Teal Tuesday – Evolutionary Purpose
The penultimate Teal blog post is here, and we’re going to talk about the last of Laloux’s concepts ‘evolutionary purpose’. This concept helps make room for exploring deeper questions about meaning and purpose on both a collective and an individual level, for instance “Why am I here?” and “What do I want to achieve and is it truly worth achieving?”.
The Concept
Evolutionary purpose transforms the awareness of the company from bog-standard targets and profit into a more beneficial idea of “where does this company want to go and how can we facilitate that?”. Laloux explains that when an organisation truly has evolutionary purpose, there will be no competition. Of the 12 organisations he researched, none of them had a strategic plan for the next 3-5 years. It changes the normal ‘predict-and-control’ method of running into a ‘sense-and-respond’. Traditionally, most organisations attempt to predict what will happen over the coming months or years and then set a strategy in place based on those predictions. Teal organisations, on the other hand, don’t try and predict, instead sensing where the company wants to naturally grow. Not only does this help with dealing with change, but it stays in tune with the rhythms of its people and the market. If the purpose of your organisation is clear, then you can implement structured ways of listening which is aligned by the purpose. This will naturally guide colleagues into making the best decisions for the company.
Budgets are a key part of any company, granted, but they don’t have to be nearly as daunting or controlling. Budgets are used in traditional corporate structures to monitor targets, however in Teal organisations budgets become very simple and are used to facilitate the activities of each department. There is trust and belief that if one has the self-management and motivation, alongside the collective intelligence of your colleagues, the budget is utilised for the evolutionary purpose of the company. Another factor, change management, should also require less strict structure. This draws upon the self-management concept again, with people being free to act on what they sense is needed which, in part, is influenced by the lack of rigid job descriptions. Colleagues are free to suggest new roles that could be required, new additions to the system, or changes in practice. It doesn’t have to wait months for approval and a meeting can be set up in a short period of time to discuss the potential changes. All participants of said meeting will have the same evolutionary purpose and so can discuss it based on that rather than what will be more profitable.
Essentially, the spaces created through wholeness and self-management will encourage a ‘sense-and-respond’ attitude which is further aided and facilitated through purpose. Within a traditional management structure, the CEO or manager is expected to make decisions with the pressure of targets. But one person cannot necessarily see the gaps within the company. By realising and reassuring the idea that a company is not complicated but complex the gaps or changes needed will naturally come to the fore with little resistance. With evolutionary purpose in mind, a solution becomes naturally apparent.
How Konsileo Does It
Konsileo has two purposes, one external and one internal. Our external purpose, that for our clients, is that we promise to “Protect your business. Properly.” As a commercial insurance broker, protecting and providing expert risk management advise is our number one priority. We strive to evolve with the markets and our clients and always looking for improvements in our practices. This is aided, in part, by our internal practice of promising our Client Directors that they will become “the happiest, best rewarded, most professional broker”. By ensuring that our Client Directors are happy in themselves and their role, we know that they will have the passion and motivation to help their clients. These two purposes aid each other, meaning that if a growth occurs in one then the other will mirror and both will support the overall evolution of the organisation.
During our induction process, new Client Directors and Central Team members gain a solid grounding in Konsileo’s evolutionary purpose. When they join the company, this is solidified by the existing community. It becomes easier for them to ask the developers, for instance, to accommodate needs as our Client Directors start expanding into new sectors and markets that weren’t available before. By having the freedom to have control over their own books, the company naturally grows with the market and its people. Budgets are discussed at regular ‘steering meetings’ where our team listens and sees where the company is currently at and then steering the company in where it wants to go. As everyone on the team has the evolutionary purpose in view along with the Teal mindset, it allows for the conversation to be deeper and more intentional than just tracking targets.
The Teal structure is still a relatively new phenomenon and there is still so much room for uncovering and discovering new practices that will help us listen to the organisation. Strategy becomes the product of collective intelligence and self-management as we start to learn long-term effects of these structures, aiding us massively in discovering techniques to fulfil a company’s unique evolutionary purpose.
If you’re self-motivated and enjoy the idea of collective intelligence and purpose, contact Chris or Prina for a confidential chat to find out more about what Konsileo has to offer.
