Our minds will inevitably evolve.. again.
A ‘short’ history of the evolution of organisations.
This is the second post in a blog series about ‘Going Teal’ If you’re not familiar with the concept I suggest you start by reading the first post.
In the developed world we are so used to working in hierarchal organisations, with high flying mission statements and corporate values that we forget that this was not always the norm. Like most things organisational models continuously evolve and as it turns out ancient tribes didn’t have yearly budgeting processes, approval processes or rigid career paths with appraisals and promotions.
In his book Reinventing Organisations author Frederic Laloux argues that humanity has evolved it’s way of thinking in stages, and for each stage we’ve invented a new organisational model to fit our new world view. He takes inspiration from Spiral Dynamics and Integral Theory in defining the stages and giving them each a color so they’re easy to remember and talk about. He even goes so far as suggest that we’re on the fringe of entering a new stage, Teal. Which coincidentally is what this blog is all bout.
In this blog post I’ll ty to summarise the stages/colours and the accompanying organisational models. Nothing beats reading the original, but if you’r limited on time I’d suggest you also check out this video by Peter Green at Agile For All, which nicely summarises everything in 9 minutes (this video was what introduced me to Teal — thanks Brooks!).
Ok, so here we go…
Red (Impulsive)
10.000 years ago we lived in tribes. Relatively small groups of people. We wandered the plains as hunter/gatherers, moved when the season changed and were mostly worried about threats from wild animals, or perhaps a neighbouring tribe. Power came from fear, and the boss was whoever was strongest (or best at creating alliances). I wouldn’t be surprised if this is where the expression alpha male came from.
Red was our first type of organisation, which was characterised by power, fear and chaos. The breakthrough ideas from Red organisations were command authority (people would listen to the boss), and division of labour. Instead of everybody doing everything, the tribe was separated into roles, such as hunter or witch doctor. A describing metaphor is a wolf pack, and modern examples of Red organisations are street gangs and the mafia.
So… Red: Impulsive, wolf pack, fear, command, division of labour, mafia.. Got it?
Amber (Conformist)
Then came the agricultural age and period of empires and organised religion. We settled in villages or even cities, and because of our new dependency on crops we couldn’t just pack up and move so our new enemy became natures unpredictable weather, famine and disease. It became obvious that the impulsive Red organisational model was not sufficient as we needed to manage much larger groups and plan for long term stability. So we invented Amber.
During this period power came from authority which you were born into often even claiming it was bestowed upon you by the gods. Amber organisations are therefore characterised by hierarchy, stability, control and authority, and the breakthrough ideas were long term perspective, formal roles and process. An army is a great analogy, and some modern examples of organisations still operating from an Amber perspective can be some government organisations, schools and churches. Anyone having tried buying train tickets in India may agree that there are strong indications of an Amber ‘process based’ mindset.
Coming from a more modern perspective (as I assume most of us are) it’s hard to imagine how people reasoned during this period. This was millenniums before science and people were so used to authority that they did not question it. During this period Aristoteles, a solid authority, proclaimed that men have more teeth than women. True to the period, everyone accepted this ‘fact’, and it was only 2000 years later, when somebody came up with the idea to count that we realised that we in fact have equal number of teeth.
Ready? Amber: Conformist, authority hierarchy, stability, formal roles, process, army.
Orange (Achievement)
The age of reason about 2000 years ago, was when we started counting teeth and realising there was much more we didn’t know. This triggered our curiosity, and long story short, led to the industrial revolution at around the 1800s.
Science became sexy and innovation became the new black. We invented machines, medicines, capitalism, consumerism, all kinds of fun stuff. Suddenly it wasn’t enough to be born into power. You could earn it! Working harder, or smarter would land you a promotion, and for the first time it was possible for the guy on the floor to become CEO. ‘May the best man win’ created a culture of competition. Companies competed for market share and the best talents, while employees competed for position. The market became global, and as speed to market became key, the slower less adaptable Amber organisations found it hard to compete.
So we did what we always do. We invented a new organisations model. Orange organisations are characterised by reason, competition, predict and control management, and of course profit. Let’s give a big hand of applause to the shareholders, the yearly budget process, and the quarterly earnings reports :)
The key breakthrough ideas of Orange were innovation, accountability, meritocracy (you get promoted based on your merits) and objective based management (instead of telling you what to do, we agree on objectives, which you are measured against). A fitting metaphor is a machine, and as you might have guessed, Orange is the most common organisational structure today.
A lot of great things came from Orange. As discussed in my last post all modern innovation is a result of it. So are 95% of the jobs we hold today (Research jobs, office jobs, factory jobs, tourism jobs, astronaut jobs, etc..)
But it also brought with it the 40 (to 80 hour) workweek (yes I’ve been a management consultant in a previous life). It created the continuous chase for money and status, burnouts, overconsumption and global warming.
Ok, everybody… click that like button if you’ve ever worked in an organisation operating primarily from an Orange perspective.
Awesome, then this should be easy. Orange: Machine, reason, profit, competition, innovation, accountability, meritocracy and objective based management.
Green (Pluralistic)
Fast forward 200 years to the turn of the century, and a few interesting things have happened. Most importantly this little innovation called the internet. How many still remember the sound of the modem, and their family members yelling to get off the line cause they’re talking?
Ok, so the information age enabled information sharing like never before. It opened up the globe to anyone with a computer, and suddenly we could share knowledge and news and pictures of cute little cats at a click of a button. Anyone can open a business online, and the chase for talent become a global one.
We also started understanding some of the negative effects we were causing our environment, and may I suggest we grew a conscience?
With the information age came Green organisations, characterised by shared values, the urge to delight customers, increased engagement and inclusiveness. Some of the breakthrough innovations are stakeholder balance (considering stakeholders such as the environment, and employees together with shareholders), culture over strategy and empowerment. A good metaphor is a family, and example organisations are startups and modern tech companies, such as Google, Facebook and Spotify. The Lean and Agile methodologies are firmly rooted in Green.
I remember 10 years ago during my first job at GE somebody pitched Lean and Agile to me. GE at the time was operating from an orange perspective and my engineering degree and MBA and had thought me that hierarchy, meritocracy and competition was the way to go. I remember dismissing Lean and Agile as, sorry mom, Hippie bullshit. I considered it soft fluff that would never work in the real world. 10 years later I run a startup factory, operating mostly from a green perspective, having full embraced both Lean and Agile.
Many of you will be familiar with Green organisations, and perhaps you even have experience with them. We can also see a lot of traditionally Orange organisations adapting selective green practices, gaining some but not all of the potential benefits.
So lets see… Green: Family, information, shared values, engagement, stakeholders, culture, empowerment, agile/lean, startups.
Food for thought
Today we can see organisations operating from all the different colours, often even mixing in elements from various colours. Author Fredric Laloux puts emphasis that we shouldn’t label a company amber or orange, as they don’t suddenly upgrade to a new colour. It’s a gradual process where some practices may be adopted over time. But if we consider the worldview of leadership, and the practices they implement we can usually say that an organisation operates predominately from an Orange or a Green perspective.
Colours should also not be used as judgement. One colour is not necessarily better than another. Just as a 10 year old is not better than 3 year old, he has just acquired new tools giving him more options on how to behave. Same with organisations A red organisations was perfectly fit for it’s time, but as we ‘grew up’ and created a more complex environment, we needed to acquire new tools. While the colours are not better than each other, it’s easy to see that an organisation acting from a later stage is exponentially more powerful. Amber could manage much larger numbers, and Orange enabled a tremendous increase in productivity. However they did not measure success in the same way.
The future
I started this post by saying that it’s inevitable that we will evolve again. First our worldview, then our organisations. Laloux describes nine organisations who have started acting differently, and they show some staggering similarities that can be used to start envisioning the future. Frederic calls this new stage Teal, and I’ll spend the following posts describing it’s characteristics, breakthrough ideas, and practices. I’ll explore the benefits and implications for people, organisations and society att whole.
So stay with me, we’re almost at the good part… Next: Let’s talk Teal
