Theory and Practice of Integral Sustainable Development - Part 1: Quadrants and the Practitioner
This is part one of a two-part paper that offers an overview of Integral Sustainable Development. The entire paper explains the rudiments of a practical framework that integrates the crowded conceptual and operational landscape of sustainable development and enables practitioners to 1) identify the full-range of needs and capabilities of individuals and groups, and 2) tailor the specific developmental response that fits each unique situation. The fundamentals of this framework are four major perspectives (explained in part I) and three waves of natural evolution (part II). The framework maps out and integrates human consciousness and behavior, culture, systems, and the physical environment. Drawing upon cross-cultural and transdisciplinary studies, as well as data from field researchers, this framework is shown to be vital for a comprehensive and accurate approach to addressing our social, environmental, and economic challenges. Included are introductory analytical tools for practitioners (parts I and II), as well as synopses of current sustainable development initiatives—by organizations such as the UNDP HIV/AIDS Group, and UNICEF Oman—which use the Integral framework (Appendix).
This is part two of a two-part paper that offers an overview of Integral Sustainable Development. The entire paper explains the rudiments of a practical framework that integrates the crowded conceptual and operational landscape of sustainable development and enables practitioners to 1) identify the full-range of needs and capabilities of individuals and groups, and 2) tailor the specific developmental response that fits each unique situation. The fundamentals of this framework are four major perspectives (explained in part I) and three waves of natural evolution (part II). The framework maps out and integrates human consciousness and behavior, culture, systems, and the physical environment. Drawing upon cross-cultural and transdisciplinary studies, as well as data from field researchers, this framework is shown to be vital for a comprehensive and accurate approach to addressing our social, environmental, and economic challenges. Included are introductory analytical tools for practitioners (parts I and II), as well as synopses of current sustainable development initiatives—by organizations such as the UNDP HIV/AIDS Group, and UNICEF Oman—which use the Integral framework (Appendix).
How to Tailor Public Communications About HIV/AIDS to Different Worldviews
Why do some communication campaigns to prevent HIV/AIDS deeply impact a wide population, while others fail to achieve their potential? What communication styles and types of spokespeople are appropriate for which audiences? How can investments in HIV/AIDS prevention communication be increasingly optimized? Each year, hundreds of communication professionals search for better answers to these questions. This document discusses the fundamentals of tailoring HIV/AIDS communication to the variety of worldviews within any audience. Based upon developmental psychology research, five worldviews are explained and then demonstrated through imagery and actual language used for HIV/AIDS campaigns. The document ends with a strategy to tailor HIV/AIDS communications campaigns such that they appeal to multiple worldviews simultaneously.
Como Adaptar Comunicações Públicas sobre HIV/AIDS às Diferentes Visões de Mundo
Por que algumas campanhas de prevenção ao HIV/AIDS impactam profundamente grande parte da população, enquanto outras não conseguem atingir seu potencial? Que estilos de comunicação e tipos de oratória são apropriados para determinadas audiências? Como os investimentos em comunicação na prevenção ao HIV/AIDS podem ser cada vez mais otimizados? A cada ano, profissionais de comunicação procuram melhores respostas a estas perguntas. Este documento discute os fundamentos de comunicação sobre HIV/AIDS à variedade de visões dentro de qualquer audiência. Cinco visões de mundo são explicadas, e então demonstradas com imagens e linguagem utilizadas por campanhas de prevenção ao HIV/AIDS. O documento termina com uma estratégia para aumentar a probabilidade de uma campanha pública apelar a várias visões simultaneamente.
An influential and effective HIV/AIDS initiative called the Leadership for Results Programme is underway in over two dozen countries. There are many human and organizational factors which contribute to its success; however, a full assessment of these is beyond the scope of this document. I have chosen to focus on one aspect of its foundation: the use of an integral approach. Both the architect of this program (Monica Sharma), and myself, believe that this is one of the keys to its cross-cultural, cross-sectoral efficacy with stakeholders, organizations, and societies. In the following pages I first summarize the Programme itself and the integral approach—highlighting its unique benefits. Then, drawing predominantly upon recent publications by the HIV/AIDS Group at UNDP which developed this Programme, I identify specific aspects of the program which utilize an integral approach. This is followed by a spotlight on how this approach has been used to improve UNDP’s Arts and Media Strategy, with respect to HIV/AIDS. A brief toolkit for psychological and cultural transformation is then offered. I end with an overview of the Programme’s successful results. Four appendices offer an overview of the following topics: Ken Wilber’s Integral Framework for International Development, Rensis Likert’s Levels of Organizational Development, Additional Use of the Integral Framework within the United Nations System, and Resources to Learn More.
Integral Communications for Sustainability: An Introduction
This article is a brief introduction to the art and science of communicating about sustainability to different worldviews. One key ability is to be able to honor all worldviews as they are, even if they differ from our own. Any negative reaction we feel toward a worldview blocks our capacity to authentically communicate and create mutual understanding with someone who holds that lens on life. By focusing conscious attention on where we feel a reaction in our body, we can begin to move through any internal blockage we might have toward that worldview. Effective communication starts with profoundly understanding ourselves.
Use of the Integral Framework to Design Developmentally-Appropriate Communication for Sustainability
The Integral framework, articulated by Ken Wilber, provides a comprehensive overview of the systemic, cultural, psychological, behavioral and developmental dynamics that influence any sustainability initiative. This comprehensive map of reality helps teams to better assess, strategize, and design sustainability communications for any scale. In this article, we explain the Integral framework and its implications for sustainability communication. We draw particular attention to eight distinct stages of consciousness development, identified through developmental psychology research. These stages can be used to guide the creation of developmentally-appropriate communications for sustainability initiatives. We highlight two case study applications: a successful market-transformation initiative in the US Building Industry and an emerging application of the Integral framework to influence climate policy discourse in Australia.
Communicating Sustainability to Different Value Systems - PowerPoint Presentation
This 151 slide PowerPoint is used to teach about communicating to different value systems with regard to caring for the environment. It is based upon the work of Spiral Dynamics Integral. It covers Best Sources for communications, Best-fit approach (hot buttons), Demotivators (cold-buttons), and gives examples via quotations, images, and multimedia (like Flash films, not included in the PDF). It covers the Spiral Dynamics levels of Purple, Red, Blue, Orange, and Green, with some look into Second Tier. It ends with a discussion about and examples of communications which appeal to multiple value systems at the same time.
How to Communicate Sustainability Initiatives - 5 Part Video Series
This series of clips was taken from an Integral Sustainability seminar and features Barrett Brown using terminology from Spiral Dynamics, one of many developmental models useful to understand people's value systems, to explain how to skillfully communicate the urgency of our ecological problems to people from all walks of life.
Part 1: Values Based Marketing - Spiral Dynamics is a map of human growth and development, based on the pioneering work of Clare Graves, and popularized by Don Beck and Chris Cowan. Although there are many valid maps of consciousness evolution, SD is one of the most often used, because of its simplicity, elegance, and intuitive ease of understanding. The model describes and makes sense of the enormous complexity of human existence, and then shows how to craft elegant, systemic problem-solutions that meet people and address situations where they are.
Part 2: Speaking to Purple and Red Levels - Here Barrett talks about how to best interact with the "Purple" and "Red" stages of development. Purple tends to be the home of egocentric drives, a magical worldview, and impulsiveness. It is expressed through magic/animism, kin-spirits, and such. Young children primarily operate with a Purple worldview. Purple in any line of development is fundamental, or "square one" for any and all new tasks. Purple emotions and cognition can be seen driving cultural phenomena such as Burning Man, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or superhero-themed comic books or movies. The Red stage of development is the marker of egocentric drives based on power, where "might makes right," aggression rules, and there is a limited capacity to take the role of an "other." Red impulses are classically seen in grade school and early high school, where bullying, teasing, and the like are the norm. Red motivations can be seen in Ultimate Fighting contests, which have no fixed rules (fixed rules come into being at the next Altitude, Blue), teenage rebellion and the movies that cater to it (The Fast and the Furious), gang dynamics (where the stronger rule the weaker). Learn how to spot this mind-set and effectively communicate with people at this level of development.
Part 3: Speaking to Blue, the Eco-Manager - Here Barrett talks about how to best interact with the "Blue" stage of development. The blue stage indicates a worldview that is mythic, and mythic worldviews are always held as absolute (this stage of development is often called absolutistic). Instead of "might makes right," blue ethics are more oriented to the group, but one that extends only to "my group." Grade school and high school kids usually exhibit blue motivations to fit in. Blue ethics help to control the impulsiveness and narcissism of red. Culturally, blue worldviews can be seen in fundamentalism (my God is right no matter what); extreme patriotism (my country is right no matter what); and ethnocentrism (my people are right no matter what). Listen in to learn how to communicate with a person at this level of development.
Part 4: Speaking to Orange, the Eco-Strategist - Here Barrett talks about how to best interact with the "Orange" stage of development. Within an Orange worldview, the individual begins to move away from the Blue conformity that reifies the views of one's religion, nation, or tribe. The Orange worldview often begins to emerge in late high school, college, or adulthood. Culturally, the Orange worldview realizes that "truth is not delivered; it is discovered," spurring the great advances of science and formal rationality. Orange ethics begin to embrace all people, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...." Ayn Rand's Objectivism, the US Bill of Rights, and many of the laws written to protect individual freedom all flow from an orange worldview.
Part 5: Speaking to Green, the Eco-Radical - Here Barrett talks about how to best interact with the "Green" stage of development. Green worldviews are marked by pluralism, or the ability to see that there are multiple ways of seeing reality. If orange sees universal truths ("All men are created equal"), green sees multiple universal truths—different ones for different cultures. Green ethics continue, and radically broaden, the movement to embrace all people. A green statement might read, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, regardless of race, gender, class...." Green ethics have given birth to the civil rights, feminist, and gay rights movements, as well as environmentalism.
The Integral Framework is a comprehensive map of systems, culture, psychology, and behavior. It is used worldwide in some of the highest levels of business, government, and civil society. Quadrants are one of the five major elements of the Integral Framework. Each quadrant is a lens, or perspective, on a different, but important, dimension of reality. By looking at a sustainability initiative through all of the quadrants, we are able to identify most, if not all, of the major forces which will influence the success or failure of that initiative. The quadrants can thus be used as a comprehensive map to help understand the terrain in which the initiative must succeed. This piece gives a general introduction to the quadrants, including examples of tools for transformation that are used to address dynamics in each quadrant, and a basic approach for using the quadrants to better understand any sustainability initiative. It ends with an example of use of the quadrants by a United Nations Development Programme training group in Swaziland to help address HIV/AIDS.
Communicating Sustainability: Types of Reasoning
An overview of the many different types of reasoning that can be used to build support for sustainability initiatives. The quadrants element of the Integral Framework is used to categorize the various rhetorical approaches.
The quadrants element of the Integral framework developed by Ken Wilber is introduced in the context of sustainability. The quadrants represent lenses with which to better understand any occurrence; they reveal dynamics and forces in the interiors and exteriors of individuals and collectives. Together, they offer a map of psychology, behavior, culture, and systems. After tracing the philosophical lineage of the quadrants, numerous practical examples of a quadrant analysis by sustainability practitioners are offered. The quadrants can be used in three key ways for sustainability: to organize sustainability information, to diagnose the challenges facing a sustainability initiative, and to prescribe an integrated solution that accounts for all the major dynamics at play. The results from recent research—a quadrant analysis—of eight popular sustainability books are shared, quantitatively showing which aspects of reality these books privilege, and discussing the reasons therein. The article ends with guidelines for doing a more complex quadrant analysis, including the introduction of a creative problem solving methodology called Q-DyTS.
Integrating the Major Research Methodologies Used in Sustainable Development
Eight major research methodologies for sustainable development are explained. An integration of the knowledge from each is claimed to provide the most comprehensive and inclusive understanding of sustainable development initiatives which is available to date. The eight major methodologies are: structuralism, phenomenology, empiricism, autopoiesis, ethnomethodology, hermeneutics, systems theory, and systems autopoiesis. The meta-methodology of using them all is called Integral Methodological Pluralism (IMP), and is part of Integral Theory, as developed by Ken Wilber. Seven other research methodologies are explained and contextualized within IMP. They are: quantitative and behavioral science research; ethnography; action research; evaluation research; comparative-historical inquiry; theoretical inquiry; and critical social science. The conclusion is that each of the eight methodologies of IMP provides unique, valid, and reliable data for sustainable development research and practice. To ignore any of them is to potentially risk overseeing forces or important dynamics that can support or thwart any sustainable development initiative. To include all of them is proposed as the next evolutionary step in sustainable development research and practice, one that is considered necessary if humanity is to achieve social, ecological, and economic sustainability worldwide.