of us have an intuitive, emotional and curious part of ourselves that is needed especially in creative and innovative work. The Teal organizations can tap into the whole human potential without wearing people out.
Teal organization have developed unique structures, practices and culture to be able to thrive. The shared decision-making and conflict resolution mechanisms are quite different from even the modern management models built on empowerment. Many other daily practices are also somewhat different when they are informed by the Teal worldview. All in all, the Teal organizations are more soulful places which are bringing out the best of humanity in balance with business goals
Some sources to read more:
- The book Reinventing Organizations by Fredric Laloux. Behind the link you can find the original book, its audio version and also an excellent illustrated version which is a fast read and one of the best introductions into Teal. All of these are downloadable with a pay-what-feels-right model, showing trust and a great example of the Teal worldview.
- There is a shorter blog article by Laloux in Strategy+business with the title: Future of Management is Teal.
- If you prefer a slide set you can also check out Teal in that format.
- In a video format there is a 26 minute + (Q&A) presentation by Laloux RSA Replay: How to Become a Soulful Organisation and a shorter 9 minute intro (and connection to Lean and Agile) by “Agile For All”: Lean and Agile Adoption with the Laloux Culture Model.
- A collection of short videos by Laloux to guide the Transformation Journey
- The Teal community has created a collection of the concepts in the Reinventing Organizations Wiki.
- You might want to subsribe to the “Teal Newsletter” by Enlivening Edge
