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He proposed different paradigms, each with their own colour and characteristics.
Red | Amber | Orange | Green | Teal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Guiding Metaphor | Wolf Pack | Army | A machine | A Family | Living Systems |
Defining Characteristic | Powerful Leader | Strict Hierarchical Structure | Competition within and with other organisations, focus on financial profit and growth and objectives-based management | Delighting customers, making decisions based on a set of shared values and high engagement from everyone in the organisations. | |
Breakthrough Ideas | Command Authority and division of labour | Long term focus, Strong Processes, Formal Roles | Balancing the needs of all stakeholders, a focus on culture over strategy and true empowerment of members in the organisation regardless of their level. | Balancing the needs of all stakeholders, a focus on culture over strategy and true empowerment of members in the organisation regardless of their level. | |
Example organisations: | Mafia, street gangs and tribal militia | Public Schools (USA), Governments, Traditional Churches | Most Large Corporations and many Public Universities | Southwest Airlines and Ben & Jerries ice cream | |
Limitation | Shortsightedness | When conditions change which require new approaches | When the profit motive is not fulfilling enough | Consensus building leads to slow decision making |
Red
The metaphor of the wolf pack is useful when describing the red paradigm as people would organise into tribes with a powerful leader who inspires fear with the group's enemies and compliance within the group. This paradigm is most useful in Chaos where the powerful leader might be the only reason the group survives.
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These organisations evolved as organisations in Red which are fear-based were not able to have long term success.
Amber emerged as hierarchical patterns (Roman Army or Catholic Church) enabled the focus on long term goals which is only possible with stable leadership.
A strict hierarchical structure leads to stability and exerts control over lower levels of the hierarchy.
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Example organisations: Most Large Cooperations Corporations and many Public Universities
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Defining Characteristic: Delighting customers, making decisions based on a set of shared values and high engagement from everyone in the organisations.
Breakthrough Ideas: Balancing the needs of all stakeholders, a focus on culture over strategy and true empowerment of members in the organisation regardless of their level.
Example organisations: Southwest airlines Airlines and Ben & Jerries ice cream
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Guiding Metaphor: Living Systems
Defining Characteristic: AnitAnt-Fragile organisational structures, alignment through and evolutional purpose and distributed decision making.
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