50 shades of teal management: practical cases. Valera Razgulyaev

50 shades of teal management: practical cases

      Valera Razgulyaev

      The author of the translation Andrew Freeburg

      Translation Editor Ksenia Kutuzova

      © Valera Razgulyaev, 2022

      ISBN 978-5-0059-3450-5

      Created with Ridero smart publishing system

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      Foreword

      Who is this book for?

      I’m not a guru, a prophet, a clairvoyant or a scientist. I’m a practitioner who has been following the path of teal management in a single specific company, VkusVill. I don’t have a goal of selling this approach to anyone, since I devote 100% of my time to our organization. But every day, I answer questions related to this new approach – both to myself and everyone else who asks me about it – and I’ve noticed that my answers seem to change sometime in the feelings and actions of those around me. That’s why I took it upon myself to write this book. Of course, I must admit that I hope you read this book to the end, and that it turns out to be useful for you! And if not? Oh well. Send it back to me: Valery Yuryevich Razgulyaev, ulitsa Tayninskaya, 12, apartment 93, Moscow, Russia, 129345. Make sure to leave your phone number or email address, and please tell me how much money you spent on it and the best way to return it to you.

      In order to minimize the number of returns, I want to warn you right away: this book is by no means about "teal" organizations. I believe that "teal organizations," just like "teal people," can’t exist even in theory: these are just stupid labels that somebody pins on companies or their employees. Teal management tools are a different matter entirely: they have already been developed and can be applied in practice in any organization. My book’s goal is to answer key questions regarding teal management: "Why is it necessary?" "What is it?" "How can we transition to it?" "Why is it worth it?" It’s structured around answers to all of these.

      In the first chapter, "Why bother?" I describe the problems of traditional management systems, all of which gave rise to the need to invent something new. These are the exact factors that led to the appearance of teal management and continue to inspire more and more new followers to study it.

      In the second chapter, "What?" we will examine the main tools of teal management and break down their advantages. The situation is complicated by the fact that many definitions in this sphere have yet to become established. After all, it’s generally accepted to first agree on terminology, and only then begin discussing problems. But since a book does not presume the possibility for such a dialogue, I am forced to offer my own combinations of terms, which I will start to use in the hopes that you will accept them for at least as long as you read this book and we can exist in a single conceptual field. In order to make it easier for you to refer to them, I italicized all of the definitions in the text, and at the end of the book, I’ve included a glossary.

      The third chapter, "How?" suggests approaches and mechanisms for transitioning to teal management that have proved themselves in practice to interested managers. To be fair, there’s no single algorithm for such a transition, but I will suggest several different options that each reader can use creatively in their own specific use cases – after all, every individual case is always unique.

      In the fourth chapter, "Why?" I tried to put together a theoretical foundation for the problem, gathering scientific studies and explaining particular effects that make teal management not just possible, but as successful and even necessary in the modern world as it has become. This part might not seem to add anything from a practical perspective, but I’m sure that for some people, reading it will serve as an additional reason to get up and start the necessary transformations in their companies without delay, while allowing others to understand more deeply – and, therefore, use more effectively – what I describe in the first three chapters.

      Throughout the entire book, I’ll be giving you tasks: they will always be in a separate frame, with the task number indicated. I know I can’t make you do anything, but I sincerely advise that you honestly complete all of them. This will give me more chances to get through to you with my message. If for any reason at all you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer: send them to my email, [email protected].

      There’s one more important element. I write about things that differ sharply from your current management practice. For that matter, I’m sure that your practices are successful! That’s why your mind will, more likely than not, desperately resist any attempts to interpret what’s written here. What’s more, the more useful that a given bit of text would be for you, the greater inner resistance you will experience. Your consciousness will start helpfully explaining why everything written in this book isn’t even worth reading further. I beg you: as soon as you feel something like this, stop and try to figure out what’s making you freak out. In order to do this, you have to imagine what would personally happen to you if what you had just read were to turn out to be true. That way, you can understand something important about yourself. Only after you change can you achieve any of the other results of your work.

      Finally, I’m not pushing for anyone to move toward teal management. Moreover, this book won’t even come close to working for everybody who thought they’d be interested in it! You can understand whether it will work for you by working through the following color system of management styles.

      Color scheme of management styles

      There are various approaches to management. They can be conveniently divided into eight main types which completely describe all possible variations and are differentiated by the following colors.

      Blue

      A group of top-notch experts (we’ll call them experts) who are forced to work together because they sequentially participate in the process of creating value for the client, all while constantly arguing (openly or not) whose functions are more important. Everyone sticks to their narrowly specialized field and takes responsibility for what they know best, but they insistently do not want to leave that comfort zone; therefore, shared tasks are accomplished only with difficulty. This system of management works excellently for associations of experts in various industries.

      Green

      A family where people are the most important element. Many of them are forgiven their imperfections. A family business where everyone is appreciated for their personal qualities: this means that relationships between employees are good, but results sometimes fail to measure up – since everyone is responsible for everything, nobody is specifically responsible for anything. For companies based in the family model (just like an actual family – they need to be managed, too), this system is irreplaceable.

      Red

      One person single-handedly manages everybody else – and they, figuratively speaking, are that person’s legs, arms, eyes… Even when a hierarchy technically exists among their subordinates, this person gives everybody orders and personally demands results from them. The "monarch" takes full responsibility for what takes place in their "kingdom" and directly controls all of their "subjects," criticizing their loyalty and becoming a bottleneck for everything. However, this system can be useful for doing dirty work that demands the joint efforts of a group of people.

      Yellow

      A classic