Frederic Laloux has created a model for stages of organisational development using colours based on the human’s neurological and consciousness development (similar to the Values Levels that we teach on NLP Master Practitioner). The latest to emerge is Teal.
- Infra Red Small Groups
- Magenta Tribes
- Red Feudal War Lord
- Amber Military, Factory, Church, Hierarchy Rules Driven
- Orange Status, Management By Objectives ‘Busyness’
- Green Culture Is Vital, Not Profit Driven
- Teal No Middle Management – Self Managed Teams
The structure is based on ‘self-managed teams’ with no middle management and instead, coaches to support the teams. Buurzorg (Netherlands) a care organisation moved away from an Amber/Orange structure with targets set and timed interventions to teams of 10 -12 where nurses would focus on the quality of the visit, sharing a coffee and not focusing on minutes per visit. As a result, in 2009 Ernst & Young discovered a 40% reduction in hours of care per client than other similar organisations, patients stayed in care only half as long and a third of emergency hospital admissions were avoided.
‘C Suite’ Leaders like to have functional head office teams to give them control and reporting but Teal Leaders are able to let go of the command and control of ‘Amber’ and they might have very little support staff with everything devolved to the teams.
In Teal organisations there is a strong sense of purpose and people ‘show up’ as themselves, not just a ‘business’ persona. There is a massive shift away from presentism and a ‘clock on culture.’
Recently there has been a step of change towards Teal with many people working from home but some managers are still not ready to let go. If you would like to know more please get in touch or sign up for the Positive Leadership Club