“There are not types of people, but there surely are systems in people and different ways of thinking about things.”

Beck, 2017

Introduction

In this book so far, the emphasis has been on the original theory on adult human development as conceptualized mainly by Professor Clare Graves. It was emphasized that the societal dynamics, which form the containing system, should always be considered in any attempt to understand the systemic dynamics, as the values and ways of living which were good for humanity at one time in its development may no longer be optimal due to changing conditions of its existence (Graves 1974).

In this chapter, the emphasis shifts to the contribution made by Beck, lifelong scholar and friend of Graves. If the assumptions studied here are applied at individual, group, and organizational level, there is no deductive reason why these insights cannot be applied to large-scale national and geo-political transformation. In fact, in Part 2 of the book, large-scale transformational applications are illustrated.

The last part of the chapter focuses on the dynamics of large-scale transformation. Bit by bit we can heal the planet. Often difficult roads lead to beautiful destinations. If we can, like a puppet master, construct our geo-political and global strategies, with the intent to optimize all, we might unleash the dormant goodwill in social systems in emerging and developed economies alike.

The Eight Codes

A code embodies a number of things. Originally, a code meant a book of statutes, and one of the first known codes was the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, a legal code from the twentieth century BC that dealt with civil and criminal matters. From the existing recorded laws of a country, the meaning morphed into a more nuanced definition. A code became any system of rules and regulations, such as a gentleman's code of behavior. Many of these societal rules were unwritten but woe to anyone in polite company who didn't know the code. We see the word “code” used frequently in today's world – the Morse code, the Da Vinci code, the warrior's code, the evolutionary code, zip code and source code. Codes span all disciplines. Perhaps the simplest definition for a code today is “unlocking the secret of.”

Unlocking the secret of cultural codes is what we intend to do. Currently, only a few people deeply involved in human development really understand the cultural codes that inform the ways we think and the values we live by. But that is changing. It is time for all of us to gain entry to understanding our own humanity.

Simply put for our purposes, a code is a framework for how people think about things, not the things they think about. For example, we may both be concerned citizens thinking about the war. But if I tell you I am patriotic, that may mean something different to me than to you. The code we are operating from determines how we define patriotism. For me, being called patriotic may mean volunteering to serve in the army and fight if called upon to do so to protect my country and its way of life. For you, being patriotic may mean protesting against an unjust war and being willing to go to jail to save your country from a costly mistake. Which one of us is patriotic? Both of us. We just think differently about what is best for the country. And the reason we think differently is because each of us is operating under a different framework, a different code.

A code represents the containers that shape world views, not the contents that fill them. Each code container is filled with beliefs, ideals, morals, principles and goals. We know of eight codes operating on the Earth today. In fact, every code that has ever existed in the history of humanity still exists.

Various authors examine each of these codes in the following chapters, but to get us started, here's a brief rundown of the eight. I need to explain that the colors used for the codes have no significance. I picked them in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when I was working peacefully to dismantle Apartheid in South Africa. Skin pigmentation was of paramount significance in the crucible of fiery emotions. At the time, the people of South Africa were classified based on race and skin color. They were given a number to determine where they could live, where they could go to school, whom they could marry, what job they could have and whether they could leave the country or not.

So, I used the neutrality of colors to escape racial profiling. I wanted the leaders working for peaceful solutions to Apartheid to be aware of the different codes existing in people, even of the same race. Only then could we get a realistic picture of what was happening.

Zulus¹ tended to be stereotyped as a tribal ethnic group. Yet millions of Zulus lived in urban South African settings with Westernized urban values. The Afrikaner of European ancestry was stereotyped as a highly traditional and religious farmer, operating from a value based on the “one true way.” That code, though, might be transmuted into a strong capitalist orientation by his urbanized son. The urbanized Zulu and Afrikaner might have more in common with each other than their fathers.

If I used neutral colors, the leaders involved in planning South Africa's future could design systems that worked with the codes rather than the systems based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, nationality or any other means we have for labeling each other. These are surface-level characteristics. Underneath are the swirling currents of world views and value systems. These world views and value systems are what we must decode in order to find solutions. This color-coded view, like a psychological Rosetta Stone, reveals the values by which we live.

So, the colors are purely arbitrary, except for one distinction. The warm colors – BEIGE, RED, ORANGE, YELLOW – represent codes that focus on how the individual can master his or her environment. Warm colors are about “I, me, mine.” Cool colors – PURPLE, BLUE, GREEN, TURQUOISE – represent codes that focus on how the group or society can come to peace with our environment. Cool colors are about “us, we, our.” As the new codes emerge, they zigzag between these two orientations because the problems created by placing too much emphasis on “I, me, mine” is corrected by zigzagging to focus on the group's “us, we, our” needs. Then, when too much togetherness stifles individualism, the code zags back to “I, me, mine.” With each zig and zag, the problems created and solved are more complex, so we are not just moving back and forth like a pendulum. We are spiraling up into ever greater abilities.

The codes are split into two categories. The first six, which emerged over hundreds of thousands of years, are the First-Tier “subsistence” codes. Most of us will find these familiar. The last two codes, namely YELLOW and TURQUOISE, are a glimpse into our near future – the emergence of the Second-Tier “being” codes that first began only 50 years ago and represent a giant leap into a new way of thinking.

First-Tier “Subsistence” Codes

Code BEIGE began 100 000 years ago and is about basic survival. Food, water, warmth, sex and safety are the priorities for people living off the land in small clans and using their instincts just to survive. These are the cavemen and cavewomen of our early history. Internationally, the effort is currently made by the Spiral community to revisit Being BEIGE dynamics.

Code PURPLE started about 50 000 years ago as the clans evolved into groups dedicated to the tribe and its chiefs, elders, ancestors, rites, rituals and sacred observances. Native Americans, the Australian aborigines, the African Zulus and Irish Clans are but a few examples of the proliferation of these groupings throughout the world.

Code RED impulsive and ego-centric, broke free of the tribe about 10 000 years ago to conquer, out-fox and dominate others in a world perceived as a jungle filled with predators. Attila the Hun, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Napoleon were among the successful empire builders in a world that still today has its share of “strong men.”

Code BLUE began about 5 000 years ago as people discovered purpose in a transcendent cause, truth or righteous pathway. BLUE believes that enforcing community order to a code of conduct based on eternal, absolute principles brings stability now and guarantees future rewards. Judaism, Christianity and Islam sprang up during this period. BLUE is a basic building code for law and order.

Code ORANGE began around 300 years ago as science and the European-based Enlightenment took off. Self-reliant and risk-taking individuals believed that change and advancement were inherent in the scheme of things. Under Code ORANGE, the individual achieves status and affluence through competition and seeking best solutions. Free markets, the rise of industrialization and corporations, democracy and empirical scientific research flowed from this new code.

Code GREEN appeared 150 years ago, seeking peace within the inner self and exploring with others the caring dimensions of community, a change from the status-seeking ORANGE to an egalitarian and humanistic code. This code believes we must rescue those left behind in the march toward progress and restore Earth's balance of resources. The environmental movement and civil rights begin with the emergence of GREEN.

Second-Tier “Being” Codes

Code YELLOW emerged just 50 years ago, understanding that chaos and change are natural and integrating the kaleidoscope of natural hierarchies, systems and forms into interdependent, natural flows is a must. YELLOW values the magnificence of existence over material possessions and seeks to live fully and responsibly as an individual true to himself or herself. We can find YELLOW thinking emerging in a few political leaders who are able to incorporate First-Tier values from the spectrum of colors into a message that all in their jurisdiction can embrace.

Code TURQUOISE first appeared 30 years ago, viewing the self as both distinct and a blended part of a larger, compassionate whole in which holistic, intuitive thinking and cooperative actions are to be expected in order to sustain all life. To a TURQUOISE thinker, the world is a single, dynamic organism and everything connects to everything else in ecological alignment.

Code CORAL is not yet discernible, but will emerge as humanity continues to evolve. Even more newer, higher-order systems may follow. The life conditions for CORAL are not yet challenging humans to adapt to it. In this book TURQUOISE and CORAL are underrepresented – just as they are in real life.

Figure 3.1 displays different priority codes as described by Beck. It is critical for leadership to understand these codes to unlock the human potential captured in systems.

The Double Helix of Code Change

There are two forces at work in this evolutionary spiral: life conditions and a person's way of thinking. When life conditions change, humans, who are complex adaptive intelligences, adapt to these new life conditions. Similar to the structural arrangement of DNA, these two factors form a double helix (Figure 3.2). Complex adaptive intelligences arise in response to life conditions, and as these two forces of life conditions and an adaptive intelligence interact, they push each other and evolution forward.

Bacteria, for example, are living organisms with adaptive intelligences. Medical scientists come up with an antibiotic to thwart these life-threatening organisms, changing their life conditions. The bacteria which are not immune die, but others, even if only a few, survive and develop new immunities to the change. They reproduce rapidly, outsmarting our antibiotics. So we have to come up with a new antibiotic for a new strain of these microscopic change artists.

Humans do the same thing. We recalibrate when life conditions bombard us. Our minds change. That is right. Because our life conditions are so strewn with unsolvable problems that we literally change our minds, awakening neurological pathways that propel us to new and higher-order thinking abilities. We find new codes that handle the problems created by the current code within which we are living. Inevitably, the new code is more complex than the previous one.

Life conditions for an individual are influenced by four factors:

• Time. We live in different eras at the same time. A physicist in Geneva, Switzerland is living in a different time than the Afghan farmer without access to education, phones or the internet. One lives in the culture of constant change and new discoveries. The other lives in life conditions that haven't changed much for generations.
• Place. Geography also impacts our social values and interactions. An isolated island race produces different collective behaviors than migratory desert dwellers or farmers evolving in a warm, fertile valley. The easy living of the Polynesians with their abundant access to the ocean's bounty was reflected in their friendly and welcoming societies, while in the hard scrabble life of the desert-dwelling Bedouins harsh rules and war-like behavior to protect limited resources was the norm. In today's world, place also includes our man-made environments – our workplaces and communities.
• Human Problems. Our life conditions can be unique to a culture, such as famine in a particular region, or unique to an individual, such as disease. A universal challenge, such as global warming, can confront all humanity. These conditions, whatever they are, overwhelm the coping mechanisms within the current order. The challenge triggers the brain to perceive the problem more accurately and free up the energy and conceptual power to deal with it. Every code has its own unique collection of challenges that must be addressed. When a number of problems are surging at the same time and in the same place and overwhelming existing resources, we get “hot spots” of turbulence and conflict.
• Social Circumstances. Finally, we each have our own individual place, our social ranking, our genetic inheritance, our intellectual or physical endowments. No two people inhabit identical conceptual worlds or share the same experiences in the same way. We are each of us unique. These circumstances define borders, either open or blocked, for us, in areas of social, educational or economic mobility and opportunity. In Figure 3.3 the components of change are described.

Figure 3.3 indicates that the life conditions that pose problems and challenges of existence are met by the ways in which people think and the priority codes of how they integrate. Different value systems, world views or codes are at play. The interaction between the external life conditions and the internal priority codes creates what people think and what they do. We then see the visible manifestation of the priority codes in behaviors of individuals, groups or society.

The “Me” and “We” Wave of Code Change

As mentioned in the first chapter, the codes zigzag between “express-self” and “sacrifice-self” viewpoints, swinging between a focus on “me” and “we,” between a free-standing individual and a person who defines himself or herself in terms of the group. We will swoosh between external outputs and feedback from others, to trusting our internal judgment.

These swings happen in a wave-like fashion. Whether emergence is individual development or societal in nature, these changes are like successive waves rolling onto a beach. Each code has its own ascending surge and, at the same time, overlaps the receding waves of the previous systems as they fade.

Like ocean waves, each code has three phases: entering, peaking and exiting. The entering phase produces prophets and visionaries expounding on the coming changes. Inevitably, they are attacked by antibody-like protests from the adherents of the earlier code, and are often killed as heretics. Their explanations, however, are adopted by other visionaries who can see that solutions are contained in this new paradigm. These early adopters become the cutting edge. When they are successful, the new code spreads widely and enters a peak phase in which the values and principles are codified by truth keepers whose job it is to establish the rules of the now accepted paradigm for the majority. The new code proliferates until it takes over. After a period of time, though, the code starts to become rigid and excessive and can no longer handle problems. Thus, it degenerates into empty symbols and rituals. Its influence fades and the emerging problems are replaced with new, more complex codes as the old code exits.

The process is ongoing. There is no final state to our evolving codes. Codes continue to come into existence. The evolutionary principles around which life evolves do not represent an ultimate state, but an underlying structure that replicates codes and gives birth to new ones as life conditions become more complex. In a real-life Star Trek, we can expect a future generation to have far more nuanced, insightful and compassionate values than we have as humans today – as well as cool tech toys to beam us up, down and across the galaxy.

The Ebb and Flow of Code Change

However, we do not always move forward easily to more complex thinking. Circumstances can spiral us down as well as up through levels of complexity. Stressful life conditions can send us reeling down to a former code. When two planes destroyed New York City's World Trade Center, Americans, shocked and grief-stricken, united in a surge of patriotism that had not been witnessed in America since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The articles on economic globalization disappeared. The cry was for a strong leader to save America's way of life. The fiercely partisan Democrats and Republicans stood on the steps of the nation's Capitol Building and sang “God Bless America” together, a symbolic gesture that would have been unthinkable only a few days prior. In Figure 3.4 the nature of human codes is described.

When Hurricane Katrina left thousands stranded in New Orleans, the code became every man (or woman) for himself. Wading through waist-deep water, Code BEIGE took over as men and women broke store windows to get food and water. And, for some, the opportunity to grab the spoils from an unhealthy Code RED mentality held sway as they looted and plundered, guns in hand.

The rampage of unhealthy Code RED in New Orleans offers another important lesson on the nature of codes. Not only do codes spiral up and down, but within each code are a healthy and an unhealthy form. For example, a healthy BLUE brings order and stability to society. An unhealthy BLUE becomes so closed to any other system that it becomes fixed and cannot transcend when life conditions are compelling a more complex way of thinking. Consequently, a religion may insist that its centuries-old interpretations are sacred Truth, even though new knowledge negates the earlier interpretations and would lead to an improved life for its adherents if the tenets were adjusted to incorporate the new intelligence.

Likewise, an individual can exhibit unhealthy forms of a code and feel justified in engaging in abnormal and criminal actions. Thus, a strongly religious man feels justified in killing a physician who performs abortions and the environmental activist feels justified in blowing up a gas-guzzling Hummer. These unhealthy versions are what we must eliminate in order to facilitate harmony and healthy movement between the codes.

We Are All Multi-hued in a Multi-colored World

The characteristic of this Spiral of codes that is so important to understand is that each new code, while it transcends the previous one, also includes every code that came before it. At any moment, different notes may sound loud or become mute for us, like an orchestra in which the string section gives way to the horn section and the cymbals sit silent except for an occasional rousing clang.

Codes co-exist within us, like musical chords, rather than a single note

Visualize a stack of Russian dolls. Pick up the top doll and nestled inside is a smaller doll. Pick up that doll to reveal another doll and so on through multiple and progressively smaller dolls. Likewise, the characteristics of one code remain nestled in our consciousness even after a new code takes predominance in our thinking. Thus, BEIGE is nestled inside PURPLE, which is nestled inside RED, which is nestled inside BLUE, which is nestled inside ORANGE, which is nestled inside GREEN and so on.

Life itself gives us a model. A particle nestles inside an atom, which in turn nestles inside a molecule while the molecule nestles inside a cell. And up we go, until, as cells cooperate and join together and create a multi-cellular structure, you have a wide array of living creatures, including you and me – as can be seen in Figure 3.5.²

Remember, codes are types in people.

They are not types of people.

Someone may strongly express, for example, ORANGE values, but we must not forget that nestled within that individual will be also codes BEIGE, PURPLE, RED and BLUE. They may also have the beginning of Code GREEN appearing in their psychological make-up.

No one is a Code ORANGE person.

ORANGE expresses a value system, a code.

The Challenge of Code Changes

Although people and societies can move up or down through the codes depending on life conditions, overall movement is in the direction of greater complexity because our knowledge and experiences are additive. The universe is expanding and so is our consciousness. This expansive flow has four characteristics:

• Expansion of psychological space toward more multifaceted personalities, diverse organizational forms and a much more complicated planet.
• Expansion of conceptual space toward bigger picture views, wider sphere of influence and extended time frames.
• Expansion of choices to make from a broader menu of ways to do something.
• Expansion in behavioral freedom toward more possibilities in how to be and acceptable kinds of human inter-relationships.

This expansion causes great challenges at the First-Tier level. Each of the six codes existing within that level consistently scorns the old code left behind. Each is quite sure that its new way of living is correct. Thus, it is often believed that progress lies in eliminating the old. And yet, as we have seen, each code needs the previous one.

For example, a Code ORANGE entrepreneur finagles more profit by skirting the rules of Code BLUE bureaucracy and sets up a company in a tax-free haven to avoid paying taxes on the company's profits. This entrepreneur might be scornful of any company who did not take advantage of such a scheme. Yet, his ORANGE mentality is dependent on Code BLUE to provide him with an environment of law and order in which a company can operate. Without Code BLUE, no Code ORANGE could exist. Code RED would rule, with its rules of the strongest man taking all the spoils. There is no room for the enterprising entrepreneur in Code RED. Instead, he would have to be a lackey for the strong man, and hope that “the man” would send a few rewards his way.

Here is another conundrum. One would think that at least the people operating from the same code would get along, but this is also not the case. Under the BLUE Code, we have Hindus fighting Christians and Muslims, Sunni and Shia Muslims fighting each other, ongoing schisms within Christian denominations … it is a long list of factions that divide many ways within the code.

So, the eight codes describe the way a person thinks. The codes do not describe what is valued within the code container. So we can find two people whose dominant color, Code BLUE, is fighting over the what of that code container. Fundamentalists of different religions are quite sure that their particular religion's belief is Truth, but that Truth might spring from Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism or some other tradition.

Humanity's Master Code

These are the Hidden Dynamics that shape individuals, design organizations and transform societies.

This is the great hope of the Second Tier now appearing on the horizon. This new understanding is unlocking the Master Code, an integral logic for why and when different codes appear, and how they operate. By understanding this Master Code, we can facilitate healthy codes so that people can move between the codes as life conditions warrant.

By understanding the Master Code one can uncover the deepest human motives and priorities in individuals and groups. It constructs adaptive intelligences for different life conditions to solve problems at multiple levels and tracks the deep change codes to monitor and facilitate large-scale systems transformation.

The point is NOT to eliminate any code!

The task is to realize the importance of each code and keep the conduits open between codes, allowing people to develop and grow healthily within the code that fits their life conditions. This is the quest. We must find the natural designs that keep us progressing toward a brighter future. Beck (2017) softly signals a part of the song The Gambler, by Kenny Rogers, when he speaks about the Master Code. These lines from the song illustrate the essence of the Master Code: “You've got to know when to hold ‘em, Know when to fold ‘em.”

It becomes important for leaders of the future to spin spider-type webs to connect what matters most in order to design what works best; meshing global with local, left- and right-brain thinking and sacred and secular patterns, to advance human emergence. The Master Code can impact all areas of society such as economics, geo-politics, religion and spirituality, community development, education and health care. Some applications of Spiral Dynamics to these areas are discussed in Part 3 of this book.

Spiral Dynamics helps us in understanding the development of human consciousness. It is based on a spiral, which means that as a spiral unfolds, it moves to greater complexity. It is, in a sense, a single line, since when a spiral is laid out it will be a line. However, each turn of the spiral represents a different world view … a way of understanding reality, a bottom line and a ^VMEME. We are able to demonstrate what lies beneath the surface in relationships, in issues, in controversy, even in warfare. The codes are in effect different core, adaptive, contextual, complex intelligences. If we are aware of the different codes, and how they make sense of reality, and organize ourselves in adapting to changing life conditions, we can transcend and include the beauty of each stage in our lives and organizational journeys.

The BarCode

A helpful and creative way of displaying the codes in individuals, and collectives, is to develop a BarCode. In Figure 3.6 the BarCode at play in the Middle East, as indicated by Dr Kevin Kells, is presented.

In Figure 3.6 the misalignment of NGO activity with life conditions in the Middle East is explained graphically through the use of a BarCode. Note the oversized need for services to address PURPLE–RED life conditions compared to NGO capacities that were delivering ORANGE–GREEN services, resulting in non-sustainable efforts (Maalouf 2014).

Conclusion

In this section of the book, the concept and application of codes were discussed. A code is a framework of how people think, not what they think about. A code represents the containers that shape world views, not the contents that fill them. Each code container is filled with beliefs, ideas, morals, principles and goals. Old codes do not go away. They remain part of us, accessible to us when we need them. If old thinking systems are not congruent with changing life conditions, they may make a leap to newer order, biological, psychological, societal and spiritual systems.