Aventurine: The Missing Level in Organizational Development Theory

Since the publication of “Reinventing Organizations” by Frederic Laloux, 12 years already passed. During this time, Teal became widely known and strong term. But it mainly exists in “I heard about it, it’s not for me” plane. Because it either is about forfeiting ownership, or the amount of stories how things failed during the adoption.

It is true that teal is not for everyone. It is true that Teal has low adoption success rate. But the issue is entirely different.

“Reinventing Organizations” among others talks about teal. But only teal was promoted to earn its place in the mainstream. Even if earlier stages had more fancy names, the term, branding would be solved but the low success rate not. Adoption of teal itself is the issue. Individual or the organization does not have to strive be teal to benefit from the model. Teal is only a point on it.

That’s why low success rate in Teal adoption and its bad general opinion is due to a missing link. A link that is “the type” of majority, that is pleasant to identify with, that does not change organizations but helps make less costly mistakes, that fixes instead of adding more things to fix.

Different interpretations of teal in practice

Teal in organizational sense is widely (not by definition) understood as departure from ownership, hierarchy and reaching quotas.

In practice, teal means different things for different people.

• For some people it’s an expensive experiment, they tried to implement it and lost in the process.
• For some people it’s an “imperfect ideal”, sounds good in theory but it’s not sticking in practice.
• For some people it’s an argument to do what works. Because it works for them. To not do it in a way they could not work.
• For some people it’s an organizational change that was not a part of a discussion during hiring process and earlier years of work.
• For some people it’s an unfulfilled promise. Disappointment and pain stemming from hierarchies that emerged anyway, winning loudest arguments, personal interests, or lack of commitment.

Past these 12 years Teal became a term to be avoided.

Enhancing safety and efficiency in organizations without implementing teal

Teal attracts, being interpreted as an ideal.

Past these years I observed how we’ve been fed and we fed each other definitions of teal as differentiator from other forms of organizations.

Departure from hierarchy and setting evolutionary goal became food for chaos, unhealthy behaviors and loss.

The base is learning to use traditionally managed organizations responsibly, with fewer losses and failure modes.

This means among others: Internal competition without pushing. Gain without greed. Culture without taboo. Codecisiveness without paradox of unending consensus. Ecology without it being used as mechanism of oppression, like double standards in fossil fuel/energy regulations.

Focus on the balance of boundary of the individual level, at each level (not across levels) is the missing link.

Without that missing link, adoption of teal implodes. Without that missing link, traditionally managed organizations continue to make the same mistakes.

The work on that boundary, balance of use of all already functioning levels I call Aventurine.

The origin of the name Aventurine in organizational context

Aventurine (aventurine glass / aventurescence) traces back to the Italian expression “a ventura” (“by chance”), associated with an accidental discovery of a distinctive sparkling effect in glass made with metallic inclusions.

Aventurine is also a form of quartz which flickers through the same distinct mechanism. It can be found in multiple colors, also yellow.

Teal is a symbol of organizational change. Stone is a symbol of unchangingness or a symbol of organization that does not have to change.

Aventuric flicker means shining of individual flakes in a noble way, in different colors, in the unchanging stone.

Therefore, not by accident, deliberately, aventurine in context of an organization is a noble, colorful, balanced flicker and happiness of people within, which, like an aventurine stone, does not have to change to something it is not, to shine together.

Aventurine for traditionally managed organizations, before considering teal

Aventurine, as a level, positions itself before teal, inspired by Reinventing Organizations, AQAL or Spiral Dynamics. It describes a level and approach for stability, which is a foundation for considering Teal.

Aventurine is not just about using different levels as Yellow level describes. It is not about employer ownership, nor it defines “evolutionary purpose”.

Aventurine works out the constructive and ethical boundary of each naturally functioning levels as tools.

Green, Aventurine, and Teal: Comparing organizational levels

Green is ecology, psychological safety, consensus and pro-consumerism. Just as it is about crossing ethical boundaries by end that justifies means. In its inclusivity it rejects people that think different. Or when ecology becomes a double standard, mechanism of starvation of energetical sovereignty of certain countries.

Aventurine is conscious work on what is ethical in green and what is not. What is ethical in orange and what is not. And so on. So it’s not about borders between levels and agreeing levels between eachother, but balance within each level.

Teal is paradigm shift from traditionally managed organizations and progressive organizations to holocracy, evolutionary goal or employee ownership.

Aventurine Organization: Practical applications

Organization, which works on many levels, focused on their balance. Caring for security, motivation, structure, income, social mechanisms, watching out for not letting these levels go out of balance or argue with each other, in a systematic way.

Organization, which culturally helps employees use different levels but foremost helps them work out the boundaries.

Organization, which raises its culture and system, rewards people who get better at it. Capitalises on balance and holistic gain.

The Aventurine Individual: Traits and practices

Strives to success constructively. Does not use violence, pressure, or social pressure where they lack an argument.

Strives for income without greed.

Uses structures without atatchment to position or hierarchy.

Uses data responsibly, not preeching its superiority. Nor offloads responsibility to data based decision making when it fails.

Appreciates transparency and relations, but does not fall for paradox of consensus.

Multiplies cooperation without loss of performance through unconstructive internal competition.

Uses different levels as tools, without preaching superiority of particular level or depreciation of other levels.

Aventurine as a public educational space

I believe that forms like Aventurine in organizational context should serve public.

Therefore, I’m publishing above content, definition of aventurine, aventurine level and aventurine organization in multiple languages as common good, made available for general use with attribution to the author through Creative Commons Attribution (© Sebastian Rudnicki CC BY 4.0).

About the author

Sebastian Rudnicki works on the boundaries of organizations, structures and business. His approach evolved through years of creative work between early adopter and early majority adoption stages, and business audits. From observation how organizations function, where they hit invisible walls and how models do not translate to reality.

Sebastian Rudnicki was first to describe Aventurine in 2026 as a solution to chasm of low successful adoption rate between, functioning internally teal, traditionally managed and progressive organizations, as a separate level to be at, rather than revolution.

Page: © Sebastian Rudnicki Author: © Sebastian Rudnicki Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) The author reserves the right to further develop and modify the content.