Why I'm Making This Choice
This year, I'm founding Cloud Native, my consulting company, with a deliberate organizational choice: I'm structuring it as a Teal organization from day one. Not by accident. Not as an experiment. As a conscious decision that this is how I want to build a company that can actually work.
This isn't about ideology. It's about learning from what doesn't work in traditional organizations and finding a better way.
After years of working in and with different companies, I've seen the pattern too many times: brilliant technology teams constrained by organizational structures that kill speed, innovation, and meaning. Hierarchies that add latency to every decision. Performance reviews that demotivate instead of develop. Strategy documents that nobody follows.
I want something different. Here's why I'm choosing Teal principles for my company.
What is a Teal Organization?
Let me start by explaining what I mean by "Teal." The term comes from Frederic Laloux's book "Reinventing Organizations", which describes organizational evolution through color-coded stages.
Traditional organizations (Amber, Orange, Green) are structured around hierarchy, power, and fear. Status matters. Command-and-control leadership dominates. Decisions flow down. The organization's needs come before the individual's.
Teal organizations operate differently. They're built on three pillars:
Self-management - No traditional hierarchy. Individuals and teams organize themselves, make decisions at the edge where information lives.
Wholeness - People bring their whole selves to work. Emotions, creativity, intuition—not just analytical thinking.
Evolutionary purpose - The organization has a life force of its own. It's not trying to achieve a fixed strategy. It's continuously sensing and responding to what it's becoming.
This might sound utopian, but it's not. Companies like Buurtzorg (healthcare), Morning Star (food processing), and Patagonia operate on Teal principles while being highly successful commercially.
Why I'm Choosing Teal for My Company
I'm choosing to build my company as a Teal organization because traditional organizational structures don't work for modern knowledge work. They slow down decision-making, discourage innovation, and drain meaning from work. Here's why Teal principles make sense:
Related: See how cross-functional teams break down traditional silos and enable faster decision-making—a natural fit with Teal organizational principles.
1. Decisions Happen Where Information Lives
In traditional organizations, decisions flow through layers. Someone close to the information sees a problem, but someone far away makes the decision. Information gets filtered, context gets lost, latency gets added.
In Teal organizations, people closest to the information make decisions. No managers translating instructions. No hierarchies filtering feedback. Information flows freely. Decisions happen faster.
When you trust people closest to the work to make decisions, they make better decisions. Not always perfect, but better than when someone remote decides based on incomplete information.
2. Learning From Failure Instead of Blaming
In traditional organizations, failures trigger blame. Who made the mistake? What punishment is appropriate? This creates fear, drives defensiveness, and makes people hide mistakes.
In Teal organizations, failures are learning opportunities. When something goes wrong, we ask "what can we learn?" not "who's at fault?" Post-mortems focus on systemic understanding, not individual culpability.
This doesn't mean there are no consequences. But the focus is on learning and improving the system, not punishing people. When people aren't afraid of failure, they innovate more. They try things. They move faster.
3. Adapting to What's Emerging
Traditional organizations plan and execute. Strategy gets defined once a year, becomes a document nobody reads, and gets executed mechanically regardless of whether conditions changed.
Teal organizations operate with evolutionary purpose. We sense what's emerging and respond. We have direction, not fixed plans. We adapt continuously rather than following predetermined scripts.
For a consulting company, this is crucial. Client needs evolve. Market conditions shift. Technology changes. Traditional planning cycles are too slow. I need to respond in real-time to what's happening.
4. Empowering People, Not Controlling Them
Traditional organizations assume people need to be managed. Systems of control—performance reviews, hierarchies, approvals—ensure people do what they're supposed to do.
Teal organizations assume people are capable and motivated. They make commitments to peers rather than to bosses. They organize around work that needs doing. Structures emerge organically.
When you trust people and give them autonomy, they work harder. Not because they're afraid, but because they care. They bring their whole selves to work because their work matters to them.
How This Works in My Company
Let me show you what this actually means in practice:
How We Work with Clients
When my company works with clients, we're not just delivering expertise. We're creating self-organizing teams with clients. Decisions get made collaboratively. Technical expertise informs but doesn't dictate.
The relationship evolves based on what's emerging, not predetermined plans. We're learning together as we go.
This requires trust. Clients need to trust that the work will get done without traditional command-and-control. I need to trust that the team can figure things out without me micromanaging.
How We Work Internally
Internally, my company runs as a Teal organization:
No fixed roles - People contribute based on what needs doing and what they can do. Consultants lead sales conversations. Technical experts contribute to marketing. Everyone participates in hiring. Role boundaries are fluid.
No traditional performance management - There are no annual reviews or performance ratings. Feedback is continuous and peer-to-peer. People understand their impact from real work context, not abstract metrics.
Self-organized teams - Projects form around client needs. Teams self-organize based on who wants to work on what. People naturally match their skills and interests to opportunities.
Evolutionary strategy - I have direction, not fixed plans. I sense what's emerging and respond. If a new type of client need appears, I adapt my approach. If market conditions change, I pivot without waiting for management approval.
Why Traditional Organizations Struggle
The key insight: organizations fail not because they lack good people or good ideas. They fail because their organizational structures kill innovation, slow down decision-making, and drain meaning from work.
Traditional organizations assume:
- People need to be managed
- Information needs to flow up before decisions go down
- Strategy needs to be defined in advance
- Failure needs to be punished
These assumptions worked when the world was more predictable. They don't work anymore. The world changes too fast. Competition is too fierce. Knowledge work is too complex for command-and-control structures.
That's why I'm choosing Teal. Not as an experiment. As a conviction that this is how modern organizations need to work.
Why I Believe This Works
You might be thinking: this sounds nice, but does it actually work commercially?
Based on what I'm building and what I've observed in other Teal organizations, here's why I'm confident:
Velocity - We can be faster than traditional consultancies because there's no approval bureaucracy. Decisions can be made in hours, not weeks. Clients get value faster.
Innovation - When anyone can propose an idea and try it, good ideas surface faster. There's no filtering through layers that might not understand the domain.
Client retention - When clients are getting continuous value, not just a project deliverable, they stay. The relationship evolves based on what they need next.
Attraction - Top talent wants to work in environments where they have autonomy and impact. I attract people motivated by growth and contribution, not status and control.
Retention - When people are empowered and feel whole at work, they stay. I won't lose people to burnout or toxicity. They'll be energized by the work.
Costs - Less management overhead. No performance management bureaucracy. No strategic planning cycles that produce documents nobody uses. Resources go to client work, not internal processes.
What I'm Learning
As I build my company with these principles, here's what I'm discovering:
Trust creates better outcomes - When I trust people to make decisions and manage their work, they exceed expectations. Not because I'm imposing pressure, but because they care. People want to do good work when they have autonomy.
Self-organization is more efficient - Teams that organize themselves around work are faster and more effective than teams organized by management. When people choose what to work on, they're more engaged and productive.
Failures teach more than successes - When something goes wrong, focusing on systemic learning instead of blame creates better outcomes. People experiment more, learn faster, improve continuously.
Evolution is necessary - I can't plan everything in advance. The world changes too fast. I need to sense what's emerging and respond. Having direction is better than having rigid plans.
It's a journey, not a destination - I don't claim to be "fully Teal" yet. I'm continuously evolving. Some days I fall back into old patterns. That's okay. I notice and adjust. Evolution doesn't require perfection.
The Challenges I'm Expecting
Building a Teal organization isn't easy. There are real challenges I'll face:
Changing mindset - Moving from hierarchy to self-organization requires a profound shift in thinking. People accustomed to traditional roles might struggle. I need to help team members embrace responsibility and autonomy. Some might find it uncomfortable at first.
Communication intensity - Without hierarchical directives, communication needs to be clear and efficient. More dialogue is required to maintain coherence. People need to communicate directly rather than through managers. This requires more effort initially.
Readiness for autonomy - Not everyone is ready for self-management immediately. Some people need support developing the skills to work autonomously. I'll need to invest in training and development.
The benefit is that these challenges are worth facing. Once people adapt, the organization becomes more resilient, more innovative, and more fulfilling to work in.
Practices I'm Adopting
As I build Cloud Native, here are the concrete practices I'm implementing:
Decentralized decision-making - Authority is distributed throughout the organization. People closest to the work make decisions. I provide guidance, not directives.
Continuous feedback loops - Regular, informal feedback is encouraged. Not annual reviews—ongoing conversations about what's working and what needs improvement.
Flexible work arrangements - People have flexibility in schedules and location. Different work styles and life needs are accommodated. Results matter more than hours at a desk.
Personal development support - I invest in continuous learning opportunities. People need to grow personally and professionally. This includes training, conferences, mentoring, and experimentation time.
Community focus - The organization engages with broader communities beyond just profit. We contribute to causes that align with our values. Work serves a purpose larger than the organization.
These practices reinforce the three Teal pillars: self-management, wholeness, and evolutionary purpose. They're how I make Teal principles concrete in day-to-day operations.
Why This Matters
We're at an inflection point in how organizations work. The traditional hierarchical model—designed for manufacturing and military contexts—doesn't work for knowledge work where people need autonomy, creativity, and meaning.
Most companies are still operating with structures from the 1950s. They assume people need to be managed, controlled, and motivated through fear. This might have worked for assembly lines. It doesn't work for creative, knowledge-intensive work where innovation and agility matter.
The opportunity is huge. I'm founding Cloud Native with Teal principles because I believe this is how you build companies that can actually evolve, adapt, and thrive in the modern world.
The right organizational structure enables people to do their best work. It creates the conditions for innovation, autonomy, and meaning. That's what I'm betting on—building an organization where people are empowered, engaged, and equipped to navigate whatever comes next.