Integral Leadership Review
Volume VI, No. 3 - August 2006

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Your assistance would be deeply appreciated.

I wish to express my deepest gratitude to those who have chosen to provide voluntary contributions to support the publication of the Integral Leadership Review. My goal is to continue to make the work of those contributing to the development of integral leadership theory and applications accessible to all. When you choose to join this generous group, please go to our donation page. My request is for $10.00 to help defray our costs in continuing to make this publication accessible to all. You can also find out how your organization can become a sponsor of the Integral Leadership Review by contactingruss@integralleadershipreview.com.

I would also like express appreciation the sponsors of the Integral Leadership Review:

Stagen is North America's leading provider of integrally-informed organizational and leadership development products and services. Please visit stagen.com to find out more about their methodology, download white papers and learning modules, and explore opportunities for collaboration.

http://www.stagen.com/philosophy/leadership/

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Pacific Integral is committed to the conscious evolution of individuals and organizations to support the emergence of a sustainable, equitable and beautiful future for humanity. We offer integrally-informed development, consulting, mentoring, coaching, and education, including Generating Transformative Change in Human Systems. This in-depth, practical, 18-month program is an intensive, rigorous, and inspiring experience designed to create powerful, integrally-informed leaders for transformative change in human systems.

http://www.pacificintegral.com

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The Kaipa Group is a Silicon Valley based consulting firm providing Coaching, Advice and Executive Education to CEOs, Board Members and Senior Executives. We focus on igniting innovation and transformation in executives and their organizations by helping them tap into their natural genius. Our Mission is to ignite the natural genius within executives and their teams.

http://www.kaipagroup.com

Mission

We are in the sixth year of publication of the Integral Leadership Review. It is increasingly taking the form that I hoped, although I am sure there is still much that can be done to make this a useful document that attracts a wider audience in the fields of consulting, training and coaching, as well as among business and other organizational leaders who have a passion for leadership. In fact, we are committed to evolving this epublication and its resources as a center for discourse and learning about leadership through an integral lens.

This evolution has, in face begun. We are in the process of forming the Integral Leadership Council (ILC). This process is in its early stages. We are proud to announce that the following leading thinkers about leadership have become members of the Integral Leadership Council:

Don Beck (US) The Spiral Dynamnics Group

Ron Cacioppe (Australia) University of Western Australia
Susann Cook-Greuter (Switzerland/US) Integral Institute
Charles Hampden-Turner (UK) Cambridge University
Mark Edwards (Australia) University of Western Australia
Nathan Harter (US) Purdue University
Prasad Kaipa (US/India) Saybrook Institute, Indian School of Business
Ian Mitroff (US) Emeritus, University of Southern California; Fielding Institute
Thierry Pauchant (Canada) HEC Montreal, Fielding Institute
Joseph Rost (US) University of San Diego, Emeritus
Bill Torbert (US) Boston College
Margaret Wheatley (US) President Emerita, The Berkana Institute

We anticipate that this group will grow over the coming months. We will provide more information about the ILC

In addition, we are in the process of developing a new, independent website for the Integral Leadership Review. I am able to say "we" because the Integral Leadership Review is now under direction of a Management Review Board. In addition to myself as editor and publisher, the following very important contributors to the evolution of this journal have agreed to serve:

Keith Bellamy, Founder, Pragmatic Futures

Sara Ross, President, ARINA, Inc.

Brett Thomas, Partner, Stagen Leadership Institute

I am grateful to the 1453 subscribers to Integral Leadership Review. Your support means that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrative, generative and supportive of our evolving integrity - learning to align our theory and our action, our values and assumptions with achieving what is important to us. Also, I am grateful to the many kindnesses, suggestions and offers of support we have received.

The mission of this e-publication is to be a practical guide to the application of an integral perspective to the challenges of leadership in business and life and to the effective relationship between executive/business coaches, consultants and their clients. My vision includes that this will be a place where we can continue to develop and share ideas about integral leadership and integral coaching, particularly in their application. That vision is being realized.

Russ Volckmann

Integral Theory into Integral Action: Mark Edwards & Russ Volckmann

The following material is the beginning of a dialogue between Mark Edwards and Russ Volckmann about integral theory, maps, models and their applications. The focus will be on concepts and relationships among concepts and the like. However, this discussion takes place with the hope of making two contributions. The first is to the development and evolution of integral theory, particularly as it applies to the subject of leadership. The second is in comprehending how to use integral theory as an integrating device for theory, concepts and ideas coming from, well, just about any source that has something to contribute.

Mark Edwards is working on his dissertation at Western Australia University and has already made major contributions to integral theory. Much of his work can be found at www.integralworld.net (for reviewed publications see: Cacioppe & Edwards, 2005a; 2005b; Edwards, 1997; Edwards, 1998; 2002; 2005a; 2005b; 2005c; 2006). I highly recommend these if you are interested in pursuing his ideas further. Mark also participated in a three-part conversation with Ken Wilber on Integral Naked, www.integralnaked.org. Recently, I sent an invitation to Mark to engage in a dialogue about integral theory and how it can be applied to understanding, developing and implementing leadership. Here is the invitation, his response and the first session of dialogue that ensued.

To read this article click here.

A Fresh Perspective: Development and the Entrepreneur as Leader, With Harry M. Lasker 

When I discovered Harry Lasker and a hint of the scope of his work and contributions, I asked him if we could do an interview. I wanted to review his early research with Jane Loevinger’s developmental model (that is at the heart of Susann Cook-Greuter's Leadership Development Profile and is used by Bill Torbert and his colleagues as well as others), to lay out his career and explore how his work in developmental models had influenced his performance as a leader. He agreed. As I review the result I see it as a demonstration of integral performance. As you read it, note the elements of his development and how it played out in the world he has helped to create. - Russ

Russ: Welcome to the Integral Leadership Review.

Harry: Thank you.

Russ: What drew me to want to interview you for this publication was an interview I did recently with Bill Joiner and Steve Josephs who are publishing a new book calledLeadership Agility[ILR, June 2006]. Bill mentioned that his inspiration came significantly from work that he had done with you at Harvard. I decided I better find out more about who this person is who was so inspirational. I found that you have founded several companies. Currently you are Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Cerylion, Inc. and you were teaching at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for 15 years beginning in 1972. Is that correct?

Harry: Correct, yes.

Russ: Your dissertation, a comparison of David McClelland’s achievement motivation with Jane Loevinger’s developmental model, was completed at the University of Chicago in 1978. Sounds like we were both teaching while we were still working on our dissertations, which is an experience I would wish for no one.

Harry: Exactly! The ultimate agony, I would say.

Russ: During that period as well, you were involved in technology development and multimedia. I find that fascinating, because it weaves the strands into a thread clearer for us.

Harry: There are themes that carry through - perhaps only I can see them. I’ve always been interested in the issues of development and that is what drew me to stage theory. Developmental research was one of the key things I was teaching at Harvard for those 15 years. At the same time I was closely involved in the early years of Sesame Street. The key advisors to Sesame Street came from Harvard and I joined Sesame Street when it was a year or two old. I also taught with the group that produced Sesame Street. We offered a course on the method by which Sesame Street was developed.

I was teaching things that were extremely practical such as how you build and run processes such as those of the Children's Television Workshop aimed at trying to promote cognitive development. At the same time I was teaching a basic course in adult development - developmental research about changes in the thinking and functioning of adults.

The Sesame Street experience got me interested in the potential use of technology to promote development. That's what Sesame Street was doing - using television to promote cognitive development of kids in a measurable way. About 1981, when micro computers and video disks were emerging technologies, I saw an opportunity to link the two and to create an interactive environment that would be more potent than television as a way to promote development. I founded a company and got venture capital at a pretty early date back in 1981 for what was really one of the first major multimedia companies in the United States.

To read the complete interview click here.

Teaching vs. Preaching: The Power of Using Key Distinctions in Integral Leadership Development
Brian Whetten, Ph.D., M.A.  

One of the defining hallmarks of "second stage" integral thinking is the ability to move beyond seeing our current developmental stage as the "one true stage" that "should" be used by everyone. Yet the process through which myself and many others have embraced integral theory is much like a religious conversion experience. In my integral leadership development efforts, I’ve often found myself preaching instead of teaching.

This challenge stems directly from the greatest strength of Integral Theory - the overarching breadth and depth of its models, which provide a whole new paradigm for how to see the world. As demonstrated by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, paradigm shifts tend to be traumatic, revolutionary events, which require heroic feats of unlearning our old paradigm before we can embrace the new one. Whether we’re talking about a scientific, theological or philosophical paradigm, the psychological dynamics are the same. Namely, the more powerful the paradigm shift is, the harder it is to make, the fewer the adults there are who will tend to make it - and the greater the temptation there is once we've made it to push it on others.

In my practices as a coach and teacher, where most of my clients are not already "integral converts," I've found that what I teach is often less important than how I teach it. While I started out trying to teach my models to others, I've since found it much more valuable to teach through key distinctions. Even with the best of intentions, the first is often perceived as preaching while the second is more often seen as teaching. Learning to teach through key distinctions is a primary competency for integral leaders. It is also a crucial component to our practice of fostering and developing integral leadership in others.

This article:

• Highlights the differences between these two forms of communication.
• Illustrates the core psychological dynamics beneath them.
• Describes the five primary traits of a key distinction.
• Lists six of the Integral Key Distinctions I have found most valuable.

It concludes with an invitation and a challenge for this community to engage in a dialog aimed at distilling the most important Integral Key Distinctions. Doing so is an essential, pivotal step as we bridge the gap from theory to practice and create practical valuefor a wide range of people.

To read the complete article click here.

Why Spiritual Intelligence Is Essential to Mature Leadership, Cindy Wigglesworth 

The life conditions and problems we face as a species, as countries, as organizations and as individuals demand increasing complex/elegant solutions. The type of mature leader who can respond to such situations is a "Tier 2" leader - embodying an advanced stage of personal development. These high levels of adult development are inseparably linked to spiritual intelligence. Thus, mature leadership requires spiritual intelligence development. The result is a leader who leads from the inside out: who she is, is how she leads.

To realize the value of spiritually intelligent leadership we need to first understand the following:

• What life conditions do we face now as humans? What do we need leaders to be able to deal with?
• Multiple intelligences - what they are and specifically what is spiritual intelligence?
• Stages of adult development and their relationship to leadership.
• Stages of adult development and their relationship to spiritual intelligence.

To read the complete article click here.

INTEGRAL NOTES

In the current issue of this newsletter is an interview with Alan Mulally, CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes Subscriptions to this newsletter are also available.

http://kaipagroup.com/newsletter/June2006_newsletter.html

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Generating Transformative Change in Human Systems, beginning October 2, 2006. For those who are ready to transform their lives and their work, with an on-going, sustained system of support and consultation, Generating Transformative Change in Human Systems is a powerful, leading-edge learning opportunity designed to support the emergence of effective integral leaders and communities of practice. Our next course begins October 2, 2006 with facilitators, Terri O'Fallon, Geoff Fitch, Dana Carman and selected assistant faculty.

Contact Dana Carman at 425.882.8859, or email us at gtc@pacificintegral.com

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1st Annual SDi European Confab

September 8-10, 2006
Vught, Netherlands The Center for Human Emergence (Netherlands

Join us for three days of dynamic and engaging learning designed to support and connect all human emergence and Spiral Dynamics practitioners, and exchange best practices for real life applications. Whether you are a relative newcomer to SDi, or an experienced and advanced human emergence practitioner, we are offering both mild and hot spicy sessions to choose from – to support your own specific learning curve!

http://www.humanemergence.org/nlconfab.html

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Susann Cook-Greuter MAP Program

Susann Cook-Greuter and Beena Sharma will be presenting an intimate, intensive exploration of MAP, a framework that illuminates a sound understanding of human development, with demonstrated application in organizational contexts (see Rooke and Torbert, Harvard Business Review, April 2005).

The MAP measure is the best tool for identifying self-actualizers, the very individuals most likely capable of integrally-oriented, transformative leadership necessary to survive in today’s demanding and ever-changing environments. What makes MAP unique & distinctive Most leadership development approaches in organizational and professional practice today promote adult learning through a lateral, skill-based approach. MAP uniquely focuses on both lateral growth (competency acquisition) and vertical, transformational development (gaining greater capacity) In addition, MAP makes the most subtle and explicit distinctions at the high-end of the personal developmental spiral, and includes ego transcendent (spirit) perspectives.

September 24, 2006: 4 pm until September 27, 5 pm; University of San Diego San Diego, CA. Registration: Please email bsharma@integralinstitute.org or call 941-726-7620; Fax 1-877-570-5796.

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Audio Podcasts

Gary Stamper and Alex Rollin discuss integral leadership, holocracy and the Seattle Integral Solon.

http://www.ourmedia.org/node/232951

Integral City

Marilyn Hamilton and her team have created a most amazing website. Integral City. Adapted from the website:

Integral City.com is a space for meshworkingglobal intelligences to think about, act in, relate to and work in the healthy city of the future. We explore four perspectives, with asystems thinking level of awareness.

Integral City explores the city as a whole system like the human equivalent of the beehive. It uses an integral meta-framework to reframe the city as a resilient, vibrant human habitat. Integral City utitizes four key city perspectives as a spiral/integral meta-model (developed by Clare Graves, Don Beck and Ken Wilber) to explore the psycho-bio-cultural-social systems of individuals and groups in the city:

1. Quadrant 1 Explores the Citizen as the source of Intentional – subjective “I” realities (about the individual eg. emotions, psychology, intellect, spirit)
2. Quadrant 2 Explores the City Manager as the exemplar of Behavioral – objective “It” realities (of the city’s bio-physical health and resilience)
3. Quadrant 3 Explores Civil Society as the representative of Cultural – intersubjective “We” realities (about the relationships and values of groups eg. NGO’s, NFP’s and Foundations)
4. Quadrant 4 Explores Developers as the action oriented designer of Social – interobjective “Its” realities (eg. Infrastructures, systems, technologies).

http://www.integralcity.com/CitizensZone/CitizensUR.html

And check out this piece about citizens as leaders:

QOL Citizens: How Can I Demonstrate Leadership? I demonstrate leadership in the city by managing myself appropriately in relation to my life conditions. I demonstrate leadership by:

• Initiating new patterns, processes and structures; eg. "Imagine the City of the Future" initiatives.
• Developing and/or extending existing patterns, processes and structures; eg. integral approaches to solving homelessness
• Making connections with ideas, people and things; eg. matching up seniors with Gen Y's to raise funds for a sports stadium.

In demonstrating leadership, I actually depend on three major bio-physical systems. Systems scientist and author, James Grier Miller documented these three systems along with nineteen subsystems (or threads) (which parallel the same nineteen subsystems in all other living systems)….

http://www.integralcity.com/CitizensZone/CitizensUR.html

We can save the world!Ervin Laszlo 

This article appeared in Ode issue: 36

Humanity faces a choice between collapsing into chaos and evolving into a sustainable, ethical global community. There’s never been a more powerful moment in all history to make a difference in the world.

http://www.odemagazine.com/article.php?aID=4351

A Call For Papers!

International Conference On Integrating Spirituality and Organizational Leaderhip

http://fms.edu/conference/IntConf/rtc.htm

Integral Leadership on Zaadz.com

After Zaadz showed up in front of me again in the conversation between Ken Wilber and Zaadz Philosopher and CEO Brian Johnson, I decided to check it out. I found there was already a "zpod" — a thread on list serves—on integral leadership and another on integral leadership in health care. Not only that, but since I joined, I have been contacted by other Zaadz members who are ILR subscribers!

The zpod was started with the question, "What is integral leadership?" As of this writing there were 8 responses beginning with a stage-oriented definition to the effect that an integral leader is someone with integral consciousness. Brett Thomas, offers a stage model of leadership that outlines the relationship between some major leadership theories and various levels of development or "altitude." There are a few comments about the need for integral leadership in health care in relation to innovation.

For more information click to www.zaadz.com

The Integral Sustainability Workshop: Evolving the Art and Science of Sustainability

September 11-15, 2006
Westminster, CO, USA

The Integral Framework and The Integral Advantage:

• A breakthrough way to understand, manage and respond to complexity
• The most comprehensive map of reality to date - encompassing the development of systems, culture, psychology, and behavior
• A vital foundation for sophisticated design and implementation of sustainability initiatives, on any scale
• The culmination of more than 30 years of research by Ken Wilber, the"Einstein of consciousness"
• "Use of the Integral framework will only grow. It's the future of international development."

- Robertson Work, Principal Advisor, Bureau for Development Policy,
United Nations Development Programme

• Coordinate authority, power, and influence and deliver full-group engagement toward sustainability
• Achieve integration and alignment of sustainability by easily mapping major influences and organizing key knowledge
• Catalyze and support internal and external change in people and organizations
• Leverage the major forces that foster sustainability in systems, culture, and stakeholder psychology
• Deepen and strengthen personal capacities, such as wisdom, compassion, creativity, and skillful-means

Faculty

David Johnston, founder, what's working

Gil Friend, ceo, natural logic

Barrett Brown, co-director. integral sustainability center

Cynthia McEwen, co-director, integral sustainability center

John Schmidt, ceo, avastone consulting

Genpo Merzel Roshi, zen master

To register for this workshop, or for more information, contact:

http://r.vresp.com/?IntegralInstitute/07de2d5528/627172/6c1ba78fc7/bbd4090 or 1-866-483-0168

scholarships available

Integral World

The Data and Methodologies of Integral Science

Kurt Koller, working for the Integral Science department of Integral University, offers one of his essays on integral science:

"This essay introduces a methodology for Integral Science, called Integral Methodological Pluralism (IMP). Tracing the development of epistemological and ontological relationships in the writings of Ken Wilber, the paper attempts to demonstrate how such a methodology might be applied. I consider Wilber's elucidations of three core principles of valid knowledge (injunction, apprehension, and consensual validation) along with three essential elements of an IMP (nonexclusion, enfoldment, and enactment)."

Read more: http://www.integralworld.net/koller.html

Ken Wilber and I-I's New CEO

A brief update on Ken Wilber. Some of you may know that Ken has recently suffered ill health. In addition to struggling with a difficult episode of his chronic immune disease (Rnase-L Enzyme Dysfunction Disease) he was also involved in an accident that left him with serious injuries that among other things, included a torn rotator cuff, vertebrae damage, and a broken pelvis.  Remarkably, despite extraordinary physical pain, he still gets up every morning at 2AM and writes until 6AM before he resumes his management responsibilities as the visionary leader guiding Integral Institute's continued growth and expansion. During the past year, Ken wrote five books. The first is Integral Spirituality, the next three were the Many Faces of Terrorism Trilogy, and the fifth was Transformations of Consciousness. Meanwhile, Integral Institute launched the groundbreaking "multiplex" made up of dozens of subject-specific web sites all interconnected via an "integral commons." To guide the organization's explosive growth, experienced business leader Steve Frazee was recently named acting CEO. For more information, including daily updates, see Ken's blog which can be viewed at www.kenwilber.com <http://www.kenwilber.com> .

Summary

Nathan Harter, Clearings in the Forest: On the Study of Leadership. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press.

Books on the study of leadership, rather than advice to those who want to be leaders, are rare. To find one that is aware of the multiple aspects of the study and practice of leadership is also rare. The work of Zacarro on executive leadership and a few others are exceptions.

While not integrally informed or build on integral theory, it is my contention that there are some integral thinkers out there who just haven’t discovered yet the power of integral theory for their work. Harter was one of those. I say was, because since completing this book I know he has been exploring that perspective. But don’t wait until the next book. This one is worth the time spent as it is.

Statements like this reflect the perspective that I find of so much value in this work: "Leadership is but a moment in the flux of our social lives, so to be students of leadership we must figure out how it is 'embedded' into the rest of that world."

Harter uses a metaphor of traveling from within the forest in the valley to the top of the mountain to explore the subject of leadership and leadership studies. He begins with definition - a rare excursion in the literature on leadership - and offers a set of perspectives on the meaning of leadership:

• Leadership is a sociological form
• Leadership is an interpretation of events
• Leadership is a kind of influence
• Leadership is an organizational tendency toward change
• Leadership is part of the process by which the elite arise to dominance
• Leadership is an art
• Leadership is an exercise in power

Using a holon to map these perspectives is awkward in that each has elements in more than one cell of the holon. Consequently, one must break each down by its component parts before rebuilding an integral perspective on leadership.

Harter proceeds by indicating the core elements of a definition of leadership:

Leadership must be interpersonal. Most if not all people imagine at least two persons in some kind of relationship.

It must involve attribution. The one person in the relationship wwhom we label as the leader causes of influences the follower to do something he or she would not otherwise have done, regardless of how we define interpersonal causation. We commonly attribute leadership to a leader.

It must result in change. Without change, there is no leadership. There has to be some influence by one person upon the others.

It must change in a specific direction. That direction goes by many names, such as goal, objective, mission, or vision.

[p. xx]

He closes this section by pointing out that leadership has to be understood in context and states, “Leadership is but a moment in the flux of our social lives, so to be students of leadership we must figure out how it is ‘embedded’ into the rest of that world.” How integral can you get?

The author takes us on a journey from the forest to the mountain top in exploring the nature of leadership and leadership studies. While in the forest he explores different theoretical orientations of leadership, the role of theory, experience, symbol and image, He then discusses leadership as sociological form. Here he argues for multiple perspectives and illustrates this with examples drawn from leadership theory. He states:

Perspectivism encourages humility, since each perspective is limited and only part of the truth…None of which is to suggest that perspectivism in the same thing as dreaded relativism, as though I have the truth and you have yours. There is one paramount reality out there. We must collaborate in order to understand it better.

[p. 101]

Harter then turns his attention to such subjects as power, morality, ethics and elite formation before engaging in an exploration of influence. He recognizes the existence of multiple leaders in any system and the mutual influence of leaders and followers. Leadership involves a web of relationships. And these relationships exist within systems. Using Voeglin’s ladder he offers a "stage" model in three dimensions, person (individual), society (collective) and history (that neglected variable in AQAL mapping). Like an integral approach,

Voeglin’s ladder makes room for many 'viewpoints" so long as no one view presumes to exclude the rest. Leadership, as a phenomenon in reality, can be studied profitably at any one of the levels, from multiple perspectives, although the academic community is charged with integrating these findings periodically and keeping them in good order. This it has not done adequately, which is why all of the interest lately in spirituality has forced the issue.

[p. 172]

It is in the discussion of spirituality that Harter has reached the mountaintop. While treating spirituality as something difficult to define, he points out that spirituality informs ethics and that is at the heart of not only understanding the nature of leadership, but offers a requirement for its development and practice.

Summary

Nick Owen. (2004). More Magic of Metaphor: Stories for Leaders, Influencers and Motivators. Carmarthen, Wales, UK: Crown House Publishing Ltd.

Owen’s first volume, the Magic of Metaphor includes 77 stories for teachers, trainers and thinkers. It is in its sixth printing and has been published in five languages. I must confess, despite my life’s experience in each of these categories, that I have not read it. But I have read the current volume, about to go into its second printing, and come away quite impressed. It wasn’t the stories so much, some of which were familiar and some couched in older cultures that, while still present in the world, are used to help us “see” a situation and a context related to leadership. Rather, it was the treatment of the stories that I found powerful.

This volume has an introduction and a series of chapters that lay out the integral and spiral dynamics orientation of the author’s approach. There is a forward by Chris Cowan, who Owen studied with in Santa Barbara. The chapter on preparing stories and metaphor for leadership development ranges from meaning making, the uses of anecdotes, stories and metaphors to setting the stage for the book’s journey of leadership stories. We are guided by a young magician who has been given a magic carpet, Al Sayyid, to guide him in his explorations. Through his conversations with the magic carpet the young magician lays out spiral dynamics and integral interpretations of each story.

To guide the reader in selecting stories to read or share Owen has also provided a cross referenced guide to the stories by themes ranging from “The Integral Leader” and “The Present and Aware Leader” to more specific attributes like, Coach, Inspirer and Strategist.

Here is an example of a story and the material Owen has developed in relation to it:

Resistance

An electrician who lacked confidence went to a life coach for help. He wondered why other electricians did better than he did. He wondered why many of his classmates at school and college had more successful careers and lives than he had. He blamed the world for not giving him opportunities, and he supposed he didn’t get opportunities because he didn’t deserve them.

The coach asked, “What stops you noticing all the opportunities that exist around you?”

He replied, “Fear of failure.”

“So what would you like instead?”

“Confidence.”

“Notice,” said the coach, “how this loop in your thinking is creating your stuckness. Now may I ask you a question as an expert in what I do, to a man who is an expert with electricity?”

“Sure.”

“First of all, I really need to know from you, do you really want to shine? Will you be OK with that? Can you fully commit to this switch? Or perhaps you really do prefer to live a life safe and protected, like a man in a darkened room?”

“Yes, I want to change. I want the confidence to make changes.”

“On a scale of one to ten, how much do you want that?”

“Ten.”

“Sure?”

“Absolutely sure.”

“OK. So imagine a wooden board into which are screwed three light-bulb sockets. Each socket is connected to a common cable that is plugged into the mains. In the first socket is a ten-watt bulb; in the second is a hundred-watt bulb; and in the third a thousand-watt bulb. Switch on. Now what’s the difference?”

“The first bulb glows the dimmest; the third bulb glows the brightest.”

“Now considering that the same two-hundred-and-forty-volt energy cable brings equal power to each socket, how do you explain the difference in output between the three sockets?

“Resistance.”

The coach remained silent. Slowly a glimmer of recognition glowed in the electrician’s expression, and then a huge smile spread across his face and illuminated his eyes. The coach looked at him with a quizzical brow. “Well?”

“Now I have an answer to your question about what’s stopping me,” he grinned. [“]The short answer is ‘no one but me’. My life is like the ten-watt bulb. It’s me who’s resisting opportunity.”

“Yes, it used to be like that. And now?”

“”And now it can change. First I’ll plug in a hundred-watt version, then I’ll go for a progressive upgrade.”

“So before you generate some strategies for success, just remind yourself that life, like electricity, consists of pure energy. This same energy—or call if life force or spirit if you prefer—flows through all of us equally. There is no end to this supply, and only you can cut this supply off through your own resistance.

“And now that you’ve stopped blaming the external world for your situation, and have accepted full responsibility for yourself and your actions, you can plug into the abundance, wholeness, beauty and completeness of the universe. It flows within us, and through us, every moment of every day.”

^— ———-——— —^

Leading

Top quality coaches and therapists frequently use metaphor to generate change in their cliets. Metaphor is a powerful and effective leadership tool because it works naturally within the habitat of the listeners and allows space for them to take ownership of the meaning of the message and lead themselves to the desired result. Once the electrician understands how the metaphor’s message connects to his reality, a reality in which is in an expert, he can confidently repair the short circuits, change his behaviors, adjust his values and naturally deepen his consciousness and awareness.

Influencing

Matching the reality, values, and language of the people with whom we communicate is unbelievably powerful. When the coach matches the world of the electrician through the metaphor of power, light and resistance, change can be quick, easy and elegant. Now that’s what I call a transformer at work! This is a real WIN-WIN-WIN.

Motivating

The following valuing and thinking systems will engage with this story:

• RED: will appreciate the creativity of the coach, and the new opportunities the electrician has to be more assertive.
• BLUE: provided the coach has the required qualifications, BLUE will appreciate a master at work.
• ORANGE: will note the elegance and efficiency of the strategy: “Could I use this strategy among all my other tools and techniques to get more of what I want more easily?”
• GREEN: will appreciate the new opportunities for growth and development, and the nonconfrontational methods of the coach.
• YELLOW: will approve of the elegance of the metaphor, and the systemic, integrative approach that works within the natural patterns and designs of both the electrician and of electricity.

My insights

• If you take the time to find a person’s “buying pattern”, you will never need to sell to them.
• All behaviors and all valuing and belief systems are patterned. Work naturally within these patterns for effective results.

^— ———-——— —^

[Al Sayyid, the magic carpet, comments:]

“Possibly. Are you aware, Young Master, that the word ‘therapy’ from the Greek therapeia, means healing. Healing can take many forms: physical, mental, social, cultural, psychological and so on. The etymology of the verb ‘to heal’ derives from the old English word haelen, which also means ‘to make whole.’ And that is the job, ultimately, of all great leaders: to create a wholeness, an integrity, within the community over why they exercise their influence.”

Extracted from 'More Magic of Metaphor: Stories for Leaders Influencers and Motivators' by Nick Owen, published by Crown House Publishing Limited 2004. Copyright © 2004 Nick Owen.

All sixty stories are laid out this way and are used to convey something about leadership using a Spiral Dynamics and integral perspective.

Nick Owen is director of Nick Owen Associates Ltd., a London based professional development organisation. Nick has pursued successful and eventful careers as writer, journalist, educator, professional actor and theatre director, as well as many years facilitating transformational change among business and education professionals and their organisations. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the INSEAD/CEDEP business school at Fontainebleau, France and at the de Baak Management Centrum in the Netherlands. nick@nickowen.net.

Letters

Hi Russ.

I have just read your web site and recent interview with the authors of Leadership Agility. A Conversation with Bill Joiner and Steve Joseph. I really enjoyed it and kept wondering of course if I had attained their ultimate level of leadership Agility... (It's now 5am here in Sydney and my birthday June 8-turn 55 today...I guess i will have to wait until Oct and find out!).

Have been coaching and leadership training, facilitating etc for a few years now. Have a bunch of our largest banks and professional service firms as clients-and things are going well. I keep learning and giving back etc..but wonder where to next-how are you finding the journey?

Keep up your good work and thank you for including me in on everything.

Tim Rossi

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Dear Keith,

Yours is the single most-balanced reply I've read on the issues surrounding Gafni and Wilber's response. I know this, because it's the first time that in reading any reflections on these issues, I didn't feel my stomach tightening. I wouldn't say I could always see what exactly was amiss, but having read your contribution to the IL Review, I feel my position has been made explicit in a way that I apparently could not do. Thank you!

Warm regards,
Diederick Janse

CODA › Russ Volckmann

Spiral Dynamics provides a developmental perspective that, when applied with an understanding of other variables, can be very, very useful. The problem is that, like any model or approach, it has been adapted or rigidified or just simply misunderstood. Below are descriptions of two invaluable tools for comprehending this useful perspective, this useful theory. Taken together they provide a solid foundation that is even more valuable than the original Spiral Dynamics book.

Don Beck, PhD, Spiral Dynamics Integral: Learn to Master the Memetic Codes of Human Behavior, Sounds True Audio Learning Course (6 CDs), 2006.

Have you ever attended a Don Beck led course? SDi I or SDi II or even more advanced? Have you attended a SDi Confab? A World Futures Society Conference? Or any of a number of other possible venues the world over (particularly South Africa, Netherlands, Germany, England, Israel and Palestine? Well, it you have you can image the warm countenance, but rather soft presentation skills of Dr. Don Beck.

I attended SDi and II in Vancouver, B.C., Canada a few years ago. Don’s presentation of the spiral, its colors and musical examples of each level was interesting and a good introduction to SDi. When I left, however, I was a bit disappointed. There just wasn’t enough “doing” time involved in which one could integrate what was learned. I suppose that was because of the volume of material Don wanted to cover and his passion for building an international network of folks involved in meshworks to generate change. Or maybe I am just a little slow and too introverted to take advantage of what was offered. In any case, I came away with a more solid comprehension of SDi, a hint at how to use it and that lingering frustration.

Now Don has put out this set of CDs that takes us through some of the material that he presents in SDi, in particular. The descriptions of the stages are lucid and well illustrated. But it is CD #4 that interests me, in particular. This is the one on Leadership. Here is the heart of the SDi approach to leadership and organizations.

He distinguishes between what leaders do and leadership and how the different levels of the spiral might define leadership and organizations. SDi provides a means for a more flexible and fluid approach to the design of human systems. Second tier uses natural design based on a key question (equation): How should who lead whom to do what? From what and to what?

Connecting these variables includes the relationships between leaders and followers and why different followers follow different leaders. It also includes to the “do what,” the purpose of the relationship and dynamics of influence. The variables in the question point to integral approaches. The leader’s developmental levels must include the capability to lead the followers who are at their developmental levels. The result is that we design systems that meet the natural requirements of those who participate to maintain and develop those systems. Don is very clear that this is a presentation that is not just theory. It has been applied in businesses and educational systems and he provides multiple real experience examples. Some of the change examples that he presents are very much like those found in organization change interventions. An example, is a reexamination of the way people think of what business they are in, e.g., shifting from being in the paint business to the “happy walls” business with many meanings associated with happy from quality to environmental sustainability. The most interesting, however, are explorations that involve identifying the levels of the spiral that managers and employees are centered in.

A key problem is the ways leaders design systems. Much of this is in the book, Spiral Dynamics, coauthored with Chris Cowan. He also brings in the life cycle model of Adizes (Beck has been presenting in Adizes’ graduate programs.) He applies the “meme sensors” to look at the stakeholders and a design based on aligning memes to the relationships among the stakeholders. These are interesting stories involving sports teams, airlines and other businesses. In addition to bottom line results it is also about teaching people decently based on where they are centered (meme cores), the language that they understand.

The most interesting aspect of this discussion for me is the idea that organizations, systems and relationships cannot be effective when we use a cookie cutter approach to design and implementation. This is the most powerful way to use SDi and to use integral approaches: they are lenses that allow us to understand the variables and their relationships to design and evolve the systems through which we seek to make a difference in the world. The ability to apply these approaches not only to individuals, but also to systems and cultures is a most important reason to use such approaches.

What is required are the five bottom lines: noble purpose, efficient processes, respect for profit and its multiple uses (“Right” profit and distribution), sensitivity to humans, and respect the natural ecology of things. His presentation of these factors is worth the price of the CDs. And, by the way, included in the set is a vMeme self-test and a chart about the vMemes associated with each of the SDi stages.

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Clare W. Graves (2005). The Never Ending Quest, Christopher C. Cowan and Natasha Todorovic, eds. Santa Barbara, CA: ECLET Press.

The editors have taken scraps of material and the products of extensive search efforts to assemble the pieces of this approximation of Clare Graves’ "last work." Graves was injured in an accident and because of additional complications failed to finish the book. Working with a table of contents, Graves' hand written notes and other material in the Graves archives, they have pieced together a presentation of Graves' work that is superb and, much of it, fascinating reading.

Since I have not had the benefit of training with the editors I cannot say how the book augments their work. However, I find it a perfect companion piece to the book, Spiral Dynamics, and to the teachings of Don Beck.

The book begins by addressing what human life is about, particularly based on academic research and professional publications in the fields of psychology and psychiatry. It is also a very elaborate presentation of the extensive research that Graves conducted over many years. Graves brings together diverse perspectives in a way that honors the contributions of all. While he ultimately may not find agreement between his own “emergent cyclical” model, he points out in later chapters the congruence and variance between his approach and those of others, ranging from Perry, Loevinger, Hunt, and many more.

The central part of the book, a must for serious students of developmental psychology and its relevance for leadership, focuses on descriptions of the various levels of development. There are also, throughout the book, presentations of Graves’ perspectives that are highly relevant to the study of human development and of the role of leadership in human systems. Here are just a couple:

Graves makes the case for the treatment of development and self-knowledge as an organic, messy process and concludes, “man can never know his total self and man can never fulfill his total potentialities.” [476] There are to clear upward boundaries in developmental potential. However, he cautions us to be careful about how we use the stage or level conception.

The level of existence conception of adult human behavior sees human life as a coherent developmental process of successive equilibrations, successive styles of living. But let us not be misled. A level is not, in reality, an attainable state. A level is a theoretical state of equilibrium. It is a state toward which a human who has certain dynamic systems open moves when in relatively stabilized conditions of existence. Levels are constructs. They are not realities…They are not to be viewed as forms of human behavior which actually exist.

[477]

This is an important observation that is relevant to all of leadership theory. Our constructs and models are tools, not to confused with reality. Traits analysis, style analysis, whether leadership is transactional or transformational, the functions and dysfunctions of charisma, etc. are also tools. Thus, it seems to me that Graves’ work serves to point out something that I have found true in working with both the theory of leadership, the development of leaders and leadership practices in human systems: The task in all cases is to find ways to help individuals make meaning and to discover what is effective in their situations. Sometimes this will mean relying on tried and true practices adapted from other settings, because those settings and the life conditions that created them are close enough to being the same that only minor adjustments will be required. Sometimes, we need to be very cautious about relying on tradition, or what we have learned from other contexts because those conditions have changed significantly. All of the time we need to have a framework that helps us make largely conscious choices about the actions we will take. To do less is raise the stakes, increase the gamble. And in this era of rapid change and context between so many levels of development in the world today, such risks are extremely costly.

There is so much rich material in this book, including things like the Ten Points from Dr. Graves’s Workshop Handouts” found in the Appendix. Here is a sample:

1. That the human being, through but one biological organism, has developed to date, seven fixated, exciting, eight open nodal, and seven entering states plus mixed states…

3. That the biopsychosocial development of the mature hiuman arises from the interaction of a double-helix complex of two sets of determining forces, the enviornmentosocial determinants…and the neuropsychological equipment of the organism…

7. That increasing degrees of behavioral freedom, increasing degrees of choice merge with each successive level…

10. That at this point in our history, the societally effective leading edge of humanity, in the technologically advanced nations, is currently finishing the initial statement of the sixth(FS) [green] state of existence…Thus, some humans have started to think about and some of them are well into thinking according the the ways of a second spiral of existence, the being [as compared with the doing] level systems. These humans have truly started to think of the interdependence of existence rather than in individualized independent existence…

[505-508]

What I have found about the work of Graves, Beck and Cowan is that they are all passionate about what they are doing. They want this work to make a difference in the world. Cowan and Todorovic have given a gift of passion that will no doubt contribute to making that difference.

A Request

If you are finding the Integral Leadership Review to be bringing useful, fresh perspectives to the subject of leadership, please think of the leaders in business and life that might be able to benefit from subscribing to this epublication. Please send them a copy or a link to the web site, www.integralleadershipreview.com so that they may explore it. In this time of intense internet communication, we all need to manage our time and read those things which are most relevant for our work, our thinking and our values. It is my hope that many people will find the evolving Integral Leadership Review does just that. Your help is deeply appreciated.

Feedback

Got any? E-mail Russ Volckmann - russ@integralleadershipreview.com.

Thanks  

Thanks for taking the time to consider this e-publication in a world of data overload. For leaders, collaborators, consultants, academics and coaches alike; I welcome you to some ideas and a dialogue that may benefit us all. I hope you will contact me soon with your idea, reference or article. Suggestions on improvement are welcome.

Russ Volckmann, PhD
Coaching Leaders in Business and Life
Email: russ@integralleadershipreview.com
Tel: 831.333-9200, FAX: 831.656-0110

Disclaimer:

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