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Chip Scholz
Head CoachChip Scholz is Head Coach of Scholz and Associates, Inc. He is a nationally recognized executive coach, public speaker and author. He is a Certified Business Coach and works with CEO’s, business owners and sales professionals across North America.
Chip has written for a number of business and trade publications. 2009 saw the release of his first book project, “Masterminds Unleashed: Selling for Geniuses.” His second book, with co-authors Sue Nielsen and Tracy Lunquist, “Do Eagles Just Wing It?” was published in 2011. His next book "Clear Conduct" is due in 2013.Do Eagles Just Wing It?
Buy a copy of Do Eagles Just Wing It? here!
Masterminds Unleashed: Selling for Geniuses
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A Brief History of Organizations
Author Frederic Laloux looks at stages of organizational development throughout human history, in his book, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness (Nelson Parker, 2014).
In my previous posts here and here, I summarized four previous stages of organizational development, Reactive – Infrared, Magic – Magenta, Impulsive – Red, and Conformist – Amber. Only Red and Amber principles show up in organizations as we know them today.
Achievement – Orange Paradigm
As people evolve, they become aware of the world as more complex, with no absolute right or wrong, but realize that some things work better than others. Effectiveness replaces morals as the decision-making yardstick. The goal in life is to get ahead, to succeed in socially acceptable ways.
With the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, Orange thinking emerged and became the significant stage for a majority of the population in the Western world after the Second World War. Orange is today the dominating worldview of most leaders in business and politics.
Orange thinking spurred scientific investigation, innovation and entrepreneurship, bringing unprecedented prosperity in the timeframe of just two centuries. Yet every paradigm has its dark side. The Achievement-Orange paradigm has brought corporate greed, political short-term thinking, overconsumption and reckless exploitation of resources and ecosystems. It’s guided by materialism and driven by individual egos.
Orange Organizations
The global corporation is the embodiment of this paradigm. In terms of outcomes, orange organization have achieved more than any others, primarily through three breakthroughs, innovation, accountability and meritocracy. Orange organizations are process and project driven, retaining the pyramid as their basic structure, but with project groups, teams, cross functional initiatives to enable faster innovation.
Such organizations aim to predict and control, inventing tactics such as management by objectives, key performance indicators, strategic planning, budget cycles and scoreboards to track progress. The reigning metaphor is the machine and people are resources managed with incentives.
The third breakthrough of Orange organizations is meritocracy – in principle, anyone can move up the ladder. Individual success is highly valued.
Leadership at this stage is goal-oriented, focused on solving tangible problems, putting tasks over relationships. Dispassionate rationality is favored over emotions.
One of the downsides of Orange organizations is “innovation gone mad,” or growth for growth’s sake. When success is driven year after year by numbers and targets, milestones and deadlines, people can end up bereft of meaning and fulfillment. Another shadow of living life in this paradigm is collective greed.
Achievement-Orange is clearly the dominant paradigm of business corporations today. But not all organizations have been satisfied operating in this paradigm.
Pluralistic – Green Paradigm
Pluralistic Green organizational practices are making increasing inroads and not only in the world of nonprofits. This worldview attempts to fill the void of individual success based on achieving goals by being highly sensitive to everyone’s feelings. Instead of the traps of materialistic obsession, in the Green stage the emphasis is on social equality and community. All people deserve respect, fairness, and harmony through cooperation and consensus.
While Orange is predominant in business and politics today, Green is strong in postmodern academic thinking, in nonprofits and community activists. Green strives for bottom-up processes, gathering input from all to achieve consensus.
Green Organizations
The Green perspective is uneasy with power and hierarchy. But consensus among large groups of people is inherently difficult. Here are three breakthroughs that Green Organizations have contributed.
If Orange businesses use a machine metaphor, the metaphor for Green is the family.
What do you see in the organizations where you work today? It’s probably steeped in Orange principles, isn’t it? Even those businesses that say they’re value-driven, keep their major focus on the bottom line and increasing shareholder value. Only a few for-profit businesses are truly value-driven (Southwest Airlines, Zappos, Ben & Jerrys).
What’s your opinion? I’d love to hear from you. You can contact me here and on LinkedIn.
Related posts:
In Search of Meaning