Frederic Lalou, in his book “Discovering the Organizations of the Future”, argued that organizations with a flat structure and high involvement of a significant number of employees in decision-making have better human development and greater resources. What do you think about this?
Chief Executive Officer
I am convinced that both the degree of employee motivation and the culture of business processes depend on the organization's level of spiral development. You should not always worry about the absence of “turquoise” and strive for it: the earlier levels of the spiral are sufficient to solve many problems.
Let me tell you about my personal experience. The IT company I run is six years old.
During this time, we have gone through several typical stages of development.
When we were a startup, we worked our socks off and almost spent the night in our customers' offices, all in order to survive and gain a foothold in our niche. Decisions were made only by a group of executives: the company was small, and it worked quite well [in terms of spiral dynamics — blue level and lower].
Then we actively grew and changed our approach to work, introduced business processes and automated them through RPA, were aware of their mission and values. To motivate employees, we implemented KPIs that seemed right to us. Unfortunately, they didn't work the way we wanted them to, and in this article I'll explain in detail why [orange level and lower].
We canceled KPIs, grew and changed again... Now we are introducing a product approach and OKR and we will reorient the assessment to achieve the company's overall financial result. In addition, we are actively improving understanding Agile approach: the role of a project leader is closer to that of a mentor, the team gets enough freedom and under these conditions is able to make independent decisions based on project metrics. Every employee whose actions influence the company's development can become a partner and participate in its management [green and yellow levels].
Everything that happened to us was natural — each new stage was like a growth stage.
As a result, we have come to the level of development and the system of values that we have today. Our team consists of people with different dynamics; all of us and the company as a whole are far from the turquoise level; we prefer the yellow-green one. In practice, it is difficult to meet an organization or person with a “cosmic” level of values, and not everyone really needs it. But our business processes are already sufficiently prepared for it: we are building them in such a way that there is no way to return to lower-level values, such as in the army or corporations.
Let's take a closer look at what each level of spiral dynamics means, what colors indicate levels, and how to understand what level of development the company you currently work for is at.
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About personality types and company according to Graves theory
(THEORY OF SPIRAL DYNAMICS)
Spiral dynamics is a model for the evolution of values.
Its creator, Claire Graves, professor of psychology, noted that people's values and beliefs do not change randomly over time, but in a certain sequence. The stages of egocentrism and expressive self-expression (with a focus on “I”) alternate with stages of sacrifice (with an orientation towards “we”). If we imagine human development in the form of pendulum movements, it is precisely from the constant fluctuation from the level of “I” to the level of “we” and back that spiral turns are formed.
The spiral is directed upwards: each next level contains the previous one and is above it. Graves's followers marked each turn of the spiral in a specific color.
Graves initially explored the worldview of his students as separate adults. But in the end, it became obvious that adults, children and groups of people develop in the same way: teams, organizations, states — the whole society as a whole.
How, for example, does a child's personality develop?
It is possible to imagine the following steps in a simplified manner:
- the baby is egocentric, and all his reflexes are aimed at surviving the here and now (orientation towards “me”, beige level);
- a grown-up child develops an attachment to “his” adults, on whom he depends; at this stage, children believe in fairy tales, fantasize a lot, and family and stability give them a sense of security (focus on “we”, purple level);
- a teenager rebels, fights for leadership with elders, peers, and the whole world (focus on “me”, red level);
- transition to adult status is accompanied by initiation in many cultures; a typical modern initiation ceremony is an army with all its “charms”: overcoming difficulties, submission, and collective responsibility (focus on “we”, blue level);
- an adult, having overcome the barriers of the past stage, strives for success, builds a career (focus on “me”, orange level);
- under favorable conditions, there is a desire to create a harmonious union — a family or a team of like-minded people with whom there is something to strive for together (focus on “we”, green level);
- the next stage may correspond to increasing expertise in your professional field and finding the meaning of life (focusing on “me”, yellow level);
- then — the transition from the meaning of one's own life to understanding the integrity of the world with all its interconnections (focus on “we”, turquoise level)
States develop in a similar way: primitive people form tribes, where magical thinking and faith in spirits first arise, and the group is led by a shaman. Then leaders appear who begin to fight for power and the expansion of borders, then the borders are more or less confirmed, statehood and legality are formed. Industrial revolutions and rapid economic growth are taking place. At higher levels of evolution, political values such as a multipolar world, tolerance, and environmental protection (“Earth is our common home”) are emerging.
To go up the spiral, you need to go through each level sequentially from the lowest one. Therefore, there are no bad or good levels: each of them simply corresponds to a specific period of development. In addition, depending on external conditions, each period may have a bright side or a dark side.
For example, the bright side of the red level is will, energy, freedom, and the dark side is suppression, a strict hierarchy where everything depends only on the leader. The bright side of the orange level is efficiency and achievement of goals, the dark side is emotional burnout in the eternal race for achievement, the stress of someone else's success. And so forth. Each level has its pros and cons.
I have already described how kt.team developed along the Graves spiral in general terms in the introduction to this article.
Let's take a closer look at how the level of a company affects the level of employees who work for it.
kt.team reviews: what type of employees are right for us and we are right for them
It is difficult for developers with a lower worldview than green to work at kt.team. They don't feel comfortable with us, and it's hard for us to meet their expectations because our values don't match.
Our current values are the easiest to accept at the top levels: green and yellow. Collaboration, a flat team, goal setting, and product metrics — Agile values don't work together at lower levels.
If a developer is red or blue, they tend to either suppress the opinion of others in the group or, conversely, not make any decisions.
It's hard for Orange to share the laurels of his work with the team.
It happens like this: an employee comes to our interview who meets all formal parameters, but his level of values is closer to the lower limit. We know that people often evolve — and their values change. Those who are ready to develop are quickly moving to new levels in our company. That's why we don't shoot from the shoulder or jump to conclusions, but start by fostering goal-setting and Agile paradigms so that employees can see the benefits of such work.
During interviews, our HR managers can ask candidates specific questions to determine their Graves personality type. If you want to take a look at the approximate range of your values right now, read the next part of the article. I think a lot of things will become clear.
Examples of employees' reactions to typical situations depending on their type of values
These four points usually evoke a lot of emotions among our colleagues. And we know that representatives from different Graves levels respond in such situations.
The statements are slightly exaggerated to make the differences brighter.
Situation No. 1. There are no testers in the team (team leads, business analysts — in short, a pipeline)
Red: “You can “shitcode” — there's still no tester, but colleagues may not even notice when cross-testing.
Blue: “It is impossible to work in such conditions. Who's going to check if I've done everything according to the rules? I need testers because I don't have to do such a low-skilled job.”
Orange: “I need to take on tasks that are beneficial for me to do. I'll do them, and let the others handle their part of the job however they want.”
Green and higher: “The team benefits from the lack of testers (we provided detailed arguments in the article “We do without an army of QA: how the absence of testers saves developers time and increases their competence”)”.
Situation No. 2. The company has introduced KPIs for developers
Red and blue: “This KPI is unattainable!” They work only under the supervision of a manager and usually show low performance.
Orange: “OK, now I know what KPI I personally need to achieve. I can hack the system so that the KPI is de jure fulfilled.”
The de facto influence of such an employee can be devastating.
Green and higher: can critically evaluate the procedure for assessing the implementation of his KPI if he does not see a connection with the result for the team and the company as a whole. At the upper levels, KPIs are being replaced by product goal-setting and mission.
Here is the promised story about our experience with KPIs.
We started implementing key performance indicators about two years ago, and a year later (at the beginning of 2019) we completely abandoned them. The system did not show the results we expected from it. Some developers tried to meet KPIs purely nominally, for example, they arranged with testers (when they were still there) to write tasks without reopening them.
To avoid this, we tried to calculate KPIs for a CRM operation based on invoices issued to customers. But not all dependencies were obvious and linear. The computational mechanics were opaque, and the main KPI requirements — transparency and ease of calculation — were not met. Ultimately, we decided to replace KPIs with OKR for all departments, and now we are rearranging all performance assessment processes so that they are directly decomposed both from the top down and from the bottom up, based on the company's, product, and project goals.
Situation No. 3. The company adheres to the Agile philosophy and works in flat teams
Red: Depending on the sense of strength (leader or subordinate), he will implicitly redistribute resources towards simplifying his tasks.
Blue: “Only those who have this in their duties are supposed to think.”
For red and blue people, work engagement depends on the position. Many companies that are trying to work on Agile but don't fully understand the Agile methodology have team leads. In their paradigm, they are leaders; they make decisions in a team and are responsible for the result. Our company also has team leads, but when the team is flat, they are not seen as leaders in the usual sense. A team lead is not a position, but a role close to the role of a coach in a team. This is difficult for those who are at levels below orange to accept.
Orange: can provoke conflicts because he does not consider the project as a team work, does not see the big picture, is only interested in his “puzzle piece”. Personal motives always prevail over team motives.
Green and higher: is able to work in flat teams and does it effectively. It gives high-quality feedback, can be a friendly mentor and at the same time learn from others.
Red and blue: “It's a mess. How do you work if you don't know who's in charge here?” The flat structure is seen as a reason to abuse the rules. All rules can be distorted until management intervenes.
Orange: “Show me exactly what I'm supposed to do and walk away.” He is not particularly tolerant of collaborative spaces. He takes all the disadvantages of open spaces painfully, while taking advantage of their advantages.
Green and higher: “It's nice to work in a team of like-minded people where everyone is equal.”
What color opinion is closer to you?
Conclusion
The level of development at which the organization is spirally developed also determines which employees are most compatible with it. It is important for companies to understand their level of development and broadcast it. This way you can avoid major losses due to staff turnover and attract really suitable people.
For example, developers who want to work for us should know in advance that they have a flat team waiting for them here and they will have to constantly make decisions. But each employee will also be treated accordingly — as a decision maker.
We do not have blind obedience, as in the army, or bureaucratic procedures, as in a Soviet institution. This is a plus, but at the same time, you need to understand that excuses like “I hardcoded something here, but all questions are not for me, but for a tester or business analyst” will never work.
I hope this article helped you take a fresh look at the patterns in the development of the company where you work or want to work, your motives and values.
By the way, you can take a test to independently determine your personality type and immediately find out the result hereto. Please note: you must answer in accordance with the rules, read them carefully. It's pretty interesting, I recommend it.
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