I’m reading through, for the first time, Don Beck and Christopher Cowan’s book Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change. Having worked for Ken Wilber, who helped to popularize their work, and knowing many people who are into their theory (about theories) I’ve been exposed to the ideas before, but am finding it much more nuanced than it first appeared. I’ve been on a kick lately to understand more about developmental theories, and having just finished reading Robert Kegan’s In Over Our Heads I’m finding this a delightful (and closely related) read.
Toward the beginning of the book Beck and Cowan use a metaphorical narrative, where they are traveling around the world asking different people the question, “What is life all about?”. They use the people, their surroundings (i.e. their context), and their answers as ways of highlighting the different vMEMEs, or levels of individual and social development, that exist. I found the last person’s response, who was supposed to represent the “yellow” or Flex-Flow stage particularly interesting. He is a park ranger, in an African game reserve, and when asked the question he responds:
Well, I’ve given that some thought and don’t have anything spectacular to offer—but as I see it, I get a great deal of personal satisfaction out of working here to reclaim and preserve our natural habitat. So I guess my answer should be that I believe we should celebrate and respect life as it is. Even more than that, I think we should seek to understand how everything relates to everything else, and how nature has its own tempo and flow of which we are only a small part.1
Three things stood out to me when reading his description. One is that the ranger is fairly humble and grounded about what he is doing and why he’s doing it. The why includes both his personal satisfaction and the good generated by the work he does. Secondly, he emphasizes the need to understand the relationships and patterns of all things. The need to understand and see these relationships, from a meta-viewpoint (of everything), is quite interesting and corresponds strongly to Robert Kegan’s descriptions of the 5th order of consciousness. Lastly, and most interestingly at the moment, is his emphasis on respecting “life as it is” and seeing that “we are only a small part” of nature which “has its own tempo and flow”. This seems largely to express what I described as an integrated sense of responsibility or what I’ve been terming cosmic responsibility. Notice the similarities between the fictional character’s description of his place in nature and how I described integrated responsibility at the end of my post on the subject:
When we open fully to the larger context in which life is happening, that isn’t solely reducible to my experience or my desires, then a greater level of surrender & happiness can result. The happiness isn’t one borne from getting what we want, but rather from seeing how things really are.
I feel more convinced now that “integrated responsibility” is how one expresses their individual role in the life—which is one part of the answer to what life is about—from what these authors call the yellow (”integrative”) stage of development.
Also, check out the recent interviews we did on the Conscious Business show with Don Beck on his work and it’s application to business. Listening to him speak is what finally encouraged me to buy his book and go into his work more deeply. I’m glad I did.
- Spiral Dynamics, pg. 37 [↩]
April 12th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Those interviews with Don Beck were awesome. I want Don Beck’s job (architect of humane corporations) when I grow up. That is, if his job as a consultant is really as he describes it… It’s weird how many websites these SD(i) people have, and how little information is on them. Why would I want to pay for his training, workshop, newsletter, textbook, t-shirt, and 6-tiered apprenticeship scheme when there’s no evidence of what one gets out of being a part of his “growing constellation” of personality cult devotees? Very strange.
April 13th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I’m not sure exactly what you’re referring to here Tracy, and will admit that I haven’t looked very deeply into The Spiral Dynamics organizations. That being said I’ve had friends who have done workshops with Don and who have received a good amount of value from them, and I’m sure many other people do and have. That’s evidence enough for me as to the value of his work. Also, as I mention in this post, his book is a very solid read and there’s much to gain from exploring the ideas he and Christopher Cowan present therein.
As far as personality cults go, I’m not really sure that is an accurate portrayal of Don’s work, as I haven’t seen much evidence that he has a personality cult following. Certainly there are people who appreciate the work he has helped do, but it’s extremely mild in comparison to most spiritual teachers, and is nowhere near a “cult” following.
My suggestion would be that you may want to learn a little more about his work and theories before you jump to such grossly generalized conclusions.
April 14th, 2008 at 1:37 am
OK, I guess it’s not fair of me to dismiss the entire self-help workshop industry. Such events presumably add value to the lives of the people who pay to attend them. There’s nothing inherently wrong with buying and selling personal development workshops, books, audio tapes, etc., it’s just not my thing. But what totally offends me about SDi is the realization that I am their target market. I listened to Don Beck’s podcast interview and thought “Oh, what an interesting man. His work sounds really cool. He’s marketing human development and Spiral Dynamics to corporations and governments. I’d like to learn more about that.” But then it turns out that the focus of Spiral Dynamics Integral is not selling consulting services to corporations and governments. Their focus is selling books and workshops to consumers like me. I have the distinct feeling that my interest is being cultivated so that SDi can make some money off of me, and I think that’s ridiculous. If they’re doing such important, ground-breaking work with this theory, why do they have to monetize the thing so aggressively? If their work is so important, why do we have to pay to learn more about it? I’m not so much interested in “learning a little bit more about his work and theories,” now that I’ve found out his work is selling his theories to ME.
Now, those theories and workshops may well be of value to personal-development consumers (potentially even to me), but it’s just not what I was looking for or expecting from the guy. And I’m really disappointed and annoyed that that’s all he’s offering.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:39 am
In all honesty, I really don’t think Spiral Dynamics is personal development work. He gives absolutely no suggestions on personal practices that people can do, but rather points out the 3rd person, objective, growth of individuals and cultures through time. This is very akin to the work of Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, and Robert Kegan. It’s really more of a developmental psychology system than a personal development one. That being said, some people are interested in learning about this stuff, so that they can apply it. But it isn’t because they’re necessarily becoming better people, as much as they are gaining tools to affect cultural change (or at least to understand it better).
This, to me, is a common and unfortunate criticism against anything of value. The simple answer is because we exist in a context where money is exchanged for things of value, and even if you are railing out against that context, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hold true for most people. Study after study has shown that when people pay for things like this they end up being more engaged with it and receiving more value themselves. And even if they don’t end up monetizing their business directly they would have to do it indirectly, through getting government funding, finding wealthy donors, or working off a donation-based system. All of these other methods have strings attached, many of which I’m sure are much more debilitating to their purpose than getting a few people who hold extreme views about the capitalistic systems that we operate in to not be interested in their work.
I would also mention that part of his work is about describing values that exhibit higher complexity. Those who is able to integrate the values of all people (including people driven by capitalistic urges and self-achievement drives) he calls the “spiral wizard” because they are able to understand and respect all of the different ways that people are motivated in the world, and how their life conditions have led them to these values. If anything, I think that’s an invitation to understand what Spiral Dynamics is pointing to, but if it pisses you off that much, I would suggest that you might not be the intended audience.