May 12 Teal Meeting
The Teal facilitator attitude (life-long experience)
Reporter
Main insights shared in the larger group
Theme explanation
Life-long experience: on the long run, not just present, past or future
Person 1
Leadership:
Leader what does it mean
Teal=management but actually not
Person 2
Managing something, not necessarily people
Leadership=inspiration
When I read the book, I was inspired by the fact that an organisation can be led and managed by a group
Don’t want to force a management way
But still things need to be done
Complexity
Here in Switzerland, the understanding of Teal was there = enthusiastic
But then, how does it apply on the field?
Confronted with people within the group: do I have permission to do this?
Stop yourself to ask for permission and giving permission
Interesting challenge of maintaining this attitude
Under certain circumstances, you need to change the management style
When you have an emergency crisis, the only way it works, one person decides who does what: for a limited period of time
Then come back to shared leadership
Then another crisis, someone else is leading the who does what
Person 3
Word facilitator: I like it better
You always have a community, a group with a common goal
You need a role of someone who keeps you thinking
Nourishing the fire
We need to keep the fire alive
Are we nourishing our private goal or the one from the community?
I just started facilitating a group doing the same activity as hers
The director was burned out
The head of staff was sick with corona
Someone in the group saying: I want to go teal
Interesting to see the reactions
A natural way of acting very collaboratively
Even then she was confused: is my role just executing the decisions taken by the group
I am not ready just to do what they want to do
What is the role? How do we act on it?
Trial and error
Learning by doing
As a facilitator, I was first a mediator as the team was in crisis, then evolved
Took the issues one by one
At the beginning it was very difficult “ce sera comme ça”
Now they understand people react to ideas and not people
Next step: mapping of needs and processes to define the roles
Now the point is: the director will come back, no one trusts her
Will the process continue with her being there?
Person 4
Attitude, mindset
I am calling from Luxembourg
Main coach transforming the company with a new way of working
I realise from my experience: ridiculous to say “now you become teal”
It is not true, doesn’t work
What works: companies are living organisms
They have their own field of energy
First job: listen and support, advice on which way to go
Passionate about teal ideas
See benefits immediately
Can create a lot of pain, tension in the organisation
Should be a very good listener
To what degree the organisation is ready to change, support this change
Don’t say where they should go
I am experimenting with facilitator role for 10 years
Last few years: painful
I had big expectations
My problem is my attitude
It is not for me to transform things, to accompany the company where it wants to go
I can be in peace if the company doesn’t want to go full teal
Person 5
Only thing to do: start where the team is, wants to go
A way to teal: listen
It resonates a lot with my way of doing it
Going step by step
Manager/leader/coach: replace the words by facilitator, co-creator
Be able to alternate those roles
Person 4
Concept of teal, agile can be a problem
Creates expectations, can be a problem
Where does this organisation wants to go?
Listen and support to the best of possibilities
Be in peace
Entreprise agile coach at the beginning
They hire me to do something that they are not ready and don’t want to do
Ruth Q&A
No quick fix: in the same shit together
Organisations moving towards teal, no teal organisations
The road is bumpy in times of crisis
If I had to do it all over again, I would be much more patient
Because of my character
Give space to people who want to go with the flow
Create boundaries
Hold the space
Within that space: let people do what they want to do
Shift from I to we much faster
The success on the teal story depends on the persons creating the organisation
You have to know yourself
Tips for creating a Teal organisation
Investing in a shared vision
We don’t think we think you know
What values are key to you
How do we want to organise ourselves around leadership
People want to go to action and make sure if we go to action, we go to the right direction
Right direction is impossible to define
Go step by step
Trial and error
This approach is working
You must be ready for everyone to be taking the different roles
Acceptance about this, take turns
You don’t start from scratch
It may make sense to you to go teal
You have been influenced by other ways of working
While running, setting up the organisation, you may think you are teal but then realise you have old reflexes coming back
It is a transformation for you too
Useful links
https://www.notion.so/Teal-Evening-17d462cc268746a09a12df2b1690452d
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/upshot/health-jobs-plummeting-virus.html
https://www.facebook.com/groups/p2p.open/permalink/3162781350432689
