Always start with Why.
There is a saying: “when you start a company, you need to have an urge to change the world, or at least make a dent in the universe”. Our urge is to make working places better places. Places where people love to come and be creative in a meaningful way.
We take inspiration from the book 'Reinventing Organizations' by Belgian author Frederic Laloux, which confirms that it is possible to succeed while positively impacting our work environment. It also gave us confirmation that to do this we as people don't have to change, but a lot of systems need to be fixed because these broken systems are standing in our way. That’s why our approach is based on the basic principles of teal organizations.
The basic principles of a teal organization:
Self-steering teams: individuals have the freedom to organize themselves and are provided with the necessary tools to do so.
Wholeness: Work is a place where individuals can be themselves without fear of judgment or reprisal.
Evolutionary goals: Always try to find real meaning in what you do, and let it evolve.
Qteal team discovering their different behaviours during a training.
the teal way of working...
... is believing that working should be fun and full of interesting challenges. It is not for people who like to be told daily exactly what to do, and how to do it. It is for people who like to try and learn, take responsibility, and feel pride in knowing what they are doing is meaningful. And knowing that they always do what is best for their customer.
In the book 'Reinventing Organisations' by Frederic Laloux, there are examples of teal companies that have successfully escaped the 'rat race' way of working, where the 'co-' in co-workers does not stand for competition for the top, but collaboration to achieve something meaningful. Our dream is to be an example in one of the next revisions of the book.
Qteal has a flat structure, there are no bosses. We strive to create an environment where co-workers can self-organize and perform their best work. This, in turn, translates to a better service and experience for our customers, delivered by a happier team.
The big difference is in how this structure and its supporting systems emerge, and how people take responsibility for their different roles.
We continuously develop and improve our systems to achieve this goal and develop automated systems that provide people with all the information and tools to organize themselves.