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away is being built as a Teal organisation, where people have the autonomy to make decisions, the safety to be themselves, and the responsibility to help the organisation evolve.
Teal is not the absence of structure. It is a different kind of structure: one built around trust, clarity and distributed ownership.
Most companies concentrate decisions at the top. In a Teal organisation, people are trusted to take ownership, seek advice and act. The organisation becomes more responsive, more transparent, and capable of evolving through the people working within it.
The framework comes from Frederic Laloux's book Reinventing Organizations, which maps five paradigms of how humans organise: Red (power and fear), Amber (rigid hierarchy), Orange (targets and competition), Green (culture and consensus), and Teal (self-management, wholeness and evolutionary purpose).
At away, this shows up in ordinary ways: no bosses, just leaders. Feedback that is honest but always kind. Purpose sitting above profit in real decisions, not just on a wall.
Every Teal organisation rests on the same three breakthroughs. Here is what each one means, and what it looks like on an ordinary Tuesday at away.
Seek advice, not permission.
Authority is distributed across clearly defined roles instead of a managerial hierarchy. Anyone can make any decision, provided they consult the people affected and the people with expertise. Then they own the outcome.
People are humans, not resources.
You shouldn't have to become a different person at work. Honesty, care and vulnerability belong inside the organisation. Emotional safety comes first: feedback is honest, but always kind.
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The organisation is allowed to become something.
Instead of following a fixed five-year plan, away listens to its people, members and cities, and lets its direction shift in response. Purpose sits above profit in real decisions.
Self-management gets mistaken for chaos. It is closer to the opposite: more clarity, more accountability, fewer places to hide.
Culture isn't a poster on the wall. It's the way we show up, support each other, and build something bigger than ourselves. These are the working habits behind that sentence, with what each one has taught us so far.
Anyone can make any decision after consulting the people affected and the people who know. No sign-off chain, no permission slip.
What we learned: the hard part isn't giving people authority. It's convincing them it's real.
Work is organised as named roles with clear accountabilities. People hold several roles, and the map gets redrawn in open workshops.
What we learned: a role map goes stale in about a quarter. Redrawing it is the ritual.
Feedback goes to the person, not around them. Vulnerability is celebrated; harshness is not mistaken for honesty.
What we learned: kindness makes honesty repeatable. Bluntness makes it a one-time event.
We exist to create spaces where people thrive. Revenue decisions get tested against that sentence, not the other way round.
What we learned: the test only counts when it costs you something. Ours was saying no to denser floor plans.
We're intentional about who joins: the curious, the kind, and the creative. A community is a decision you make daily, not a byproduct.
What we learned: one wrong-fit member costs more energy than ten empty seats.
We document what we try, including what fails, in films and posts. The culture is a living thing, so we version it publicly.
What we learned: publishing the misses earns more trust than publishing the wins.
Short films documenting what we understand about Teal, how it changes the way organisations operate, and what happens when we practise it ourselves.
A short history of management, from command-and-control to Teal, and why the next era of work rewards clarity over hours.
Watch the filmaway began with a thesis: people who invest in human wellbeing create more long-term value than people who extract from humans like machines. Teal was the operating system that matched the thesis.
One hub in Bangalore, organised around roles instead of managers. Daily meditation, honest retros, and a role map redrawn in open workshops.
Five hubs across Bangalore, Vizag and Kolkata, each run by a community manager with real authority. The advice process scaled better than a reporting line would have.
Talent pods, new hubs, and a film series about the practice itself. Teal is not something we have completed; it's something we keep versioning.
Teal at away isn't only for the people on our payroll. You can join the team, or you can put a self-managed away team to work on your own problem.
Real authority from day one, feedback that's honest and kind, and a role map you help redraw. If that sounds like how you already want to work, we should talk.
See open roles at away For your companyaway Talent Pods are small teams that run on the practices on this page: distributed ownership, the advice process, and outcomes over hours. Engage a pod for the result you need.
Explore Talent PodsWhat would you build if you didn't need permission? What would work feel like if you could be yourself in it?
We're documenting what we learn as we build. If this way of working sounds like yours, we'd like to meet you.
