Chapter 6 --  Spiral Dynamics:  Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change
Spiral Wizardry

Spiral Wizards employ the following five principles to the process of reconstituting leadership and managerial packages to blend with individuals and organizations:

• Recognize the memes in people, companies, communities
• Incorporate the universal "P-O-A" leadership style
• Exercise the appropriate intervention option(s) in the situation
• Follow the six "Rules of Thumb" for Spiral leaders
• Activate Second Tier thinking to focus leadership and managerial packages

We are all blends, admixtures, and combinations in flux.

Begin by getting each meme to display itself (use meme-laden questions).

Meme Detection:  A checklist of recognition principles:

1. Step outside your own meme profile
2. Identify the prevailing Life Conditions
3. Ask the "why?" question
4. Different memes may brighten in different situations
5. Realize that an organization is also a mixture of memes, not a simple type
6. Remember that memes ebb and flow as conditions get better or worse

If you are persistent, you will uncover the thinking behind the attitude, the underlying meme-based schema.

Graves research identified three essential factors in healthy transactions:  Politeness(P), Openness(O), and Autocracy(A).  These are the basis for skillful management and effective leadership.

Politeness is defined as being civil, friendly, cordial, considerate, genuine, empathetic, firm but fair, civilized, and sensitive.

Openness is expressed in two ways:

• The extent to which the leader is authentic, transparent, sharing, available, and emotionally above-board
• Fosters a climate that gives permission for others to be communicative and straightforward.

When both politeness and openness are healthy, interpersonal communication improves and relationships cannot help but strengthen.

Autocracy means taking charge, accepting responsibility, knowing where "the buck stops" and being willing to put one's self on the line.
The leader who has Autocracy is not a tyrant but acts like a Spiral Wizard determining appropriate decisions for specific situations.

The Spiral Wizard's Options for the Situational Intervention:

1. Option 1:  Just Walk Away
2. Option 2:  Reframe the Conditions
3. Option 3:  Connect Ideas with Memes

Rules of Thumb for Spiral Leaders:

1. If the critical mass of thinking within followers is more complex on the Spiral than proposed leadership, that leadership can only take control through intimidation or force.
2. In the followers are in Closed or Arrested conditions at a specific level on the Spiral, the leadership approach needs to be calibrated for that identical level.
3. If the followers are in the Open condition, the optimum management is about half a step beyond their position on the Spiral.
4. If a group is highly diversified, leadership must come from the most complex system available in the group.
5. If the leadership model is too far ahead on the Spiral, it will destabilize and overwhelm the group or leave them asking "Where's this idiot coming from?"

Characteristics of the second tier leadership package:

• Each person is free to choose whether to put up with , try to change, or walk away.
• Managers act as go-fers for the worker, getting necessary information and materials to the right place as needed.
• Contracts are made with employees such that a very specific "what" should be done and by "When".
• People are focused on an agreed, joint purpose that supersedes the person or group itself.
• At first, "less is more" since the most effective use of resources makes possible the pursuit of other equally valuable projects.
• Second Tier thinking uses human diversity constructively by neither worshipping it nor advocating sameness.
• People are naturally productive if the organization is designed and aligned to match individuals with functions they find stimulating.
• People, technology, nature, and procedures are interwoven and integrated into the stream of work.
• Conflict is inevitable in any living system but the Spiral Wizard actively manages it to promote the health of the interactive Spiral.

Leadership Assumptions of the Core Memes:  An Anatomy:

SECOND TIER

Turquoise

• Spiritual bonds will pull people and organizations together across space/time.
• Work must be meaningful to the overall health of all life.
• Organizations are responsible for the impacts of their activities.
• The universe is a single entity of elegantly balanced, interlocking forces.
• Experiencing feelings and information together enhances both.

Yellow

• People enjoy doing that work which fits who they are naturally.
• Workers need free access to information, tools, and materials.
• Organizations are only transitory states because change happens.
• Learning and understanding motivate people, not payoffs or punishment.
• People have different competencies and capacities, and most are OK.

FIRST TIER

Green
Orange
Blue
Red
Purple

Dissecting the First Tier Organizations on the Spiral

The Green memes leadership package
Social/Communitarian

Hierarchies, competitive career ladders, and executive privilege blur in favor of frequent, open communication and accessibility.

The Orange memes leadership package
Rational/Economic

Money, perks, and opportunities to advance are the lubricants for productivity.

The Orange purpose is to be the best, most successful competitor in the field.

The Blue memes leadership package
Moralistic/Prescriptive

Blue organizations are hierarchical and rigidly structured.

Blue seeks to do what is right and what is ordained to serve the greater good.

The Red memes leadership package
Exploitive/Egocentric

Management is based on the assumption that most people inherently dislike work, have little ambition, wish to avoid responsibility and have to be forced, threatened, or coerced to do a job.

The Purple memes leadership package
Communal/Tribal

The objective is to perpetuate the family, clan, or tribe by preserving its place in the animistic world meeting its subsistence needs.

The leader must concentrate on the whole group rather than picking out individuals in compensation schemes, discipline, and communication.

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Beck, D.E. & Cowan, C.C.  Spiral Dynamics:  Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change.