We are structured a bit differently to many organisations in this space - read more here!

The organisational structure of the One Woman Project is a bit different to other organisations in the feminist space. Instead of being a hierarchical organisation, we are what is known as a Teal organisation.

We transitioned to a Teal organisation structure in early 2021, following an organisation-wide consultation and unanimous vote.

WHAT’S A TEAL ORGANISATION?

A Teal Organisation is a type of organisational structure for organisations, companies, and collectives that reimagines and reinvents how organisations can function, how their teams can work, and how management can exist within a holistic framework.

First noted by Frederic Laloux in 2013 in his pivotal book Reinventing Organisations, Laloux argues that something is broken in today’s organisations - particularly, they are not evolving as historically as they should be.

Laloux provides the examples of red, amber, orange, green, and (finally) teal organisations, and how these colours can be used to demonstrate how organisations have (and should) evolve over time. There’s a great video here demonstrating what each of these colours mean, and examples of organisations whose structure fits into these colour categories.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A TEAL ORGANISATION AND OTHER FEMINIST ORGANISATIONS?

So, what is the difference between a Teal Organisation like OWP, and how other organisations are structured?

Well, Teal Organisations operate within the context of three systems, which fundamentally challenge and change management as we know it:

  1. Self-management

  2. Wholeness

  3. Evolutionary Purpose

There’s a great video that explores these three concepts here, but in brief:

  1. Self-management says that, instead of hierarchical structures, we should have fluid systems of distributed authority and collective intelligence.

  2. Wholeness tells us to bring our whole, authentic selves to work.

  3. Evolutionary purpose says that, instead of trying to control and predict the future, we should listen to and understand what the organisation (and its people) is drawn to become, and where it naturally wants to go, as aligned with its vision and mission.

In a practical sense, within OWP we are:

  • Self managed: we don’t have bosses or managers, and we each take on full responsibility and ownership of the organisation, the work, and the roles we take on!

  • Non-hierarchical: there is no hierarchy within OWP, no one has more power than another and everyone has a fair voice

  • Leader-full: we are an organisation filled with leaders, who can each make any decision about the organisation, relevant to their role

  • Whole: we believe that people do their best work when they feel comfortable bringing their whole selves into a safe space

  • Evolving: we live by our purpose (we believe that the first step to ending global gender inequity is to educate and upskill our young people to tackle it in their own local, national, and international communities) and believe that how we deliver on that purpose continually evolves as we make progress in our work, learn from our mistakes, respond to societal shifts, better understand the oppressive systems we are challenging, gather insights from other movements, and forge relationships with a wide range of feminist groups

Further INFORMATION

For more information on Teal Organisations visit: