If ‘Be More Pirate’ and ‘Reinventing Organizations’ had idea sex, what would their offspring look like?
Haven’t you always wondered that?
Oh. So just me then. Well, it’s not the first time I’ve been called weird.
Seriously, though, these two books are two sides of the same coin to me.
‘Be More Pirate’ explained to me what my personal angst was all about, why my corporate life had been such a roller-coaster and, ultimately, ended badly. I had been a pirate in the Navy, only I didn’t realise it. If only Sam Conniff had written it sooner, it would have saved me a lot of grief and at least a couple of keel-haulings, not to mention a dishonourable discharge!
Meanwhile, ‘Reinventing Organizations’ had already explained my organisational angst. I’d always been ill-at-ease in ‘big corporate’ but couldn’t quite figure out why. Laloux’s book suddenly snapped it all into focus, it gave me (and lots of others) a language and framework to explain the dysfunctional mess that passes for most organisations and a vision of how it could be better.
I’ve been quietly breaking rules all my life and coming up with better ones. I’ve always believed in making work about the people, giving them as much autonomy and responsibility as I can, co-creating a vision and purpose for what we do together. It seems obvious to me that being more Pirate and being more TEAL are related.
They are both about ways of being, not way of doing. They are both about the personal and organisational, the tactical and strategic at the same time. They are the key to reinventing work.
So how can we bring these two perspectives, these two movements together and multiply their energies together to create the real shift we all want to see?
Wouldn’t you love to figure out how?
That’s what the Reinventing Work Pirate Crew is all about.
Remember, the pirates refined their ideas and their attitude to create a proto-republic in Nassau, a ‘Pirate Nation’ of freedom, equality and mutuality (well, yes, – of rum, treasure and a bit of yo-ho-ho too) that threatened the bejeesus out of the establishment. Couldn’t that be described as an early form of Pirate meets Teal?
Imagine what we could create today. Yeah, let’s!
(If you want to join the crew, contact me at colin@colinnewlyn.com)
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
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