50 shades of teal management: practical cases. Valera Razgulyaev

descriptions. Unfortunately, this leads to formalism ("when you do your job, fill out the paperwork; when you don’t, fill out more"), but this can be useful in situations where limited resources need to be distributed, and fairness must take precedence.

      Purple

      A classic corporation where internal wars are constantly being fought, seemingly for the benefit of the corporation itself; however, the losses are also considerable. A constant race for perfection, cutthroat competition and the embodiment of the inhumane principle of "the end justifies the means" – when anything goes, so long as you get results.

      Teal

      A complete rejection of managers. In the best-case scenario, they can fulfill the roles of assistants: without forcing anything on anyone, they limit themselves to merely training self-management skills in their team. Here, everyone takes responsibility for the fulfillment of those promises that they take on for themselves, which ideally suits companies in constantly changing situations that demand a flexible approach. (The teal management strategy will be described in more detail in the second chapter.)

      White

      The ideal management system of the future, where subordinates voluntarily obey managers that they personally choose in the name of unlocking as much of their potential as possible, when everyone takes responsibility for the decisions that they make within the framework of such obedience. This contains all of the advantages of the other forms of management, without any of their downsides. Unfortunately, at the current stage of our social development, this is an unachievable dream – we can only strive towards this model for now.

      These colors aren’t usually found in their pure form. What’s more, in any company, they are all always present – the only question is which of them takes priority. If it’s still hard for you to figure out which of the colors is dominant in your organization after taking into account the above information, then you can take a test online at http://biryuzovie.ru. The only thing is that practice has shown that in order to get the right answer, you have to answer honestly, without passing off what you want as what you have.

      Is this book right for you?

      Based on the aforementioned color scheme, it stands to reason that companies that want to transition to teal management might currently use blue, green, red, yellow or purple management styles. Currently, the most widespread styles are purple corporations, yellow bureaucracies and green family businesses. For them, there are already well-trodden paths that allow them to make a successful transition to teal management. In fact, the second chapter of this book will focus specifically on managers in organizations that primarily use purple corporate management. Of course, others are by no means forbidden from reading; what’s more, it might even turn out to be useful for them. But in order to realize the practical side of the matter, I advise using different approaches, which I’ll outline for each of the colors below.

      Holacracy is an approach to organizing a company based on organizing holons, a kind of circle for solving every kind of recurring task: within these circles, there are roles which various employees can fulfill, who receive these roles fully and independently make decisions within them.

      For a yellow bureaucracy, a formalistic method works best, and the holacracy is the clearest example of such an approach. This is an approach to organizing a company based on organizing holons, a kind of circle for solving every kind of recurring task: within these circles, there are roles which various employees can fulfill, who receive these roles fully and independently make decisions within them. Brian Robertson’s book ⁽¹⁾ outlines all the protocols for meetings to move a company into teal management. There is also a "lighter" version, sociocracy, which welcomes the consolidation or alteration of work protocols by employees themselves, through a single required element of every meeting: a reflection on any process and its final results.

      Sociocracy – a “lighter” version of holacracy, which welcomes the consolidation or alteration of work protocols by employees themselves, through a single required element of every meeting: reflection on any process and its final results.

      A green family business is best helped by a psychological method, in which professional psychologists work with the team, both as a whole and with each individual member, over the course of two or three years. The goal is to achieve such integrity in each unit of the company as to make any other management style (save for teal management) can hardly be possible. For that matter, all of the employees voluntarily take on additional responsibilities connected with this management style – or voluntarily leave, having understood that they are driven by something else and they don’t want to continue doing their current job if they can’t find another suitable task within the organization. Of course, it’s far faster to simply divide everyone into those who are simply out of their league and those who pull double the weight, but companies aren’t organized in this way by accident. For that reason, these post-flight analyses will depend on the people who are willing to take part in them and support them – with specific examples from specific employees rather than generalizations.

      For blue and red organizations, there are no established successful paths of transitioning to teal management, since such a transition happens extremely rarely. But based on the logic of the color scheme, we can suggest the following.

      • Blue: it might seem that in order to get a teal company, all you need to do is add some green, but it’s not that simple, as each of the experts in such an organization has successfully protected their position many times. As a result, a separation of competencies and spheres has occurred: nobody gets in their neighbor’s way, but simultaneously doesn’t let anyone get close to themselves, either. In order to change the situation for the better, you have to start doubling your responsible parties (there will be more about this technique in the second chapter). Additionally, you need to start finding a common goal and establish shared responsibility for its achievement. This will be constantly disputed, since each person in the company will habitually begin to demonstrate that work is going just fine on their own individual front, but the point of this initiative is to make all of these top-flight specialists, with their widely varying specializations, understand that the most important front is a shared one.

      • Red: since everything in such an organization is tied up in its leading figure, that’s the person that you have to work with – specifically, through a professional business trainer and psychologist who will help the boss to gradually understand themselves and restructure the company’s management to allow more delegation of power and less worry over potential theft. You can start by getting acquainted with Dennis Bakke’s “The Decision Maker.” ⁽²⁾ Unfortunately, you can’t get away with just reading a book, since you’ll have to prove to the “monarch” over and over again the advantage that they’ll receive from passing their work off to other people – even if they do it worse – over and over again, using specific examples.

      Chapter One. Why bother?

      The majority of the definitions will be given in the following chapter, but at the beginning of the book, we still have to agree on what we understand as "management." We often use this word in everyday life, while hardly even thinking about how we might explain the concept clearly.

      ✎Task 1

      In your opinion, what is management? Try to come up with a definition for this concept.

      Stop! Don’t skip this first task, or any of the ones that follow it. I’m certain that you don’t like theoretical work all that much, and you might even complain about how much hot air and how little practical material is in most management and leadership books. But here’s the practice you wanted, and it will allow you to make sense of your own management. Please don’t ignore this task; stop and do it honestly,