youngsinatra
Member
Spiral Dynamics is based on an evolutionary view of reality. This includes:
I. Everything and everyone has a natural tendency to develop and to unfold in an increasing degree of complexity and compassion. Humanity has done this during the last thousands of years, nature has done this during the last millions of years, and this is what we do as individuals during our lives.
II. Life is dynamic and in a continuous flux of change. Although we may strive for stability and control, we are continuously swinging from a state of chaos into a state of order and back again. This is a given. This is a fact. We only need to dynamically and consciously steer along with how life presents itself. Our life conditions are leading as they determine which values, motives and behavior are the most appropriate in a given context.
III. Change is inherent, inevitable and natural, but will not always be automatic. This is best recognizable in people. We cannot change people. However, we can offer a beckoning perspective and create certain conditions to inspire people to make the next step in their development. From their own inner drive, sometimes out of necessity, and sometimes out of freedom from choice driven by their own desires.
Spiral Dynamics is a model and language which describes the development of people, organisations and society. It helps us understand the value systems (what they care about and what motivates them) of different people and organisations, as they move through distinct stages of development.
Importantly people’s value systems represent the way in which they adapt to thrive in their environment. The theory provides an understanding of how people and the environment change through these distinct stages.
Spiral dynamics can therefore be used to analyse the interaction between people and their work environment. We can better understand what drives or influences people’s thoughts and behaviour.
The intention of this model of development, is not to say that any stage is better than another. Each stage’s value system, fulfils its own function, in the right environment. The aim of using this model is about understanding how we can better understand what drives people’s thoughts and behaviour; how we can interact with others; how our values relate to these stages; how we can understand and relate to different organisational environments; and importantly whether the development we are seeking or providing, is right for what we, others or the organisation, want to accomplish.
This model is an abstraction like any other. We can use it to gain a better understanding of a complex reality, but it is not the be all and end all.
As individuals we do not operate solely from one level. As we reach each stage we transcend and include all the stages before the current level. Laloux puts it perfectly with: “in a specific moment a person operates from one type of paradigm”. Each development stage is well suited for certain contexts.
We often vertically grow to the next stage through significant challenges or adversity — when our current worldview does not provide us with what we need to solve what we face. This is where adopting a growth mindset makes people more resourceful and more able to see challenges as opportunities to grow.
It is important to consider that there are different dimensions to our development including cognitive, psychological, social, spiritual, etc. We rarely develop at the same pace in each of these dimensions.
Stage Red (Brute Force)
Laloux writes that the first forms of organisational life appeared approximately 10,000 years ago — Red organisations (Impulsive). These organisations are often tribal and have a value system which is very opportunistic and focused meeting needs via exerting power or submitting to a more powerful organisation to get needs met (egocentric — it’s all about me and my needs).
There is a chief at the top who constantly exercises their power and leads through fear. Red organisations thrive in unstable, chaotic environments like war zones, but are very fragile and tend to break down in more stable environments, where planning and strategy are required. These organisations are reactive and have a very short-term focus.
Examples of today’s Red organisations are street gangs and mafias.
Stage Amber (Conformist)
It is thought that a large percentage of today’s population are in the Amber (Conformist) stage of development. In this stage people start to understand cause and effect and can exert the required self-control to plan ahead. People also have a more awareness of other people’s feelings, perceptions and needs. This means that sense of self-worth is often based on the opinions of others.
Authority is now linked to a role and not just one individual (as it is in the Red stage). People and organisations in the Amber stage seek stability and predictability. They plan ahead and tend to have strict hierarchies with many levels (rigid pyramid).
Laloux provides the Catholic Church as the defining example of an Amber organisation in the Western world, with other examples being government agencies, public schools and the military.
Power structures in the rigid pyramid of Amber organisations often change as people battle for influence. A long list of rules and morals is created to ensure conformity and people are rewarded for the following these or otherwise punished.
Therefore, to aid the transition from Red to Amber, it helps to embed rules that help to manage the impulse of purely satisfying instant gratification.
Stage Orange (Achievement)
Laloux considers that the Orange (Achievement) world view is shared by most of today’s leaders in business and politics. Hence most global organisations function from this value system. In this stage of development, effectiveness replaces morals in decision making. People and organisations live in the future and value growth for growths sake (what’s next to achieve, gain, purchase?).
People and organisations strive to gain the best outcomes possible. People question authority and current ways of doing things with the aim of better understanding the complex mechanics of the world (world centric). People want to gain the right answer, to achieve more, with the hope of making it to the top, in a socially accepted way.
There is sometimes more empowerment of the employees through management by objectives (here is the “what”, you figure out the “how”). Although this often fails due to fear of failure. Leader’s fear to give up control often results in a lack of trust which also means they do not give decision making power to others.
Leadership at this stage, often focuses on extrinsic motivation (carrot vs. stick in Red organisations) and promotes the achievement of goals over building relationships (loss of community). Individual performance reviews promote an individual focus on achievement versus a collective effort.Rationality is valued over emotions and questions of meaning or purpose do not belong in such a culture. Individuals are often left with a sense of emptiness.
Stage Green (Pluralistic)
There is more to life than success or failure. This is the Green (Pluralistic) worldview.
In for-profit Orange organisations normally operate from a shareholder perspective. Green is sensitive to people’s feelings. This value system seeks things such as equal respect, fairness, equality, community and cooperation for all humans and not just the leader or tribe. Relationships are valued over outcomes.
In theory, the Leadership is focused on serving the employees so that the employee can serve the customers.
Green takes the orange’s theory of a world centric view and puts it into real practice.
Green is thought to be practiced today in non-profits, social workers, community activists but also in some very well-known global corporates like Southwest Airlines, Ben & Jerry’s, Starbucks and Zappos.
Empowerment
With Green, you might still have meritocratic hierarchies like in Orange, although the structure is more decentralised and more of the decisions are given to the employees to make. The employees get the “what” from above and find out the “how” themselves, as they are often more in touch with what is needed, how to innovate and what the best viable solutions would be.
This is particularly hard for top and many middle managers as they need to relinquish more of their control.
Value driven with a clear purpose
A strong shared culture orientated around a shared, common purpose holds a green organisation together.
These values and purpose are not just as fad or focused around current hype as in an Orange organisation. They are not just posted on walls and mousepads. People really understand what they mean for them and the leaders act as true role models.
Values and purpose also replace many of the rules and polices that attempt to hold Orange organisations together.
These organisations truly strive to become better corporate citizens and to improve work life that represents more a family or village feel than a machine as in Orange.
This is related to the adoption of a growth mindset. We learn that adversity, mistakes and failures provide opportunities to grow and develop. This helps us to better deal with such events/experiences, whilst developing creativity and innovation. We also gain the ability to learn about ourselves and the world, from such events/experiences.
Living a meaningful life and being clear on how we positively contribute to others becomes our driving force. If we receive recognition, wealth and success as a result this is a bonus but not the pursuit.
We look inwards to learn more about what we value, our strengths and our sense of purpose. So that we can live authentically in the pursuit of our calling.
There is less judgement and more appreciation and compassion.
From a Teal perspective, when making decisions we seek to different sources of knowing. In Orange, we can get up in just our rational and analytical abilities. In Green, we can focus too much on how we feel and avoid any rationality. In Teal, we look to get a balanced sense of understanding, using both rational and our intuition and “gut feeling”.
Wholeness
In Teal we bring together all parts of ourselves, the mind, body and soul and we also become aware that we as humans, are also connected and a part of a whole. A sense of separation which plagues most corporate organisations is eliminated. We all come together, as a community, around a common purpose.
Purpose
The organisation is seen as a living entity with its own sense of purpose, linked to how it positively serves others. This purpose drives everything. A Teal organisation focuses on the value it provides over its bottom line.
Self-management
The organisation can operate effectively with peer relationships instead of strict hierarchies and consensus. This is similar to Sociocracy. The advice process is used for decision making which means that any person in the organisation can decide themselves. As long as they have sought advice from all stakeholders impacted by the decision, in addition to necessary people with expertise in this area. Where needed, coaches with more experience or specialised skills, provide input and support.
Being self-managed can provide a very challenging way to work, especially if you have been working in an Orange organisation for most of your working career.
As you may note in this article, one missing point is that there is no mention of the environment required to make self-management effective and less stressful. The required environment is what the Teal value system provides.
In the transition from Green to Teal, we become more aware of how our ego driven fears and desires drive much of our thoughts, feelings and behaviour. We learn how to better self-manage these fears and desires whilst being able to tap into our feelings and intuition.
Stage Turquoise
At Turquoise, the individual understands its integration and deep connection with all life that came before it, and everything that is still yet to be. Turquoise recognises itself as both individual and part of the compassionate, collective whole.
Harmony paves Turquoise’s path; it’s thinking being both holistic and intuitive, working alongside co-operative actions. Turquoise realises that consciousness is central to humanities problems. Stage Turquoise consciousness usually become Gurus, Teachers, Sages or Visionaries. They may also build and guide their communities, which can present challenges with the other levels of the Spiral below them being incongruent with one another.
At Stage Turquoise, the mystical becomes the mundane and the paranormal becomes normal. Turquoise understands that intelligence is not something we ‘possess’ as stages earlier in the Spiral may believe. They know that every being in the universe is intelligent and that the entire arrangement of the universe is divine intelligence at work.
In 2020, Turquoise represents perhaps 0.01% of the population and holds approximately 1% of the influence. Almost all institutions, governments and societies are closed-minded to Turquoise, due to them being at a lower Stage in the Spiral and experiencing Turquoise as ‘delusional’.
Turquoise governments have never existed. If they did, we could imagine it would be a holistic system, with micromanagement of all life-forms. It would be a unified global system, and its purpose would be to elevate the consciousness of all of humanity.
Summary
I find it to be a neat theory of human consciousness, from both the individual and collective perspective.
Of course I am not able to summarize it all here, because actually the theory was worked out for 40+ years by a team of researchers.
You can find a lot of in-depth material on YouTube, especially on a channel called „Actualized.org“. Really cool information.
I find the Stage Blue video most interesting since it explained a lot of my religious upbringing and family history.
Peace!
I. Everything and everyone has a natural tendency to develop and to unfold in an increasing degree of complexity and compassion. Humanity has done this during the last thousands of years, nature has done this during the last millions of years, and this is what we do as individuals during our lives.
II. Life is dynamic and in a continuous flux of change. Although we may strive for stability and control, we are continuously swinging from a state of chaos into a state of order and back again. This is a given. This is a fact. We only need to dynamically and consciously steer along with how life presents itself. Our life conditions are leading as they determine which values, motives and behavior are the most appropriate in a given context.
III. Change is inherent, inevitable and natural, but will not always be automatic. This is best recognizable in people. We cannot change people. However, we can offer a beckoning perspective and create certain conditions to inspire people to make the next step in their development. From their own inner drive, sometimes out of necessity, and sometimes out of freedom from choice driven by their own desires.
Spiral Dynamics is a model and language which describes the development of people, organisations and society. It helps us understand the value systems (what they care about and what motivates them) of different people and organisations, as they move through distinct stages of development.
Importantly people’s value systems represent the way in which they adapt to thrive in their environment. The theory provides an understanding of how people and the environment change through these distinct stages.
Spiral dynamics can therefore be used to analyse the interaction between people and their work environment. We can better understand what drives or influences people’s thoughts and behaviour.
The intention of this model of development, is not to say that any stage is better than another. Each stage’s value system, fulfils its own function, in the right environment. The aim of using this model is about understanding how we can better understand what drives people’s thoughts and behaviour; how we can interact with others; how our values relate to these stages; how we can understand and relate to different organisational environments; and importantly whether the development we are seeking or providing, is right for what we, others or the organisation, want to accomplish.
This model is an abstraction like any other. We can use it to gain a better understanding of a complex reality, but it is not the be all and end all.
As individuals we do not operate solely from one level. As we reach each stage we transcend and include all the stages before the current level. Laloux puts it perfectly with: “in a specific moment a person operates from one type of paradigm”. Each development stage is well suited for certain contexts.
We often vertically grow to the next stage through significant challenges or adversity — when our current worldview does not provide us with what we need to solve what we face. This is where adopting a growth mindset makes people more resourceful and more able to see challenges as opportunities to grow.
It is important to consider that there are different dimensions to our development including cognitive, psychological, social, spiritual, etc. We rarely develop at the same pace in each of these dimensions.
First tier consciousness (Red, Amber, Orange & Green)
First tier consciousness is related to seeing the world through a lens of scarcity and considering that my worldview is the one and only valid view.Stage Red (Brute Force)
Laloux writes that the first forms of organisational life appeared approximately 10,000 years ago — Red organisations (Impulsive). These organisations are often tribal and have a value system which is very opportunistic and focused meeting needs via exerting power or submitting to a more powerful organisation to get needs met (egocentric — it’s all about me and my needs).
There is a chief at the top who constantly exercises their power and leads through fear. Red organisations thrive in unstable, chaotic environments like war zones, but are very fragile and tend to break down in more stable environments, where planning and strategy are required. These organisations are reactive and have a very short-term focus.
Examples of today’s Red organisations are street gangs and mafias.
Stage Amber (Conformist)
It is thought that a large percentage of today’s population are in the Amber (Conformist) stage of development. In this stage people start to understand cause and effect and can exert the required self-control to plan ahead. People also have a more awareness of other people’s feelings, perceptions and needs. This means that sense of self-worth is often based on the opinions of others.
The Red, “my way or your way” (egocentric) becomes an Amber “us or them” (ethnocentric). People’s concern is on them and their group but not on people outside the group.
Authority is now linked to a role and not just one individual (as it is in the Red stage). People and organisations in the Amber stage seek stability and predictability. They plan ahead and tend to have strict hierarchies with many levels (rigid pyramid).
Laloux provides the Catholic Church as the defining example of an Amber organisation in the Western world, with other examples being government agencies, public schools and the military.
Power structures in the rigid pyramid of Amber organisations often change as people battle for influence. A long list of rules and morals is created to ensure conformity and people are rewarded for the following these or otherwise punished.
Therefore, to aid the transition from Red to Amber, it helps to embed rules that help to manage the impulse of purely satisfying instant gratification.
Importantly, Amber organisations tend to see worker’s as lazy, dishonest and in need of clear direction (like Douglas McGregor’s Theory X).
Stage Orange (Achievement)
Laloux considers that the Orange (Achievement) world view is shared by most of today’s leaders in business and politics. Hence most global organisations function from this value system. In this stage of development, effectiveness replaces morals in decision making. People and organisations live in the future and value growth for growths sake (what’s next to achieve, gain, purchase?).
People and organisations strive to gain the best outcomes possible. People question authority and current ways of doing things with the aim of better understanding the complex mechanics of the world (world centric). People want to gain the right answer, to achieve more, with the hope of making it to the top, in a socially accepted way.
The Orange level of development brought innovation, accountability and meritocracy. Orange organisations still tend to have a pyramid hierarchy, although this is less pronounced due to initiatives such as project groups, cross-functional teams and expert roles.
There is sometimes more empowerment of the employees through management by objectives (here is the “what”, you figure out the “how”). Although this often fails due to fear of failure. Leader’s fear to give up control often results in a lack of trust which also means they do not give decision making power to others.
Leadership at this stage, often focuses on extrinsic motivation (carrot vs. stick in Red organisations) and promotes the achievement of goals over building relationships (loss of community). Individual performance reviews promote an individual focus on achievement versus a collective effort.Rationality is valued over emotions and questions of meaning or purpose do not belong in such a culture. Individuals are often left with a sense of emptiness.
Stage Green (Pluralistic)
There is more to life than success or failure. This is the Green (Pluralistic) worldview.
In for-profit Orange organisations normally operate from a shareholder perspective. Green is sensitive to people’s feelings. This value system seeks things such as equal respect, fairness, equality, community and cooperation for all humans and not just the leader or tribe. Relationships are valued over outcomes.
In theory, the Leadership is focused on serving the employees so that the employee can serve the customers.
Green takes the orange’s theory of a world centric view and puts it into real practice.
Green is thought to be practiced today in non-profits, social workers, community activists but also in some very well-known global corporates like Southwest Airlines, Ben & Jerry’s, Starbucks and Zappos.
Empowerment
With Green, you might still have meritocratic hierarchies like in Orange, although the structure is more decentralised and more of the decisions are given to the employees to make. The employees get the “what” from above and find out the “how” themselves, as they are often more in touch with what is needed, how to innovate and what the best viable solutions would be.
This is particularly hard for top and many middle managers as they need to relinquish more of their control.
Value driven with a clear purpose
A strong shared culture orientated around a shared, common purpose holds a green organisation together.
These values and purpose are not just as fad or focused around current hype as in an Orange organisation. They are not just posted on walls and mousepads. People really understand what they mean for them and the leaders act as true role models.
Values and purpose also replace many of the rules and polices that attempt to hold Orange organisations together.
These organisations truly strive to become better corporate citizens and to improve work life that represents more a family or village feel than a machine as in Orange.
Second tier consciousness (Teal and above)
Second tier consciousness is related to seeing the world through a lens of abundance and being aware that my worldview, is not the only valid one and therefore I recognise and respect the value system of others.Stage Teal (Evolutionary)
At the Teal stage, there is a shift from fear and scarcity to trust and abundance. This decreases our need to control everything.
This is related to the adoption of a growth mindset. We learn that adversity, mistakes and failures provide opportunities to grow and develop. This helps us to better deal with such events/experiences, whilst developing creativity and innovation. We also gain the ability to learn about ourselves and the world, from such events/experiences.
Living a meaningful life and being clear on how we positively contribute to others becomes our driving force. If we receive recognition, wealth and success as a result this is a bonus but not the pursuit.
We look inwards to learn more about what we value, our strengths and our sense of purpose. So that we can live authentically in the pursuit of our calling.
There is less judgement and more appreciation and compassion.
From a Teal perspective, when making decisions we seek to different sources of knowing. In Orange, we can get up in just our rational and analytical abilities. In Green, we can focus too much on how we feel and avoid any rationality. In Teal, we look to get a balanced sense of understanding, using both rational and our intuition and “gut feeling”.
Wholeness
In Teal we bring together all parts of ourselves, the mind, body and soul and we also become aware that we as humans, are also connected and a part of a whole. A sense of separation which plagues most corporate organisations is eliminated. We all come together, as a community, around a common purpose.
Purpose
The organisation is seen as a living entity with its own sense of purpose, linked to how it positively serves others. This purpose drives everything. A Teal organisation focuses on the value it provides over its bottom line.
Self-management
The organisation can operate effectively with peer relationships instead of strict hierarchies and consensus. This is similar to Sociocracy. The advice process is used for decision making which means that any person in the organisation can decide themselves. As long as they have sought advice from all stakeholders impacted by the decision, in addition to necessary people with expertise in this area. Where needed, coaches with more experience or specialised skills, provide input and support.
Being self-managed can provide a very challenging way to work, especially if you have been working in an Orange organisation for most of your working career.
As you may note in this article, one missing point is that there is no mention of the environment required to make self-management effective and less stressful. The required environment is what the Teal value system provides.
In the transition from Green to Teal, we become more aware of how our ego driven fears and desires drive much of our thoughts, feelings and behaviour. We learn how to better self-manage these fears and desires whilst being able to tap into our feelings and intuition.
Stage Turquoise
At Turquoise, the individual understands its integration and deep connection with all life that came before it, and everything that is still yet to be. Turquoise recognises itself as both individual and part of the compassionate, collective whole.
Harmony paves Turquoise’s path; it’s thinking being both holistic and intuitive, working alongside co-operative actions. Turquoise realises that consciousness is central to humanities problems. Stage Turquoise consciousness usually become Gurus, Teachers, Sages or Visionaries. They may also build and guide their communities, which can present challenges with the other levels of the Spiral below them being incongruent with one another.
At Stage Turquoise, the mystical becomes the mundane and the paranormal becomes normal. Turquoise understands that intelligence is not something we ‘possess’ as stages earlier in the Spiral may believe. They know that every being in the universe is intelligent and that the entire arrangement of the universe is divine intelligence at work.
In 2020, Turquoise represents perhaps 0.01% of the population and holds approximately 1% of the influence. Almost all institutions, governments and societies are closed-minded to Turquoise, due to them being at a lower Stage in the Spiral and experiencing Turquoise as ‘delusional’.
Turquoise governments have never existed. If they did, we could imagine it would be a holistic system, with micromanagement of all life-forms. It would be a unified global system, and its purpose would be to elevate the consciousness of all of humanity.
Summary
I find it to be a neat theory of human consciousness, from both the individual and collective perspective.
Of course I am not able to summarize it all here, because actually the theory was worked out for 40+ years by a team of researchers.
You can find a lot of in-depth material on YouTube, especially on a channel called „Actualized.org“. Really cool information.
I find the Stage Blue video most interesting since it explained a lot of my religious upbringing and family history.
Peace!
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