9
Spiral Dynamics in Action Across Boundaries
Introduction
In this chapter, different Spiral applications as they manifest on diverse spheres are presented. Spiral Dynamics is a secular, a sacred and a scientific theory, Beck (2017) explains. In a very fundamental way, triangulation occurs. The theory has wide-ranging applications and far-reaching implications. In Figure 9.1 the Humpty Dumpty effect that we discussed earlier is physically displayed.
Figure 9.1 Habits of old king's horses and men.
The habits of the old king's horses and men with First-Tier codes create a chaotic mess (Figure 9.1). All of these efforts have good ideas but reflect different and often contradictory world views. They may even cancel out or negate the efforts of the shareholders. It creates a greater MESS. Efforts are isolated, ad hoc and fragmented. The applications below illustrate that there is a different way – a Second-Tier way. This is a way that can integrate the various efforts into a functional, integrated flow.
Figure 9.1 clearly shows that Spiral Dynamics codes play out in different parts of the society. In this chapter each of the following aspects are presented:
- Religion
- Millennials
- Politics and Economics
- Communication
- Foundational Stones
- Motivation
- Foundations
- Art
- Sport
- Leadership development in Russia.
Spiral Dynamics in Religion
The Challenge
In the early 2000s the United Methodist Church realized that to be sustainable as a denomination, real strategy and action had to be taken. A common problem that faces religious institutions is that new churches often attract new people faster than existing congregations. Sustainable ministry models that also have the capability to raise funds while doing their important vitality work are critical. It is only this vitality – the soul of the church – that can spread and be replicated business-wise.
The challenges that face organized religion do not stop with financial and vitality considerations. Rising levels of consciousness internationally and changing world views of society at large forever changed the face of Christianity. Beth Ann Estock and Paul Nixon (2016) assist churches in adapting to the new life conditions. They adapted a specific framework that explained the dynamics described above the best – Spiral Dynamics (Beck and Cowan 1996) anchored in the work of Graves.
The Framework Applied
Beth Ann and Paul, independently and without consulting, adapted Spiral Dynamics as their underlying methodology to deal with the challenge. They describe Spiral Dynamics as “a comprehensive model of human and cultural development based on four decades of research. It acknowledges that human nature changes as the conditions of existence change, thus forging new systems to emerge.” They further explain that “we change our psychology and rules for living to adapt to these new conditions. When our world views begin to collide with more complex life conditions, we are able to transcend the old and include the new.”1
Spiral Dynamics, according to them, is the way to potentially anticipate endless arrays of future value VMEMEs. The authors identified various organizing patterns or structures of churches that will speak to the diversity of thought on religion as indicated by the Spiral. Some forms include the community center, the mission base camp, the gallivanting fortress of defiance, the tabernacle, the cathedral and the spiritual theme park. The same religious domination can be organized differently in different contexts. This is indeed a progressive approach towards the transformation of churches, with significant and sustainable implication capability.
Spiral Dynamics and Millennials
This section was written by Thomas Q. Johns to differentiate thinking structures and philosophy that millennials present. Neil Howe and William Strauss2 introduced the concept of generational theory. They coined the term “millennials” to describe the cohort of individuals born between 1982 and 2004.
To quote from the manifesto of a hacker, a poem published in Phrack (1986, n.p.):3
This is our world now … the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud.
We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals.
We explore … and you call us criminals.
We seek after knowledge … and you call us criminals.
We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias … and you call us criminals.
You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.
Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for.
I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all … after all, we're all alike.
I will attempt to explain the millennial through the lens of Spiral Dynamics. The millennials are looking for glory. They are the misunderstood children, the lost, the forsaken, the forgotten children, the products of divorces, the closer but further. All singing in their hearts “Nobody knows the trouble we see. Nobody knows our sorrow.” This is an old song, a different voice, a different pain, a different beauty. They are caring about everything, caring about nothing.
Why are Millennials so Hard to Deal With?
When I speak of the millennial I speak of the American millennial who oftentimes hovers in the GREEN and ORANGE spaces. Millennials, however, like all generations, are not composed of just one value system but span the range. We may be entitled and unwilling to work in the same business in the usual fashion. We are not loyal to a company and refuse to work our way up. We are also not expected by society to work at the same company for the rest of our lives. Systems are interdependent and often work in feedback loops. The rise of ORANGE corporations who cut retirement funds, fire employees, and are overall disloyal to employees also affect the children of these employees. After seeing their mothers and fathers struggle they have little faith in the almighty company. The “it-is-just-business” sword swings both ways. The millennial employee is searching for a better community, for a better paycheck, for a better purpose. Like all generations it is searching for a reason to exist.
The Greening of America or how Every Aspect of America is More Egalitarian
Although divorce rates are actually lowering now, the previous generation was rampant with divorces. These both created, and were created by, the idea of a union of love. Initially unions were financial in nature with clear roles and hierarchies. With the introduction of no-fault divorces, marriages could end merely because one party's heart was no longer in it. Divorces no longer required someone to be at fault. On the one hand this leads to more self-expression, and on the other hand it leads to more egalitarian ideals. The paradoxical, reflexive nature of that should be thought about. One can leave something because it doesn't fulfill one anymore, or one is no longer happy. This self-expression to find happiness often results in many people searching to find happiness together. The individual is free to search for the better collective or the better paycheck. Women have less societal pressure to be subservient to a marriage and are free to look for their own happiness. This idea of a no-fault divorce applies also to the workforce, church and politics. The workforce, the church and the school must keep us happy and understand what the millennial cares about. We can leave if we are no longer happy, regardless of fault. Being responsible for someone's happiness is a tough load.
Millennials and Religion
The divorce from institutionalized religion is an interesting development. The promise of eternal peace by many religions rang hollow as they blamed religion for the creation of hierarchies and wars. Now many people identify as spiritual but not religious. Some pick and choose from various religious ideas to create and/or find their perfect religion. It is like a newly divorced individual playing the field and dating multiple people because each has a different strength or weakness but the combination of the people creates the perfect person. It is like Bruce Lee in his creation of Jeet Kun Do. After being tired of the institutionalized styles of martial arts he decided to pick and choose from different styles to create his own. In doing so he realized that he did exactly what he wished not to do, and created a new institutionalized style.
Coming of Age During the Exponential Age
Part of the reason for the views of millennials is that they have lived through almost three technological ages so far. The industrial age gave way to the information age, and the information age has given way to the age of automation. We do not expect what we learn to be around in the future. Change is a part of our psyche. Many of us were children during the tail end of the industrial age, grew to adolescence during the information age, and are now seeing a new era of automation spring up. This is an era where millions of jobs will be replaced by robots or software. This compression of time is causing millennials to ask questions that previous generations may have asked later in life. What is my purpose? Why do I exist? We care about everything because we need a reason to continue, a reason to live.
Financial Problems
Financially, the millennial is pressured to find happiness, purpose and a paycheck. These ideas don't always go together. The millennial who aspired to go to college found both an increase in available capital and an increase in the prices of the university. Upon leaving, he or she found that so many people had college degrees, it was no longer an advantage. Saddled with debt in an economy that has increased inflation and not wages millennials are forced to share. They have found increased housing prices without increasing housing. Everything should be free for everyone. Information is free and so everything else should be as close to free as possible. This is both caused by the egalitarian nature of the millennials and the fact that they have no money relative to their life conditions. They are forced to share and have the technology to do so with great efficiency. They are not tech savvy; they are tech dependent.
These life conditions provide the seeds and the rain for a new society. Like all ecosystems it is circular and cyclical in nature. The reflexivity of existence, the feedback loops of life and the interrelatedness of choices lead us in a direction. What is that direction? What will happen when technology makes the aims of the GREEN society commonplace? How do you deal with millennials now?
It is Really Simple Dealing with Millennials
Create superordinate goals in a community of equals. This leads us to a question that is bigger than millennials. How to deal with intergenerational conflicts? These generational conflicts come down to value systems that are in conflict. The “millennial” or “problem generation” may not be at the GREEN or ORANGE level. It may be at the RED level. Understand their values and act appropriately.
Millennials in Africa
In a study done by Ruan Viljoen (2017), it became clear that the characteristics of millennials in Africa closely represent the Spiral Dynamics distributions described by Loraine Laubscher (2013), and that only millennials with ER, FS and GT codes are associating with the international manifestation of millennial preferences and behaviors. Exploring why people do things seems to be a function of their adaptation to life conditions, rather than their chronological age.
Spiral Dynamics in Politics and Economics
In Table 9.1 the different Spiral Dynamics codes are applied to political forms and economic agreements, and are presented as a matrix. The source of all of the following tables is the Spiral Dynamics Level I accreditation Manual (Beck 2013b). In Table 9.2, the best communication strategy for each spiral dynamics code is presented. In Table 9.3, the spiral dynamics foundational stones are displayed. This is followed by Table 9.4, which deals with the motivators and demotivators for each code.
Table 9.1 Spiral Dynamics VMEME Political and Economic Matrix
| SPIRAL DYNAMICS VMEME Political and Economic Matrix |
|||
| COLOR | “DEMOCRACY IS …” |
POLITICAL FORM | ECONOMIC ARRANGEMENT |
| BEIGE | No concept. | BAND (apolitical). | Little exchange. Eat when hungry. Few possessions. |
| PURPLE | What “our people” decide to do as announced by the chief, elders, spirits. | TRIBE (clan councils and lineage connections). | Mutual reciprocity and barter. Chief distributes based on need though kinship. |
| RED | What Chieftain (Big Boss) says it is. “Power to the people” means ME. | EMPIRE (dictatorial, perhaps “corrupt,” autocratic). | Feudal distribution system where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. |
| BLUE | Justice and fairness for all the right people who follow the rules and traditions. | AUTHORITARIAN (one-party rule, government control). | Basic standard of living which can be raised through hard work, discipline and savings. |
| ORANGE | Give or take. Pluralistic politics within check-and-balance game players. | ENTERPRISE (multiparty states, bill of rights). | Free market-driven process where the “invisible hand” of economy sets pay, price, perks. |
| GREEN | Everybody shares equally on making consensus decisions to take care of “the People.” | COMMUNITARIAN (social democracy, equal rights/results). | Communally based distribution meets human needs before any benefit from excess or profit. |
| YELLOW | Process of integrating the majority of interests in expediting flow up the Spiral. | INTEGRATED STRUCTURES (stratified systems in Spiral intelligence). | Simultaneous value-added moves throughout the Spiral for higher quality of being to next steps. |
| TURQUOISE | Macro management of all life forms toward common good in response to macro problems. | HOLISTIC (whole-Earth networks and interconnections). | Earth's resources and learning distributed by need, not want, so all can survive with enough. |
Spiral Dynamics and Communication
Table 9.2 Spiral Dynamics and communication strategies.
| VMEME | BEST SOURCE | BEST APPROACH |
| BEIGE | Caretaker provider. | Biological senses – touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing. Physical contact rather than symbols. |
| PURPLE |
Caring chieftain or shaman. Counsel from revered elders from within the tribe/clan group. Signals and omens from spirit realm. Words of ancestors and their ways. Collective sense of supportive peers. |
Traditional rites, rituals, ceremonies. Includes mystical elements and superstition. Appeals to extended family, harmony and safety. Recognizes blood-bonds. The folk group. Familiar metaphors, drawings, emblems. Minimal reliance on written language. |
| RED |
Person with recognized power. Straight-talking Big Boss. One with something to offer. Respected, revered, feared. Other celebrated “idol” with reputation. Someone of proven trustworthiness. |
Demonstrates “What's in it for me now?” Immediate gratification. Challenges and appeals to machismo/strength. Heroic status and legendary perspective. Flashy, unambiguous, reality-based, strong. Simple language and fiery images/graphics. |
| BLUE |
Rightful proper kind of authority. Higher position in the One True Way down the chain-of-command. According to the book's rules and regulations. Person with position, power and rank. In compliance with tradition and precedent. As directed by divinely ordained Power. |
Duty, honor, country: images of discipline. Self-sacrifice for higher cause and purpose. Appeal to traditions, laws, and established norms. Use class consciousness, knowing one's place. Propriety, righteousness and responsibilities. Insure future rewards and delayed gratification. Assuage guilt with correct consequences. |
| ORANGE | One's own right-thinking mind. Successful mentors and models, credible professionals and “gurus.” Prosperous to the self-image resulting from own observations tried-and-true experience, experiment. | Appeal to competitive advantage and leverage success motivations and achieving abundance. Bigger, better, newer, faster, more popular. Citations of experts and selected authorities. Experimental data and tried-and-true experience. Profit, productivity, quality, results, winning demonstrated as best of several options. |
| GREEN | Consensual communication norms. Enlightened friend/colleague. Outcome of participation and sharing result of enlightenment, becoming observation of events here-and-now. Responsive to affect/feelings/emotions relative to situation and people at hand | Enhance belonging, sharing, group harmony. Sensitive to human issues and care for others. Expand awareness and understanding of inner self. Symbols of equity, humanity and bonding. Gentle language along with nature imagery build trust, openness, exploration, passages. Real people and authentic emotional displays. |
| YELLOW |
Any useful information source. May adopt BEIGE through GREEN. Competent, more knowing person/entity. Relevant, more functional data. Merge formal sources and hunches. Individualized explorations/discoveries. |
Interactive, relevant media, self-accessible. Functional “lean” information without fluff. The facts, the feelings and the instincts. Big picture, total systems, integrations. Connect data across fields for holistic view. Self-connecting to others and systems successfully. |
Spiral Dynamics and Foundational Stones
Table 9.3 Foundational stones.
Spiral Dynamics and Motivation
Table 9.4 Motivators and demotivators of the VMEMES.
| VMEMEs | HOT BUTTONS | COLD BUTTONS |
| BEIGE | Offer food, water, sex. Input through basic senses: touch (if safe); caress to give reassurance; recognize the intelligences that are there. | Withdraw food or make threatening moves; cause physical pain or discomfort through temperature; thirst; treat as animal-like being. |
| PURPLE | Rituals; respect for powerful figures; appeals to safety; magic; mysticism; traditional ways, and customs; home and hearth; desires of spirit beings, signs and omens; give tokens and tangible goods; respect elders: show honor to ancestors. | Speak ill of the chief or tribe; step on or desecrate sacred grounds; violate taboos or ritual ways; introduce ambiguity; isolate and force accelerated change and uncertainty; threaten family; disrespect elders or ancestors; don't try to understand. |
| RED | Immediate payoffs; macho appeals; challenges and dares; heroic images; more clout and personal power; looking good and getting due respect; gaining control over nature and other people; getting by with something; prizes and rewards – NOW. | Challenge power or courage; shame or put down person/group; move onto turf uninvited; display more powerful weapons; make gestures and name-call; be derisive and laugh; cause to lose face; taunt as an outsider; appear or talk weak: make excuses. |
| BLUE | Duty, honor, country: semper fi; righteousness; obedience to higher authority; being prepared; sacrifice and discipline; rewards for dedication to come in the afterlife; stability/order; purpose; standards and norms; finding greater meaning; being a good citizen; punctuality. | Attack religion, country or ethnic heritage; desecrate symbols or Holy Books; put down the One-True-Way or make fun of it; violate chain-of-command; disregard rules or directives; appear unfair or sleazy; be wishy-washy; use bad language; demean the standards; be late. |
| ORANGE | Opportunities to succeed; progress; growth; winning; achievement; making things better; competitive edge and advantages; bigger-and-better, new-and-improved; state-of-the-art; fashionable; prevailing through prestige; experience; calculated risks and good science; cutting-edge; make deals and bargains; treat like VIP. | Down profit or entrepreneurism; talk about collectivization; accuse of games; challenge compulsive drives; deny rewards for good performance; force sameness; cost trap with rules or procedures; fail to bargain or negotiate; seem inflexible; treat as one of the herd; seem ordinary. |
| GREEN | Participation and involvement; consensus on decisions; teamwork; liberation of the oppressed; sharing; acceptance of human weakness and foibles; openness; environmental sensitivity; tolerance; political correctness; inclusion; social responsibility and awareness; participation; corporate citizenship; community involvement. | The group's goals and ideals; try to get centralized control; divide the group; reject collective for individual accountability; support aggressive competition; deny affect and feelings; degrade quality of life or environment; appear cold-blooded; appear mercenary; rely on “hard facts” to the exclusion of people factors; act elitist or exclusive. |
| YELLOW | Liberate to be and do as one chooses; learning interesting things to enhance quality of being; access to diversity in people, choices and individual big-picture views; enhancing competency and functionality; principles and “what's right;” tries to produce in appropriate and sustainable ways; demonstrate linkages and interconnections. | Force; rules without reasons; impose dysfunctional structure; focus on minor details; be punitive; deny control of time: make work repetitive; close access to varied information or learning sources; try to homogenize; knowingly harm people or the environment; pass the buck to the future; force groupness; ignore diversity of thinking. |
| TURQUOISE | Experience of being above self-interest and hide even group pressures; to find unity in ideas and goals of whole-Earth impact; responsible to the overall good; complex multidimensional thinking; survival of life on the planet; interactive holism; interdependence; to form groups of individuals; appreciates the spiritual side of things. | Reality; set short-term goals at expense of a living system in the long term; enforce narrow views about ethnicities, ideologies and political conflict; deny spirituality; make self-serving excuses; leave residues; seek advantage though deception; appear mundane; take a narrow view; put up with destructive forces; take the easy course; be too earthbound. |
Spiral Dynamics and Foundations
Different foundations exist for different reasons, and serve multiple purposes for the people who created them, the folks who manage them, and the populations and causes they were designed to serve. Historically, foundations can be grouped into six overlapping categories. Each category has different core motivation and priority for existence, with different reasons for “what matters most.”
This document describes the different types of foundations with a specific focus on MeshWORKS. The types of foundations with their respective “matter most” bottom lines are:
- F1 A Humanitarian foundation has a heightened sensitivity for the human condition and sees the elimination of human suffering as its primary function.
- F2 A Family foundation is essentially an economic/social entity that serves as a vehicle for a close-knit family to achieve financial leverage or fund what are essentially “pet projects.”
- F3 An Empire foundation is simply the extension of the personality of a strong, domineering leader, founding principle or highly-visible celebrity.
- F4 An Advocacy foundation exists to promote a specific belief system, a missionary-like cause movement or a set of prescriptions and ideologies.
- F5 An Enterprise foundation is typically formed by large companies or other growth-driven professional groups, and is designed to promote the proprietary interest of the owners and/or stakeholders.
- F6 An Ecological foundation focuses on the preservation of the elements, and is primary in nature or in the historical traditions that contribute to the quality of our lives and the stability of our cultural life forms.
- F7 The MeshWORKS foundation: a new approach to philanthropy.
In the MeshWORKS foundation, a newly-emerging value system and priority uses the power of “mesh” in identifying, integrating, aligning and mobilizing all available resources. These, in turn, are focused like laser beams on specific challenges, goals, objectives or outcomes.
Such a foundation will be less interested in its own image, data banks, financial resources or proprietary position in a specific professional or public niche. Rather, it is an open system that is designed to aid and assist other efforts in working for a greater goal, the power of the Third Win, even if on the surface they appear to be competitive. The F7 entity will assume the enabling and empowering of all the elements that can contribute to a positive outcome as its unique and transcendent role. This new foundation is an inclusive (rather than exclusive) force designed to raise the total national or global capacity for both short- and long-term solutions to complex problems. It will use both the cyber world and personal contact summitry to bring all of the other foundations (and other interests) together around a common purpose. It will assume a major information-sharing and technology transfer role. It will assist other entities in becoming healthy and vibrant. It has no need to re-invent the wheel since it is wasteful to duplicate resources and absorb capital in unnecessary expenditures, fancy offices or expensive public relations efforts.
Such an F7 initiative will be relatively lean in stature, with the capacity of big-picture thinking coupled to quick-response intelligence. It will offer its “good offices” to the academy, marketplace, milieu or meshwork that links all of the efforts and resources in a given field or cause. As a result, more is done by fewer, solutions are short term, and the whole “brain syndicate” continues to learn, improve and even develop new and imaginative solutions that no specific efforts, foundations or entities could invent on their own.
The Third Win Purpose
By their very nature MeshWORKS foundations search for central objectives for which they aim to “mesh” people, organizations and other resources. Such a transcendent purpose gives the foundation the high levels of trust, integrity, legitimacy and respect that it will need, firstly, to attract high levels of funding and, secondly, to bring diverse elements together in common causes.
In this type of foundation, a newly-emerging value and priority system uses the power of “mesh” in identifying, integrating, aligning and mobilizing all available resources. These, in turn, are focused like laser beams on specific challenges, goals, objectives or outcomes … it is an open system; one designed to aid and assist other efforts to work for a greater goal, the power of the Third Win, even if they appear on the surface to be competitive. The F7 entity will assume the enabling and empowering of all the elements that can contribute to positive outcomes as its unique and transcendent role.
Spiral Dynamics and Art
Spiral Dynamics has in its essence the capacity to touch deeply at a soul level in creating an understanding of self and others. In artist Natalie Selsor, it awakened the need to create art. In Figure 9.2 one can see a piece of her work.
Figure 9.2 Spiral Dynamics painting, Natalie Selsor.
Interpretation
It is clear that the zig-zag oscillating nature of Spiral Dynamics is deeply understood in Natalie's art. She has also succeeded in describing the deep-rooted nature of each of the different thinking structures of the Spiral. She describes the process she followed:
Spiral Dynamics and Sport
In Figure 9.3, the cover of Beck's Sports Values publication can be seen. This publication deals with how sport can be used as a powerful method for integrating conflicted societies and optimizing the dynamics of the overall system at hand.
Figure 9.3 Copy of the Sports Values publication of Don Beck (2015).
If you ever questioned the power of sport in rallying a conflict-ridden society and creating a sense of nationhood, you should visit South Africa. The whole country was euphoric over the success of its Springbok rugby team in the World Cup 1995 competition. President Nelson Mandela met privately with the team the day before its historic upset of world champions Australia in the initial Cup match in Cape Town. He presided over a colorful opening ceremony in Newlands Stadium that celebrated the young democracy's rich cultural diversity. Zulu drums, gumboot mine dancers, Cape Colored bands and other ethnic displays were in abundance. The South African Rugby Union had adopted the “one team, one country” slogan for its team, and the spirit caught on. Think of it. Here was the country's first black president, who for 27 years was imprisoned on Robben Island, within sight of Newlands. He was now publicly honoring the all-white national team as “his” Springboks. (Chester Williams, the speedy, highly popular black winger, was lost for the competition because of a nagging hamstring injury.) Every politician in the country looked for ways to be identified with the Green and Gold Springbok players.
For many, rugby, with its Springbok symbol, had become the badge of Apartheid itself. Virtually all the players were white Afrikaners. Springbok team captains would shout out orders on the playing field only in Afrikaans. Even white, English-speaking players seldom made the national team, feeling they were the victims of cultural discrimination.
There was ever-growing pressure to force the rugby team to change its symbol to a Protea flower. But now Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu changed his position, insisting that the Springbok icon be retained. After all, the symbol was first used in 1908 before there was any semblance of a country. Young black youth from the townships were seen removing anti-rugby signs and replacing them with pictures of their new rugby heroes. They all wanted to be “Springboks.”
While affirmative action has become a way of life in the formerly white dominated society, you can forget about quotas when it comes to sports. South Africans insist that their athletes and sports teams all be selected on merit in open competition. But they go much further. They have committed their time and resources to developmental programs, especially in the townships and in public-school programs.
Soccer is predominately black in terms of the number of players, especially at professional levels. Cricket (in spite of major efforts in its imaginative “township cricket” programs) and rugby are essentially white. Long-distance runners have African names while the sprinters and field events are dominated by English and Afrikaans speakers. These patterns will change over time as the developmental efforts begin to bear fruit and natural talent rises to the surface.
The Springboks had won all three of their games in the pool competition and were to enter the quarter-finals on Saturday against Western Samoa. The team was now favored to win its way into the Cup finals, set for June 24, in Ellis Park in Johannesburg. No doubt the whole country would be watching “their” Springboks carry “their” national Green and Gold colors into the competition.
“Six Games to Glory” set out the psychological build-up needed for each match as the Springboks progressed through the pool stages, then the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final; also the on-field approach necessary in each match. Crucially important was the opening match against Australia. The piece on Six Games to Glory can be found on the website: www.spiraldynamicsglobal.com. The Springboks’ motivational plan drawn up for Kitch Christie, the coach, is presented there.
Don Beck found the 2009 Invictus, the movie about Nelson Mandela and South Africa's world rugby championship, faithful to the true story it tells, and he ought to know. Beck was one of many who believed in the peace-making power of sport and one of many who helped the team go from a symbol of Apartheid to a new nation's point of pride.
In addition to passing on tackling tips from coaching friends, Beck – who has worked with former coaches Hayden Fry, Tom Landry and Bum Phillips – helped Christie manage the psychological peaks and valleys that come with rounds of competition. “He [Christie] was a key element in getting the team prepared,” Beck said.
As depicted in the movie, during one of the breaks between games, the team boarded a boat and visited the island where Mandela had been imprisoned for 27 years. At Robben Island, Mandela kept William Ernest Henley's short poem, “Invictus,” which is Latin for unconquerable, on a scrap of paper in his prison cell.
“That was part of the plan,” Beck said, of showing the players that they were part of a growing sense of national identity. In Figure 9.4 Beck explains the transformational journey of the South African Springboks. In the figure, the rugby ball signed by the rugby coach at the time, Kitch Christie, can be seen.
Figure 9.4 Don Beck, and the Six Games to Glory.
One of Beck's recommendations – that the South Africans should adopt an African crowd song – seemed to have been taken up with the popular local song, Shosholoza. Then eventually his other key recommendation – that Nelson Mandela should be persuaded, if possible, to identify with the Springboks – also became reality. Other strategies that Beck promoted were the visits of the Springbok teams to the townships.
Beck is a sports nut and a great believer in the social/political unifying capacity of sport. The scenes of utter jubilation right across South Africa, and in all sectors – so vividly captured in Invictus – would appear to bear him out. Maybe Beck can be persuaded to have a word or two with Bafana Bafana. Football is further removed from gridiron than rugby is, but it's not really the mechanics of the game we are talking about, it is what goes on inside the players’ heads and hearts.
In most of the large-scale transformational efforts that Beck facilitated and influenced, sport and societal dimensions are combined in an integral, systemic and functional way, designed specifically for the actors in that system. On the website the 1995 Rugby World Cup Strategy is presented as The Six Games to Glory.
Figure 9.5 Extract from fax from Beck to South African Springbok Coach Kitch Christie. 21 June 1995.
Spiral Dynamics in Russia
In Figure 9.6 the cover the of the book Spiral Dynamics as translated into Russian can be seen. In Figure 9.7, Don Beck and Elza Maalouf are shown together with a Russian group who studied Spiral Dynamics. It may just be possible that Spiral Dynamics can provide a much-needed explanation for the Cold War and the continued tension between the two superpowers. The application of Spiral Dynamics PLUS technologies may illustrate how the effect of assimilation contrast manifests here. In Figure 9.8, a Russian leader is explaining insights gained by applying Spiral Dynamics to scenario planning. The ideal future for Russia 2045 was shared.
Figure 9.6 The cover of the Russian translation of Spiral Dynamics.
Figure 9.7 Don Beck and Elza Maalouf in Russia.
Figure 9.8 Scenario planning – Russia 2045 expressed via Spiral Dynamics codes.
More information about Spiral Dynamics in Russia can be found at the website supporting this book: www.spiraldynamicsglobal.com.
Conclusion
In this chapter a potpourri of different cases and applications are shared. The transferability, modifiability, authenticity and fit of the MeshWORKS approach was illustrated across practice, industries, countries and societies.
It is clear from Figure 9.9 that to be able to connect, align and weave the different codes together in any environment, requires leadership to be aware of the various VMEMEtic codes, to take a Second-Tier perspective and to weave the human energy in the system around superordinary goals in unleashing systemic capacity to perform. In the next Part on Spiral Dynamics PLUS, various decision-making and leadership support systems are presented. The Adizes abbreviations VSM and CAPI in Figure 3.2 will be described.
Figure 9.9 Strategies of the new king's horses, men and women.