personal finance

Based on the 'Bio-Psycho-Social' Systems framework of Dr. Clare W. Graves, authors Dr. Don Edward Beck and Christopher C. Cowan have developed a powerful tool for revitalising individuals, business and sporting teams, and communities. This book is truly 'third-way' thinking for the new millennium.

Beck and Cowan fuse many different elements together into a powerful and *practical* synthesis, including the latest scientific research from neuro-biology, multiple intelligences, memetics, paleo-psychology, values systems design, and various schools of business management. Like grasping Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP), this initially takes some personal commitment and intensive self-study, but the longterm benefits of Beck and Cowan's lucid comments are well worth the initial effort. The models are part of a wider 'Third Culture' paradigm that many academics and cultural theorists firmly believe will become a major force within empirical mainstream science over the next fifteen years.

The book also has an invaluable extensive reading list covering the major conceptual theorists and models across many disciplines. It covers over thirty years of pioneering academic research and subsequent real-world application.

Spiral Dynamics principles have been successfully applied to a wide variety of situations, including blue-chip corporations, sports teams, and high-level government institutions, and the authors have consulted with many international institutions, including the Clinton (U.S.) and Blair (U.K.) administrations, the World Future Society, the London School of Economics, and the EC Committee for the Future. Beck is highly regarded for his 'behind-the-scenes' geo-political work since the early 1980s in South Africa dismantling apartheid.

Like the 'Six Thinking Hats' of Edward de Bono, the controversial 'crazy wisdom' of Tom Peters, or the leadership principles of Stephen Covey, a knowledge of Spiral Dynamics will add a powerful real-time diagnostic tool to your perceptual engineering toolkit. In an increasingly hyper-real postmodern world, Spiral Dynamics principles will enable you to outwit your competitors, gain an understanding of the 'psychological DNA' of your customers and market niche, and promote effective and efficient high-performance teams and encourage leadership within your organisation.

Ever listen to two people argue and realize that they don't really disagree, they just can't understand each other? Ever contemplate two mutually contradictory perspectives that seem to have equal validity? Spiral Dynamics is a powerful and beautiful psychological/philosophical theory that explains the above everyday phenomena better than any other theory I've encountered. It simply posits that humans develop through different, all-encompassing views of life as they mature. Unfortunately, in the book "Spiral Dynamics", Beck and Cowan have aparrently tried to market this theory to a management market by dressing the terms up in CAPITAL LETTERS, bold type, and the ridiculous superscripted "v"-MEME. I assume this is to make them seem like scientific acronyms, like DNA or H2O. Why? Have faith in the theory guys, it's a good one. I just hope they don't screw up the Clare Graves book that they are currently editing. Of course, I'm sure that it will be exorbitant, like the volume under review. Again, why? I suppose, in SD terms, the authors are merely writing for an orange audience, but between that and their exorbitant prices, they come off as rather first tier.

I would suggest looking on the Internet for an overview of the Spiral Dynamic theory and THEN buying this book to learn more.

Essentially, Spiral Dynamic is a well chosen name for a theory defined by Clare Graves back in the fifties and given a pompous name by him which can be found in the book. Beck and Cowan are FAR better writers than Graves, but they acquired some of his professorese style unfortunately. So you will have to be prepared for that. They also distract the reader with stuff about matters such as Gympty Dumpty which did not seem to this reader to have anything to do with anythng.

As for the theory itself, it begins with the fact that has been known since ancient times that everything evolves in cycles. This was known to Plato and is the basis for the pseudo-science of astrology. Graves did not discover it. Graves adds to that the insight that at one end of the cycle everything is about ME and on the other end everything is about THEE. The cycle is therefore a cycle between MR and THEE, between self centeredness and other centeredness. Thus the "let them eat cake" crowd is at one point in the cycle and the "social consciousness" crowd is at the other.

Graves further adds that we do not stay at ME or THEE but oscillate between these two. Reagan therefore started out as a Democrat (THEE) and ended up a Reagan oriented Republican (ME). Most people do become more conservative (ME-oriented) as they grow older.

To that Graves adds the interesting insight that instead of thinking of cycles as circles we think of them as spirals. Every time one completes the cycle one ends up on a higher level. This is indeed a major insight. From there on it seems pretty ordinary to this reader.

At an abstract level that is pretty much it. At a content level the book points out that some people belong to fundamentalists religious cults and others belong to street gangs. Some people are entrepreneurs and others are tree huggers. Well, that is certainly true, but my reaction is that anyone who has been awake for the past ten years should know that. It seems like the classic No Jive Headline.

One is reminded of George Bernard Shaw's fictional dialogue with Pavlov. P's great discovery was that if you show hamburger to a hungry dog, his mouth waters When asked how long it took him to figure that out, Pavlov answered twenty five years. To which Shaw's fictional reporter answers that he could have told Pavlov that in twenty five seconds. Forget twenty five years. I mention this because it apparently took Graves twenty five years to figure out that some people belong to street gangs and others start businesses. Maybe I am missing something but I just could not see what is so profound here.