January 21, 2021

Resonating

(Dissonating)

”Because the startling fact is that ecological wisdom does not consist in understanding how to live in accord with nature; it consists in understanding how to get humans to agree on how to live in accord with nature.” Ken Wilber

A mother stands outside a burning house where inside her young son and daughter don’t know they are in mortal danger. The boy loves trucks and the girl loves ponies. Rather than giving in to her impulse to scream to them that the house is on fire, she uses skillful means, letting them see her playing with a pony and a toy truck through the window, she entices them outside to safety. My former student Ben Dayton shared this parable that illustrates the power of communication that is sensitively keyed to the perspective of the other. Human centered designers are perspective seekers who speak, listen and translate in ways that respect differences in values and worldviews.

Design professionals in the worlds of product and system design stand at the leverage point with respect to consumer - citizens. Consumption is not the only route to crafting a life, but consumer channels are the primary way designers can reach individuals who are looking for market alternatives and innovations. By storying empowering ways of living across the spectrum of world views, the designer positions opportunities — in the form of choice architectures — in ways people may resonate with. Feeling not just seen and heard with respect to their needs, but challenged, individuals may choose to adopt new behaviors or be inspired to tackle a dream.

The conundrum of making sense across a range of world views is an analog to what designed artifacts do relationally. Taking form as a nature-culture interface, designed artifacts ‘teach’ us how to relate. Designed environments and services make rhetorical, sensory and emotional appeals to our attention. Design is “sense-making” (Dervin) - reading and writing in the codes of a given cultural context, as well as “sensing” — relating as clever animals to our environmental conditions. This trans-cultural fluency is an essential design capacity. Empathic imagination is required to see designed artifacts at the level of cultural patterns that mirror the values of our collective world views. This spectrum of worldviews provides the diversity of opinion required to comprehensively describe any design problem space. Most design briefs are sufficiently complex that integration of the varied perspectives of stakeholders is a condition of success. In fact, skillful connection with the perspectives engaged in the system will make or break a designed outcome. Cultural memes, in describing not just how, but why values differ, gives conscious designers a tremendous advantage in speaking directly to the deepest heartfelt motivations of individuals, addressing each individual with dignity regardless of their point of view. This is empathic cultural fluency.

Spiral Dynamics Integral (SDi) has direct applicability to professional design because the expression of collective values takes the form of cherished ideals, norms, behaviors and institutions. Developmentally oriented heuristics such as SDi give us ways of tuning our designed communications to reach values communities far better than conventional demographic or psychographic market segmentation. Learning such tools can give designers an edge by making tacit aspects of human-centered and participant observer research more explicit and actionable. SDi Natural Design is a form of collective futuring based on underlying codes (vMemes - or values memes) that form influential patterns at the deepest levels of society — the levels of belief and value. Natural Design is a process model that uses SDi tools to empower values communities to collectively identify next steps to positive futures through the design of both built and intangible structures. The natural design model is compatible with the human centered, humanitarian and social design literature in that it configures the situated relationships between contexts (life conditions), beliefs (deep value systems), and artifacts (surface manifestations). SDi Natural Design is co-design that negotiates the varied perspectives, needs and values of the entire system- beneficiaries, stakeholders and gatekeepers alike- and anticipating structures that will facilitate creative growth of that particular community in its unique contextual moment.

The sustainability design trend is an expression of the environmental intelligence associated with the postmodern worldview and attendant values meme. Over the decades, the larger trans-disciplinary sustainability movement has taken many names, such as ecology and environmentalism. These different terms reflect the evolutionary nature of the movement itself as well as the importance of finding resonance with the changing values memes— the Zeitgeist of the times. If the sustainability design movement appears to be losing ground, it’s important to remain spacious and withhold judgment. We may be observing a slower, steadier, but less obvious process of diffusion of postmodern values into the broader culture at large. Or it might indicate that key design messages need more sophisticated tuning to the listening of a broader range of individuals many of whom are not motivated by postmodern values.

The project of sustainability is a prominent example of strides forward due to increasing stickiness of the social sustainability meme, accompanied by reversals due to lack of culturally resonant messages and positionings. The sustainability project, in speaking from the pragmatic yet partial goals of the Brundtland Commission report, has represented a rather narrow band of worldviews rather than the full spectrum. If eco-efficiency reduces design for sustainability to the study and visualization of proxy data such as emissions quotas, this partial representation of reality polarizes the discourse because some values are excluded or left unexpressed. Furthermore, partial representation of the spectrum of world views will never bring about the ultimate strategic objective - a flourishing world that works for all.

Serial entrepreneur and dedicated transformational coach and teacher Brett Thomas co-founded the Stagen Leadership Academy and later founded the Conscious Business Coalition - among other ventures. Powerful collaborative platforms are the creative innovations through which Thomas has successfully amplified conscious business practices in service of an equitable, healthy and flourishing world. Thomas’ bodacious vision is of a global prosperity both compassionate and wise. Through his global MOOC, the Conscious Business Academy, he designers structures within which his extensive global network takes marketing and communication to a new level of excellence. Thomas’ vision synthesizes the remarkable performance achievements of modernity, the egalitarian values of postmodernity and the servant leadership of traditionalism. “As an expert in human development, Thomas designs cutting-edge self-actualization systems that leaders use to expand their cognitive, moral, emotional, and social intelligences while simultaneously increasing their organizational capacity for positive impact.” (Thomas)

Working toward an integrated societal vision requires stakeholder alignment across divergent views. It requires allowing each tribe under the big tent to be inspired and enrolled for their own reasons, based on their own values. This requires a deft balance between engagement and allowing that is deeply respectful of difference. Thomas is a master of integral messaging for respectful and skillful communication with a full spectrum of humanity. The Leadership Rosetta Stone Universal Translator, was an innovation that Thomas developed during his many years coaching executives and entrepreneurs. It’s a heuristic tool that helps us see the values and outlook of others tangibly and coherently. Thomas’ forthcoming book, co-authorred with XX, is entitled XX…

Previous post Inter-Relating (Dissociating) “It takes two to speak the truth — one to speak, and another to hear.” Henry David Thoreau In her thoughtful and Next post Situating (Cutting) “If it’s not ethical it cannot be beautiful” Yves Behar As human beings, we are profoundly embedded in relations. In fact the