The transformation process towards the Teal model proposes a vision of organizations that foresees the absence of internal hierarchy, a labor division by teams, participatory decision-making processes and self-organization of individuals. The path that a traditional company must face can therefore be very complex. It requires activation of a dynamic movement, similar to a dance, in which there are those who must take a step back and let go of their position of power and control, and those who must step forward and take on new responsibilities.
In order for the transformation to truly and fully occur, it is critical that there is commitment and belief on the part of a board of managers or at least the owners. This is what we saw happen at Zordan, an Italian company specialized in high-end interior design.
When we were called in, the company had already started an internal reorganization, eliminating the traditional division of departments according to specialized skills, and instead creating three multidisciplinary teams, one dedicated to sales and one to production.
“The collective reading of Reinventing Organizations – says Maurizio Zordan – began in the company 3 years ago. We didn’t know exactly in what way it could be useful, but in a period of heated internal conflict and increasing external complexity, we had found elements in the book that attracted us. Having reached the height of confusion in the second half of last year, and with many people in the company asking for an increase in procedures in order to have clear references in their daily work, we decided to completely change the paradigm and entrust Peoplerise with the task of accompanying us in this U-turn towards self-organization, beyond the Herculean columns of hierarchy”.
Thus, the project we developed had the purpose of generating a deep entrenchment of the Teal model in the everyday life, both in terms of operational working methods and corporate culture, to ensure that people, despite the changes that had taken place, did not return to act in accordance with the traditional approach.
To develop our path, we therefore identified a representative sample of the company, involving, in addition to the entrepreneur Maurizio Zordan, 11 people including project managers, commercial figures, representatives of administration, production, communication and planning.
We worked using three lenses of observation and action: the one of corporate culture, the one of the core process with the customer, and the one of leadership style. We then acted in parallel on these three strands to ensure that they favored:
- the self-organization of teams working on the core process with the client, in order to make teams and individuals as autonomous as possible in taking the initiative with respect to effective improvements and actions in client service;
- the fullness of relationships within the company, so that all individuals feel free to express their opinions and are encouraged to interact with the various professional and “hierarchical” figures in the company;
- the sharing of Zordan’s evolutionary purpose, in order to spread and create identity among the population of the company, values and themes that are important for the ownership, such as sustainable development.
“The initial enthusiasm – Zordan continues – then turned into commitment, hard work, doubts, disappointments and uncertainties, but in the end, as the results arrived, we were proved right. In the last year we did not have any resignations, in the second half of the year the results generated by the freedom, autonomy and responsibility of the people finally arrived and the corporate climate improved considerably, giving a glimpse of new spaces for growth that we are already seizing”.
Already 8 months after the start of the project, many very different initiatives have begun that have helped to initiate this transformation. For the conduct of meetings, for instance, there has been a shift from a top-down mode to the sharing of certain principles and practices that make the meetings participatory (e.g., identification of the meeting facilitator on a rotating basis, sending informative material at the time of the meeting, etc.). In order to make the process with clients more efficient, the core process was mapped and then the areas where the greatest delays and/or rework occurred were identified, launching improvement initiatives to reduce waste (e.g. involvement of external suppliers in the kick-off phase and planning of project deadlines, initiation of dialogues between production and design for the definition of certain common standards). In addition, to share what “Teal” means, screens have been put up in common company spaces on which quotes from the book Reinventing Organizations run. Finally, in order to create a working community, shifts have been activated for the care of common spaces, and a kudos box has been created in which appreciative feedback can be left for colleagues to thank them for a gesture they have made.
“We are aware of the fact that we are pioneers – concludes the entrepreneur – and that we on this journey do not have all the tools and knowledge we would need in a new territory. We’re making a lot of mistakes but we have given everyone, including ourselves, the chance to grow and to prove that the inexorable decline in productivity and engagement in Western economies can be defeated even by a very normal B2B company. As with B Corp®, we hope to be imitated in this area as well”.
What’s next?
To ensure that each team can consider itself as a small business and therefore also develop those skills of strategic thinking and performance management that are typical for the leader.
