t&i Model - Stages of Development
We can use stages of organizational development, each corresponding to a distinct way of thinking about and managing organizations. These stages align with broader human and societal development theories, particularly Ken Wilber's integral theory and Clare Graves' spiral dynamics. In "Reinventing Organizations", Frederic Laloux uses colour-coded labels for each stage and explains how organizations evolve through these stages, each having its own structures, leadership styles, and culture.
A summary follows of each stage described by Laloux:
1. Red Paradigm (Impulsive-Red)
Key characteristics: Organizations at this stage are driven by power and control. Leadership is authoritarian, and fear is often the main motivator.
Examples: Street gangs, organized crime syndicates, or early empires.
Structure: These organizations are usually highly centralized, with one powerful leader or small elite dictating actions. Decisions are made quickly, which works well in chaotic or crisis-driven environments.
Leadership: Authoritarian, based on strength and fear.
2. Amber Paradigm (Conformist-Amber)
Key characteristics: Stability and order are valued above all else. There is a strong emphasis on hierarchy, rules, and clear roles.
Examples: Military organizations, religious institutions, government bureaucracies.
Structure: Rigid, hierarchical systems with a clear chain of command and formal processes. The focus is on discipline and long-term stability.
Leadership: Top-down, but less about power for power’s sake (as in Red) and more about preserving order and structure.
3. Orange Paradigm (Achievement-Orange)
Key characteristics: This stage focuses on innovation, competition, and meritocracy. Organizations are goal-oriented, performance-driven, and seek growth and success.
Examples: Modern corporations, entrepreneurial businesses, global consulting firms.
Structure: Hierarchical, but with room for merit-based promotions. Management practices focus on performance indicators, productivity, and results.
Leadership: Rational, results-oriented. Managers value innovation, performance, and efficiency. Success and profit are primary motivators.
4. Green Paradigm (Pluralistic-Green)
Key characteristics: Organizations at this stage value empowerment, culture, and shared purpose. Relationships, collaboration, and community-building are prioritized over competition.
Examples: Non-profits, cooperative businesses, and organizations with strong corporate social responsibility.
Structure: More decentralized and participative. Decision-making tends to be more inclusive, with consensus-building playing an important role.
Leadership: Focuses on empowerment, people development, and creating a shared vision. Leaders at this level are often seen as facilitators or servants rather than authoritative figures.
5. Teal Paradigm (Evolutionary-Teal)
Key characteristics: Teal organizations operate on self-management, wholeness, and evolutionary purpose. These organizations are adaptive, purpose-driven, and emphasize trust and autonomy.
Examples: Laloux provides examples like Buurtzorg (a Dutch healthcare company) and Morning Star (a tomato processing company).
Structure: Highly decentralized, with no formal hierarchy. Teams are self-managing and make decisions collectively. The organization evolves organically, based on the needs of its purpose.
Leadership: In Teal organizations, there are no traditional bosses. Instead, people act autonomously, driven by the organization’s purpose and their individual sense of contribution. Leadership is distributed and fluid.
Key Concepts of Teal Organizations:
Self-management: No traditional hierarchy or boss-subordinate relationships. Instead, teams manage themselves and take ownership of decisions.
Wholeness: Employees are encouraged to bring their whole selves (emotions, creativity, authenticity) to work, rather than fitting into a narrow professional persona.
Evolutionary purpose: Teal organizations evolve naturally in response to their purpose, rather than being driven by external goals like profit or expansion.
Summary of Evolution:
Red (Impulsive): Power-based, survival-driven, and led by fear.
Amber (Conformist): Stable, rule-driven, hierarchical with formal structures.
Orange (Achievement): Competitive, innovative, focused on success and growth.
Green (Pluralistic): Collaborative, people-centered, values-driven.
Teal (Evolutionary): Self-managing, purpose-driven, adaptive, and human-centered.
Laloux emphasizes that the stages represent different ways of understanding and organizing human behavior in organizations. The stages build upon one another, meaning that Teal organizations incorporate some of the values of Green, Orange, Amber, and Red but take a step further toward more integrated, conscious management styles.
How stages of Development might influences the t&i Model?
We are going to break down each of the concepts below from the model:
Vision, Mission and Values.
Delegation Levels.
Situational Leadership (Expert, Achiever, Catalyst).
Cultural alignment with the Competing Values Framework.
The five, three, one year strategy.
The Explore and Exploit Continuum and the Lifecycle Stages.
Investment Horizons.
Organisational Design.
Types of Value Stream Domains.
Choosing the right cadence.
Defining the needed support.
Goals and Measurement.
Circles.
Roles.
Below we provide examples of how an organization or team would behave at each stage of development in relation to the following concepts:
1. Vision, Mission, and Values
Red: Vision, mission, and values are often absent or centered around survival, power, and control. The leader’s personal agenda drives the organization’s direction.
Amber: Vision, mission, and values are defined to create stability and conformity. These are typically imposed top-down by leadership and focus on tradition, rules, and maintaining order.
Orange: Vision and mission are driven by competition, growth, and success. Values emphasize performance, efficiency, and meritocracy. Innovation and ambition are key.
Green: Vision, mission, and values are focused on community, empowerment, and purpose. They are co-created with input from all employees, focusing on social responsibility and the greater good.
Teal: Vision and mission emerge organically from the organization’s evolutionary purpose. Values are deeply personal and authentic, encouraging everyone to align with the organization’s broader purpose.
2. Delegation Levels
Red: No real delegation; control is centralized. Decisions are made by the leader, and employees follow orders without question.
Amber: Delegation is minimal and follows a strict hierarchical structure. Authority is based on rank, and delegation is given only within specific boundaries.
Orange: Delegation happens more freely, but primarily based on competence and results. Employees are given autonomy to innovate and achieve set goals.
Green: Delegation is collaborative, and decision-making is decentralized. Teams and individuals are empowered to take ownership within a shared values framework.
Teal: Self-management is the norm, so delegation is fluid. Individuals and teams have the autonomy to make decisions based on trust and a shared sense of purpose.
3. Situational Leadership (Expert, Achiever, Catalyst)
Red: Leadership is primarily expert-driven, where the leader has all the knowledge and uses it to assert dominance. Followers are expected to obey without question.
Amber: Leadership is more authoritative-achiever, ensuring strict adherence to rules and achieving stability through conformity.
Orange: Leadership is achiever-focused, rewarding expertise and results. Leaders inspire employees to perform, innovate, and compete to win.
Green: Leadership shifts toward catalyst-style, focused on empowerment, coaching, and unlocking the potential of others. It’s less about expertise and more about collaboration.
Teal: Leadership is fully catalytic, emphasizing personal growth, self-organization, and enabling others to align with their highest purpose.
4. Cultural Alignment with the Competing Values Framework
Red: Clan and hierarchy. Culture is highly authoritarian and hierarchical, valuing power and control over collaboration.
Amber: Hierarchy. Culture values stability, control, and predictability, aligning with bureaucratic structures.
Orange: Market. Culture values competition, innovation, and achievement. Performance and results are key.
Green: Clan and adhocracy. The culture emphasizes collaboration, empowerment, and shared values, with flexibility to adapt to changing environments.
Teal: Adhocracy. Culture is fluid, self-organizing, and purpose-driven. Adaptability and wholeness are prioritized, and there’s no strict division between hierarchy and market.
5. Five, Three, One Year Strategy
Red: There is no formal strategic planning. The organization reacts to immediate threats or opportunities based on the leader’s instincts.
Amber: Strategy is long-term, rigid, and stable. It is created by leadership and handed down to employees to execute.
Orange: Strategy is developed with competitive advantage in mind, focusing on growth, profitability, and market dominance. Clear goals for the next 1, 3, and 5 years are established.
Green: Strategy focuses on achieving long-term sustainability and social impact. It's collaborative, with input from different levels of the organization, focusing on purpose-driven goals.
Teal: Strategy is fluid and emergent, evolving with the organization’s purpose. It’s co-created by everyone in the organization, and future goals can shift as the organization grows organically.
6. Explore and Exploit Continuum and Lifecycle Stages
Red: Primarily in exploit mode, focused on short-term survival, often through force or opportunism.
Amber: Primarily in exploit mode, valuing stability and standardization. Innovation is discouraged unless it supports maintaining the status quo.
Orange: Balance between explore (innovation, R&D) and exploit (efficiency, scaling). The focus is on disrupting markets while optimizing existing products and processes.
Green: Primarily in explore mode, prioritizing collaboration, social innovation, and adaptability to shifting stakeholder needs.
Teal: Constant explore mode, adapting to changes based on purpose. Organizations remain open to evolutionary growth, learning from each iteration, and continually sensing new opportunities.
7. Investment Horizons
Red: Short-term, survival-focused. Investments are made based on immediate returns or risks.
Amber: Long-term stability is prioritized. Investments are made conservatively, ensuring slow and steady growth.
Orange: Mid- to long-term, with a focus on return on investment (ROI). The goal is to balance short-term profits with long-term scaling and market dominance.
Green: Investments consider long-term sustainability and the social good, with attention to the well-being of employees and the community.
Teal: Investments are made based on the organization’s purpose and values, not just ROI. Investment horizons are fluid, guided by the organization’s evolution.
8. Organizational Design
Red: Highly centralized with an authoritarian structure. Design is minimal, with the leader controlling all key decisions.
Amber: Rigid hierarchies, well-defined roles, and clear reporting structures. Bureaucracy and control mechanisms dominate.
Orange: Hierarchical, but with some room for functional and project-based structures. Design emphasizes efficiency and meritocracy.
Green: Flatter structures, often with teams working collaboratively. Organizational design is more flexible, fostering empowerment and engagement.
Teal: Self-managing structures, often based on circles or teams with no traditional hierarchy. Individuals and teams design their own roles and responsibilities based on purpose.
9. Types of Value Stream Domains
Red: There are no formal value streams. Value is often extracted through coercion or opportunism.
Amber: Value streams are tightly controlled and predictable, focused on delivering standard products or services with little variation.
Orange: Value streams are optimized for efficiency and scale, focusing on customer demands and market opportunities.
Green: Value streams are designed with collaboration in mind, often focusing on sustainability and social impact as key metrics of value.
Teal: Value streams are flexible and adaptive, evolving based on the organization’s purpose and customer feedback.
10. Choosing the Right Cadence
Red: Cadence is unpredictable, driven by immediate crises and survival needs.
Amber: Cadence is rigid and controlled, usually following a strict schedule or plan.
Orange: Cadence is performance-driven, with clear deadlines and milestones based on competitive pressures.
Green: Cadence is people-centered and adaptable, allowing for more flexibility and consensus in decision-making.
Teal: Cadence is organic and fluid, evolving with the organization’s needs and purpose. There’s a balance between rhythm and adaptability.
11. Defining the Needed Support
Red: Support is minimal or non-existent; it’s every individual for themselves.
Amber: Support is formalized through policies, hierarchies, and procedures.
Orange: Support is often performance-based, with resources allocated to high performers. Mentorship programs are common but focused on results.
Green: Support systems focus on employee well-being, empowerment, and personal growth.
Teal: Support is holistic, focusing on wholeness and individual purpose. Peer-based support and self-organizing teams provide the needed resources.
12. Goals and Measurement
Red: No formal goals or measurements. Survival and power are the only metrics that matter.
Amber: Goals are clearly defined and rigid. Measurement focuses on adherence to rules, procedures, and stability.
Orange: Goals are ambitious and outcome-oriented. Measurement focuses on performance indicators, growth, and efficiency.
Green: Goals are purpose-driven and co-created. Measurement includes both social impact and organizational well-being, not just financial results.
Teal: Goals are emergent and aligned with purpose. Measurement is holistic, focusing on learning, purpose alignment, and long-term adaptability.
13. Circles
Red: No concept of circles; everything is centralized under the leader.
Amber: Circles are formalized through hierarchy, with clear lines of authority.
Orange: Circles exist but are often based on departments or project teams, designed to maximize efficiency and innovation.
Green: Circles are collaborative, emphasizing teamwork and shared decision-making.
Teal: Circles are self-managing and flexible. Teams organize around specific purposes or tasks, with no formal hierarchy.
14. Roles
Red: Roles are not defined formally. People follow the leader’s commands.
Amber: Roles are rigidly defined, often based on hierarchy and tradition.
Orange: Roles are defined but flexible, with merit and performance determining advancement.
Green: Roles are collaborative, often involving cross-functional teamwork.
Teal: Roles are self-assigned and dynamic, based on the individual’s purpose and contribution to the team. People can change roles as needed, without formal titles.
15. Stages of Development
Red: No awareness or consideration of stages of development. The focus is entirely on survival and power dynamics, with no long-term planning for growth or evolution.
Amber: Development is viewed as following a predetermined path or hierarchy. Growth is about maintaining stability, adhering to traditions, and advancing within established structures.
Orange: Development is strategic, focused on growth, optimization, and improvement. Organizations actively pursue development through competition, innovation, and measurable goals.
Green: Development is collaborative and people-centered, with a focus on personal and collective growth. The organization evolves by empowering individuals and aligning with shared values.
Teal: Development is seen as an emergent, organic process aligned with purpose. The organization continuously evolves in a self-directed way, with teams and individuals contributing to the organization's natural unfolding.
Each developmental stage profoundly impacts how organizations approach leadership, strategy, structure, and the human side of work. Teal organizations, in particular, represent a major departure from traditional models, as they embrace distributed leadership, self-management, and evolutionary purpose
Interesting! :)
“If an organisation or team wants to move from one stage to the next one, what do they need to work on?”
If an organization or team wants to move from one stage to the next in Laloux’s Stages of Development, they must work on specific areas of transformation. Here's a breakdown of what they need to focus on at each transition:
1. From Red to Amber:
What to work on: Establishing stability, rules, and hierarchy. The team must move away from reactive, power-driven behavior to a more structured system where roles and processes are clearly defined. They need to create a foundation of predictability, order, and loyalty within the organization.
Key Actions: Develop formal structures, standardize processes, and establish a chain of command and rules to ensure stability.
2. From Amber to Orange:
What to work on: Fostering innovation, competition, and performance focus. The organization must shift from traditionalism and rigid hierarchies to a results-oriented approach. Teams must be empowered to take initiative and adopt a growth mindset, where success is measured by performance and innovation.
Key Actions: Encourage meritocracy, adopt performance metrics, reward innovation, and create room for flexibility within the hierarchy.
3. From Orange to Green:
What to work on: Creating a collaborative, people-centered culture. Organizations need to move from a focus on competition and individual success to one of collective purpose and employee empowerment. Emotional intelligence, transparency, and fostering relationships become essential.
Key Actions: Flatten hierarchies, promote teamwork, invest in employee well-being, and shift the focus toward shared values and social responsibility.
4. From Green to Teal:
What to work on: Adopting self-management, wholeness, and purpose-driven practices. The team must move beyond consensus-driven collaboration to self-organizing systems, where individuals and teams have full autonomy. The focus becomes not just on shared values but on aligning with an evolutionary purpose.
Key Actions: Remove hierarchical structures, implement self-management principles, encourage individuals to bring their whole selves to work, and foster a sense of evolutionary purpose that drives the organization forward.
In each case, the team must work on mindset shifts and structural changes that support the values and behaviors of the next stage, moving toward more inclusive, adaptive, and purpose-driven ways of working.
Extended Version
“Can you explain how it an organsition or team will behave in each of the stages to each of the concept of "Stages of Development" itself?”
When considering "Stages of Development" as a concept, we're essentially looking at how an organization or team at each of Frederic Laloux’s stages (Red, Amber, Orange, Green, and Teal) views its own growth and evolution. Here’s how organizations at each developmental stage might perceive and approach their own development and progression:
1. Red Paradigm (Impulsive-Red):
Understanding of Development: Organizations at this stage don’t have a structured or long-term view of development. They operate in the here-and-now, focusing on survival and immediate power dynamics. Growth is not planned but opportunistic, driven by necessity and force.
Behavior Toward Growth: Development is often linked to expanding control or territory, either through aggression or taking advantage of chaotic environments. There’s no intentional "strategic development" as we would understand it in more advanced stages.
Team Behavior: The team follows the strongest individual without questioning, adapting to whatever power dynamics are present. Development of skills or organization is only a by-product of adapting to crises.
2. Amber Paradigm (Conformist-Amber):
Understanding of Development: Development is seen as a matter of following established structures and traditions. The organization sees growth as a process of stability, control, and institutional continuity. It’s less about innovation and more about perfecting and maintaining what already exists.
Behavior Toward Growth: Growth happens through hierarchical promotion and adherence to rules and protocols. The organization seeks order and discipline, viewing development as moving up in a predefined hierarchy or strengthening existing norms.
Team Behavior: Teams develop by conforming to roles and responsibilities as defined by tradition or authority. The focus is on maintaining stability and replicating successful processes rather than fostering innovation or change.
3. Orange Paradigm (Achievement-Orange):
Understanding of Development: Development is viewed as progress towards goals, success, and growth. Organizations at this stage believe in innovation, competition, and optimization. Development is seen as a linear process of improvement—faster, stronger, better.
Behavior Toward Growth: Organizations actively pursue strategic development through planning, research, and competition. They invest heavily in skills development, efficiency, and scaling the business. There’s a focus on results, with constant measurement of progress.
Team Behavior: Teams focus on achieving measurable outcomes and improving performance. Development is often tied to training programs, incentives, and rewards for innovation and achieving goals. Personal and professional growth are tied to career advancement.
4. Green Paradigm (Pluralistic-Green):
Understanding of Development: Development is seen as a collective and people-centered process. It’s about empowerment, community-building, and creating a more human-centered organization. Green organizations value emotional intelligence and social impact as part of development.
Behavior Toward Growth: Growth focuses on personal development, employee engagement, and creating a sense of belonging within the organization. Development includes building relationships, promoting collaborative decision-making, and ensuring alignment with shared values.
Team Behavior: Teams are encouraged to collaborate, self-organize, and support one another’s personal and professional growth. Development is less hierarchical and more focused on interpersonal growth, often through feedback loops, coaching, and consensus-building.
5. Teal Paradigm (Evolutionary-Teal):
Understanding of Development: Development is seen as a continuous, organic process that aligns with the organization’s evolutionary purpose. Teal organizations view growth as something that emerges naturally, in line with the organization’s purpose and the personal development of its members.
Behavior Toward Growth: Growth is adaptive and non-linear. Rather than being driven by external pressures or internal hierarchies, development is self-directed and evolutionary. Wholeness, self-management, and purpose-driven learning guide organizational and personal growth.
Team Behavior: Teams in Teal organizations are self-managed and are trusted to make their own decisions about their development. Growth is decentralized, with each individual and team contributing to the overall evolution of the organization based on internal sensing and purpose alignment. The organization’s development is emergent, not imposed from above.
Summary: How Organizations Approach Their Own Development at Each Stage
Red: Development is opportunistic, with no long-term planning. The focus is survival and immediate power.
Amber: Development is about maintaining structure, stability, and traditional hierarchies. Progress comes through following rules.
Orange: Development is about growth, optimization, and competition. Success and measurable outcomes drive the organization’s development strategy.
Green: Development is collective, focused on empowering people and ensuring the growth of individuals and the organization together, with attention to relationships and values.
Teal: Development is evolutionary, self-directed, and aligned with the purpose of both individuals and the organization. Growth is seen as a natural unfolding process that adapts to the needs and direction of the organization.
In summary, each stage of development reflects a different understanding and approach to how the organization or team itself grows, evolves, and progresses. Red organizations react to immediate needs, Amber focuses on stability and maintaining existing systems, Orange emphasizes growth and optimization, Green nurtures collective empowerment, and Teal fosters an ongoing, emergent process aligned with purpose.