Frederic Laloux Quotes

We have reached a stage where we often pursue growth for growth’s sake, a condition that in medical terminology would simply be called cancer.

The most exciting breakthroughs of the twenty-first century will not occur because of technology, but because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human. John Naisbitt

In a forest, there is no master tree that plans and dictates change when rain fails to fall or when the spring comes early. The whole ecosystem reacts creatively, in the moment.

we often speak about “work-life balance”?a notion that shows how little life is left in work

an organization cannot evolve beyond its leadership’s stage of development.

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. Richard Buckminster Fuller

When trust is extended, it breeds responsibility in return. Emulation and peer pressure regulates the system better than hierarchy ever could.

Einstein once famously said that problems couldn’t be solved with the same level of consciousness that created them in the first place.

profit is like the air we breathe. We need air to live, but we don’t live to breathe.

Life, in all its evolutionary wisdom, manages ecosystems of unfathomable beauty, ever evolving toward more wholeness, complexity, and consciousness.

Extraordinary things begin to happen when we dare to bring all of who we are to work.

Could we invent a more powerful, more soulful, more meaningful way to work together, if only we change our belief system?

as human beings, we are not problems waiting to be solved, but potential waiting to unfold.

think like farmers: look 20 years ahead, and plan only for the next day.

With Teal, serving the purpose becomes more important than serving the organization, opening up new possibilities for collaboration across organizational boundaries.

Consensus comes with another flaw. It dilutes responsibility.

The ultimate goal in life is not to be successful or loved, but to become the truest expression of ourselves, to live into authentic selfhood, to honor our birthright gifts and callings, and be of service to humanity and our world.

Taming the fears of the ego Each shift occurs when we are able to reach a higher vantage point from which we see the world in broader perspective. Like a fish that can see water for the first time when it jumps above the surface, gaining a new perspective requires that we disidentify from something we were previously engulfed

Can a middle manager put Teal practices in place for the department he is responsible for?

Traditional hierarchies and their plethora of built-in control systems are, at their core, formidable machines that breed fear and distrust.

Self-organization is not a startling new feature of the world. It is the way the world has created itself for billions of years.

the metaphor of the machine indicates that these organizations, however much they brim with activity, can still feel lifeless and soulless.

job titles are like honeypots to the ego: alluring and addictive, but ultimately unhealthy.

All wisdom traditions posit the profound truth that there are two fundamental ways to live life: from fear and scarcity or from trust and abundance.

Ultimately, both parties are trying to answer one simple, fundamental question: Do we sense that we are meant to journey together?

Can we create soulful workplaces—schools, hospitals, businesses, and nonprofits—where our talents can blossom and our callings can be honored?

When organizations are built not on implicit mechanisms of fear but on structures and practices that breed trust and responsibility, extraordinary and unexpected things start to happen.

Self-Management If you can read just one book on motivation—yours and others: Dan Pink, Drive If you can read just one book on building new habits: Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit If you can read just one book on harnessing neuroscience for personal change: Dan Siegel, Mindsight If you can read just one book on deep personal change: Lisa Lahey and Bob Kegan, Immunity to Change If you can read just one book on resilience: Seth Godin, The Dip Organizational Change If you can read just one book on how organizational change really works: Chip and Dan Heath, Switch If you can read just two books on understanding that change is a complex system: Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations Dan Pontefract, Flat Army Hear interviews with FREDERIC LALOUX, DAN PONTEFRACT, and JERRY STERNIN at the Great Work Podcast. If you can read just one book on using structure to change behaviours: Atul Gawande, The Checklist Manifesto If you can read just one book on how to amplify the good: Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin and Monique Sternin, The Power of Positive Deviance If you can read just one book on increasing your impact within organizations: Peter Block, Flawless Consulting Other Cool Stuff If you can read just one book on being strategic: Roger Martin and A.G. Lafley, Playing to Win If you can read just one book on scaling up your impact: Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao, Scaling Up Excellence If you can read just one book on being more helpful: Edgar Schein, Helping Hear interviews with ROGER MARTIN, BOB SUTTON, and WARREN BERGER at the Great Work Podcast. If you can read just two books on the great questions: Warren Berger, A More Beautiful Question Dorothy Strachan, Making Questions Work If you can read just one book on creating learning that sticks: Peter Brown, Henry Roediger and Mark McDaniel, Make It Stick If you can read just one book on why you should appreciate and marvel at every day, every moment: Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything If you can read just one book that saves lives while increasing impact: Michael Bungay Stanier, ed., End Malaria (All money goes to Malaria No More; about $400,000 has been raised so far.) IF THERE ARE NO STUPID QUESTIONS, THEN WHAT KIND OF QUESTIONS DO STUPID PEOPLE ASK?

This is how nature has worked for millions of years. Innovation doesn't happen centrally, according to plan, but at the edges, all the time, when some organism senses a change in the environment and experiments to find a response. Some attempts to fail catch on; others rapidly spread to all corners of the ecosystem. Reality is the ultimate reference.

Признание, успех, богатство и духовная близость — все эти состояния очень приятны. Но одновременно это большие соблазны для нашего эгоизма. На предыдущих стадиях сознания мы стремимся к признанию, успеху, богатству и духовному единению, чтобы жить достойно. В Эволюционной Бирюзовой парадигме все выстраивается в обратном порядке: мы стремимся жить достойно, а следствиями могут быть признание, успех, богатство и любовь.

The shift to Evolutionary-Teal happens when we learn to disidentify from our own ego. By looking at our ego from a distance, we can suddenly see how its fears, ambitions, and desires often run our life. We can learn to minimize our need to control, to look good, to fit in. We are no longer fused with our ego, and we don’t let its fears reflexively control our lives. In the process, we make room to listen to the wisdom of other, deeper parts of ourselves. What replaces fear? A capacity to trust the abundance of life. All wisdom traditions posit the profound truth that there are two fundamental ways to live life: from fear and scarcity or from trust and abundance. In Evolutionary-Teal, we cross the chasm and learn to decrease our need to control people and events. We come to believe that even if something unexpected happens or if we make mistakes, things will turn out all right, and when they don’t, life will have given us an opportunity to learn and grow.

Almost 20 years ago, Margaret J. Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers began A Simpler Way, a prophetic book about what organizations could be, with these words: There is a simpler way to organize human endeavor. It requires a new way of being in the world. It requires being in the world without fear. Being in the world with play and creativity. Seeking after what’s possible. Being willing to learn and be surprised. The simpler way to organize human endeavor requires a belief that the world is inherently orderly. The world seeks organization. It does not need us humans to organize it. This simpler way summons forth what is best about us. It asks us to understand human nature differently, more optimistically. It identifies us as creative. It acknowledges that we seek after meaning. It asks us to be less serious, yet more purposeful, about our work and our lives. It does not separate play from the nature of being. … The world we had been taught to see was alien to our humanness. We were taught to see the world as a great machine. But then we could find nothing human in it. Our thinking grew even stranger—we turned this world-image back on ourselves and believed that we too were machines. Because we could not find ourselves in the machine world we had created in thought, we experienced the world as foreign and fearsome. … Fear led to control. We wanted to harness and control everything. We tried, but it did not stop the fear. Mistakes threatened us; failed plans ruined us; relentless mechanistic forces demanded absolute submission. There was little room for human concerns. But the world is not a machine. It is alive, filled with life and the history of life. … Life cannot be eradicated from the world, even though our metaphors have tried. … If we can be in the world in the fullness of our humanity, what are we capable of? If we are free to play, to experiment and discover, if we are free to fail, what might we create? What could we accomplish if we stopped trying to structure the world into existence? What could we accomplish if we worked with life’s natural tendency to organize? Who could we be if we found a simpler way?143

One day, I met a new patient who had been previously diagnosed with severe psychosis. The 55-year-old woman was suffering from depression and anxiety. She had never worked in her life and for a long time had been too anxious to leave home. In the discussion, I had a hunch. The woman might well be psychotic, but she seemed to have extraordinary intuitive powers. Could it be that she was anxious because she was overwhelmed by these powers and didn’t know what to do with them? My hunch was confirmed at the end of the session. I was pregnant at the time, and the woman suddenly told me, out of the blue, “What a beautiful boy! What a pity he hasn’t yet turned to be head-first.” She was right on both counts, but how could she know? I recommended to her that she learn to master her psychic powers. She registered in a course with a renowned teacher. We helped her with her depression in the hospital, but the training proved the key to her healing. Today she is transformed. She has a thriving practice where she offers her talents to the world. What used to cripple her with anxiousness now provides her with meaning and income.81

SELF-MANAGEMENT Trust We relate to one another with an assumption of positive intent. Until we are proven wrong, trusting co-workers is our default means of engagement. Freedom and accountability are two sides of the same coin. Information and decision-making All business information is open to all. Every one of us is able to handle difficult and sensitive news. We believe in collective intelligence. Nobody is as smart as everybody. Therefore all decisions will be made with the advice process. Responsibility and accountability We each have full responsibility for the organization. If we sense that something needs to happen, we have a duty to address it. It’s not acceptable to limit our concern to the remit of our roles. Everyone must be comfortable with holding others accountable to their commitments through feedback and respectful confrontation. WHOLENESS Equal worth We are all of fundamental equal worth. At the same time, our community will be richest if we let all members contribute in their distinctive way, appreciating the differences in roles, education, backgrounds, interests, skills, characters, points of view, and so on. Safe and caring workplace Any situation can be approached from fear and separation, or from love and connection. We choose love and connection. We strive to create emotionally and spiritually safe environments, where each of us can behave authentically. We honor the moods of … [love, care, recognition, gratitude, curiosity, fun, playfulness …]. We are comfortable with vocabulary like care, love, service, purpose, soul … in the workplace. Overcoming separation We aim to have a workplace where we can honor all parts of us: the cognitive, physical, emotional, and spiritual; the rational and the intuitive; the feminine and the masculine. We recognize that we are all deeply interconnected, part of a bigger whole that includes nature and all forms of life. Learning Every problem is an invitation to learn and grow. We will always be learners. We have never arrived. Failure is always a possibility if we strive boldly for our purpose. We discuss our failures openly and learn from them. Hiding or neglecting to learn from failure is unacceptable. Feedback and respectful confrontation are gifts we share to help one another grow. We focus on strengths more than weaknesses, on opportunities more than problems. Relationships and conflict It’s impossible to change other people. We can only change ourselves. We take ownership for our thoughts, beliefs, words, and actions. We don’t spread rumors. We don’t talk behind someone’s back. We resolve disagreements one-on-one and don’t drag other people into the problem. We don’t blame problems on others. When we feel like blaming, we take it as an invitation to reflect on how we might be part of the problem (and the solution). PURPOSE Collective purpose We view the organization as having a soul and purpose of its own. We try to listen in to where the organization wants to go and beware of forcing a direction onto it. Individual purpose We have a duty to ourselves and to the organization to inquire into our personal sense of calling to see if and how it resonates with the organization’s purpose. We try to imbue our roles with our souls, not our egos. Planning the future Trying to predict and control the future is futile. We make forecasts only when a specific decision requires us to do so. Everything will unfold with more grace if we stop trying to control and instead choose to simply sense and respond. Profit In the long run, there are no trade-offs between purpose and profits. If we focus on purpose, profits will follow.

Crashing through the woods is how we have learned to be together in organizations. All it takes to scare the soul away is to make a sarcastic comment or to roll the eyes in a meeting. If we are to invite all of who we are to show up, including the shy inner voice of the soul, we need to create safe and caring spaces at work. We must learn to discern and be mindful of the subtle ways our words and actions undermine safety and trust in a community of colleagues.

No organization chart, no job description, no job titles ... Teal Organizations reverse the premise: people are not made to fit pre-defined jobs; their job emerges from a multitude of roles and responsibilities they pick up based on the interests, talents and the needs of the organization.

... anybody can put on the hat of `the boss` to bring out about important decisions, launch new initiatives, hold under-performing colleagues to account, help resolve conflicts, or take over leadership if results are bad and action is needed.

When top management asks departments to make their budgets, people play a game called sandbagging—they push for the lowest possible expectation to make sure they will achieve the targets and collect their bonuses. When the numbers don’t add up, top management arbitrarily imposes higher targets (which they make sure exceed what they promised to shareholders, to ensure they will make their bonuses too), which people lower down have no choice but to accept. Instead of frank discussions about what’s feasible and what’s not, people exchange spreadsheets with fictive forecasts driven by fear of not making the numbers. In the process, budgets fail to deliver on one of their key objectives: making people feel accountable and motivated for their outcomes.

ORGANIZATIONAL MODELS Seeing is not believing; believing is seeing! You see things, not as they are, but as you are. Eric Butterworth

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.

It’s conceivable that in the future the evolutionary purpose, rather than the organization, will become the entity around which people gather. A specific purpose will attract people and organizations in fluid and changing constellations, according to the need of the moment. People will connect in different capacities—fulltime, part-time, freelance, volunteering—and organizations will join forces, or disband, in reaction to what best serves the purpose at the moment. The boundaries of an organization might be harder to trace, and the very notion of an organization less relevant. Creating

If we can be in the world in the fullness of our humanity, what are we capable of?

The heart of the matter is that workers and employees are seen as reasonable people that can be trusted to do the right thing. With that premise, very few rules and control mechanisms are needed.

Not only all human beings, but all their activities, disciplines, and organizations can be looked at through this four-quadrant lens, and the results are always illuminating. According to Integral Theory, any comprehensive account of anything requires a look at all of these perspectives—the first-person (“I”), second-person (“you” and “we”), and third-person (“it” and “its”) perspectives. Most human disciplines acknowledge only one or two of these quadrants and either ignore or deny any real existence to the others. Thus, in consciousness studies, for example, the field is fairly evenly divided between those who believe consciousness is solely the product of Upper-Right or objective “it” processes (namely, the human brain and its activities); while the other half of the field believes consciousness itself (the Upper-Left or subjective “I” space) is primary, and all objects (such as the brain) arise in that consciousness field. Integral Theory maintains that both of those views are right; that is, both of those quadrants (and the other two quadrants) all arise together, simultaneously, and mutually influence each other as correlative aspects of the Whole. Trying to reduce all of the quadrants to one quadrant is “quadrant absolutism,” a wretched form of reductionism that obscures much more than it clarifies; while seeing all of the quadrants mutually arise and “tetra-evolve” sheds enormous light on perpetually puzzling problems (from the body/mind problem to the relation of science and spirituality to the mechanism of evolution itself).

There is one striking paradox I want to highlight: These companies are highly profitable, despite the fact that they seem to be, from an Orange perspective at least, quite careless about profits. Remember that they don’t make detailed budgets, they don’t compare budgets to actuals at the end of the month, they don’t set sales targets, and colleagues are free to spend any money they deem necessary without approval from above. They focus on what needs to be done, not on profitability, and yet this results in stellar profits.

Self-organization is the life force of the world, thriving on the edge of chaos …

No one can be made to evolve in consciousness, even with the best of intentions—a hard truth for coaches and consultants, who wish they could help organizational leaders adopt a more complex worldview by the power of conviction.

Imposing fixed working hours is based on the premise that people are resources, a set of arms or brains hired for a specific amount of time.

Not surprisingly, people resist being moved around.

Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher and scientist, proclaimed in a treatise written in 350 BC that women have fewer teeth than men.

Many people transitioning to this stage take up practices like meditation, centering, martial arts, yoga, or simply walking in nature to find a quiet place that allows the inner voice of the soul to speak its truth and guidance. Individuals who live from this perspective and connect to a deeper sense of purpose can become quite fearless in pursuit of their calling. With their ego under control, they don’t fear failure as much as not trying.

The absence of real kitchens in our organizations is a powerful revealer of how we think about our workplaces.

Too often we self-censor, too often we fail to fight for our concerns, for fear of being branded a dreamer, an activist, or a troublemaker.

The shift to Evolutionary-Teal structures, practices, and cultures liberates tremendous energies that previously were bottled up, unavailable. And with the shift to Teal, these energies get harnessed and directed with more clarity and wisdom toward productive ends.

There is yet another way to make sense of the achievements of Teal Organizations: they are fueled not by the power of human will, but by the much greater power of evolution, the engine of life itself.

Economies of scale can easily be estimated in hard dollar figures, whereas it is virtually impossible to peg a number to the diseconomies of motivation.

Postmodern/Pluralistic stage, a small percentage (two or three percent) began to show characteristics that were literally unprecedented in human history. Graves called the emergence of this even newer level “a monumental leap in meaning,” and Maslow referred to it as the emergence of “Being values.” Where all the previous stages (Magic, Mythic, Rational, and Pluralistic) had operated out of a sense of lack, scarcity, and deficiency, this new level—which various researchers began calling “integrated,” “integral,” “autonomous,” “second tier,” “inclusive,” “systemic”—acted out of a sense of radical abundance, as if it were overflowing with goodness, truth, and beauty. It was as if somebody put a billion dollars in its psychological account, and all it wanted to do was share it, so full it was.

tetra-evolve

The story of the global workforce is a sad tale of wasted talent and energy.

a year after it has been set, a target is in most cases just an arbitrary number—either

In the old machine metaphor of organizations, staff functions are like levers that the C-suite leaders use to steer the ship—levers that are conveniently close at hand, just a few doors down the hall at headquarters. Yet it is often an illusion of control: from the perspective of headquarters, rules and procedures always make sense; one must be in the field to experience the counterproductive and dispiriting results they often produce and to realize how often people find creative ways around them or simply ignore them.

If employees need to be empowered, it is because the system’s very design concentrates power at the top

In Orange Organizations, leadership might pay lip service to the values; but when the rubber hits the road and leaders have to choose between profits and values, they will predictably go for the former. They cannot uphold a practice and a culture (in this case, a values-driven culture) that stems from a later stage of development.20

Solution-Driven Methods of Interaction,

surveys consistently report that work is more often than not dread and drudgery, not passion or purpose.

leaders’ fear to give up control trumps their ability to trust, and they keep making decisions high up that would be better left in the hands of people lower in the hierarchy.

budgets fail to deliver on one of their key objectives: making people feel accountable and motivated for their outcomes.

Humans are resources that must be carefully aligned on the chart, rather like cogs in a machine.

Bringing about consensus among large groups of people is inherently difficult.

Businesses have a responsibility not only to investors, but also to management, employees, customers, suppliers, local communities, society at large, and the environment.

In a world where organizations are self-managing, living systems, we don’t need to impose change from the outside.

The best way to predict the future is to create it.

It is a challenge for any organization to create an environment where people feel safe to show up whole.

Amber Organizations try wherever possible to be self-contained and autonomous—one simply shouldn’t need the outside world.

Social stability comes at the price of wearing a mask, of learning to distance ourselves from our unique nature, from our personal desires, needs, and feelings; instead, we embrace a socially acceptable self.

From an Evolutionary-Teal perspective, the right question is not: how can everyone have equal power? It is rather: how can everyone be powerful? Power is not viewed as a zero-sum game, where the power I have is necessarily power taken away from you. Instead, if we acknowledge that we are all interconnected, the more powerful you are, the more powerful I can become. The more powerfully you advance the organization’s purpose, the more opportunities will open up for me to make contributions of my own.

We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity; more than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. Charles Chaplin (speech from the Jewish barber in The Great Dictator) Striving

With no middle management and little staff, Teal Organizations dispense with the usual control mechanisms; they are built on foundations of mutual trust. Zobrist has written a book outlining FAVI’s practices that is subtitled: L’entreprise qui croit que l’Homme est bon (“The organization that believes that mankind is good”). The heart of the matter is that workers and employees are seen as reasonable people that can be trusted to do the right thing. With that premise, very few rules and control mechanisms are needed. Before

We have grown up with a deeply held assumption that control mechanisms make us safe. No matter how many corporate scandals keep happening in organizations full of control mechanisms, we hold on to this assumption. Whenever

At both the top and bottom, organizations are more often than not playfields for unfulfilling pursuits of our egos, inhospitable to the deeper yearnings of our souls.

We’ve been told that we should assess other people as objectively as possible. That’s a tragic mistake. Assessments are never objective (at best we can say they are culturally grounded, if many people share the same assessment), but nevertheless we often believe that they are. We turn our subjective impressions into “truths” about a person; no wonder they resist our feedback. Rather

Any information that isn’t public will cause suspicion (why else would someone go through the trouble to keep it secret?), and suspicion is toxic for organizational trust.

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

Evolution is a formidable process that brings forth unfathomable beauty and complexity not through a grand design, but by means of relentless, small-scale, parallel experimentation. Evolution

Can a middle manager put Teal practices in place for the department he is responsible for? When I am asked this question, as much as I would like to believe the opposite, I tell people not to waste their energy trying. Experience shows that efforts to bring Teal practices into subsets of organizations bear fruit, at best, only for a short while. If

CNNMoney calculates that in 2011, the CEOs of Fortune 50 companies took home on average a staggering 379 times the median pay of employees in their company65 (the multiple would be even higher when compared to the lowest paid employee).

A human … experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Albert Einstein

What replaces fear? A capacity to trust the abundance of life.

In Teal, our journey toward inner rightness prompts some soul searching of who we are and what our purpose in life might be. The ultimate goal in life is not to be successful or loved, but to become the truest expression of ourselves, to live into authentic selfhood, to honor our birthright gifts and callings, and be of service to humanity and our world. In Teal, life is seen as a journey of personal and collective unfolding toward our true nature.

Zappos.com, an online shoe retailer, offers its new hires a $3,000 check if they have second thoughts and choose to quit during the four-week orientation. The idea is that everyone will be better off not staying in a marriage that isn’t meant to be.

Bakke recounts an earlier anecdote that explains how his view on work was shaped from early childhood—one of a strand of many experiences that would determine his vocation to create organizations that make work fun and fulfilling: On this particular day, my mother had organized the evening work in her usual style. The kitchen was abuzz with activity. I was 16 years old and charged with cooking creamed peas for supper. My younger brother was carrying wood from the shed to the storage area next to the kitchen. Kenny’s older sisters [Kenny and his sisters were foster children at the Bakke home] were clearing dirty cooking dishes and setting the table with dinner ware. …. No one was paying attention to Kenny. …. Suddenly the two-year-old … picked up the spoon on his tray. “I want jobs, I want jobs, I want jobs,” he chanted as he pounded his spoon. I think this little guy with a crooked smile and troubled past was saying, “I want to contribute. I can make a difference. I want to be part of the team. I’m somebody. I want to have fun working, too!” Over the years, I have reflected on that moment and come to believe that it captures the early and substantial influence Mom had on my concept of fun in the workplace. Somehow, she created an environment in which everyone was energized, not from fear of punishment or promise of reward, but from a desire to accomplish something positive. She had unbridled confidence in our ability to accomplish the tasks at hand. … She gave us enormous freedom to work and make decisions. Somehow she made work so attractive that even an abused two-year-old wanted desperately to pitch in for the sheer joy and excitement of it.41

Cognitively, psychologically, and morally, moving on to a new stage is a massive feat. It requires courage to let go of old certainties and experiment with a new worldview. For a while, everything can seem uncertain and confused. It might be lonely, too, as sometimes in the process we can lose close relationships with friends and family who can no longer relate to us.

What replaces fear? A capacity to trust the abundance of life. All wisdom traditions posit the profound truth that there are two fundamental ways to live life: from fear and scarcity or from trust and abundance. In Evolutionary-Teal, we cross the chasm and learn to decrease our need to control people and events. We come to believe that even if something unexpected happens or if we make mistakes, things will turn out all right, and when they don’t, life will have given us an opportunity to learn and grow.

What replaces fear? A capacity to trust the abundance of life. All wisdom traditions posit the profound truth that there are two fundamental ways to live life: from fear and scarcity or from trust and abundance.

The ultimate goal in life is not to be successful or loved, but to become the truest expression of ourselves, to live into authentic selfhood, to honor our birthright gifts and callings, and be of service to humanity and our world. In Teal, life is seen as a journey of personal and collective unfolding toward our true nature.

Recognition, success, wealth, and belonging are viewed as pleasurable experiences, but also as tempting traps for the ego. In contrast with previous stages, the order is reversed: we do not pursue recognition, success, wealth, and belonging to live a good life. We pursue a life well-lived, and the consequence might just be recognition, success, wealth, and love.

The more you know about another person’s journey, the less possible it is to distrust or dislike that person.

A simpler way to put it is: culture is how things get done, without people having to think about it.

Seeing is not believing; believing is seeing! You see things, not as they are, but as you are. Eric Butterworth

A practical tip: explore the assumptions with your team, not on your own. And as a first step, start by uncovering the unspoken assumptions behind the traditional hierarchical organizational (Amber/Orange) model: workers are lazy and untrustworthy; senior people have all the answers; employees can’t handle difficult news; and so forth.