Adventures in Reinventing Work - Tales of Pioneers from Around the World

By Teal Around the World GmbH

This book explores the personal journeys of pioneers who are creating and transforming organizations to not only generate profits, but to also enable a future that empowers and uplifts all of humanity.

 

In reading these stories, you will get to know fourteen people and organizations from all over the world, small startups and large multinationals. You will understand their challenges, their successes, and gain a glimpse into how organizations are evolving to the demands of a complex, rapidly changing world. 

 

If you are interested in conducting your own experiments with better ways of managing and working, this book will give you inspiration. It also provides actionable ideas and simple practices to help you get started and move forward.  

Included in this book are stories from:

• Viisi and Tom van der Lubbe (Netherlands)
• Roche and Lara Bezerra (Brazil)
• Semco, Ten Pines, and Semco Style Institute (Brazil, Argentina, Netherlands)
• Bayer and Itziar Canamasas (Switzerland)
• Ultipa and Monica Liu (China)
• LIVEsciences and Timm Ur hinger (Switzerland)
• Kanpai and Guilherme Xavier (Brazil)
• Youthology and Lisa Li (China)
• SecondMuse and Todd Khozein (USA)
• Social Innovation Academy and Etienne Salborn (Uganda)
• Natural Organizations Lab and Shiro Yoshihara (Japan)
• Eve List and Sophie Le Rey (Dubai and France)
• One Planet Group and Payam Zamanı (USA)
• Leadership Transformation and Otti Vogt (Netherlands)

Modeling these new ways of working, the writers and production team who have created this book are self-organized volunteers, who came together through the virtual world, and are part of the Teal Network community, dedicated to inspiring change in the workplace and in the world. All proceeds from the book will be invested in a Purpose Fund to support greater access to the Teal Around the World virtual conference and related activities. Special thanks to the writing team: Natasha Naderi, Betsy Sheppard, Alia Aurami, Philip Atkinson, Jorim Holtey-Weber, Langdon Miller, Svetoslava Stoyanova, Sarah Toogood, Zlatina Tsvetkova, Cecilia Yeung, Cherry Zhu

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Teal Around the World GmbH
• Release date: Dec 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9783033089747

Book preview

Information about this book

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

First edition December, 2021

Published by Teal Around the World GmbH, Switzerland

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Creative Commons 4.0 license (Attribution) 2021 Teal Around the World GmbH

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Producing Authors: Natasha Naderi, Betsy Sheppard, Alia Aurami, Philip Atkinson

Contributing Authors: Jorim Holtey-Weber, Langdon Miller, Sarah Toogood, Zlatina Tsvetkova, Svetoslava Stoyanova, Cecilia Yeung, Cherry Zhu

Cover Design by Tanveer Ahmad Email [e-mail]

ISBN: 978-3033089747

Frederic Laloux Comments

What the Author of Reinventing Organizations Says about Adventures in Reinventing Work

"In recent years, ever more people around the world feel the need to reinvent the way we are managing organizations—and then get going!

"These pioneers experiment with radically new ways of working that make not only for a better place to work, but offer a promise of a better way to be human and to deal with the living world.

"To show us that this is possible, and break through the cynicism that might hold us back, nothing beats case examples from real life. This book shares fourteen stories of people and organizations who chose to leave the beaten path.

I hope it will give you inspiration and guidance if you feel called to create your own path to a more life-giving future for humanity.

Introduction

The Future Here Now

The future is here; it's just not evenly distributed. ~ William Gibson

Many of us perceive at a deep level that too many organizations are operating in ways that don’t make sense. Do you feel it? Are you an organizational innovator who is courageously looking to head in a new direction toward a better future?

Adventures in Reinventing Work opens the door into a quiet, determined, and steadily growing evolution to reimagine the role of business in society. We are reinventing work by challenging long-held assumptions around the relationships between employer and employee, between our work and our desire to serve others, between producers of goods and services and their suppliers, and between customers and the community. 

Pioneers across all industries, from all parts of the world, are revising their organizational design to better reflect current realities, and are showing up with greater purpose, passion, and intention than ever before. Patterns of activity previously fueled by status, money, and power over others have reached their limits, while new patterns based on reciprocity, shared purpose, and power with others are slowly, steadily strengthening. 

Organizations are establishing new models for working that represent a recommitment to fundamental human values. Workers across the globe, of all ages and professions, are beginning to take ownership of their work and to contribute at their full potential.

Do we really have the courage to change?

Yet, the transition is slow, painful, and difficult to navigate. How can we possibly transform entire societal systems and ways of working that have been in place for hundreds of years?

Many of us occasionally have sparks of insight around what is sub-optimal and how we could do better in our own context. Yet we retreat from what we are being called to change, due to the overwhelming immensity of the task. It is too scary. Too uncertain. The ease and comfort of continuing past patterns is too tempting. 

Introducing pioneers who do have the courage to change

This book explores the personal journeys of ordinary people who are choosing to create our future. They have no easy models to follow from our past. They are trying to fix the unfixable. They are paving new paths for us to create a sustainable, prosperous, future that empowers and uplifts all of humanity.

The stories in this book might shift our perception of what leadership is in the 21st century. The individuals in these stories tend to be founders and influencers in organizations who are making a big difference in the world. At the same time, they are people who do not think of themselves as particularly special, and do not seek attention. They are working quietly, collaboratively, and striving to lift up others, while solving deep and persistent problems. 

The leaders profiled in this book are not trying to win the traditional game played by many organizational founders of the past, of accumulating vast amounts of wealth, influence, or privilege. They are, instead, trying to create a happier and more sustainable future for all of humanity. They do not have all the answers. Yet, they are courageous enough to sit with questions they cannot answer and find a path forward.

This is a book about real personal struggles for answers, explorers who are knee deep in muddy terrains, navigating their way, falling down all the time, and never failing to rise back up. It is a book of hope. It provides guideposts to help us navigate our journey and gives us inspiration to be as brave and bold as we need to be, to reinvent our future.

Change tends to happen at the edgesーin places we might not even notice. Many of these stories are about people and organizations who are not well known.

Are you ready to explore the edges where people are creating a more innovative future that utilizes the capacity of everyone? Come learn how you can build more resilient and prosperous organizations and help promote a sustainable future for humanity and the planet we call home.

Direction, not destination 

It has been more than six years since Frederic Laloux wrote Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness. This groundbreaking book prompted many organizations around the world, large and small, for-profit and nonprofit, to begin experimenting with Teal concepts. Teal is a shorthand term for the worldview that gives rise to the management and operational paradigms, principles, and practices used by organizations presented in this book, centered around wholeness, evolutionary purpose, and self-management.

Other innovators learned from their own experience, independently of reading Laloux's book, that traditional management assumptions, beliefs, and practices are becoming increasingly outdated and ineffective to deal with 21st Century challenges.

At the 2021 Teal Around the World virtual conference sponsored by the Teal Network, storytellers from across the globe shared their personal experiences in implementing new ways of working. Participants looking for the seven steps to success were probably disappointed. Yes, the storytellers offered some valuable lessons-learned, but they also left the audience with more questions than answers.

Bryan Ungard told the audience I am here to shake you up, posing the question Changing paradigms, can it be done? Otti Vogt challenged the assumption that Teal is coming as a natural evolution and that if you follow the practices the magic will happen. Jos de Blok and Frederic Laloux asked the audience to consider a larger context for envisioning next-generation enterprises within a societal shift toward a less consumptive, more sustainable, life-generating way of operating. The message was that pioneering is not about one new paradigm that is better than the previous ones; rather, it's an ongoing evolutionary direction toward expressing more of our natural potential. It's direction, not destination.

This book is inspired by the Teal Around the World Conference and is an outcome of the collaboration surrounding this event. Many of the stories, via later interviews, are deep dives into talks shared there. Some storytellers are well known and established within the Teal arena; others are new and emerging from small companies in diverse locations.

Are these stories for you?

The stories are written for people, probably like you, who care about creating workplaces that can produce healthy profits and positive impacts for customers, communities, and the planet while also providing places for everyone to flourish and develop their full potential. 

Whether you are a corporate leader, a consultant or coach, an internal changemaker, a start-up entrepreneur, or a non-profit activist, you will find stories that resonate with you and inspire you to follow through on your own sparks of insight. You will also find actionable ideas and simple practices to help you get started and move forward. In the final chapter, we suggest resources for further exploration and learning.

Finding the stories for you

The first section of this book includes stories from brave leaders working within established organizations to break down barriers, implement new structures, and develop new mindsets.  Some of these stories involve transformations of one division or segment within a larger organization. Others involve total organizational transformations into new ways of working.

These stories provide proof that new ways of working can dramatically enhance agility, innovation, employee empowerment, and financial success in turbulent times. If you are working to create change within existing organizations, this might be the most relevant group of stories for you.

The next section includes stories about founders of start-ups and emerging small organizations who are inventing new types of workplaces. They are rejecting traditional paradigms around authority and control, and are experimenting with self-management, safe-open cultures, evolutionary purpose, and radical transparency. If you are building a new and small organization, this section might be of greatest interest and inspiration to you.

The third section includes stories of people who are not content to transform organizations alone. They are reaching beyond the walls of our workplaces, aiming to create fundamental shifts in the structures and systems of society. They are challenging current models, assumptions, and beliefs and bringing forth bold ideas for how to create a more sustainable and prosperous future for our interdependent and rapidly changing world. If you are hoping to create greater societal transformations through your organization, you’ll likely find these stories to be most insightful for your journey.

Section 1: Evolving existing organizations