Our guest is the founder of the Teal Brasil movement and one of the main agents in promoting the Teal agenda in his country. For the past 8 years, he has been developing and connecting an entire national ecosystem for new ways of working. A speaker, consultant and mentor helping leaders and organizations to innovate their way of working, replacing hierarchies and bureaucracies with self-managing and human-centered cultures.
Living Room Conversations: Teal Brazil with Henry Goldsmid
RHEA = Rhea Ong Yiu (Host)
HENRY = Henry Goldsmid (Guest)
RHEA: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening everyone. Welcome to the 30th episode of LIVESciences Living Room Conversations. My name is Rhea Ong Yiu and I’m your host catalyst for this session today. Before we welcome our special guest I just would like to
share with you that the Living Room Conversation has been in existence for over a year now and we have had really interesting conversations our goal is to educate to inspire and to bring
courage to folks like us who are inspired to move the needle for a shift in the way of working as as we continue this journey and so this is not a teaching platform but it’s more of like really understanding what does it mean to be in a journey towards Teal.
I just want to welcome our guests who are inspired to join us this afternoon and YouTube and also in Facebook live thank you for joining us and please do bring your questions forward as we continue our conversation today so it is a real pleasure for me to welcome our guest this afternoon he is the founder of Teall Brazil a not-for-profit organization well based in Brazil with 20 active participants who are driving change in the landscape for organizations in Brazil and with over a thousand members of the community who are really engaged and who are heavily interested in this topic so let me welcome without further ado Henry Goldsmith from Teal Brazil Henry thank you for joining our Living Room couch.
HENRY: Hi, we thank you so much for having me in your Living Room. I am in my Living Room right now so thank you so much for this conversation.
RHEA: Yeah thank you for joining us. Henry do you have anything to add to introduce yourself to our guests this afternoon?
HENRY: No that sounded accurate. We are an organization right now trying to be a catalyst for the movement here for the last six years so that sounds correct.
RHEA: Yeah great thank you. Henry so, Teal Brazil very interesting. How did it come about? Maybe you can tell us a little bit about it.
HENRY: Yeah of course. How do I make this story short? It’s six years ago that we put on a hypothesis that if we were to translate Frederic’s Laloux’s book. We would have more language base to discuss here you know, the terms in Brazil. At that point you didn’t even have the conversation going on. So we translated that book in order to bring that talk to our country and that worked very successfully. And we stayed there for about five years with the momentum that the book created. It was really nice. It became a bestseller. We have over 20,000 books sold here for Brazilian standards, that is huge. And to a certain point I started feeling that the conversation for next stage organizations became a little bit too inspirational. And since I was one of the co-founders of the movement and sort of pushing it to the continuation I was thinking of what could we do to I don’t know advance a little bit of the conversation.
And one day I remember this very specifically, I was reading an article in this huge magazine here very business oriented and there was one case of a company in california that sells brownies to Ben and Jerry’s and it was such a beautiful case but it’s a decade old. And I was here with so many inspiring cases in Brazil and wondering why are we still talking a decade old case from outside of our country when we have culturally inspired and culturally present ones that we can be talking about and learning directly so that was inspiration moment to go to our movement and say is anyone feeling the need of tell our stories at this point and for my surprise we had such a momentum going on for that and then a spin-off was created.
So Teal Brazil came from that inspiration of let’s tell our stories at this moment I think I think we can do as as good as we did in the past with Frederic Laloux’s book let’s write our own stories right now until Brazil came about to to tell those stories.
RHEA: That’s very inspiring. And so you continue the journey from translating the book to actually creating your own stories right? Or documenting your own stories because those stories have existed?
HENRY: Exactly, yeah.
RHEA: And then is this is there a book in the making? Is it already available? Where can we find the stories?
HENRY: Oh yeah that is a good one. To go very optimistic, yes you can find that those stories in the Teal Brazil website and they are there. We are very inspired by corporate rebels and the way that they started writing those stories around the world. We’re doing quite the same similar to in Brazil but we had and one thing that I must honor we are very coherent in what we are doing here so we do put ourselves to the test so we are a Teal organization we work as a self-managed one we work as a network in self-managing circumstances which is way harder than anything else.
So we’ve been learning so writing a book at this point became a little bit of a far dream. So we just started testing and experimenting and at this point we found that the best things for us to tell is little articles of initiatives. This Teal movement and the direction of the tool movement what we found out is that there is very little full stories to be told you know, that you can write a book and be inspirational and I celebrate that because that means that we have not a specific target or pattern for Teal organizations. But we have a lot of two initiatives and when we translated that into our communication we have over 200 mapped right now. So it’s very abundant when you just go for the initiative one.
RHEA: Exactly.
HENRY: Huge organizations telling stories that usually become very incoherent when you once inside.
RHEA: Yeah. I need to go myself and check it out because I mean 100 is not a small number and definitely. I think we can and be inspired by this little things right? So this little acts of courage to take initiative is always something that we also at LIVEScience as we celebrate these things and give credit and be courageous.
HENRY: When you start doing transformations such as this one that’s what matters. It’s finding the little initiatives that actually move the needle.
RHEA: Yeah exactly. I’m completely with you there. And I mean having heard of like 200 initiatives or more I can almost sense that there is an emergence of Teal in Brazil I mean it’s a big country 200 versus the whole country probably smaller number but still this emergence is something that will change the course of history in the future right? So what are the patterns if any that you are seeing in this emergence?
HENRY: It’s a good question. Look, I think the pandemic generated a lot of attention for new
ways of working right. So in some way that was one gift of all this difficult times but for the new ways of working it created at least some speed of transformation so a lot of initiatives are trying to understand how to deal with some of the challenges that they weren’t facing before
so what I see as a pattern at this moment is confusion. And the sense of being lost in transition. So what I was doing is not working I have not really a way of doing correctly so there is at least curiosity about the so for us this moment is very important like the conversations are heated the interesting that they are interested in talking about it and at least listening to new perspectives and new paradigms for new ways of working. Into more objective terms, what I’ve been noticing, at least for my clients and then putting ahead of consultant, is it’s very much based on leadership behaviors. So they start trying to understand how to become more autonomous and the first barrier that they face is like oh the leaders here don’t really understand the behaviors and whatever they think is an autonomous organization at this point but they feel that there is a barrier talking to their leaders at this moment. So the first request like can we teach leaders on what this looks like? So this is the entrance door at the moment for sure.
RHEA: That’s a very interesting point of view that you actually hear it from the people versus the leaders right Henry? And there’s more clamor there’s more need to talk about things like hey please understand this please hear us out and please listen I also had this conversation just a couple of hours ago around the same topics right? Where people are really how can we collaborate more how can we have a bit more trust from the organization to drive certain things. Yeah very interesting patterns of thinking and then you mentioned something around cultural right the cultural mindset how does this shift impact that like understanding of like this is our culture this was our culture pre-pandemic or post-pandemic how is that changing?
HENRY: Yeah that is where I think it becomes very interesting. Because okay I’m feeling new needs new challenges are surging and I don’t know how to deal with them culturally speaking in Brazil we’re trying to find the guilty one. You know, now it’s the leaders leaders don’t know how to deal with those things and I think we I see the pattern here of trying to find individuals and expectations over them to how do we fix this. And there is a there is based on the old paradigm of how we fix things and how we deal with complexity. And what I what I feel that it’s becoming very interesting to speak about from organizational design perspective is let’s look at your structures let’s see how our environment and your territory of your organization is actually allowing people to change. So instead of talking only about behaviors and trust from the perspective of the individual the conversation is going deeper and saying let’s see how the organization is designed in order to give space for people to shift mindsets etc which in the in terms of transformation is one of the hardest one. Let’s think differently, now let’s act differently, let’s get results from that difference and then let’s think about what we did and that might change the way we think so for me that that shift of on where to look first is being very successful in showing different directions. I think it’s more tangible as well.
RHEA: I agree yeah completely with you there and you know, what what comes to mind is this picture that was so popular about agile transformation that was written in one of the articles from mckinsey I think very popular around like this triangle where you have the hierarchy you have the silos and the different divisional thinking versus the network organization where we have leaders at the center enabling the teams and then distributing the decision making and sharing the accountability across right is a kind of the shift that we are seeking for. How is that culturally accepted in Brazil? I’m curious.
HENRY: Look, I can only go to the facts that I am close to, right? And speak from that experience. I don’t know how it is for you but every time we’re trying to make an organization a little bit more autonomous, leaders get lost. And especially the leaders that were managers over other people. So the power over is really difficult to substitute for something at this moment so these people get in what we call in the beach right? It’s like they are in the sand waiting it’s like what is my new role here so culturally speaking I think that’s the toughest challenge it’s like how do we give a new meaning for those roles new responsibilities for those new roles right? And help these people really act as catalysts, as facilitators for that new way of working.
As far as culturally adaptation, I’m not sure I can speak really, just as a gas it’s I don’t know how it is outside Brazil maybe you you can talk about that as well but here what I see is like people are interested in experiencing new levels of autonomy. And it’s more about the ignorance of what to do with that level of the distributive power and what the role is rather than more like a resistance to it. So culturally speaking I wouldn’t say there is resistance there is there is a lack of knowledge on what to do and I think I think that’s the rich space for us to bring new ways of thinking. How is it there? Have you seen a pattern in regards to that?
RHEA: Yeah what I observe is that there’s always this clamor for hey new ways of working being agile and you know, we are self managing as an organization. But what I also see coming more and more is that leaders in organizations are starting to see the real value of doing this right and because they’re seeing the real value of doing this there is more interest to actually drive that transformation from within. So meaning I often have conversations with leaders who are like okay help us create some concrete guardrails around how we do decision making in a decentralized way help us to yeah – like last week I was in a conversation with one of our clients actually we had a face-to-face workshop and they welcomed so openly the fact that we can actually have all the tensions raised from within their organizations back towards them as owners of the company. And this is really like well one it was a key to unlocking potential for their organization to like really become more self-managed but it was eye-opening for them to realize the little actions that they take for granted that can actually help support and enable their leader their leaders to step up and give them the freedom that they’re seeking for. And it was it was a very nice experience. So I think when it comes to your question culturally there’s more acceptance there is more seeking for like what would be the right way for us right? And I think there’s also that thinking that hey it’s not a cookie cutter approach so we cannot copy from
one organization to the other we can only create our own way of doing things maybe feel inspired by it.
HENRY: Absolutely. One thing that comes to me when we’re talking about that is it’s very inspiring to think about new ways of working right? So when I talk to this network of ours and we’re inspiring to this new paradigm, what I feel is that if the market doesn’t follow it becomes more of a convincing game. But once the market sees value right and beneficial parts of your business right? Becomes a parent such as you attract more talent and your culture is a competitive advantage for with your competitors and when when the market starts speaking that language I think it really helps the movement in general and the transformation within organizations. So I think when we’re speaking about Brazil that is one thing as a catalyst that I think it’s very important and I believe that you guys do the same work with Teal Around the World and I think that’s that’s the main purpose of it it’s building that territory in which that conversation and that paradigm is relevant.
RHEA: Yeah, exactly.
HENRY: Because if the consumption the consuming world and the economy as it is looks at this as an alternative as something on B side there is not really a lot of momentum and power to shift what we need to shift. But once the territory is built and that is seen as a competitive advantage then the entire thing is really fast. I think I’m not sure how it is for you but when and it’s tough to build a movement right?
RHEA: Yeah of course.
HENRY: You know, the sweat of this and but when I try and I and I need to plug into the purpose of it I say look if no one’s looking into forming the territory in which this is relevant there isn’t we won’t have enough strength because the effort is immense so so there is about of a territory building here more like a regenerative approach right of developments like where are we sitting are we sitting in an economy that this is not important doesn’t matter how much effort you’re going to put we’re going to be eaten alive. But you are building the territory in which this is super relevant and competitive advantage as a competitive advantage then we’re speaking another language of speed and momentum and interest right? Is that- do you see that as in the same way? How do you see that?
RHEA: Yeah I do. I think in order for Teal to even become a mainstream because right now I don’t think it’s mainstream conversation right? We have in order for it to be mainstream it needs to reach a certain mass appeal or that more people can truly when you talk about Teal just like when you talk about agility that it resonates right away. And I think the general feeling right now that I have personally from where I stand is that we are still trying to explain what it is. And then maybe that’s that’s also the disadvantage and I just wonder for you how does it feel like because for me what always resonates is that when we talk about human-centric organizations or human-centric leadership and if I map that it’s actually mapping as one of the tenets of deal which is it fits purpose fits perfectly in the purpose fits perfectly in the wholeness aspect of it but also around self managing or self organizing teams right? Really creating autonomy for people to take decisions but also take accountability for those decisions.
HENRY: So your question on this is? I was following you but I was like-
RHEA: Yeah, my question is around like how Teal is a brand is resonating over there in Brazil? Or is there a different ways of calling it at this point look?
HENRY: That is that is a good timing to discuss this because as as a brand as it’s I think when we’re trying to translate you to Brazil the word Teal, we couldn’t and there was this this first of all there is no translation and the only translation that there is here involves petroleum oil in the name. So is that can’t be it yeah but but I can speak maybe as a more as a constellation of this word I think it already brings an entire movement and an entire belonging within this movement within that little word so when once we brought Teal as it is right? And you can translate into Portuguese and we brand it as steel for Teal Brazil I do think that we in inherited all the movement and every work that has been done on top of it and I think that’s very beneficial. We’re very lucky to to be able to to use that power and have major contributors such as Frederic Laloux supporting us into using that momentum here. So the Teal brand creates that belong as much as it create the belonging first to build the bases of them of the movement it also creates the bubble. So it’s there is a contradiction here right we want to create a scalability but we use very bubble-like terms so at this moment we are rebranding and we were like wow it is it’s a hard task to rebrand and do a new name and we just couldn’t react I swear we gave up and we we’re gonna go a second round but nothing really substituted it has a power into it so I think at the moment in in which we are building the bases in the foundations of the movement this is this is very useful at a certain point I think we might need to burst this bubble and maybe release the terms in order to become a little bit more scalable.
RHEA: Yeah that’s really an interesting thought there. And also brings me to a question that will probably give a bit more understanding around the status quo of organizations in Brazil like what is this that status quo when it comes to Teal? Where are you and the organizations that you know, of course this is not like study it’s more of a temperature check what comes to mind when it comes to Teal?
HENRY: So I think I go for for the very first thing the result if you’re looking to Teal organizations and I think if you do this worldwide you’re going to find a handful of cases right it’s like you have very iconic ones which is a great and obviously you’re gonna find a lot of incoherences. If you were if you’re putting till as a specific goal specific target a specific place to arrive I don’t share that vision I share a direction right so as a direction I think we can speak about initiatives and I think that’s that that’s what it’s all about it’s like where inspired by the Teal direction in which places of your organization have you already moved the needle that you already trying to bring a more human-centric approach where are you more agile, where you are absolutely based and centered on purpose right? How is your autonomy in one particular area of your organization and once you just shift that expectation that you’re going to find a beautiful romantic story of Teal that becomes really abundant.
RHEA: Yeah.
HENRY: And then it doesn’t sound like that we are that far from a critical mass because there’s so much intention behind it. So it’s almost more like uncovering what it has been done rather than introducing very new things it’s there it’s there and sometimes you just need to do a little tweak and say look if you if you go a little bit more to the side you’re going to find way more autonomy etc etc so with that lenses I do see a lot of abundancy here in Brazil. Like I said it’s with the way we’re mapping is that we release some calls and requests for people to sign in and say look do you have something that resonates with these principles come and talk was that we are doing so it’s people come as they perceive and not us go in there and say oh this is still so I think this is very nice because people are coming on their own to introduce what they feel in their experience is the next stage practice. So there is not even our bias of looking for something in purpose something in wholeness something in autonomy you know? It’s like we are more interested in how did that make you feel. Did that bring a feeling of a more humane approach? Did that feel like you truly had autonomy? And then we come into we go very very inside the practices in general. In Brazil the trend that I’m seeing is that we are getting from startups, I can see a lot of scale-ups already doing and then it becomes the challenges are different the challenges of how how do you scale a little practices and it becomes becomes a little bit more challenging and then you’re starting to see huge mood in animals also attempting
that. And the interesting part is that regardless of your size and the industry that you you are
it’s so different for everyone.
I mean I try to find patterns and I put everyone to talk and get inspirations from another but but one thing that Frederic Laloux said once I was interviewed and he said that I said “Fred why do you not suggest doing a safari?” and he said “it’s like it depends on what you’re expecting from the Safari, what is the objective of it? If you’re trying to copy and paste please don’t even try and go and you go, frustrated and you’re gonna just you know, hijack your own transformation.” so I’m seeing this very different patterns – not patterns – very different practices and I don’t know it’s abundant so it’s it’s I think we’re dealing truly with complexity there is not one one way to go.
RHEA: No definitely and I really resonate with you. One of the reasons why we keep having this Living Room conversations is because we are really truly inspired by the different stories of transformation and these are not ready to roll out frameworks right? These are really experiential journeys that we take stuck on we feel inspired to kind of maybe just a one percent out of that 100 that they have exerted in their organization we can do is already going to move the needle for us. And this is why we wanted to really continue these conversations to bring some light into what what Teal really means and really think grateful for your thoughts on this as well because it inspires your thought around maybe paying attention to the small things, the small initiatives and not the larger transformation projects is enough to kind of fuel or crank up that engine let’s say for change in your organization.
HENRY: Absolutely, Rhea, and I think this is a shift on my own mindset lately what I’ve been noticing within the movement so very very much inside the bubble, is that we’re looking for ways to get this information out. And one pattern that I’ve seen in terms of communication that is it’s not of my likes is the one that creates a how do you say this in English let me get this right it’s an archetype of I don’t know the word in English it’s like you know, for you to be here I’m just gonna explain for you to hear you have to break all the rules. Okay you know, so it puts like more a controversial perspective in in which it separates from where you are and where you want to be, it’s a huge gap so either and what I’ve been noticing as a result is either you’re creating more anxiety of making it so different from where you are or almost like shameful of where you are and where it needs to be so it becomes more like a target you know, like go oriented gold in that direction so what I’ve been noticing is that what good are we doing creating an anxiety gap with that communication. And when when when I try to approach in a different way and I think this is what we are tempting with Brazil is what is the communication that breaks the pattern of being not connected. You know, of disconnection so this talk of small steps and the celebration and finding humor and being in transition and being and being okay with being in transition.
RHEA: Yeah.
HENRY: And not expecting that being transition is something transitory because it’s not. It’s this is what it is we’re going to be in transition constantly right this feeling of impermanence this feeling is constant so how do we actually get to know that feeling? How do we get to know this discomfort? And as a movement, understand how to deal with it? Do we’re still getting more anxiety we’re trying to to show the little steps and say come on just jump there is network here there are people here we’re we’re going through this in the same way that everyone is internationally nationally you know, your own organization just just let’s find the peers that can support us so I think that that has been working better for us.
RHEA: Yeah. I really appreciate this. It’s like you know, Lao Tzu right? Says it very nicely in saying ‘the journey of a thousand steps begins with the first one.’ and I think that’s that’s really valuable to see that the little step that we take is enough to get us across and not having that anxiety gap as you as you said that hey yes disruption is creating this anxiety gap but because we want to be a different shader we want to kind of create different image however getting to that requires some simple steps as well. So I think that narrative needs to change because the steps were never gone they were always there. But the narrative that there’s this massive leap I think it’s not realistic.
HENRY: Marketing wise, it works.
RHEA: Yeah.
HENRY: If you go to the major players, they are using that marketing strategy. It’s like come here. This is revolution so you’re gonna be the on the side B. You’re gonna be alternative get out take the Blue Pill. I do think that as a marketing strategy that that’s really that’s really successful. I do not know exactly and I’m experimenting with this if this is good for the movement in general. I think what are we really getting as a result is people feeling the fear of missing out of people or people connecting truly to the purpose of doing this because it takes a toll.
RHEA: Yeah.
HENRY: That burning is a self-knowledge journey has nothing to do with anything else rather
than diving in you know, and finding about yourself and and how this principles resonates with you and then bringing your light to the world. So it is spiritual. It is that there is this this this other
sort of cloud involving it you know? And I think if you I’m not sure – this is just my opinion I don’t know this is no science at all, but I think when I grab people by their fear of missing out when I when I grab they grab them by showing how they should not be where they are
the result of that journey has a different taste to it’s almost like I have to convince you now you are not connected to the real source.
RHEA: Yeah.
HENRY: So that is- I think it becomes a harder journey to do.
RHEA: Yeah I completely agree with you. And I see this also in different parts of the ecosystem that I’m working with yeah before I move on to some of my questions yes I’m gonna hold off on some of my questions because we have a few questions coming from our audience and maybe it’s interesting also for them to to to talk about it so let me just put a question from Marianna. So good day in our country we have difficulty with self-management because people aren’t used just to deciding what they should be doing they wait till they are told to do so
is this the same, in your case, in Brazil?
HENRY: People aren’t used to deciding what they should be doing and I what comes to me is that maybe that is in the context of an organization that cut off those possibilities but if you
go into their lives this won’t be true these people are very used to deciding what they should be doing in other terms so I think the organization is designed to suppress that. So that’s that goes with what I was saying about organizational design we jump the gun into people do not know what they should be doing in terms like now I have to fix those people right there is a victim there is someone doing something and the expectations is entirely in the individual what I would split on that is it’s not just an individual you might find people that are very good deciding on their own and having autonomy and if you dip into their personal life these people had gone through amazing journeys of autonomy so it’s about taking all those experiences and designing an a territory an organization where it is that they get inspired and influenced to use that power that they already have. Brazil specifically to be more objective with that answer yes I think organizations have been very successful in suppressing autonomy and creating some sort of
passive behaviors but it’s just a matter of poking that potential and liberating it rather than teaching it right there is no teaching here there is the unveiling there is the unlocking I think I would say that it unlocking is a good a better verb to to what I see as a pattern right it’s like there is fear that was put there constantly that if you if you make a mistake you are on the line of being you know, fired so you have to take all those triggers and nudges that goes against
autonomy in order to really say that this person needs some training in autonomy and usually what I see is it’s more about the structure than the individual.
RHEA: I really resonate with that and I appreciate it a lot that you kind of frame it very nicely Henry because I think too often we go directly on the individual as the victim when in fact organizations can be designed better to unleash this potential because I think the potential is within each of the individuals and so yeah Marianna I hope you yeah thank you I see that you say that it’s an excellent point it’s great for self-reflection as well maybe Henry there’s another question from Rossana and this is interesting it’s about you know, going back to the roots like I’d like my children to be involved in healthy organizations in the future what do you think it was in your past that prepared you for this kind of important role?
HENRY: Wow I got I got these poems on this one Rossana what did prepare me that’s such a good question I just have to say Rossana you hit me inside my heart right now so it was really good from what I can share right now is I have an unsettling bug inside of me that does not give up on me. it’s I don’t know how to explain but obviously there is external influences and I’m gonna go there. But I think I from where you hit me in my heart it just got my bug awakened and there is a feeling of this connection to it’s just a very a very strong feeling that the disconnection of the design of this connection that I that I experience is not real. Is just it has been designed and it’s not the way things should be done. So the unsettling part for me is that the structures to which I was introduced disconnect me from other human beings from nature from purpose from goals it’s usually it just doesn’t serve me so I have that bug that does not allow me to look to those structures and just live within them okay so that is something natural I did nothing I don’t know what brought that to me so the unsetting bug is is it’s sort of my engine inside to to start my curiosity but then you ask what do you think it was in your past that prepared your kind of important role because of that bug because of that feeling once I was ready to go to the market you know, go to find my job and I couldn’t find fit I there is a story here when I was writing my essay for my last year in college, I wanted to I did economy business and I wanted to write Maria a paper on how the job market is not ready for people like me that’s what I wanted to write and people like me were people that didn’t feed the blah blah and they did not allow to for me to write that because there was no theory behind it so I can already tell that there is something that it wasn’t fitting for me so in my past that curiosity was was respected by my parents so they allowed me to navigate without much pressure on that little confusion of where do I fit right so my path I did three universities it took me nine years to finish one and I don’t really know what I got from it so that experience although very disturbing allowed me to really be curious into what was true to me and long and behold I was attempting to find new structures that truly could relate to that feeling of connection I really wanted to feel connected.
And here we are one because otherwise I could have had I couldn’t maybe I wouldn’t have the chance of poking that discomfort with so much time and effort and support in order to understand that oh maybe there isn’t anything for me to fit. Maybe I will have to design it and then it became okay. Let’s find for design what can I design and then organize initial design showed up and here we are still still with the discomfort but now a little bit more settled that I think there is a route I found my community I found my tribe people here are talking the same language so I think I will honor them on this one but thank you for the question that was it touched me deeply thank you.
RHEA: Thank you so much yeah Henry because I think what I took away from your experience was that the sense of curiosity never settling for what’s normal right and always questioning whether this is something that that fits you as a per person so also I sense a sense of feeling of wholeness being not afraid to voice and get your voice heard voicer challenges as well there and seeking for that place of belonging right?
HENRY: Absolutely. And one thing that I’m trying to bring because I mean that that is a very specific way to answer that question right it’s like it’s super related to me but but what I can see as a trend nowadays that would be different and I if I had a child right now definitely would be the way that I would raise my children is at that point in my life traditional learnings was everything that we knew right? So it was very specific with 16 years old you have to decide what to do etc nowadays you have lifelong learnings tools and theories and practices so I would definitely dig into that to be prepared for a world that is about curiosity that is about that of constant learning so the type of education to put your children right now is it’s crucial to develop the skills and not the content. The skills of curiosity, the skills of listening, right? The skills of communication, it’s like how can you learn autonomy and self-regulation if not in nature right this the smartest teacher of all is learning constantly about adaptation and then you go to business and that’s what we were talking about so the sort of of of learning journey that children must have right now is so much more beautiful it’s so much less constrained so it’s truly about letting them choose what they want to learn and I think I had a little taste of that it was difficult because no one knew how to do but all this is so available I cannot I cannot justify very standard ways of learning at this point.
RHEA: Yeah I agree and I think every day we receive thousands if not millions of important data right? And we tend to process that information but also some information we just like learn to kind of okay let’s drop that it’s not not for now because we can only keep up with so much right yeah I think it’s very important that that whole adaptation that you mentioned this is so key to be able to kind of survive or even thrive in this new world that we’re living.
HENRY: Absolutely. Absolutely. I hundred percent agree.
RHEA: Yeah so bridging on to that there’s one very interesting question and I remember asking this question to Fred in our conversation on Teal Around the World last year. So I asked him so Fred beyond Teal what’s next like what’s the what’s the next layer in this whole spectrum?
And his answer to me was that he doesn’t know because he’s not there yet which is fine right? It’s really important to also recognize like for you what is what is beyond Teal, Henry?
HENRY: If Fred doesn’t know who am I-? [Laughter]
RHEA: Well, I think that’s that’s the beauty of it right we all have our own perceptions of what could be beyond Teal for us? Yeah and I think George also mentioned like if this is something you have observed as a movement in your country maybe or there’s a vision or a spark?
HENRY: Look I’m not sure if this is beyond you or if it’s inside that zeitgeist already but the verb for me inside tool is integrate right? It’s to integrate and that comes from the learning of all other practices and experiences that we had of separation right? When you go very orange it’s very oriented into control then you go green it’s everyone collaborating but we are all the same and all those thoughts that we can really touch parentheses the green consciousness is it’s really tangible. I don’t know how it is for you but because with movement man that is very tangible you think you’re talking about very subjective things no it’s tangible you can see people trying to be the same and here we are and you know, denying everything else that he came because we’re better you can touch it. Teal is not really tangible from the me at the moment but what it is is the verb of integration. And I can feel that inside of me that that consciousness which is the bug that I’m talking about is it it just says this verb constantly this is separated connect this is separated connect so in that sense I would I would the frame till respecting that direction what I feel is not yet talking about is regeneration. So I think if that is not inside you and this is a guess of me just just because I wouldn’t know how to answer this tough question in another way I would say that that verb is something beyond integrate let’s put like this. It is still working on the challenges that we see each other as separate beings and separate from nature etc regeneration is knowing that and acting upon it. You know, it’s truly making peace and understanding that you have to be in a relationship with your territory right that it’s not what you are feeling but it’s your connection with the territory that will tell what the territory needs and then your purpose is to give potential to that to that other purpose so it becomes very not a personal journey but a true connected collective journey. I think Teal is is a step towards that and I think we are still has the purpose of bringing that consciousness to the ground giving us those terms giving us the way to communicate about it but then we have another level of people that are already without needs of of words and they are already super densely involved with nature and speaking another language already I think those people already understood what we’re trying to make as a critical mastery and I think that’s the goal.
RHEA: That is a very beautiful answer thank you Henry. That’s I think regeneration is one of the buzzwords that’s coming up as well not only in sustainability and in circular economy circles but even in ways of working right how do we practice that regenerative mindset into the way we design processes within organic organizations the way we design roles within our organizations and also how we enable and activate new resonance around certain topics as well so thank you so much for that Henry. I think it’s a it’s a very I think it’s a very powerful thought worth reflecting after this call definitely yeah so I’m just getting a nudge from our director that we are five minutes into the top of the hour it’s been a really interesting conversation do you mind if I squeeze one more question in?
HENRY: Yeah! I mean I already have got my tea I’m super super thankful. Thank you so much for this conversation.
RHEA: Yeah, thank you. So Bianca wanted to to check do you practice this in your own relationship like Teal principles and which one if any?
HENRY: No absolutely. I think the practice of Teal in relationships for me translating to communication right? The practice of listening and communicating and knowing how to to express needs and desires and requests is by far the most important skill for me at this moment even when I am not only practicing by myself but when I am applying this to organizations. We are not used to have regenerative and mature talks. So transparency, radical transparency owning our own triggers knowing how to seize them and speaking from a more mature perspective and more responsible area of your own thoughts I think this is this is crucial. So I personally what I think it becomes very real to me is that if I am not really paying attention paying attention I become very controlling. I have a strong masculine side of energy of making things happen. So execution for me is is very very available in my hands. But the way that that can be transformed into a huge what is the opposite of light is shadow, right? That it can be played on my shadow is just you know, crossing over everyone and making things and looking but at least I got the result so it is available I’m gonna get to the result because there is power on my execution that is not the way that I create the relationships and after that I feel like I feel bad. So practicing that energy, that masculine energy with and through by communication I feel that is my biggest challenge. In relationships in work and everything else.
RHEA: Thank you Henry for that candid and very inspiring answer so I guess living Teal and the way we communicate things is one of the best manifestations that this could actually benefit us and our relationships. Thank you. And so we’re almost at the top of the hour I just would love to say thank you to our audiences who are plugged into YouTube and Facebook thanks for joining us and bringing your questions as well I’d also love to say thank you to Henry and to Teal Brazil for the inspiration. Really inspiring thoughts there. And last but not the least I would love to invite you we have upcoming conversations there’s two that is coming up one is next week with Tine Bieber and Elaine Favero and next up to that will be in July with Jake Yaeger so we will be exploring Teal in the banking industry with Jake so stay tuned continue to follow us here on YouTube also uploaded in Apple iTunes and Spotify if you want to follow our podcast. So again thank you Henry and thanks again everybody for joining us this afternoon.
HENRY: Thank you Rhea. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
RHEA: Thanks everyone! Goodbye!
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