Wholeness

This article discusses one of the three foundational “breakthroughs” common to Teal organizations.

Workplaces have traditionally encouraged people to show up with their “professional” self and to check all other parts of themselves at the door. They often require us to show a masculine resolve, to display determination and strength, and to hide doubts and vulnerability. Rationality rules: the emotional, intuitive, and spiritual selves are typically unwelcome, or out of place.^[1]

What makes us leave so much of our selfhood behind when we go to work? There is a conspiracy of fears at play that involves employees as much as their organizations. Organizations fear that if people were to bring all of themselves to work— their moods, quirks, and weekend clothes— things would quickly dissolve into a mess. Armies have long known that people made to feel interchangeable are much easier to control. Employees, for their part, fear that if they were to show up with all of who they are, they might expose their selfhood to criticism and ridicule and come across as odd and out of place. It is deemed much better to play it safe and to hide the selfhood behind a professional mask.

Wisdom traditions from around the world speak to this from a deeper level: at heart, we are all profoundly interconnected and part of a whole, but it’s a truth we have forgotten. We are born into separation and raised to feel divided from our deeper nature, as well as from the people and life around us. Our deepest calling in life, these traditions tell us, is to reclaim wholeness, within ourselves and in our connection with the outside world. This spiritual insight inspires Teal Organizations’ second breakthrough: to create a space that supports us in our journey to wholeness. Extraordinary things begin to happen when we dare to bring all of who we are to work. Every time we leave a part of us behind, we cut ourselves off from part of our potential, of our creativity and energy. No wonder many workplaces feel somehow lifeless. In wholeness we are life-full. We discover in awe how much more life there is in us than we ever imagined. In our relationships with colleagues, much of what made the workplace unpleasant and inefficient vanishes; work becomes a vehicle where we help each other reveal our inner greatness and manifest our calling.^[2]

Teal Organizations have developed a consistent set of practices that invite us to reclaim our inner wholeness and bring all of who we are to work.

Self-management

Self-management goes a long way toward helping us show up more fully. With no scarce promotions to fight for, no bosses to please, and no adversaries to elbow aside, much of the political poison is drained out of organizations. Without a boss looking over our shoulder, without employees to keep in line and peers that could turn into competitors, we can finally let our guard down and simply focus on the work we want to do.^[3]

Safe and supportive environment

Beyond self-management, Teal organizations create an environment in which people support each other in their inner work while doing the outer work of the organization. Teal organizations recognize that every time our fears get triggered is an opportunity to learn and grow into more wholeness, reclaiming aspects of ourselves that we have neglected or pushed into the shadows. They believe that if we are to invite all of who we are to show up, including the shy inner voice of the soul, we need to create safe and caring spaces at work. We must learn to discern and be mindful of the subtle ways our words and actions undermine safety and trust in a community of colleagues.^[4]

Explicit ground rules

Teal Organizations spend significant time and energy training everybody in ground rules that support healthy and productive collaboration. Many end up writing down these ground rules in a document. RHD has its detailed Bill of Rights and Responsibilities; Morning Star its documents called Organizational Vision, Colleague Principles, and Statement of General Business Philosophy; FAVI has its fiches, and Holacracy its Constitution. These documents provide a vision for a safe and productive workplace. They give colleagues a vocabulary to discuss healthy relationships, and they draw lines that separate recommended from unacceptable behaviors.^[5]

Reflective spaces

Wisdom traditions insist on the need for regular silence and reflection to quiet the mind and let truth emerge from a deeper part of ourselves. An increasing number of people pick up contemplative practices— meditation, prayer, yoga, walking in nature— and integrate these into their daily lives. Many Teal organizations have set up a quiet room somewhere in the office, and others have put meditation and yoga classes in place. This practice opens up space for individual reflection and mindfulness in the middle of busy days. A number of them go a step further: they also create collective moments for self-reflection through practices such as group coaching, team supervision, large-group reflections, and days of silence. ^[6] see Training and Coaching

Storytelling

If we want workplaces of trust, if we hope for deep, rich, and meaningful relationships, we have to reveal more of who we are. It has become fashionable in many companies, when teams don’t collaborate well, to call for a team-building event. Going bowling together can be a fun break from work, but such activities are generally “more of the same”: they keep to the surface and don’t really foster trust or community at any deep level. These events lack the essential element we have used to build community and create shared narratives since the dawn of time: the practice of storytelling. We have lost track of the power of stories to bring us together, and in the process, we have let communal relations dwindle and erode. We need to recover the power of storytelling, as author Parker Palmer tells us:^[7]

The more you know about another person’s journey, the less possible it is to distrust or dislike that person. Want to know how to build relational trust? Learn more about each other. Learn it through simple questions that can be tucked into the doing of work, creating workplaces that not only employ people but honor the soul in the process.^[8]

Meetings

Teal organizations typically have instituted specific meeting practices to help participants keep their egos in check and interact with each other from a place of wholeness. Some are very simple, while others much more elaborate. At Sounds True, every meeting starts with a minute of silence to help people ground themselves in the moment. Many Teal companies start meetings with a round of check-in and finish with a round of check-out.^[9] See Meetings

Managing Conflict

It’s easy in our relationships with colleagues to fall prey to our desire to please or to impress, to be liked, or to dominate. We easily intrude on others or let them intrude on us. Our soul knows the right boundaries, and sometimes it tells us we need conflict to set them in the right place. Without conflict, we can be over-accommodating or over-protective, and in both cases, we stop being true to ourselves when interacting with colleagues. Teal organizations have developed specific practices to identify and resolve conflict.^[10] See Conflict resolution.

Physical Spaces

Most places of work insidiously signal that we are in a place somehow removed from normal life, and they call us to behave differently than we would in other environments. Teal organizations create physical spaces that invite workers to bring more of themselves to the job. Sounds True welcomes workers’ dogs to the office and installed not just a microwave but a full stove in the kitchen to encourage a sense of community in which people could cook and eat together. At Buurtzorg, nurses are encouraged to decorate their small community offices to make them their own. At FAVI, teams have chosen colors to paint the machines in their area and have decorated the shop floor with posters, plants and aquariums. Many Teal organizations spend significant resources on facilitating workers’ connection with nature so that they can slow down and find a deeper connection with themselves and the world: Sun Hydraulics located all its factories next to a lake; Sounds True defied the convention of fixed windows that would ensure centralized temperature control and opted for more expensive windows that could open to the outside.^[11]

Personal development

Through these practices, a safe space is created. Then, each person is responsible to follow his/her own process of self–awareness and personal development. The daily practices that Teal organization offer, such as reflective space, storytelling, meetings without ego and conflict resolution methodologies, are the tools each person has available to define and follow his way. And only in this process of matching such an organizational approach with the individual’s responsibility for self-growth, can self-management and listening to purpose flourish.

Reimagined HR processes

In addition to the practices described above, Teal organizations have reframed all of the key human resources processes— recruitment, onboarding, training, evaluation, compensation, dismissal— in ways to eliminate fear and feelings of separation and reclaim wholeness. See Human Resource practices.