Reinventing Organizations Quotes

“If managers have no weapons, there is no need to invest in a culture that keeps people from using their weapons.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“In a world where organizations are self-managing, living systems, we don’t need to impose change from the outside.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“Not surprisingly, people resist being moved around.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“a year after it has been set, a target is in most cases just an arbitrary number—either”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“Too often we self-censor, too often we fail to fight for our concerns, for fear of being branded a dreamer, an activist, or a troublemaker.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“Many people transitioning to this stage take up practices like meditation, centering, martial arts, yoga, or simply walking in nature to find a quiet place that allows the inner voice of the soul to speak its truth and guidance. Individuals who live from this perspective and connect to a deeper sense of purpose can become quite fearless in pursuit of their calling. With their ego under control, they don’t fear failure as much as not trying.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“In Orange Organizations, leadership might pay lip service to the values; but when the rubber hits the road and leaders have to choose between profits and values, they will predictably go for the former. They cannot uphold a practice and a culture (in this case, a values-driven culture) that stems from a later stage of development.20”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“Imposing fixed working hours is based on the premise that people are resources, a set of arms or brains hired for a specific amount of time.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“The absence of real kitchens in our organizations is a powerful revealer of how we think about our workplaces.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“It is a challenge for any organization to create an environment where people feel safe to show up whole.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“If employees need to be empowered, it is because the system’s very design concentrates power at the top”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“No one can be made to evolve in consciousness, even with the best of intentions—a hard truth for coaches and consultants, who wish they could help organizational leaders adopt a more complex worldview by the power of conviction.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“Businesses have a responsibility not only to investors, but also to management, employees, customers, suppliers, local communities, society at large, and the environment.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“Bringing about consensus among large groups of people is inherently difficult.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“Humans are resources that must be carefully aligned on the chart, rather like cogs in a machine.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“budgets fail to deliver on one of their key objectives: making people feel accountable and motivated for their outcomes.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“leaders’ fear to give up control trumps their ability to trust, and they keep making decisions high up that would be better left in the hands of people lower in the hierarchy.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“surveys consistently report that work is more often than not dread and drudgery, not passion or purpose.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“In the old machine metaphor of organizations, staff functions are like levers that the C-suite leaders use to steer the ship—levers that are conveniently close at hand, just a few doors down the hall at headquarters. Yet it is often an illusion of control: from the perspective of headquarters, rules and procedures always make sense; one must be in the field to experience the counterproductive and dispiriting results they often produce and to realize how often people find creative ways around them or simply ignore them.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“Amber Organizations try wherever possible to be self-contained and autonomous—one simply shouldn’t need the outside world.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“Social stability comes at the price of wearing a mask, of learning to distance ourselves from our unique nature, from our personal desires, needs, and feelings; instead, we embrace a socially acceptable self.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“From an Evolutionary-Teal perspective, the right question is not: how can everyone have equal power? It is rather: 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. Instead, if we acknowledge that we are all interconnected, the more powerful you are, the more powerful I can become. The more powerfully you advance the organization’s purpose, the more opportunities will open up for me to make contributions of my own.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“Bakke recounts an earlier anecdote that explains how his view on work was shaped from early childhood—one of a strand of many experiences that would determine his vocation to create organizations that make work fun and fulfilling: On this particular day, my mother had organized the evening work in her usual style. The kitchen was abuzz with activity. I was 16 years old and charged with cooking creamed peas for supper. My younger brother was carrying wood from the shed to the storage area next to the kitchen. Kenny’s older sisters [Kenny and his sisters were foster children at the Bakke home] were clearing dirty cooking dishes and setting the table with dinner ware. …. No one was paying attention to Kenny. …. Suddenly the two-year-old … picked up the spoon on his tray. “I want jobs, I want jobs, I want jobs,” he chanted as he pounded his spoon. I think this little guy with a crooked smile and troubled past was saying, “I want to contribute. I can make a difference. I want to be part of the team. I’m somebody. I want to have fun working, too!” Over the years, I have reflected on that moment and come to believe that it captures the early and substantial influence Mom had on my concept of fun in the workplace. Somehow, she created an environment in which everyone was energized, not from fear of punishment or promise of reward, but from a desire to accomplish something positive. She had unbridled confidence in our ability to accomplish the tasks at hand. … She gave us enormous freedom to work and make decisions. Somehow she made work so attractive that even an abused two-year-old wanted desperately to pitch in for the sheer joy and excitement of it.41”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“The ultimate goal in life is not to be successful or loved, but to become the truest expression of ourselves, to live into authentic selfhood, to honor our birthright gifts and callings, and be of service to humanity and our world. In Teal, life is seen as a journey of personal and collective unfolding toward our true nature.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“Zappos.com, an online shoe retailer, offers its new hires a $3,000 check if they have second thoughts and choose to quit during the four-week orientation. The idea is that everyone will be better off not staying in a marriage that isn’t meant to be.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“The more you know about another person’s journey, the less possible it is to distrust or dislike that person.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“A simpler way to put it is: culture is how things get done, without people having to think about it.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“In Teal, our journey toward inner rightness prompts some soul searching of who we are and what our purpose in life might be. The ultimate goal in life is not to be successful or loved, but to become the truest expression of ourselves, to live into authentic selfhood, to honor our birthright gifts and callings, and be of service to humanity and our world. In Teal, life is seen as a journey of personal and collective unfolding toward our true nature.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“Recognition, success, wealth, and belonging are viewed as pleasurable experiences, but also as tempting traps for the ego. In contrast with previous stages, the order is reversed: we do not pursue recognition, success, wealth, and belonging to live a good life. We pursue a life well-lived, and the consequence might just be recognition, success, wealth, and love.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

“What replaces fear? A capacity to trust the abundance of life. All wisdom traditions posit the profound truth that there are two fundamental ways to live life: from fear and scarcity or from trust and abundance. In Evolutionary-Teal, we cross the chasm and learn to decrease our need to control people and events. We come to believe that even if something unexpected happens or if we make mistakes, things will turn out all right, and when they don’t, life will have given us an opportunity to learn and grow.”
― Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness