Sublime

The case studies of pioneer Teal Organizations researched for this book reveal three major breakthroughs: Self-management: Teal Organizations have found the key to operate effectively, even at a large scale, with a system based on peer relationships, without the need for either hierarchy or consensus. Wholeness: Organizations have always been

As a result, there are very, very few people working in staff functions in Teal Organizations. And those that do typically have no decision-making authority. They can provide guidelines but cannot impose a rule or a decision. They truly deserve the name support functions, kicking into action only when teams request their support.

Organizations routinely talk about their values and mission; Teal Organizations talk about something even more fundamental—their basic assumptions about human nature. This has to do, I believe, with the fact that self-managing practices are still countercultural today.

Resources for Human Development (RHD), a Philadelphia-based nonprofit, provides a beautiful example of an organization that has strived, for more than 40 years, to create and maintain safe and open workplaces that invite people into wholeness.

Think of traditional organizations in which business analysts, developers, testers, and operations staff operate in separate functional teams. These teams are dependent on each other at a very low level. Even though they may be working toward the same goal, they will inevitably have different priorities. They will also have different processes and

Alternatively, lose the notion of projects entirely and build incremental capabilities in a steady flow.

Information technology tools such as internal social networks and knowledge repositories can play a critical role in steering clear of unnecessary structures, especially when companies grow larger and people are spread throughout different locations.

Brian Robertson, the founder of Holacracy, sometimes uses another set of archetypes to talk about the power of self-management to shift relationships to a healthier level—helping us to move from Persecutor, Rescuer, Victim, to Challenger, Coach, Creator.