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Newsletter Nr. 713
Amsterdam, May 15th, 2018


FREDERIC LALOUX AND HIS CRITICS - Finding Middle Ground Between Skepticism and Belief - FRANK VISSER

Belgian management consultant Frederic Laloux's book Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness (2014) has become hugely popular in the world of management innovation. According to its own website, it is "considered by many to be the most influential management book of this decade. It has inspired hundreds, probably thousands, of organizations throughout the world to take a radical leap and adopt a whole different set of management principles and practices. It's also a word-of-mouth phenomenon, propelled by a deeply caring and generous community of readers. Self-published with no PR, it has sold already 350.000 copies and has been translated in numerous languages."

At the same time it has received some highly critical reviews from those working in the field of organizational management, calling the book "deeply problematic and flawed", "contradictory", with "no scientific basis for the arguments made in this book" (British strategist, facilitator and writer Zaid Hassan). A fellow countryman has even called it "ridiculous and dangerous", "pseudo-scientific" and "sectarian" (Belgian HRM/consultant/trainer Patrick Vermeren). On Amazon 50% of the reviewers give five-star ratings, but some are merciless: "This book can teach you how to destroy an organization". At Amazon US it currently (May 14th, 2018) ranks #18 in the category of Organizational change, and #24 in the category Management science. These charts give a good impression of what the competition in these fields looks like.

Obviously the book has struck a nerve, in both directions. In my opinion, the concerns are real and legitimate, and need to be addressed. At the same time, the business needs that have generated the success of the book are real and relevant as well. The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that things may not so bad as these critics say, but are perhaps not so wonderful as the Laloux-enthusiasts ("Teal Tribes") and writers of glowing but uncritical reviews want us to believe.

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http://www.integralworld.net/visser117.html