He tells the fascinating story of the evolution of the organization (human collaboration) starting 10,000 years ago. He gives each phase of the evolution a colour: red, amber, orange, green and teal. It is well worth a read and helps put today's collaborative efforts into some sort of perspective and explains where he thinks we are heading with a number of examples of what he considers to be teal organizations.
One passage jumped out at me:
In just two and a half centuries, these breakthroughs have generated unprecedented levels of prosperity, added decades to human life expectancy, and dramatically reduced famine and plague in the industrialized world.
But as the Orange paradigm grew dominant, it also encouraged short-term thinking, corporate greed, overconsumption, and the reckless exploitation of the planet's resources and ecosystems. Increasingly, whether we are powerful leaders or low-ranking employees, we feel that this paradigm isn't sustainable.
The heartless and soulless rat race of Orange organizations has us yearning for more.
I think this sums up nicely, the advances we have made and the associated but unintended consequences.
