Natural Design Conceptualized

Natural design, Orr (2003) explains, refers to a stance on psychology and biology that systemically studies concepts such as the internal feeling, motivation, adaptation and development of a system; rather than reductionist explanations of how we can take things apart:

• One-size-fits-all solutions are never helpful.
• A natural design process that searches for the DNA-like code at the core of the social system is critical.
• The unique nature of the rhythms and interconnections that flow through it should be described.
• An awareness of the energy flow is critical.
• Don Beck is continuously using new technologies in the development of a Vital Signs Monitor.
• One must be able to understand how the total entity responds and what the needs are for shifts.

In contrast with rigid, artificial and top-down leadership and management models, I advise that the following principles be considered:

It is important early on detect the ebb and flow of the social system, the unique patterns within the dispersal of information and the energy that is unique to diverse functions and sub-functions. Leaders should be able to detect the deepest ^VMEMEtic code within corporate suites and in power centers. Spiral Dynamics wizards can assist decision-makers in detecting the natural flow within their specific organizational culture or community.

The Basic Characteristics of “Design”

Design refers to different types of forms, types, expressions and manifestations from specific blueprints to linear sequences to simultaneous happenings to feed-forward/feedback loops, and to the field of wisdom and knowledge that connects functions and people in holonic zones.

Assortment of Natural Design Tools

Different natural design tools can be utilized by leadership. These include:

• Forging bottom lines.
• Implementing stream sequences.
• Deciphering ^VMEMEtic codes.
• Constructing ^VMEMEtic maps.
• Elaborating 4Q/8L quadrants.
• Creating Vital Signs Monitors.
• Applying equations, compasses.
• Observing cycles and adapting to them.
• Building scenarios and facilitating change.
• Synchronizing spirals (technical, business, human).
• Assessing codes in people.
• Synthesizing approaches to leadership, organizational theory and leadership styles.

The scaffolding of programs and options becomes a library and reference manual in crafting and cobbling together “natural designs.” Second-Tier leadership (YELLOW or GT) is critical for distinguishing characteristics and value gifts of the different codes in people, and ultimately weaves all aspects of life together in a functional manner around a superordinate goal. In contrast with one-size-fits-all approaches, Second-Tier leadership meets the system, and creates magic by releasing human energy in the system to perform (Viljoen 2015).

Organizational Elegance

In the chapter on Spiral Dynamics PLUS, different technologies are discussed to assist leadership in co-creating elegant systemic natural designs. Adizes (1999) and Gooden (2016) emphasized the importance of integration in organizations. For achieving organizational elegance, the connection of functions to be performed, forms of design that enable the functions and the fit of people to the various functions and forms should take place. Further, the arousal and sustainability of focus, the triggering and maintenance of flow and the fulfillment of the visions, needs and aspirations of people become critical systemic leadership conditions. As leadership creates the behavioral framework or culture in the organization, it is their architectural responsibility to create an atmosphere that facilitates engagement, and ultimately fun, as well as perpetual sensitivity to the needs and demands of the future.

For organizational elegance the format of the 9 Fs should be followed. Leaders should have foresight, ensure congruence, interrelatedness and integration between functions of the business, organizational operating model design forms, fit to ensure congruence between humans and their posts, focus and flow of human and systemic energy, fulfilment of visions, facilitation of fun and co-creating the superordinate goal that ensures the desired future.

It must be noted that the extended definition of an organization as described by Viljoen (2014) applies here. The unit of study is not a corporation only, but also any other living system in which the function of organizing happens, such as a family, a community, a society or a geo-political region.

The building blocks of the different codes should be analyzed and wired together through inclusivity. Figure 4.1 shows the building blocks of humanity.

Second-Tier YELLOW integral leadership is needed to identify, communicate, implement and measure the essential components, characteristics and dimensions of an elegant organization. These leaders can effortlessly sense the patterns that emerge through the interrelatedness of the different codes in the periodic table of the human race in Figure 4.1. Organic, functional and sustainable links can be made between elements (codes) to facilitate new code-combinations to form new societal structures.

Natural Design Principles

In Figure 4.2 a dozen natural design principles are listed.

Five Bottom Lines of Natural Design

The five bottom lines for natural design are:

• Noble PURPOSE and Transcendent Goals.

  Many people thrive and perform at higher levels when what they do is connected to something larger, a goal that goes beyond self, or gives meaning and significance to life. This kind of appeal lifts humans beyond the day-to-day concerns and affords them the opportunity to become part of the whole, or a cause célèbre to which they are willing to commit themselves.

• Sound PRINCIPLES and Efficient PROCESSES.

  Herein lies a commitment to high degrees of professionalism, to learning the best and most cost-efficient way of doing things, and to a sense of leanness and avoidance of waste and extravagance for the sake of ego or status appeals. One learns how to do more with less; and how productivity and performance are the result of natural designs and effective people.

• Responsible PROFIT with Multiple Usages.
  • Profit is seen as good, the essential resource and elixir that makes possible the fruition of the other bottom lines. However, it must be:
  • “Responsible” – the avoidance of exploitation or gauging;
  • “Multiple” – the profit is not just for the successful or
  • “Elite” – to feather their nests, but should be used for the upliftment of the entire entity and to preserve and enhance its present viability, while preserving it for a promising future.

• Sensitivity to PEOPLE and Societal Needs.

  The pressure to be “socially conscious” is growing in a number of public and private domains. This translates as a heightened sensitivity to the needs of people, both inside and outside of the enterprise. A respect for their total humanness becomes paramount; the impact of the organization on their physical and emotional health is a deep concern. Leaders become more responsive to the needs of people in the local community, culture and society.

• Respect for the Natural Ecology of the PLANET and Systems.

  This involves the acknowledgement of the fragile nature of the physical environment and various ecosystems that are forever linked together. If we spoil our home planet, we will all suffer the consequences. This also translates as a deep respect for the integrity of various professions and the need to keep them honorable, empowered and respectable as they perform critical functions in our society.

Integral Applications

The Meme Factory translates ^VMEME codes and Spiral Dynamics principles into programs, products, outcomes and practical initiatives. The following should be considered:

• Integral selection and placement.

  The ^VMEMEtic matching of people into job functions and levels of responsibility.

• Integral communication.

  Learning to speak the language of various ^VMEME codes in the design of messages, advertising efforts and sophisticated public relationship initiatives enables translation between sections. Examples and case studies of some effective and sustainable applications are described in Part 4 of the book.

• Integral motivation.

  Activating the multiple ^VMEMEtic bottom lines of people (described in Chapter 2) to connect what you are doing to their natural motivational flow.

• Integral marketing.

  Determining the key decision-making motives of the entities, such as customs, marketplaces, clients, stakeholders, shareholders and constituents, to appeal and relate to their deep ^VMEME codes.

Complex Adaptive Systems

In an explication of “Organizational Development: Tier 2, Natural Design and Living Systems,” Jon Freeman (2017) stated that Spiral Dynamics was ahead of its time. Leveraging Gravesian discernments, it did not become entangled in the conventional view of scientific, academic and intellectual validity. Freeman's view was that Spiral Dynamics in Systems Design was inevitably caught up in the ORANGE world view that conditioned the prevailing culture at the time. Organizations were perceived as mechanisms and people as components that were objectified and engaged with from the outside. This view restrained us from truly embracing the implications of organizations as living systems with ecological properties.

It is with these challenges in mind that Freeman contemplates the concept of an organization as an intelligent Complex Adaptive System (iCAS), starting as an external being looking in, identifying the people, the processes and the things, taking this living entity and dissecting it, consciously seeking its intelligence, its complexity and its adaptability.

Freeman (2017) describes the myriad of intricacies with which one is faced when looking into what is considered an iCAS. An iCAS contains a series of moving, yet seemingly fragmented, activities indicative of an intelligent system, yet not easily evidencing where the intelligence is. It is further complicated by the following:

• those seeing and understanding the system, and it is also
• in the information that they are seeing and attempting to understand, further still
• in the process of interpretation and understanding, and
• in the judgment, which is possibly the most important because it leads to
• choice of action, including communication,
• that affects the rest of the system.

Taking the question of organizational intelligence further, Freeman (2017) explains how it is initially perceived to be in the individual people and then in the organization as a collective. It is in their awareness and is used by them to construct the reality in which they exist. As this is their active, living process, it cannot be separated from the organization or controlled from outside. It cannot be externalized or managed.

It might seem logical to see this as a lack of tools to capture the data for analysis and lead mistakenly to an attempt to identify more data, complexities or patterns requiring further analysis or extrapolation. Freeman (2017) argues that whatever the endeavor for data, or even its consumption post analysis, the complexity is not the problem, but rather the unknown elements that are found in the people who exist across the iCAS. These are people whose actions, thoughts and perceptions are influenced by their world view, personality types, context, emotional state, value statements, codes, the place they occupy in the intelligent system and many other possibilities that discern an individual at one point in time (Freeman 2017). In Figure 4.3 the cores of values and ethics of the different codes at play in an iCAS are presented.

In an iCAS all the various codes of the Spiral should be identified, acknowledged, celebrated, aligned and energized around a superordinate goal (see Figure 4.3).

The Five Change States

Beck (2013a) also reminds us that for any change process there are five change states in any transformational effort. These change states are described in Table 4.1.

The five change states as measured by the Change State Indicator (CSI) are described in Table 4.1. The CSI as developed by Beck is described in detail in the book Organizational Change and Development (Viljoen 2015).

YELLOW, Second-Tier thinking is needed to deal with the complexity of people being in different change states during a transformational effort. The need for this leadership is discussed further in the next section.

The Need for YELLOW Thinking

Second-Tier, YELLOW (GT) leaderships study themes and trends in the global domain. They integrate multiple functions. Through a process similar to MeshWORKS they connect core DNA motives. YELLOW leaderships design natural systems and structures and facilitate flexibility and flow. The leadership style of a YELLOW leader can be described as inclusive. They spontaneously engage the hearts and minds of diverse people. They truly embrace the gifts of the different value systems of the first spiral.

As Beck did in South Africa, where he did not try and change the value system of the white Afrikaner people, but rather celebrated their worth and potential value-add, today he is highlighting the value-add that the Western man can bring to the global arena.

For each different social environment the leadership equation should be considered (Figure 4.4):

Natural Design Tools

There are different natural design tools that the Spiral Dynamics practitioner or business leader can apply. These include:

• Codes: Memetic DNA or mDNA – getting to the core intelligences where decisions are made and long-term cultural cores are created.
• Maps: The “lay of the land” – surface-level displays of the codes as Memetic relief maps spread over diverse physical and cultural terrain.
• Equations – complex, calculus-like statements linking multiple functions and systemic alignments.
• Vital Signs Monitors (VSM) – physical or electronic places where the critical indicators of an entity's health, well-being and performance are collected and displayed in a single environment.
• Scenarios – Predetermined “stories about the future” crafted and placed within cones of possibility/probability. Information from VSMs is used to select the “most likely” scenario.
• Compass Settings that align Points, Nodes and Zones.
• Stasis Points – Critical reference or alignment of goals, outcomes, and objectives.
• Mesh Nodes and Zones – Places or time frames in processes where critical but separate entities, intelligences or knowledge must flow together in systemic and often synergistic ways.
• Sensors that provide critical information for VSMs and establish Compass Settings that guide decision-making. These are buried within or located around Stasis Points.
• Cycles – the understanding of the natural processes of rhythmic change and inevitability of peaks/valleys, ebbs/flows, and problems/solutions.

More tools and supportive technologies are discussed in Part 4 of the book.

Large-scale Transformation

Figure 4.5 below indicates The Big Ten conditions to consider in large-scale transformational efforts:

• To be able to understand how to change, one needs to understand the underlying beliefs in the system. Understanding the human codes can also inform the possibility of transformation.
• Large organizational transformation needs leadership with courage, leadership that will not stray from the belief of their convictions.
• A leader is not a leader if he or she does not have followers. Processes are needed for individual stories to be weaved together to create a sense of shared understanding.
• Significance must be created to commit to transformation. This fact often dawns on people when they participate in an integral inclusivity process.
• By involving people, energy is unleashed. This energy must be utilized around the task at hand, or else may become disruptive.
• Systemic leverage points should be identified for maximum impact.
• A new set of problems, screaming for new solutions, will emerge as old ones are solved.

Templates

Six Conditions for Change

Conclusion

Cultures, as well as countries, are formed by the emergence of codes in response to life conditions. Complex adaptive intelligences form the glue that bonds a group together, defines who they are as people and reflects the place on the planet they inhabit. While they are all legitimate expressions of the human experience, they are not “equal” in their capacities to deal with complex problems in society. As Graves (1974) has stated, the question to ask is not how to motivate people, but instead, how you relate what you are doing to their natural motivational flow. In this chapter the nature of natural design was discussed as a key component of understanding the complex dynamics of social, emerging systems. Different methods and tools of natural design have been discussed. The leadership equation of Beck should be asked, namely: