1.1 INSPIRED BY...

1.1 INSPIRATION SOURCES

euforia is a teal organization (at least partially) as defined in Laloux’s book “Reinventing organization”. Laloux’s identify 5 different types of organizations throughout history that are consistent with the evolution of the level of consciousness whose teal is the latest one.

What is a teal organisation? The Harvard Business Review describes it as a “new kind of organization designed to enable “whole” individuals (not narrow professional selves) to self-organize and self-manage to achieve an organic organizational purpose (determined not through hierarchical planning but incrementally, responsively, and from the bottom up)”.

There are 3 important components of a Teal organization, which are present within euforia and detailed in the next chapters:

  • Self-management: we have created or copied specific structures and processes that replace traditional hierarchies to allow people and teams to self-manage basically everything (from budgets to human resources to their own specific projects).

  • Wholeness: showing up “whole”, as you are as a human being, without wearing a mask or costume to fit into norms. Wholeness has always been intrinsic to euforia it is visible with dogs and babies showing up at work and during our retreats; through our need to be close to nature when we are making big decisions; and through our efforts to collaborate radically through openness, heightened self awareness and extreme trust in other people’s good intentions.

  • Listening to evolutionary purpose: we see euforia as a living organism of its own volition and we strive to listen and support its purpose. We use our facilitation skills to create spaces to tune into what is needed and collective intelligence and creativity to decide how to take euforia to the next level. Lately, we also started integrating some meditation practices inviting the team, for example, to clear their minds in view of serving the team's individual purposes and the organisation's. For those for whom this is too spiritual, they can can just skip it.

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Other sources of inspiration for our organisational model

euforia’s complex organisational model is heavily inspired by and grounded in: holacracy, sociocracy, Radical Collaboration, the Life purpose model, PEMS, the Human element and FIRO theory, facilitation techniques, decision making through consentment and advice processes, mixed in with more traditional project management and Rockefeller tools. What are all of these concepts about? Read on...

Holacracy

Holacracy is a complete system for self-organization. The traditional hierarchy is reaching its limits, but “flat management” alternatives lack the rigor needed to run a business effectively. Holacracy is a third-way: it brings structure and discipline to a peer-to-peer workplace. In a nutshell: “Holacracy is a social technology or system of organizational governance in which authority and decision-making are distributed throughout a holarchy of self-organizing teams rather than being vested in a management hierarchy" (Source : wikipedia).

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Sociocracy (especially Sociocracy 3.0)

Sociocracy is similar to holacracy as it is also a system for self-organization. Sociocracy comes chronologically before holacracy and it has been a source of inspiration for holacracy. It is based on a simple, elegant set of principles (consent, circles and double linking) that provide a solid foundation for effective, transparent governance and decision-making. Sociocracy 3.0 is a open source methodology to take sociocracy to adapt it to current context with the aim of supporting effective collaboration at any scale.

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Radical Collaboration

Radical Collaboration is a methodology for individuals and organizations wishing to become more skillful at collaborative relationships. It is one of euforia's values and we have become specialized in it, with over 15 certified trainers offering regular trainings. If you haven't attended a training yet this is must as a euforian!

The RED ZONE – GREEN ZONE concept is a way of describing the culture of an organization. The RED ZONE is a more adversarial, conflicted and un-collaborative environment. The GREEN ZONE is a more collaborative, supportive environment. We rarely see an organization that is pure RED ZONE or pure GREEN ZONE; most are a unique combination of both, to varying degrees. However, the chart below gives you a good indication of the difference between an organization that is primarily RED or primarily GREEN.

Additional info about Radical Collaboration (RC):

The Life Purpose model

This model states that a person can exploit her/his full potential, when s/he engages in work that lies at the interface of his/her values, strengths, passion and problematic of interest. This model is inspired by the book "7 Habits of highly effective people" by Stephen R. Covey. We use in many of our trainings, workshops and it underlies our talent development system.

PEMS

PEMS stands for Practical, Emotional, Mental, Spiritual (or Inspirational). euforia tries to respect these four dimensions of human (learning) needs in all of its meetings and programs to create ideal collaboration, innovation, working and learning environments. This is why we do weird things like energizers or meditation in the middle of serious meetings.

For more information about this read pp. 9-11 of euforia's Facilitation Handbook (for the french version click here).

The Human Element

The Human Element and FIRO theory are a holistic and comprehensive methodology for maximizing the potential of people and getting results. The 3 main dimensions to foster are openness, competency and inclusion. These permeate our organizational model and talent development system.

In order to create great teams that reach outstanding results, the most important dimension to foster is openness, which we do a lot of at euforia (now you understand why we share our feelings so much ;).

More information: http://thehumanelement.com/ and attend a Radical Collaboration training.

The Rockefeller Habits

The book "Mastering the Rockefeller Habits" (by Verne Harnish) provides concrete tools in four major areas (people, strategy, execution and cash) for leaders to get their organizations moving in sync to scale their activities and enjoy the ride. This book has inspired our meetings' system.

More information: www.gazelles.com

The U Theory

U theory proposes that the quality of the results that we read in any kind of social system is a function of the quality of awareness, attention, or consciousness that the participants in the system operate from. Since it emerged around 2006, Theory U has come to be understood in three primary ways: first as a framework; second, as a method for leading profound change; and third, a way of being - connecting to the more authentic of higher aspects of our self.

More information: https://www.presencing.org/aboutus/theory-u and local Impact Hubs in Switzerland often offer partially online courses. At euforia the main expert on this topic is severin@euforia.org, don't hesitate to get in touch with him if you want to know more about Theory-U.

Facilitation and Art of Hosting

"Facilitation is the art of unlocking the power of a group through dialogue, the pursuit of clarity, engaging active participation, embracing the richness of diverse perspectives. Through facilitation the multi-faceted potential of a team is released." Definition by the International Association of Facilitation.

Facilitation permeates euforia's daily work and way of doing things at all levels.

The Art of hosting is a specific approach to leadership that scales up from the personal to the systemic using personal practice, dialogue, facilitation and the co-creation of innovation to address complex challenges.

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