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December 10, 2019
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
In Orange Organizations, strategy and execution are king. In Green Organizations, the company culture is paramount. CEOs of Green Organizations claim that promoting the culture and shared values is their primary task. The focus on culture elevates human resources (HR) to a central role. The HR director is often an influential member of the executive team and a counselor to the CEO.
The most exciting breakthroughs of the twenty-first century will not occur because of technology, but because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human.
Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.
from a Teal perspective, I don’t want to be a father to anybody in the organization, not even a caring, serving father.
Self-management: Teal Organizations
Wholeness: Organizations
Evolutionary purpose:
twin brothers of powerlessness: resignation and resentment.
the shame of management.
What if power weren’t a zero-sum game? What if we could create organizational structures and practices that didn’t need empowerment because, by design, everybody was powerful and no one powerless?
Workers are lazy. If they are not watched, they will not work diligently. Workers work primarily for money. They will do what it takes to make as much money as possible. Workers put their own interest ahead of what is best for the organization. They are selfish. Workers perform best and are most effective if they have one simple repeatable task to accomplish. Workers are not capable of making good decisions about important
matters that affect the economic performance of the company. Bosses are good at making these decisions. Workers do not want to be responsible for their actions or for decisions that affect the performance of the organization. Workers need care and protection, just as children need the care of their parents. Workers should be compensated by the hour or by the number of “pieces” produced. Bosses should be paid a salary and possibly receive bonuses and stock. Workers are like interchangeable parts of machines. One “good” worker is pretty much the same as any other “good” worker.
Workers need to be told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Bosses need ...
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AES people: Are creative, thoughtful, trustworthy adults, capable of making important decisions; Are accountable and responsible for their decisions and actions; Are fallible. We make mistakes, sometimes on purpose; Are unique; and Want to use our talents and skills to make a positive contribution to the organization and the world.46
Thieves because everything was locked up in storage rooms. Lazy, as their working time was
People don’t need pressure from above, but they still need to get a sense of whether they are doing well. Teal Organizations measure indicators like team results, productivity, and profit, just like other organizations—except
performance and outcomes are discussed foremost at the team level: Are we collectively doing a good job contributing to the organization’s purpose?
Teal Organizations are high on trust and low on fears. Feedback in such environments feels less threatening, and most organizations in this research are places where colleagues exchange feedback frequently.
people choose to leave before they are dismissed.
dynamics of self-management give people natural clues that they might not be in the right place.
In the absence of bosses, the process to determine who gets to take home how much money must be peer-based.
Once people make enough money to cover their basic needs, what matters more than incentives and bonuses is that work is meaningful and that they can express their talents and callings at work.
these inform how teams are set up, how decisions get made, how roles are defined and distributed, how salaries are set, how people are recruited or dismissed, and so on.
how can everyone be powerful?
Power is not viewed as a zero-sum game, where the power I have is necessarily power taken away from you.
In Teal Organizations, people are not empowered by the good graces of other people.
Teal Organizations tweak the traditional recruitment process to allow both parties a better, hopefully more truthful look at each other.
by future teammates who simply want to decide if they would want to work with the candidate on a daily basis.
candidates feel invited to be honest too.
because every single organization in this research insists that a candidate’s attitude is equally if not more important than her skills and experience.
skills and experience matter, but generally they take second place.
when people are self-motivated, they can pick up new skills
and experience in surprisingly little time.
[A bad hire is] someone who is a chronic complainer, who is not happy, who blames others, who doesn’t take responsibility, who’s not honest, who doesn’t trust other people. A bad hire would be someone who needs specific direction and waits to be told what to do. A poor hire would be someone who wasn’t flexible and who says, “It’s not my job.”92
significant number of teammates interview the candidates—10 to 12 interviews is no rarity—providing ample time for both parties to feel each other out. It is, in essence, a two-way discovery process to answer one fundamental question: Are we meant to journey together?
Teal Organizations, in comparison, invest significantly more time and energy welcoming new colleagues.
The training often touches, in one way or another, on the three breakthroughs of self-management, wholeness, and evolutionary purpose.
Self-management: For people who join from traditional hierarchical organizations, self-management can be puzzling at first. A training program can help with understanding how it works, what is different and what stays the same, what skills are needed to thrive in such an environment, and so forth.
Striving for wholeness: New colleagues are also trained in the assumptions, ground rules, and values that
allow people to show up more authentically.
All new hires at Heiligenfeld go through six training modules that include topics like “self-mastery” and “dealing with failure.”
Listening to evolutionary purpose: Another central part of the onboarding revolves around the organization’s purpose: What is it and where does it come from?
the more you are seeking to contribute, the more your reputation grows and the more people will turn to you for advice and help—and the more you will be trusted to take on new roles and launch new initiatives.
people were constantly learning by making decisions and seeking advice, working in voluntary task forces, picking up skills and knowledge that elsewhere would be concentrated in management and staff functions.
employees are in charge of their own learning; there is no HR function that defines training programs and determines who can attend what training programs or at what point.
In most organizations, the higher-ups have no fixed working hours; they are trusted to have self-discipline and work until the job is done.
there is an unspoken assumption that people in managerial positions should put their commitment to work above any other commitment in their lives.
We’ve been told that we should assess other people as objectively as possible. That’s a tragic mistake.
Assessments are never objective
