Purpose in a Complex World
Recently Tom Nixon wrote an article examining the concept of evolutionary purpose, naming some real tensions faced by organizations that are trying to redefine the way we work. While the tensions he’s speaking to are real, and experienced by so many of us pioneering new ways of working and organizing, the points he articulates seem to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
What indeed is Evolutionary Purpose?
Here’s how I think of evolutionary purpose- it’s a systems phenomenon wherein the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Margaret Wheatley, a leading scholar in systems theory, describes it as follows- “When separate, local efforts connect with each other as networks then strengthen as communities of practice, suddenly and surprisingly a new system emerges at a greater level of scale. This system of influence possesses qualities and capacities that were unknown in the individuals.”
It’s the idea that networks possess more influence and creative power than the individuals alone, because in connecting with other individuals the creativity and power is significantly enhanced.
Does Evolutionary Purpose Even Exist?
According to Nixon:
“There’s an awkward paradox which Laloux highlights in the book: on the one hand there’s a belief that Teal organisations are truly decentralised, like a rainforest where ‘no single tree is in charge’, yet there’s a key role necessary for a founder or CEO to play in ‘holding the space’. Which means it’s not actually decentralised or detached from humans as the dogma/ideology of evolutionary purpose suggests.”
Does it exist? Yes. Google is a good example of this. Google products like gmail, Google Maps, and AdSense, have all come from individuals working on side projects in 20% of their time. These projects weren’t mandated from above but actually self-selected and self-organized by individuals based on their passion and interest. Creativity and new-found purpose can emerge from different parts of an organization, when we create the space for it. ‘Guiding’ is creating a space to play and create, space with clear boundaries and purpose but loose management. That’s what ‘holding space’ is. It’s decentralized because it can emerge from any part of the organization, it’s guided because there’s clear structure around it.
Also, evolutionary purpose doesn’t suppose that it is detached or decentralized from humans. It supposes that a collection of humans has a story and a momentum that transcends the story or momentum of any one individual. It doesn’t exclude the vision or story of an organization’s leader, it transcends and includes it. Google is still focused on organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful. And also, they have all these other really cool things that they do!
Humble Leadership
“Founders and CEOs who might be classed as ‘Teal’ are often humble people and indeed that’s part of what makes them such great leaders. But the shadow of this is that it can cause them to understate their own importance in the vitality of the initiative.”
I find Nixon conflating humility with passiveness and a lack of ownership here. Humble leaders have just as much zeal, purpose and power as non-humble leaders. They just also recognize that by virtue of the fact that they are working with others, they are co-authoring the story. The most important thing is that the best ideas win, the most creative initiatives flourish, regardless of whether or not their ink was the one that penned it. The role of the leader in this regard is actually discernment- to be critical of the ideas that flow through- that of others as well as their own.
In An Everyone Culture, Robert Kegan proposes a difference between self-authoring leaders who hold an “internal seat of judgment or personal authority” and self-transforming leaders who have cultivated the ability to “…step back from and reflect on the limits of [their] own ideology or personal authority; [who] see that any one system or self-organization is in some way partial or incomplete…” Humility gives us permission to have incomplete ideas, maturity gives us the ability to discern that in our own as well as others’ ideas.
What’s Really Going On?
“ An organisation isn’t a separate soul or entity with its own purpose, it’s a story of an idea which is gradually becoming reality. An idea ultimately held by one individual author.”
If you confine the authorship of an entire system to one individual at the top, you will always be limited by that individual’s threshold for vision, and maturity. Creativity exists within an entire organization, and as we create spaces for that brilliance to emerge, the organization continues to evolve in ways that any one individual couldn’t conceive of. We have to include the authorship of the key players, and also allow the space to transcend it. The importance here again is to define the purpose and parameters, and then allow for everyone to be sensors within the organization and to shape evolution of the organization.
The Problem of Creative Entropy
“In organisations where the evolutionary purpose paradigm is adopted, people recognise no one person as having a final say over what’s in and what’s out. Equally, there’s no reliance on consensus. As people ‘listen to’ and ‘steward’ the organisation, new initiatives spring up with advice and input from multiple people, but without centralised control.
This inevitably leads to an effect I call creative entropy, where the organisation over time becomes less and less focused, and more creatively dissipated. It’s unavoidable.”
I disagree with this notion of inevitable lack of focus. I think this is inevitable when we lack shared purpose and shared values. Then we’d all be shooting in different directions because we’re trying to get to different places. We focus ourselves by aligning our purpose, consistently surfacing and clarifying our assumptions, and having clear structures for organizing and deciding that are consistently edited and evolved.
The difference between ‘Green’ and ‘Teal’ is the notion that while all perspectives are valuable inputs, it’s important to assess the functionality, completeness, and accuracy of the idea or perspective that we decide on. We cultivate that discernment as we cultivate our maturity and ability to really understand, integrate, and discern between our collective perspectives.
How Creative Entropy Unfolds
“In a Teal organisation, a cool new initiative which seems interesting and worthwhile but perhaps pushes the boundary of the existing scope just a little wider is likely to be accepted and supported. At the same time, it is much more difficult to make a strong case to kill an otherwise thriving initiative purely because it makes the organisation a little less focussed. Therefore if new initiatives start which increase scope more often than initiatives are killed, the net effect is that scope widening, and the organisation losing focus.”
Saying no is an essential discipline. Teal doesn’t ask you to stop saying no. It actually requires discernment. The difference is that ‘no’ isn’t determined by the whims or wisdom of a single leader, but instead on the responsibility of an entire team to prioritize and re-prioritize their energy on a dynamic basis. With the right structures in place- to steer dynamically, share feedback, and measure impact- this effect can be mitigated.
In the context of Google’s 20% projects, in my time there I noticed that when ideas don’t demonstrate impact and relevance, their support dwindled, and along with it, funding. This system actually creates subtle competition where each initiative is required to demonstrate its impact.
Acknowledging Natural Authority
“If this kind of natural authority exists, as I believe it does, then it should be clearly acknowledged. That means moving on from the fantasy that the organisation is ‘an independent energy field’ and getting settling into the idea that it’s really about people and the connections between them.”
Natural authority does exist! Teal is different from Green or flat hierarchy precisely because it acknowledges that, and it holds us accountable for creating space for a natural hierarchy to emerge and evolve. The idea is that we all hold the responsibility for stepping in and stepping back in acknowledgment of that natural hierarchy. One individual no longer gets a free pass of authority all the time just because they hold a particular position. We are constantly holding each other accountable for the limitations of our thinking, and looking to each other to stretch those limits. Importantly, you don’t remove leadership in this new system, you just no longer vest it exclusively in the hands of one or few individuals. The responsibility for sensing, shaping, and developing ideas, and for holding each other accountable to the team’s purpose lies with everyone in the group. This comes with a few risks- too many cooks in the kitchen, everyone deferring to each other, team members hiding, team members over-exercising their space. It’s important to have a culture of feedback and structures (examples- 1, 2, 3, 4) that mitigate this effect.
The Journey to Teal
Moving from a leader to a team isn’t a move away from leadership. It’s the move from single point leadership to dynamic, multiple-point leadership where the responsibility for creating, prioritizing, executing, learning, and pivoting is vested on multiple individuals. This system is intended to create more leadership, not less.
Yet, it’s important to recognize that this requires a lot more structure, a lot more maturity, and a real willingness in individuals within an organization to embrace change and complexity. The tension Nixon is describing are real, they’re felt by many of the organizations adopting this model of operating. But I consider these tensions growing pains. We’re trying, succeeding, failing, and stumbling our way through some seriously unchartered territory.
For an organization to really make the shift to Teal, there needs to be a shift in individual mindsets and behaviors, and the organization’s culture, structure, and processes. Teal requires a degree of maturity within leadership, within individuals, and within groups in an organization that is actually quite rare. It takes a lot of work to get to this place. These growing pains are par for the course.
And yet, teams of people leading, creating, challenging each other, thinking together, and tapping into unexpected genius is exactly the thing that will enable us to meet the complexity and uncertainty of our current world.
