Tobias Mayer discusses the Teal paradigm of organizational development and how it relates to Agile approaches. He notes three important breakthroughs of Teal organizations: self-management, wholeness, and evolutionary purpose. However, adopting Teal principles presents challenges as the existing languages used to discuss Agile concepts like self-management and emergent purpose can undermine Teal ideals and result in misunderstandings. Mayer argues that developing a new "language of not-knowing" may be needed to fully explore the potential of Teal organizations.

1. A Teal Shade
of Agile
Tobias Mayer
tobiasmayer.uk | @tobiasmayer
Agile Northants — 27th June 2017

2. Why Teal?

4. Wolf Pack
Army
Machine
Family
Living Organism
Adapted from Reinventing Organisations by Frederic Laloux
The Laloux
Model of
Consciousness
Monarchy

5. Adapted from Reinventing Organisations by Frederic Laloux
Mapped to
Dave Logan’s
Tribal
Leadership
My life sucks
I’m great, you suck
We’re great
Life is great
Life sucks

6. Adapted from Reinventing Organisations by Frederic Laloux
Recast into
Styles of
Leadership
Commanding
Controlling
Paternalistic
Releasing
Threatening

7. A short
diversion

8. Spiral Dynamics

9. Purple — Tribal
Beige — Instinctive
Yellow — Integrative
Green — Humanistic
Orange — Materialistic
Red — Authoritarian
Turquoise — Holistic
Blue — Absolutist

10. Living Organism
Monarchy
Army
Machine
Family
A reframe by Tobias Mayer
Maybe…
It’s not linear
Tribe — spiritual / magical / animistic
Living Organism

11. Living
Organism
Monarchy
Army
Machine
Family
A reframe by Tobias Mayer
Tribe
ExplorerChurch
Living
Spirit
Which may suggest…

12. Living
Organism
Monarchy
Army
Machine
Family
A reframe by Tobias Mayer
Tribe
ExplorerChurch
Living
Spirit
In theological terms, perhaps
Earth
Heaven
Hell

13. But getting
back to Teal…

14. Army
Machine
Family
Living Organism
Monarchy

15. Important breakthroughs of
the Teal paradigm:
— Self-Management
— Wholeness
— Evolutionary Purpose
The Promised
Land
Living Organism

16. The Promised
Land

17. Agile wants to live here.
It knows it belongs here.
But it can’t get in.
What’s preventing it?
The Promised
Land

18. Perhaps
Me

19. And
Perhaps
You

21. We don’t have the language or the
artefacts to explore this space
The Problem

22. Look what happened to Agile

23. Commanding
Controlling
Paternalistic
ReleasingStuck in a loop

24. The Language of Orange

25. The Language of Green

26. The Language of Teal

27. Same problem.
Agile→Teal

28. The more we try to make sense
of either with existing language,
the more we end up with…
Agile→Teal
“Aha! This is like that.”

29. But it isn’t.
Agile→Teal

30. So how do we talk about
— Self-Management ?
— Wholeness ?
— Evolutionary Purpose ?
Agile→Teal

31. That will result in chaos
Self-Management

32. Everyone will bring their personal
problems to work
Wholeness

33. That sounds wishy-washy
Emergent Purpose

34. So what language do we use?
Agile→Teal

35. I don’t know

36. That’s the language
The language of
not-knowing

37. Now what?
tobiasmayer.uk
@tobiasmayer