The wacky organisations Optimi works with and the words to describe them (teal, human centred, culture first, decentralised, networked)

I’ve been a corporate refugee since 2008. In that time, I’ve been on a journey to collaborate and build new ways of working.

There are a lot of different names and buzz words for this work. In my writing and consulting I have to call it something, to delineate what we’re involved with from the “conventional” world.

Figuring out a name for this work can be tricky.

And through my work with Enspiral and Optimi I’ve had exposure to a lot of different organising models. eg. not for profit, social enterprise, worker owned co op, collectives (among others!).

I’ve also come across many different methods of organising people in these legal structures, mostly borrowed in parts, some invented on the spot and almost invariably emergent. Eg. Lean startup, Teal and the reinventing organisations book, Holocracy, sociocracy, permaculture even.

And then there’s the different buzzy, vague phrases like human centred, culture first, evolutionary organisation, decentralised, future of work, self management, Zebras fix what unicorns break, doing work that matters.

Perhaps the biggest irony is that, in wanting to find one central word to define our work and the movement we’re a part of, we come up against the very nature of this work. It's decentralised! gah. So finding one word, term or phrase isn’t going to do it justice.

For now, I’m sitting with language that tries to describe organisations’ prioritising the humans. eg. “Human centred” (not “human centred design” as it seems that conventional organisations use those methods too) or “culture first”.

One theme I’ve noticed across all this work: in any organisation that prioritises humans first, invariably it looks a bit wacky!

Which is a great thing! When you’re not trying to force a group of people in to a top down, bureaucratic, systems first approach, and instead grow an organisation like you might tend to a permaculture designed garden… you never know what’s going to come out of it! But one thing is for sure, it’ll be unique/wacky!