Spiral Dynamics

What is Spiral Dynamics? The best place to start is to look at Clare Graves homepage. The best article on Spiral Dynamics is the interview of Don Beck in What is Enlightenment Magazine. They do a great job of explaining the concept and each of the memes. Ken Wilbur has brought Spiral Dynamics to the mainstream. Here is his explanation of why this matters. A really cool visual presentation of the spiral is here. In a brief search I found some great info on Spiral Dynamics at the blogs coolmel and What's in your mind.

There is the book Spiral Dynamics. I wouldn't recommend reading it until you have studied the information on line and unless you are wanting to be a serious scholar of the information. It is like a textbook and not cheap.

So, what does Spiral Dynamics have to do with Between Seeing. Just about everything. I am convinced that what the world needs is a way to speed up the process of taking people to higher levels of consciousness, the second tier. Spiral Dynamics is a map, it is a way to see where you are in your consciousness development.  The Better Way to Work (BWTW) program featuring the 7 Entrepreneurial Skills (7ES) is a structure and format for guiding people along the way. BWTW is not an easy program. Many people who start it don't finish. It is not the only way. What Spiral Dyanamics does is answer the "So What" question for why someone would want to invest the time and energy into the BWTW program. BWTW is a second tier program. Each of the skills embraces every other skill and it embraces each of the memes in Spiral Dynamics.

What follows is the Spiral Dynamics memes mapped to the 7 Entrepreneurial Skills. My friend Clive Prout helped me with this.

I. Building Vision, Faith & Commitment
1. Creating a vision   Yellow
2. Believing your work is your calling  Blue
3. Having confidence and belief in yourself  Red
4. Contributing to something greater than yourself  Blue

II. Utilizing Your Strengths
1. Building on your strengths and passions  Red
2. Acknowledging weaknesses  Orange / Green
3. Commitment to professional development  Orange / Green

III. Creating a Niche
1. Finding one thing you love and being the best at it  Green
2. Maintaining a clear, compelling focus on your target market     Green
3. Becoming established as an expert—creating a name for yourself   Orange

IV. Planning & Follow Through
1. Regularly scheduling dedicated time for planning  Orange
2. Creating a living business plan with written goals  Orange
3. Committing to your word by following-through  Blue
4. Establishing accountability with yourself and others     Orange / Green

V. Engaging Risk & Reality
1. Practicing financial discipline  Orange
2. Embracing failure  Orange
3. Trusting your gut   Orange

VI. Partnering
1. Building relationships  Orange / Green
2. Asking for and getting help  Green
3. Being a resource  Green

VII. Negotiating
1. Knowing your value proposition  Red
2. Creating win-win agreements  Green
3. Knowing your bottom line/Being willing to walk away  Orange

Did I get this right, who knows. Does it matter, no. What is clear is that no one is at any meme all the time and that to get to a second tier meme you need to incorporate all of the first tier memes in an integral way. The lower tier memes are present all the time. The 7ES is a structure and format for incorporating the memes in a wholistic way to allow someone to make the jump to the second tier.

What I know is that when someone does the work and sees what is possible in yellow and beyond by making their vision a reality, they change and there is no going back.