Spiral Dynamics is somewhat a system of Psychometric Profiling. Think of Myers Briggs or the OCEAN model mixed with Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, but a whole order of magnitude more than that.
The core idea of the model is that people focus on certain aspects of life at different stages. At the higher stages they are usually in a higher order level with more complexity.
Whilst Spiral Dynamics is the work of Clare W Graves, Integral Theory is the work of Ken Wilber and SDi or Spiral Dynamics Integral is the merging of the two concepts.
- Survival (Beige) – Where all the attention is focused on survival.
- Tribal (Purple) – All about social relationships and maintenance of customs.
- Egocentric (Red) – Explore personal identity and challenge tribal authority figures or belief systems.
- Authoritarian (Blue) – In order to understand purpose of life and have security need to obey higher authority and rules.
- Enterprising (Orange) – Awaken independence and achieve results while challenging authority and test possibilities.
- Humanistic (Green) – Seek love and peace within through sharing and becoming useful in the community.
- Integrative (Yellow) – Live free and explore what is life about while understanding that chaos and change are natural.
- Neo-tribal (Turquoise) – Experience the wholeness of existence by becoming one with all things, and restore natural harmony and balance.
Spiral Dynamics outline:
Integral Theory is based on the 4 quadrants of I, Me, We, It’s.
A great visual explanation of the quadrant :
Video: Integral Theory in 5 minutes
Podcast: The Graves Model (Spiral Dynamics)
This is a really great podcast. Listen to it with a piece of paper and a pen so you can write out the levels yourself and better understand the stages.
Some Resources
https://www.toolshero.com/change-management/spiral-dynamics/ – A great introduction article.
https://www.slideshare.net/wrightleadership/culture-scan-an-introduction-to-spiral-dynamics – A presentation slide set.
https://www.bewellbuzz.com/wellness-buzz/spiral-dynamics-evolution-human-consciousness/ – This comes across as a bit more hippy than the actual theory is, but it might resonate with some people, especially those on the Green level.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Makingsense/comments/6temd1/spiral_dynamics_crucial_knowledge_about_the/ – A great Reddit post about it all.
http://www.spiraldynamics.net/ – Some official looking website. Most official looking sites want to charge you a whole lot of money so you can attend a course to learn more.
http://www.clarewgraves.com/theory_content/conceptions/intro.html – The official Clare Graves website and some content.
https://www.valuematch.net/en/spiral-dynamics-assessments/value-assessment – An example of how Spiral Dynamics can be used as an assesment tool for understanding people’s levels and behaviour.
https://medium.com/@sterlingcooley/coral-meme-spiral-dynamics-level-9-3db412799198 – An introduction to Level 9 the Coral world view. It’s still very new and almost no one is at that level, so it’s a lot of speculation.
