(2018-02-10) Bursting The Bubble Teal Ain't Real

Pim de Morree: Bursting The Bubble: Teal Ain't Real. Once in a while we feel the need to write about an uncomfortable feeling that's been niggling us. This post is one. It expresses a discomfort we have about so-called 'teal organizations'. The feeling has grown just as rapidly as have the sales of the highly influential book by Frederic Laloux, "Reinventing Organizations". And the feeling stems from its dogmatic interpretation by some readers.

We quit our frustrating corporate jobs about two years ago, and began our search for the world's most inspiring workplaces. Only a few weeks after we decided to embark on the Corporate Rebels adventure, we read "Reinventing Organizations". We were impressed and inspired. It reinforced our belief in the possibility of better workplaces.

The book describes case studies of companies that work in radically different ways: from self-managing companies like Morning Star and Buurtzorg, to purpose-driven organizations such as Patagonia.

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". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teal_organisation

we have seen organizations and people who blindly believe everything in the book. Even worse, some take the books ideals more literally than even Laloux himself.

The main case we make for “teal ain’t real” simply results from our visits to case study organizations used in the book, like Buurtzorg, FAVI, Morning Star, and Patagonia. We’ve also visited several Holacratic organizations (holacracy) who, according Laloux, adopt the so-called teal paradigm.

Many readers of the book assume that because they are offered as case studies of the "teal paradigm", they must have all the three breakthroughs in place (evolutionary purpose, self-management and wholeness). This is far from the truth.

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.

Besides wrongful interpretation of the content, there's another thing that bugs us about some parts of the "teal movement". It's based on the theoretical framework the book uses as a foundation: spiral dynamics. Spiral dynamic is a part of a body of work called Integral Theory, developed by (among others) Ken Wilber. We're not going to put too much effort in explaining it; we don't think it's worth it

Laloux views the world through this spiritual lens, and this is clearly reflected in his writing. Unfortunately, some readers tend to overlook this aspect and come to believe that teal is more of a reality than it actually is.