Human Challenges

Oligarchy and Financial Crisis

After I looked into Spiral Dynamics I am very sensitive now to any of those evolutionary patterns. I just recently found some in a very interesting article from Simon Johnson, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management about the economic crisis, it's causes and how to solve it.

He argues that the U.S. economic recovery will fail unless the "financial oligarchy", responsible for the crisis in the first place is broken. The government, captured by the finance industry is according to Johnson, running out of time needed to prevent a true depression. A highly advanced country like the US also has the most advanced oligarchy and with this statement Johnson describes three stades of political systems, a primitive one in which power is transmitted through violence, e.g. military coups; a less primitive system that is found in emerging markets where power is transmitted via money, e.g. bribes and finally a system in which the

“...financial industry gained political power by amassing a kind of cultural capital—a belief system. Once, perhaps, what was good for General Motors was good for the country. Over the past decade, the attitude took hold that what was good for Wall Street was good for the country. The banking-and-securities industry has become one of the top contributors to political campaigns, but at the peak of its influence, it did not have to buy favors the way, for example, the tobacco companies or military contractors might have to. Instead, it benefited from the fact that Washington insiders already believed that large financial institutions and free-flowing capital markets were crucial to America’s position in the world.”

Although this is the most developed form of oligarchy it is located pretty low on the Spiral. I see patterns of the achievist theme (ORANGE) in which everything is strongly focussed around prosperity and material well-being. Using Johnson's words we are dealing with "a society that celebrates the idea of making money". On the other hand I see elements of Purposeful-Authoritarian/Truth (BLUE). It looks like we need to move up the Spiral as this focus is not good enough for our well being in the future. And although Johnson's overall position seems radical including the solution he suggests at the end of the article I believe it deserves serious consideration...

Leadership Patterns

I want to follow-up on my last post about patterns in company culture connecting these to different Leadership styles. Hermann Küster did a deep dive into the work of Rooke/Torbert who published their research “Organizational Transformation as a Function of CEOs' Developmental Stage” already in 1998. They drew a first picture of six managerial styles and an associated developmental frame that culminated in the 2005 Harvard Business Review publication of “Seven Transformations of Leadership”. Hermann connected these to the concept of the Spiral Dynamic evolution steps as outlined before.

Similar to the approach on an organizational level this framework can be used to analyze where a leader stands and initiate a personal transformation to the next level always moving up the spiral as it is proven that leaders who operate based on a “Strategist” action logic are the most successful transformational leaders. Unfortunately in the research Rooke/Torbert did in 2005 there were only 4% of them. Knowing that progressively transforming organizations become most probably industry leaders this should be a concern. Interestingly Rooke/Torbert mention Scott McNealy, Sun's founder and former CEO, in their HBR article as belonging to the Expert type leaders which fits to my statement on the Sun culture that I made previously.

Patterns in Company Culture

There is a really interesting approach to analyze, describe and finally transform company. For all the inspiration on this I have to thank Detego which is a Hamburg based change management consultancy. They adapted a consulting approach based on Beck/Cowan's Spiral Dynamics that they are using with clients.

In very simple words Spiral Dynamics describes the value systems of the different stages of human development from survival and kinship to integrative and holistic thinking patterns that have emerged and are still emerging nowadays. The spiral stands for the chronological evolution from survival up to holistic.

This concept can be a foundation for the transformation on an organizational level. With a specific survey the culture of a company can be measured and linked to the spiral themes. Most likely the outcome will be a mix of different systems on the spiral. The intention should be to move up the spiral to the so called second tier themes Systemic-Integrative and Holistic.

*from Beck/Cowan, Spiral Dynamics 1996 and 2006, p.332

Let's take a moment and look at Sun's culture from this perspective. I believe we had a strong conviction and belief in our way of being open, doing open source, being an innovation leader, competing against the bigger players in the market, those who lock customers in, etc. (remember the fun that Scott used to make of certain of our competitors during his time as CEO) which is an aspect of BLUE (high sense of purpose, believing in the cause).

That element created a lot of common values, there was a strong element of “standing together”, a strong identification with the company and it's products, teaming up was valued a lot and then we were very consensus oriented which all could characterize the Sun culture having a strong GREEN (communitarian) element.

The Sun culture will soon be merged with the Oracle one. From a global perspective I am really curious to see more holistic patterns appear in our lives, using collective human intelligence to work on large scale problems without sacrificing individuality. I strongly believe that this is what our world needs and it is good to see it is emerging.

What companies can learn from Orchestras

Wow, this was really impressive! Just coming back from a presentation (no slides – just music!) with Christian Gansch a renown conductor, music producer, consultant and book author. In his books he points out what companies can learn from Orchestras. In his presentation he explained what a complex organization an orchestra is with a lot of departments and department managers. He gave insight in how it is managed by the conductor and how it is also managing itself.

To thrive for highest “customer satisfaction” all 120 pretty eccentric personalities of that orchestra need to stand and work together very closely and sensitively. This needs a lot of respect for one another, it needs tolerance to give in and acknowledge that for example if the Oboe realizes it cannot hold breath long enough when the violin plays a specific part that part needs to be played differently although it maybe more difficult for the violinists. After all listeners judge the whole sound of the orchestra and not just the Oboe.

The conductor also needs to value and respect each individual musician but also give each of them feed-back and not avoid conflict. In order to have a full harmony in the performance there might be conflict in the rehearsals (there are four of them in general and the last one traditionally is not interrupted by the conductor). On the other hand he needs to have a strong competence in perceiving the individual musicians to for example adapt some parts to a breath loosing singer who is not 100% on top that day. The latter reminded me of the leadership capabilities Scharmer is mentioning like listening, observing, sensing.

Overall this presentation was very inspiring, it came across with a lot of enthusiasm and passion. Here is an interview with Christian, unfortunately in German. Many thanks to HRD, Human Resources Development Consulting in Hamburg, who made this possible for their 20^th anniversary!