Brazil Vibrates to the Rhythm of Teal Frequencies

Holaspirit and Target Teal co-hosted a Self-Management Meetup in São Paulo on June 17th, 2019.

Incredible Memories

From the beach of Copacabana to the ultra-modern premises of Youse, to Corcovado, via the rooftop of EduK or the co-working of Prove and the famous sugar loaf, we were surrounded by the best of the self-org community and the breathtaking landscapes of a country as beautiful as its friendly inhabitants.

The strong ties among the Brazilian teal community has left its mark on us.

It is a diverse and strong community. It includes:

• theorists and practitioners of the O2 method promoted by the independents of Target Teal,
• a sociocratic development group of Sociocracy and Sociocracy3.0,
• certified practitioners and users of Holacracy,
• and many other categories of experts!

On Monday evening (June 17th, 2019), we were at the heart of the Bradesco Inocabra Habitat open innovation center for our meeting on “Teal and self-managed organizations” co-organized with Target Teal, one of Holaspirit’s very first partners.

Working Differently with Adaptive Organizations

Davi Gabriel Da Silva kickstarted the meetup with a keynote on the “Why” of adaptive organizations, explaining why the arduous road to agility is worth the trouble.

He was soon relayed by Rodrigo Bastos, his partner within Target Teal.

“The evolutionary organizations movement is developing in Brazil and I think we have a great opportunity to show organizations that it is possible to work differently. The search for greater efficiency but probably even more the ability to adapt to an uncertain, complex context, to bring value to customers and society — with a positive impact — are the strong motivations. It is time to transform the managerial modes inherited from the second industrial revolution. Instead of static functions and positions, we advocate a shift to roles that are constantly adapting. Do do so, we need a social technology, a support like Holaspirit.”

An HR Revolution Through Self-Management

In the process, Marco Baron’s personality left no one indifferent.

His testimony on the EduK experience — an online course service to learn an activity and earn money — stimulated exchanges with different entrepreneurs and with managers in large groups, including several in the HR sector.

Indeed, Marco explained, in an almost provocative way, that the HR function had been widely distributed within EduK: “HR is an institution of the last two industrial revolutions and its representatives tend to predict and control things more than to free the structure of the organization”.

He added:

“When we started our transition to Holacracy, our objective was of course an optimized business efficiency but with an ethical and empowering approach to human relations. In this sense, rather than a list of values, we have collectively defined principles of behaviour and established a feedback culture based in particular on a “ninja feedback” role and virtual credits to be distributed to peers.”

Target Teal’s O2 Methodology to Resolve Tensions

Luis Rodrigues of Knowledge21 explained that “people are not looking for a new way to design the organization but a way to deal with their tensions.”

“Don’t focus on methodology but on solving problems through continuous improvement”

he said, arguing that “this is much more important than the methodology or framework used.”

Each person who comes to animate a role is a sensor.

“We use Target Teal’s O2 methodology to do this, and solve problems, including those that have been regularly brought under the carpet. It generates a progressive and positive contagious phenomenon.

The implementation of self-management within Knowledge21 has resulted in :

1\ much more efficient decision-making,

2\ the fact that tensions have been brought out from under the carpet,

3\ the demonstration and understanding that scaling up without a boss is possible.”

Holaspirit in Support of Agile Organizations

We concluded this beautiful and friendly meetup with the presentation of Holaspirit — and Talkspirit, which is at the origin of the project to develop the self-management platform — by Philippe Pinault, CEO of the two startups.

Holaspirit’s ambition is to simplify the lives of its users in their daily actions by linking their roles and circle memberships to their project, HR or task management.

Our purpose has been described as “the support platform for agile organizations via new managerial modes, new modes of collaboration”.

During the meetup, the vision unveiled on the expected evolutions of the product beyond the basis of governance description and the type of methodology used.

The platform, which has already found a large audience worldwide, will continue to grow in the coming months and aims to become the universal support for all organizations on the path to agility and new governance, regardless of their context and maturity.

Because Holacracy does not meet all needs, far from it.