4D Human Being Podcast
Are You Happening to the World or is the World Happening to You?
Welcome to the 4D Human Being Podcast, where we dive deep into the world of personal and professional development. Hosted by co-directors Penelope and Philippa Waller, this podcast offers a refreshing blend of insightful discussions, practical advice, and transformative strategies.
4D Human Being bring you the very best in communication skills, leadership development, emotional intelligence all within this very podcast, inspiring you to become a more empathetic, focused, and successful leader.
Whether you're looking to elevate your personal WellBeing, enhance your professional impact, or explore the profound joy of connecting with others, the 4D Human Being Podcast is your go-to source for fostering growth and navigating the complexities of the human experience.
Join us as we explore how to thrive in all four dimensions of life, and not just be a 3D human doing, but a 4D Human Being.
4D Human Being Podcast
Spiral Dynamics: Understanding Why People See the World Differently
Have you ever wondered why some people just don't seem to get it, no matter how clearly you explain? Or why your well-intentioned efforts to connect or lead sometimes fall flat? The answer might lie in a fascinating model called Spiral Dynamics.
In this eye-opening episode, Philippa and Penelope Waller introduce us to the powerful framework of Spiral Dynamics - a model that reveals how we all view the world through different "coloured lenses" without even realising it. These lenses represent our core values, which fundamentally shape how we interpret everything around us and drive our behaviours in ways we rarely recognise.
This episode navigates through the colour-coded value systems that humans move through both individually and collectively: from Beige (survival) to Purple (tribal belonging), Red (egocentric power), Blue (order and structure), Orange (achievement and strategy), Green (pluralism and relationships), and Yellow (systems thinking). With vivid examples and practical insights, demonstrating how these different value sets explain conflicts in relationships, workplaces, and even global politics.
What makes this model particularly powerful is its dynamic nature. Unlike fixed personality types, we spiral up and down through these value systems depending on context, life stage, and circumstances. Understanding this movement gives us a roadmap for personal growth and unlocks new possibilities for communicating across seemingly unbridgeable divides.
Whether you're struggling with a difficult relationship, leading a team through change, or simply curious about what makes humans tick, this episode offers illuminating insights that will transform how you see yourself and others.
Hello, my name is Philippa Waller, my name is Penelope Waller and we are two of the directors at 4D Human being. And welcome to the 4D Human being podcast. What's it all about, pen? It's all about your personal and professional relationships. It's about your communication skills, how you lead, how you work and build teams, how you are looking after yourself and your well-being, and how you are much more at choice. What do we mean by that? Well, sometimes we can get a little caught in patterns in life and we can all be a little bit on our automatic pilot. So 40 human being is all about helping us get back to choice and being a four-dimensional human being, and your fourth dimension, of course, is intention. So, whether it's about your impact, your leadership style, your team dynamics, whether it's about your well-being, whether it's about your communication or your presentation skills anything that involves human beings interacting with other human beings 40 Human being are here to help. We're going to take a deep dive and look at some tools, insights, theories that are going to help you go from a 3D human doing to a 4D human being, so that you can happen to the world rather than the world simply happening to you.
Speaker 1:No, she's stopped. I threw it all. I did it my way. I do not want that at my funeral. That is an indication of the household we were brought up in. I think that is the most popular. You know that's one of the most popular funeral songs. No, it's, it's, honestly it is. It is, it's like I did it my way and I suppose, if you can say that in one way, great. But you wonder what the knock-on effect on everyone else might have been if it was totally your work. That's very indicative because I mean, shouldn't a funeral be about the people at the funeral? It's an interesting one, isn't it? What Isn't it? People do a pre. Yeah, I'd rather do a pre. Yeah, do a pre, do a pre-party. Mind you, phil. I mean, even if we've got the chance to go to a party, we don't want to go to a your own, on your own, with a nice brew. Much better. Oh, that's hilarious.
Speaker 1:Saturday night, rocking and rolling, right. We have asked Isabel your birthday. It's the modern day problem, haven't we? Isabel's got these suction pads you put on the back of the phone. Have you seen them? Oh, yeah, yeah, they are super strong.
Speaker 1:And I said fill up and ease that because she's constantly being on the phone. Yeah, to try to film, that's right. Oh, that's good. Yeah, we need the young kids, don't we, with their groovy?
Speaker 1:It's quite cold, that's it. Well, I, out of a hot yoga class on a day when it's 30 degrees. I feel quite chilly now. So, not many people in hot yoga, that's what I'm saying. Oh, that's surprising.
Speaker 1:Hot yoga on a hot day in a hot room, and it was very humid, and if you have low blood pressure, you feel it. I have to say, though, do you? I'm not a big fan of aerobic exercise, as you know, full stop. It's quite satisfying to do a full sweat, I know, I quite like it. I felt like the weight was drifting off me, literally. Yes, and with hot yoga, the room's doing a lot of the work for you, is that true? Well, in terms of sweat, you wouldn't be sweating like that if you were in a cool room, no, actually. So I rather liked it. Yeah, so, if nothing else, it's like a sauna. It makes you feel like you've just run a marathon. Exactly, yeah, exactly, that's what I felt like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I said that to my dance teacher the other day. He said something like oh yeah, we were doing like the Viennese Waltz or something. And I said I said it's like running a marathon. He went it's a very short marathon. It's like three minutes. It's not even that. It's a minute like, not even a minute and a half. It's like it is a very short marathon. That's fair. Yeah, it's a very the steps more like a marathon. Yeah, well, either quick step at the end, you know, let's say you've done all the others, it's more the head spinning, isn't it in the viennese? It's inside. He was saying you know, if you walk onto the floor and they say quick step, tango, viennese waltz, you just go. Oh, exactly a short marathon, welcome. Oh, it's the weekend, it's sunny weekend, it's nearly our birthday, ph Philip, no numbers mentioned Going backwards in every way.
Speaker 1:I think that data is probably in the public realm. Yes, it must be, but no, I'm comfortable with it. It's all you know, it's all good. As Maggie Smith is told in Downton Abbey, which is like my Bible, as we know, we can only go forward. And she said yes, such is the pity. If only we could go backwards. But we want to know. We wouldn't want to know. Talking of going forwards, can we find a super segue? Come on. So we want to.
Speaker 1:We're going to do a mini series on a model that we absolutely love called Spiral Dynamics, and, in terms of moving forward, it is absolutely about the evolution and development and how we can Of humankind, of humankind, how we can move forward, that if we are operating from one sort of level, if you like, talk about spiral dynamics nothing is stuck, life changes, we change, things happen and we are constantly evolving. Yeah, so there's so many things I love about it, so we're gonna we're gonna do, uh, as felix said, a mini series. So on this episode, we will explain what the spiral dynamics model is and why it's so useful, and then in further episodes, or episode two, we're gonna do two, two, we're going to do two more. Yeah, we're going to talk about communication in the second one. So, from a leadership and team perspective, at work and at home, yes, indeed, how you communicate with people in different, at different value stages and I've written a book actually on those personal relationships to understand why I don, why I know you know your partner's side of the bedroom is completely messy and you just keep arguing about it, and we can help you with that and also, as a leader and teams, how you can communicate with each other. Why don't they understand it when I put it like this? This is going to explain it to you.
Speaker 1:And the third one is on culture. How do we spread that and share that culture and go in the right direction or a helpful direction? Yeah, there are so many things I love about this model. So for anybody out there who feels like they've ever said, why don't they just, why aren't they a bit more like, yeah, this is a really useful model to understand humankind. It's not, it's not judging, it's not saying one way of being is better than the other. But when we come into the world, you know we look like the rest of our species. So we think that they see the world, particularly you and I, yeah, and we think that they see the world as we do and, of course, of course, that's not the case. That's a really good model to understand that.
Speaker 1:The other thing I really love about this model, which we'll get on to, is the concept, as you've, as you said, of of change of movement, rather than I think lots of profilers tend to tell us you are that and we sort of either we have to accept it or we sort of use it as an excuse to accept. Accept it. Yes, well, I can't. I can't do it your way because I'm whatever you have, whatever profile name I've got. Um, so spider dynamics is not like that. It's a model of human development that really talks about shifts and changes and holds by dynamics for a very good reason.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll come on to that, but maybe we'll start with, for people who've never heard of spiral dynamics, maybe let's just say up front that there are lots of human developmental models out there. You may have heard of some of them. So there are some profilers used that have kind of a similar theory or some elements of the theory Disk insights, disk insights, exactly, myers-briggs has got some elements in there. So there's lots of different profilers we can use to better understand ourselves, our behaviours, our beliefs, the way we operate in the world. We think inspiring limits is the best one. So we'll talk a bit about the history of the model, what the model is, what it does and why it's useful.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, and maybe let's say you know sort of right up front if you are running any kind of business, if you're working with anybody or even in, yes, personal relationships, I mean, it's incredibly useful, isn't it? Well, it's interesting, isn't it? When you think about both personal development but team development and culture development, if you don't have a roadmap yeah, such as this, that's right. It's like the blind leading the blind, you know, you get your lovely sort of company values laminated and put on the wall yeah, and then nothing happens. Yeah, and it's confusing too, and also just that, just the stuckness of I think we can all relate to this. I mean, often, you know, when people come to us for coaching or particularly therapy, it's because we can no longer tolerate the repetition of the patterns. It's that something else makes sense but nothing else makes sense. So that you know, it's just so. It's so confusing that we're caught in these patterns of frustration or irritation or fitting our boundaries across. Often we're not understood or whatever it might be, and it just keeps cycling. Yeah, and this is just, this is such a great roadmap to free ourselves from it. And they go, ah, of course, they literally see the world through a different lens, they operate from a different operating system, exactly so.
Speaker 1:The main foundation of Spiral Dynamics is our values, which is really particular because it's sort of not a sort of personality type. I mean, it leads to our behavior and our choices, of course, but what I love about that is it's really about how we're operating from a very unconscious level, developmentally, and the values that are what's important to us, that we we won't expect. We don't wake up in the morning and think well, the most important thing to me is my own success, or the most important thing to me is other people's well-being. We're not conscious it's not always conscious, and you might even identify as a real people person, but you're driving, yeah, from I will succeed at all costs, whatever happens. And so we get these discrepancies between really what's driving us and who we think we are. And what I love about the spiral dynamics as well is that it's really good at allowing for the healthy or positive aspect of any value set. Yes, and the challenging part, even the value sets that a lot of us look at, when it's very much an eye position of me, me, me, me, I'm my way, or the highway, it's able to see what's useful and positive about that, so we can free ourselves from. I should be more. You know whatever, you know people green, exactly, exactly, exactly. So I like to think about it because it is interesting when you talk about values, but that can be quite intangible for us to understand what that means, and they're so many, yeah, and, and so I.
Speaker 1:Perhaps some of us find those questionnaires and those profilers that are very tangible, such as you are a creator or you are an implementer we are. I know that. That's what I do, and spirodynamics is a bit more nuanced than that. It does go into that level of detail, because it will then talk about the behaviours and the attitudes that you are likely to have as a result of your beliefs or your values, but it's at a much deeper level. Let me jump on that. That is such a good example.
Speaker 1:So, if you have a profiler that tells you you're a connector and I love, by the way, I love some of these profiles and I think they're often really spot on or, you know, you're a sort of you're an innovator, or you're somebody who is yeah, it's like the doer, the implementer, the finisher, the person that gets it done. These are all really useful to know because, in terms of tasks like when you and I worked together yesterday on a project, you love to improve, yes. Tasks like when you and I worked together yesterday on a project, you love to improve, yes, whereas I'm very happy with the crazy blank page and just let's yeah, just throw everything down. But what's interesting about the Spiral Dynamics is then how, yeah, so if you've got two people who are, let's say, profiled as the, the creators in a, in a team, or or the implementers, let's say, spiral Dynamics is going to tell you what it's actually like to work with them, because one creator, yeah, not the same as another, not the same as another creator.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm super creative and I have a single tunnel vision and I hate people and I hate other people's ideas. I'm a creator. I love nothing more than hearing other people's ideas. You know they're so different so you don't really exactly as you say you get. You can get a sense of tasks and skills and ways of doing things. You find exactly approaches that you find easy. Yes, that's the surface level.
Speaker 1:So so, really, the way to think about this you'll understand when we explain the model to you the way to think about this is that, unless you've had your profile at your spiralarrow's profile done, all of us are walking around with, like, a piece of coloured glass in front of our eyes that we are completely oblivious to. We do not know that we've got this colour lens and we don't know what that colour is. And everybody else that we're talking to will have different colour lenses, potentially, which will completely influence, literally, how they see the world. Yeah, they believe about the world, what they value and how they will respond and behave. We are unaware of it, yes, and we take other people's behaviors and beliefs and values as if they had our color and then have confused why they behave.
Speaker 1:And this is why we can find relationships so challenging. It's why, um, you know team dynamics can be challenging. It's why moving can find relationships so challenging. It's why you know team dynamics can be challenging. It's why moving people motivated and up and forward can be really challenging. Implementing culture change in organisations can be challenging because we are looking at things from our own value lens but we don't realise we're doing it Exactly.
Speaker 1:And actually why moments can be challenging? Because, just to be clear, while we're looking through a lens, a little bit like the sort of old 1970s sort of projectors yeah, we can slot another slide in at a different moment. Yeah, so so you know lots about that growing up in an amdrag, exactly, exactly, exactly. Or a filter on an old light in a theater, so you might be operating from one color, one level, but then something else in the environment happens or somebody else shifts where they are and you might shift. But well, let's, let's, let's come to that. So the model is based on integral theory, which we'll talk about in a moment. But I think it's interesting to talk about how this model arose, because it's quite an interesting story.
Speaker 1:So dr claire graves was doing some research many years ago you can sort of 70 years ago. Yes, probably, yeah, of course, it probably was now crikey. That's terrifying, isn't it? And it was nothing to do with any of this. He was just doing some, doing some research, and he was sending out hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of questionnaires to a very broad spectrum. I think it's maybe started with students, but I think it broadened out and got all the answers back.
Speaker 1:Now, what I love about this is it's a really good example of what we've just spoken about. But on the surface level, this was about one thing, and it's a bit like when we play games in the room there's the game itself, but then there's the underlying mechanism that you go. What that reveals and it's exactly what happened for Claire Graves is when he got all these answers back and he was trying to find a way to categorize them, and what he started to find was that he could categorize the responses into these very clear sets of where people were answering from what were clear sort of definitions of the type of things that were important to the respondents. And he ended up with these very clear what he ended up calling value systems. So within them were a set of values that all sort of shared that system. So if we think about, for example, we'll get there. But if we think about a green value system that will share values like kindness, thoughtfulness, other people focus, pluralism, pluralism, relationships, listening to others, faith. So there's lots of values in there, but they sit within what he would call the green value system. And he just became really, really clear, and I think to the point where he was sort of trying to test it, because it almost didn't seem yeah, it sort of seemed weird that he could categorize so cleanly, and that's where sparred. Then he started to research these value sets themselves and, of course, once you see it, once you see the colors or the value systems that people are operating from, you do see, you can't, I see it, you see the world in color, and we'll give an example of sort of situations where the different responses will tell you exactly where people are coming from. So what he found was and this then evolved into work with Don Beck, who I trained with, and Ken Wilber, who wrote the book with Frederick Lallou, reinventing Organisations, and that's also that's about Spiral Dynamics, for those of you who've read that and ken wilber's got taken a sort of more a different route. So I think don beck has developed spiral dynamics. Yes, ken will, he still uses spiral dynamics, but it's part of a bigger, part of a bigger. All of this sits on top of integral theory, which is a theory that we use in terms of how human beings in the world and societies develop and evolve. Yeah, that it's a whole system. We're in systems, we're responding to systems.
Speaker 1:If you get put in I don't know, you get put in a you know nice restaurant with your friends in London and it's you know, everyone's dressed smartly and having a lovely time. You're going to operate from, you're going to behave in a certain way. You've suddenly, you know, there's a hurricane and your house is destroyed and suddenly there's no water and there's very there's little food in your area and trucks are finding it difficult to get through because of the roads that are blocked. You're going to be operating from a different value set. Now you're still you, but your values have changed. It's no longer about is your shirt ironed enough and are you having the oysters or the? You know linguine. It's about I've got to feed my family.
Speaker 1:So that's why it's called Spiral Dynamics, because it's a dynamic model where we can shift up and down the spiral. And what I love about that is that we are not fixed. We talk about so much at 4D that, yes, I know we love to talk about personality and identity. It's interesting, but it's not really a thing that's as fixed as we think it is. We're shifting Exactly, and it's what we're shifting in relationship To others and the systems Exactly, and it's what you and I, the example, we give a lot when we talk about the fourth dimension in 4D, which is intentionality.
Speaker 1:We use the story a lot about. You're in a burning building and you don't know what to do and you don't know the exit and you're on your own and you're panicked and then suddenly you open a door and there's a group of 10 children and there's no other adult and they're terrified that you change based on what's just been presented to you and you're, if you like, yes, your behavior might, might change, but it's because what's important has changed, what you value has changed and who you need to be in that moment. What has around just changed. So what was it and what we? We had a really good conversation about this this morning and it's like a different context.
Speaker 1:What's interesting about this, and what I get we'll probably get this in a later episode is that when we say we've got no choice, it's often because we have Maggie Smith, downton Abbey, painted ourselves into she's the guru, painted ourselves into a corner in terms of the system that we're in, relationally, economically, the work system. It has become such a strong force in our lives that it is it is operating, our value set and where we're coming from very, very hard to shift or believe that we can believe that we can, because the cyst is exactly as you said, so a real. So a good example of this would be uh, let's imagine that you have a very good job and you earn a lot of money and you live in a beautiful apartment and all of your friends similarly work in fabulous companies and earned a lot of money, and you spend all your time with them. There's a certain sort of status in terms of your level of job and you have a car and all these, all of these things, and you're valued, and you're valued for that and your friends. You'll go out together, you go on holiday together, so you are in this system that values those things and it will.
Speaker 1:It could feel very hard for you to make a shift in terms of those values for many, many reasons, in terms of the perceived respect you think you have in terms of the belonging to that set of people. So many aspects of your life will have been built up around that. And you can think of many different examples where you have been sort of co-created with the world around you and then suddenly it feels very difficult to change. It's not that we can't, it's just because the world is happening and, of course, this is also when curveballs come in crisis and they change our value systems overnight exactly. And I think it's really useful to understand these value systems. Going back to what you said about intention, because once we understand it it's not that it's, it's suddenly overnight easier to make those changes. But we understand we're sitting underneath the beliefs that we have or the stuckness that we have. Well, also from a sort of self-annihilation point of view, that there are other places, you know whereas when we're in our own value system, if we're not this and we don't carry on doing this, there's nothing else. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about the model. Let's talk about the model. So the model is in two tiers, so let's start with with tier one. So the first set of value sets that we're gonna, we're gonna give you is probably where most of the population currently sits in terms of their value sets, because you can also think about how we evolve over time, and we are a relatively young species actually, so we haven't sort of evolved into the cosmic beings that we may become.
Speaker 1:So the way that Claire Graves categorised what he noticed about value sets in the research that he was doing was into colours, and I guess you could have chosen anything but colours is yes, and then, in fact, I think in fact there was initially a letter coding, sort of a, n and that or whatever it was. Um, he may say it was exactly. Yeah, too confused, yeah. So the way, the way these colour sets work. So they will start with an eye position and then they'll go into a wee position and an eye position and a wee position, and what we mean by that is we are looking at the world really from our own self-interest and what I need in some of the value sets, and in others we are looking at the world in a much more collective way. What we collectively need, whatever that we is, it's not that one is good, one is bad, it's just the way that he saw these answers come through. In the research he could see that some people were taking a very individualistic attitude in terms of their values and others were taking a much more collective attitude.
Speaker 1:Then the second thing to say is in terms of the colours that we move through. So in this first group of value sets, the colours are as follows and I pass to phil of her to explain unless and let's mention beige. Just yeah, totally so. The first one is beige and we'll call that survival. The second one, and that's an eye value set in beige. The second one is a purple value set and I kind of call this tribal, but there's lots of different ways. Tribal gang, good call it is collective. It's the first collective value set.
Speaker 1:Then we go into red, which is definitely an eye position, and this is a kind of an egocentric position. It's very much about self-interest what, what, what I need, what I can do, that's definitely frank's and archer, my I did it my way, yeah, which has some really positive attributes in it. I mean, we'll talk about this some later episodes, but if you don't have any red in your team, it can be very problematic. Yeah, so that's red. Then the next value set is blue, and that is a collective value set and that I would probably say is about order rules and which we like Lots of my structure in there.
Speaker 1:Then we move on to the orange value set. This is also an I position, so we're going between the I and the we. So the orange value set is really about modernity, competition, wealth, innovation. It's a really ambitious strategy. Success, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then, after orange, we go into another collective value set, which is the green value set. This is pluralism, this is people are important, this is the environment is important, caring, sharing and inclusion. And that completes the first set of colours, which I think we'll explain those before we move on to the second set. What do you think? Yeah, I think let's just mention that we cause a big leap from green into what we call then yellow, which is a systems perspective. Some people just use teal, just use teal, but in our version of Spirogynex that we use, it's yellow, which is an eye position of overseeing the system. Very important. That will be for leadership and big change and big change Exactly. And then it goes to turquoise, which is a very much a balance of the system. It's an allowing the system too much to do its thing. Yeah, so we'll get to those later on because they become very important when we're talk about the pluses and minuses and pros and cons and also how you can see these across, individual right up to groups, organizations, countries and the world. You see these running through everything.
Speaker 1:So beige is absolutely survival. It's interesting when I first learned, when I first studied spirodynamics, we sort of talked about well, you know, you don't see a lot of it, but of course you do see quite a lot of it, partly because there are still places in the world where survival is still key. You know where's the next meal coming from? Is there any clean water? That is. Unfortunately, plenty of people still living in beige and we also, as we said, we might then drop to beige. If you know, hurricane, katrina or whatever it is, you're all put into a sports stadium. Is there enough food? You know we will survive. It's a survival. We'll go, we'll go down, which is I? It's the eye position is. You know, it's the first thing we learn as human beings. Yeah, very tiny. Yeah, we will cry because we are hungry or we're cold, yeah, or hot. Exactly, so we'll, exactly. We'll also map this, exactly that, onto the, onto the individual human evolution. So it's exactly right. It maps right from one baby growing up to the evolution of a huge organisation or a country. So it's actually baby.
Speaker 1:We probably don't see a lot of beige in organisations, but, like you said, no, definitely not in organisations. There is quite a lot of it in the world. It's important, we all have it. None of us lose that beige. This is very much a transcendent include model. So it's very important to say all of these colours we retain.
Speaker 1:So, even though you may well be fortunate enough not to be in the beige value set now, because you have a roof over your head and some food in the fridge, as a baby you will have experienced the beige value set, because all you'll know is survival. Yes, and and, like we said, if you know, if everything collapsed, your values are at the you're not going to be thinking about oh you know, can I get a prada handbag, or? Or even necessarily not for everybody but for some people won't be thinking how can we as a as a whole collective or country sort this out? You might go into beige, which I'm going to get that last potato for me and mine, or just for me, so your whole focus there isn't. It's not like, well, it's lunchtime, I'll think about food we're really talking about. You're living from a value set. That is all about that. Can I get heat? Am I clothed enough? Can I get food? Okay, so from and yeah, I think I've said enough.
Speaker 1:Actually, something that came up for me as I was thinking about that was survivalists, which is a really interesting one that you could be living from, even, maybe purple, maybe even into blue, maybe into orange, even where we'll get to, where you might be living a fairly sort of successful life. But a part of you has got a bunker and you know guns in some countries and is getting ready for beige or quite enjoys going out into yeah, or quite enjoys it road areas and trying to survive. You know, it's really interesting when you say that, because there's a simplicity and a you know the satisfaction of that's all I've got to say. We've managed to eat, we've eaten for the day, now we can sleep has a very different level of complexity to my mortgage, my second home, the business I'm running, the relationships I have, the car Like it's a lot, so there's a simplicity to it. So that's beige.
Speaker 1:When we come out of beige, so we've got all the food that we need, warm enough, we move into purple, which is the tribe, as penelope said, and this is how are we all like? What's the? It's a quite an emotional space. Purple it's in organizations. Of course it's right now. We've got, you know, the furniture's in the building. We've got a few clients. We're sort of past survival. If we wanted to use beige in terms of an organisation, right Team. Yes, it's us. It's us now. Let's take care of each other.
Speaker 1:And the key thing about purple is it is us. You could put like a fence around the people who are in. It's an emotional bond. It's you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. It's very tribal. It's a gang, it's a family, it's a team. It's very, very important to you. It's more important for you to belong to the tribe than even your own success or even your own integrity that you will sacrifice. So, if you think about inner city gangs, for example, you will probably disconnect from your own family or friendships or a wider community to stay loyal to that gang.
Speaker 1:Some examples in corporate might be and we do see purple in corporate. Some examples might be let's imagine that there is a startup company and it's quite an exciting venture and you are in on the ground floor, like you are part of the 10 people that are sort of starting this company. You are going to feel very, very connected to those 10 people. It's going to be very important to you that you stay in, that you're probably going to be working very long hours. It will all be about, yeah, the collective and staying together. And we see this.
Speaker 1:We see it, you know, in life more generally, exactly as philip has said, gangs very important, sometimes a little bit in terms of religion or rituals. Yeah, it can be things that, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. If you think about converting to a relic belief, yeah, yeah. If you think about converting to a relic belief, yeah, yeah. If you think about converting to a religion that you, you can only be a part of those rituals if you have gone through a, you know, a certain process to become part of that group. That would be very purple and and being excluded from that would be very challenging. So exactly so if we think about tribal behaviors whether I'm sure this still happens in different ways now, but of course you know, historically the biggest punishment would have been to be thrown out of your tribe, to be banished from your community, to be banished from your village.
Speaker 1:We see this in mergers and acquisitions. This comes up a lot as we have conversations with people. You've got two companies coming together. Yes, there's the big company coming together, but what you're actually dealing with is team integration. So now your team has got another team coming in. You've got your way of doing things and you've got all your relationships and now somebody has literally forced another tribe into your village.
Speaker 1:You can feel like you know I'm a real people person, I'm good at sort of team dynamics and supporting people, and then it's actually as you said, you know a merger might happen and you're really what you'll really be focused on is your people. It's not people generally, it's your people, and that will tell you that you're in the purple value set. And this is the traffic light nature of spirodynamics. This is the movement that you know you might give to a global charity. You might really think about the world and other people. But at an emotional level, when suddenly your life has been turned upside down, different value sets will come up, and particularly around change and safety. So it's much easier to be in a much more pluralistic, generous, giving and caring value set. When you've got it's like mazzo's hierarchy needs when you're safe, when you've got everything you need, so we'll move up and down.
Speaker 1:So that's the purple value set. So really interesting to note. It'd be quite traditional as well. Yes can be, yes, well, yes, yes, absolutely, and, as I say, emotionally driven. You'll be more loyal to your team, even if the either project or idea that they're working on isn't as good as perhaps someone else in the organization has got. Because they're not, they're not in your team. And for leaders this is particularly important because you start to get sort of protectionism where you're taking care of your team to the detriment not only of other teams but of the wider organizational goal, yeah, and even possibly to the detriment of yourself and the detriment of yourself exactly, if perhaps you could do better going out on your own on a project.
Speaker 1:If you're in the purple value set, you will not want to leave your tribe. You'll stay there. So watch out for dynamics like becoming mummy or daddy. Yeah, in the tribe, yeah, so that's a wee value set. So then we move into yes, move into red. So a nice segue here.
Speaker 1:Actually, another purple is like a boy or girl band, so spice girls or um, who was robbie williams in? Take that, I can't. I've seen, I've even seen in the closet. So take that. So you've got your little tribe in a pop group. Very emotional. They're together all the time. Of course, theater, theater troops when I used to be in theater, you'd be together for like six months. It was just, it was so intense. It was amazing and devastating when it ended because you were suddenly not together.
Speaker 1:So, okay, so boy bands now out of purple, somebody in the tribe so say it's you, this has been fine, or you're in a family and you're and you're, you're growing up, you're reaching age where you know mummy and daddy are just the universe, or your parents or daddy and daddy or mummy, and you realize, yeah, you realize, hang on, I've got my own feelings here. And this is quite young. This is the, this is the, this is the toddler of the teen and the red emerges. I want it my way. I don't want that food that you're eating. I want what I want. This is also in in the creative space, in something like you know take that in a pop band is we've been doing, we're very successful, this is all working well, but I want to do it. No one's listening to me. I've got other things to say and boom, I was.
Speaker 1:I always think of red as like exploding out of purple, of going. I can't, it can't hold me anymore. I've got my. I'm an individual, I'm an individual and of course, in tribes, later on, you've got the sort of you've got the, the very early um red, which is when we're toddlers. But of course you see it again in teenagers. It re-emerges the red and that's when they send young men, particularly out into the wilderness to sort of you know, become a man and find their own feet, and that's red, it's you, you're on your own.
Speaker 1:Go, do it. Yeah, and it can be really useful in terms of feeling motivated. You know, action, doing things, yes, the warrior, really energizing, engaging, yeah, it's like come on, you know I'm doing this. Yeah, I'm going, I'm making this happen and with me. Yeah, and you can come with me. If you don't want to do it my way, forget it Like you're off, but it can be a very exciting ride. I mean, if you're dating somebody in red, you know it's ultimately he or she will sweep in. Yeah, I've got to say I've booked a helicopter to take you there in Scotland. Yeah, we're going. Yeah, just go. Wow, pack a bag, we're going. And it's all sort of you're sort of jumping on this roller coaster and you probably don't have much say in it, but it could. It feels exciting but it can be very exciting.
Speaker 1:But you can hear how our energy we often give the example in leadership of. I mean, obviously in some organizations definitely there is red. So an example might be in the military, somebody who you know, maybe the maverick, who wants to do things his or her way that drives everyone insane who's just going to go and do it Exactly and that ends up with the you know, the VC or something. Because when everyone else has said we're going to retreat, they've gone. I'm going, you know, I'm going in or I'm going to go and I'm saving all those individuals that everyone else has got is hopeless. We'll never save them. We'll all die doing it. And the one you know, the Rambo figure, goes I know we could, I know I can do it.
Speaker 1:I'm obsessed at the moment with watching House, dr House reruns. I absolutely love Hugh Laurie in it and of course, he's got quite a lot of ready in him. Where his government. It's not about relationships, absolutely not about relations. It's not about rules. He, he is about him being the absolute best diagnostic doctor and solving the problem. And who do you want to show? He will do anything. Yeah, he will leave a trail of destruction if he has to in order to get where he wants to get to. Yeah, yeah, and I think the trail of destruction is going to come in later on when we get to orange. Because that's the difference.
Speaker 1:Red is not strategic, it's very tactical. So if you think about leadership, red ceos brought in for turnaround because they just drive hard and they take no prisoners, and you will fall by the wayside if you don't, if you don't follow. We have world leaders now, of course, very much in red. They are taking individual decisions. It's my way, this is what I'm going to do, and if you're not loyal, forget it, get out. So they both, all of these value sets have got their healthy sides and their unhealthy sides. Yes, because of course there's also, like Punelebi said, there's also action. We're going, things are happening around here. Well, that's what I said.
Speaker 1:I mean, sometimes, if we work with teams and there's not great decision making or not quick decision making, that can often be because there is a lack of red. So, you know, we sometimes we do need it to drive through, yeah, and we certainly need it in tough times. You know, we always talk about, you know, the red is the thread that runs through everything, if you like, because red is the energy that gets you up and says I'm doing this. So it can be a wonderful breakthrough. And sometimes you do often see it in entrepreneurs yeah, definitely see it in entrepreneurs and it can be very, very hard. We're going to explain as we move to the next set. You'll see why it's hard for entrepreneurs to get past a certain level of growth in organisations.
Speaker 1:Because out of red, you've been the rebel, you've done it your way. Of course you can't Sung a bit of Frank Sinatra. Sung a bit of Frank Sinatra. Of course you cannot scale at red, certainly not very far. We do have examples of organisations that are red, but they've got enough of this next value set blue, enough structure to manage it. They might be being led by red red, but you can't really scale simply from red you, because you're on your own, you're just doing it your way. You've, unless you can get, you know, a million mini use in. So out of red rebel, rebel doing it my way.
Speaker 1:If we think about our development as children, we have to learn the rules. We have to learn to be socialized into the world, how this works, hey, what's not, and to have some sort of handholds to to live by and to keep us safe. You know, you don't just run across the road, you have a bedtime, yeah. Yeah, there's school work to do and all of these things are about sort of societal structure. It's a we position. If we all do this, we're all better off, very utilitarian. So it's not about the individual. Well, you know, if someone is someone says, well, actually I'm worse off going to school, it doesn't matter. Most people, the the mode, the majority, are going to be better. He follow these rules, will will generally be better off because it doesn't have as much focus on the individual. It doesn't matter whether you like that history class or not, or whether that teacher teaches. Well, for you, this is the class and that's where you're going. So we learn the rules, we learn how to sort of sit still in class and do what we're told and do our homework.
Speaker 1:And, of course, the education system, the health system, bureaucracy, government, the law, blue, blue, blue. Blue blue Blue is certificates, rules, um, nice processes, processes, filling forms, yeah, accountancy. So if you think about an organization, part of the reason it can't scale um at red is because you've got no scaffolding. Yeah, there's no processes, no structure, no um accounts. It's just you doing what you want to do and with. Eventually, the tax person will knock on your door and say you need to pay some tax and it'll be chaos and there'll be chaos in HR. Yeah, well, there won't even be HR. Hr won't exist from red. So, exactly, there's another really nice blue.
Speaker 1:So for anybody out there that gets frustrated with processes and form filling and the bureaucracy of organisations, just know, I mean, yes, it could not be functioning perfectly, but without it it's very, very challenging to get successful organisations. Yeah. So healthy side of blue keep you structured, keep you safe. It's lighter, you know where you are, you'll have a process also a collective process. So we can all agree on this process, that you, as the boss, and your team member can agree on this process, that you're, you as the boss and and your team member have can agree on this process. Otherwise we, you know, you'll have a team member going. I don't really know what's expected of me. How is this working? Why don't I get any feedback? Like it's just cat, it's just, it's like walking into a void.
Speaker 1:So that, similarly in society, you know what. Imagine if we weren't all driving on the same side of the road. Yeah, and you know exactly and you know you, that did happen in Sweden. You know they changed it over. Yeah, they changed it overnight. Yeah, they did. Yeah, kind of chaotic, I bet it wasn't with the Swedes, I think it was a little bit.
Speaker 1:If you know you're walking down the street, you know you know where you can go, you can press the button to cross the road or all these things. There are rules of the road but equally, there are rules in society where you know that you are free to walk down the street and that certain things can't happen to you in terms of the authority. So it's a two ways street if you like to continue the analogy where we have some certainty over the do's and don'ts of life. So it gives us safety and clarity. Exactly, if we think about a sign on a boundary saying danger, do not enter, we think about a, you know, a sign on a boundary saying danger, do not enter. That is both them protecting their side of the fence and their property. But it's also that, us being protected by that rule, that we're safe. So you, you know, if you pick up a bottle of cream in a chemist or a tin of food in a supermarket, it's not going to be poisoned. Yes, you hope, you hope, yes, because the, the blue is there and that's the.
Speaker 1:We don't see a lot of the blue and I don't know if we appreciate the blue enough. It's, there's so much of it behind the scenes, absolutely. Just take the growth 100 and so. So blue's got lots of good stuff, lots of uh. You know all that regulation that keeps you safe when you open a can of beans and it can get dot, it can get bogged down, it can get heavy, and this is get heavy, and this is the tough side. It doesn't want to change. You can't do that, yes, you can't do that Not allowed. If any of you have ever been in airports abroad where there seems to be sort of 20 irrelevant processes to check your bags and put another tag on your ticket, can I just take you aside here? We need to check this. And you're like you've checked my bag six or seven times. That is, that's a culture, and you'll know these countries or these organisations that have gone so far into blue that they've lost the meaning of why they're doing it. It's just process.
Speaker 1:I had this the other day. So I was with my daughter in a clothes shop and there was a long, snaking queue to get into the changing rooms, which she did. She got in there and she was in the last cubicle. So at the exit of the changing rooms I could stand there and literally see her. I could, I could practically touch her, and she came out and showed something and she said no, it's the wrong size, could you get me other size? I went and got it, went back to where I was, I could literally touch her and the guy said to me no, no, if you want to bring a new vitamin, you have to go into the queue. But she's literally there. I can literally just pass it over. I said no, you have to go back in the queue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is, that's, that's when, that's when we get, that's when my red comes up and I go, I am going to hurl this over your head and we will come to that. We'll come to the response it's blue for the sake of blue, exactly so. So in organizations, you know, when you just want to get something done quickly, but your kind of blue processes, whether that's, you know, it could be any department within an organization, or it could be someone in your own team says, oh no, we can't do that because we've got to do this first, or these are the forms we've got to fill out. And you're like ah, so you know, red will ask forgiveness, not permission. Blue will go permission, permission, permission, permission, permission. So that's the frustration with it. So it's all about balance, because everything has its difficult and, um, healthy and unhealthy side.
Speaker 1:So from blue, we've learned the rules. You've been to school, we've done very well, and now we're going. I know how to bend these rules. I'm gonna get, I'm gonna. So this is an eye position orange, and this is absolutely the sort of capitalism Orange is peak capitalism we want to. Yes, all right, as we said, we've got the regulation, but actually we want to. I want to be the one with the pearl handbag. Yeah, I want to be the one. I want to be successful. I want to be at the top of the pile. I want to make as much money.
Speaker 1:It goes for a win-win orange. It will negotiate, it wants to take people. It'll be quite strategic with them. It'll be strategic, but it's quite networked with people. You're very networked and if you but orange will, will tire of people who drag them back. But it is unlike red, it is looking for a win-win.
Speaker 1:So all of our sort of you know, wealth, I suppose in the western world well, and everywhere else now, is due to orange. It's absolutely about scale. It's using blue to build on. It's commercialism, it's capitalism. It's forward looking in terms of innovation. So I think about tech or medicine. You know innovation in terms of cars, anything that is pushing us forward. So orange has got a real drive to push forward, modernise, learn, innovate, create. So if you think about the Enlightenment era, so coming out of blue, coming out of a very sort of blue, would also be those very organised religions in society as well, where everything is sort of. You know, if I think about Britain, that the blue structure of the monarchies and the church, and then out of that and the universities, out of that came industry, enlightenment, innovation, science, new ways of thinking, arts, out, darwin, of course, all of this, all these new ways of thinking, the East India company, something we're trading, we can scale, we can grow, all of that is orange, orange, orange.
Speaker 1:And exactly as you say on a personal level, it's it's the bmw, it's the prada handbag, it's the fabulous, you know restaurants, it's being seen in the right place at the right time, it's feeling successful and social media is tapping orange, orange, orange, orange. Be this, be the best, be amazing. So the great side of it is, of course, all of that growth and wealth that has also sustained a lot of countries' welfare systems and it can give a lot. It's a standard of living globally. Standard of living globally. This is all the positive stuff.
Speaker 1:Eliminating disease, exactly Eliminating disease. If you think about all the innovations that it brings and any number of things, eliminated disease. Or if you think about all the innovations that it brings and any number of things, the downside, of course, is orange will just just eat itself up to get what it wants. So, if we think about um pollution, the environment, pollution, the environment, the globe, if you think about the 2008 financial crash, if you decrease blue, so orange will go crazy, orange will go crazy. So so, again, it's all about balancing the system, because if there's no blue, orange will just go nuts, it will just eat the planet. All the cars would have to be the worst. Yeah, exactly, no regulation, so it'll be cheap, it'll be cheaper and make more money. So, so blue is important to sit underneath the orange. Yeah, so you take blue away, you get 2008.
Speaker 1:The other thing about orange, of course, aside from the sort of the impact on the environment and there can be a lot of greed is it will lead to huge inequality if there is not enough blue and we'll talk about that in a moment and that is what we are seeing in the world, and that is the, that's the breakthrough from green. So, bill Gates, very good example. Warren Buffett, equally Peak orange. Bill Gates, very good example. Warren Buffett, equally Peak Orange, huge. Well, actually, you could go back a step. Yeah, red entrepreneur, blue, yeah, exactly, you can follow them through the colours.
Speaker 1:Then Peak Orange, peak Orange, just gazillions and billions and billions of dollars, and doing business in a way that made sure they had a competitive advantage, yeah, even monopolies. I mean scaling at such a level and just infiltrating, changing the world, infiltrating like Appleton, infiltrating changing how we consume. You know that era where it wasn't really about what we needed, it was about it was just about consuming, just consuming for consuming sake. But, of course, a number of the, a number of people like Bill Gates, warren Buffett. There's no more yachts they can sit on. There's no more growth. At some point, there's no value there anymore. Not, there's no value, but it's not. They've exhausted that level of the amazing. They've experienced the full value. Yeah, the full orange, exactly.
Speaker 1:Your house is basically completely designed to switch on and everything on and off at your every breath and whim, like you've got the technology that is around you to give you the sort of most amazing experience of life. And you're still you and here you are. You might stay there, yeah, you might still enjoy it, but then from there and of course, this is what Orange really can do in the wider system is people who criticise Orange. Actually, what we're missing is orange. Is what's allowed bill gates to try to eliminate malaria in africa, if we use orange to then push into green.
Speaker 1:So, again, if we think about our evolution, we've got everything that we want. We're very successful and some things missing. But something's missing. No, not not everyone. There's plenty of people who are, who are still at orange. There's not. This isn't, this isn't a given that we all move through, but that a lot. But then some people will go. Something's still wanting, something's wanting. There's that. You, literally, you can feel it like an evolutionary pool, yeah, and it will be about giving back. And we, we talk a lot about this in um.
Speaker 1:I think there's a book by richard rower somebody mentioned to me the other day which is very similar to david brooks's book the second mountain, that later stage of life. You've climbed the first mountain. All the achievement, all the success, you've got everything you want. And we go through this strange period of time where we sort of we dip down the mountain. We get we, what am I doing? Purpose seems to be weirdly off kilter. We don't really know why, but we're suddenly feeling dissatisfied or unhappy. And these writers talk about the second mountain. And that's green. That's about giving back. It's about purpose in a different way. It's about now using People, relationships, quality, yeah, using what you've got to then share and give Very much a we position Pl, using what you've got to then share and give Very much a we position Pluralism.
Speaker 1:These will be the people in your organisation that, in a meeting, when there are tough decisions to be made, they will be thinking about how are people feeling? Is this fair? Are we listening to everybody? Are all voices heard here? All of that, and of course, we need green. We certainly need green to push through, ultimately to the big leap into systems thinking, into yellow, into second tier. We need to take everybody with us. We coach so many people who are hugely successful and they've hit, they've reached that orange. They're incredibly valued in the company because they hit their targets, they deliver, they get their results every single time, but they are not taking people with them and they haven't got the follow ship. And is green? Are we listening to everybody? Am I checking how people are feeling? Is everyone okay? The people are not machines to deliver, but they are human beings who have got an array of experience or you know things that are going on for them and, and ultimately, relationships.
Speaker 1:Followship is a hugely important part of our lives and our professional lives, and also societally. We, you know, we we may start moving into the value set where we look around us and we think, if I have the most amazing big house but I can see poverty out of the street, you know we can no longer sit. That's right. And so we move into that green value set on the flip side. Well, let me just want to finish that because, because, absolutely, that it's also the realization that for all of our fight or hard work to maybe get into orange and be successful and I think this is absolutely one of the one of the stages that we're at at the moment that if I stop peddling this hard, if I stop making myself ill maybe to stay in orange, I cannot trust that society will hold me, because if there isn't enough green and so it has a personal impact as well, because we are now being shaped by an orange society because if we don't trust that there's enough green, then it's not going to be safe for us to stop peddling and earning and earning, and earning and earning. So from that perspective, we realize they stuck, we'll stay stuck. But also, the realization is the system doesn't become more green until we do, until I become more green. But the other thing I would say about it as well is that, like we said at the beginning of this episode, if you imagine, you've got that piece of coloured glass in front of your eyes, so let's imagine that piece of coloured glass at the moment for you is orange or in the orange value set.
Speaker 1:It can be very difficult for us to see the benefits of moving into the green value set because so far in life you know we've we've done quite well and we've got a good job and we're earning money, and orange is how both we're operating, but it's also what we value. Why do I then want to spend some of my time in the week checking in how people are focusing on relationships, when I haven't had to in the past and I don't really see a value in it? So it can be quite difficult for us to see the value sometimes of expansion, and part of the reason is because you get home from another evening of oysters and champagne and you don't feel any better. Exactly. So sometimes we and that's what's going to drive us the flip side of green. I mean, what's so interesting about green and I've got quite a lot of green in my profile is it? It sounds absolutely idyllic like we care about society, we care about other people, equality, sharing, pluralism, relationships, inclusion, all of these wonderful things, and and it it is. It has wonderful, wonderful intention and lots of fantastic behaviors, um, in terms of how people operate together, but boy can it drive you nuts.
Speaker 1:There are a couple of really, really big downsides to green, and one of them is decision making. So, if all voices have to be heard, if nobody All the time, all the time and nobody can be wrong, can be challenging for teams and organisations to make decisions. That's the first one. So, if you see decision-making slowing down, it's possible. Yes, we'll have to have another meeting. You're over-indexed. Bob's not here. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So that's one thing to really watch out for Can be indecisive. The other oh, you're slow, I feel impatient. I know, phil, your red would just go. We're cutting through. Yeah, cutting through. Exactly, my red bulldozer is driving through. We're moving, we're moving.
Speaker 1:The other thing about green, and this is what we call the paradox of green, is that green wants to be caring, sharing, inclusive of everybody, everybody's equal, all those wonderful, wonderful attributes and qualities. The paradox is is that greens want everyone else to be green. Green's not too happy with people who aren't green, yeah. So so you're nice. If you're green like me, yeah. But if you're a bit of a sort of want your own way red, then yes. If you choose a prada handbag over the charity, if I like you and want you in my tea, yeah, um, I'm gonna particularly make an effort so it can be quite judgmental. It can be judgmental and excluding, yeah. When it's trying to do the opposite, that's right. But it wants everybody to be like, like it, and so the intention is good, but it has.
Speaker 1:It can sometimes have the opposite effect, and we, we can think about this in terms of society, where you can sometimes see quite a lot of anger from people who are in the green value set because they want everybody else to be operating from the green value set because from their perspective, this is the way we should be, and you can understand it intellectually, but unfortunately it then has the opposite effect of being an ice cream, and this is what we're seeing, yes, in organisations and also globally, that green is sitting in its very or sitting on its beanbag. I'm going to be a bit sort of, you know, cliched, but if we just all, and just you know, if we can all allow, or just, you know, we just need to be kind of. Let's take a moment or let's talk about what we're all feeling here from a perspective of maybe red, let's say, or even orange. If you feel like you're being preached to as not good enough, that's not great. The chances are that you'll spiral down because it will feel very judgmental and othering. You'll spiral down into red and you'll push right back. And we're seeing a lot of this because green is, as I say, we need it, but it's almost like it's cracking open at the moment because it's hit its limitations. And where we need to get to is the breakthrough into second tier, which is yellow, which is a systems. It's an eye position again.
Speaker 1:So, if you think about yourself as a leader, or even a president, obama was quite yellow, sitting at the sitting from a systems perspective, able to see all of these colours and value and value all of them. What's helpful about all of them, including red, blue, orange and green and purple, all of them? And what's different from the green is from yellow. You're much more impersonal, much more um, able to be objective. You're not judging people for the red, you're going okay. What's happening there? What's useful about that? What? How does that represent the system? What's the voice that in that? That's useful. Yeah, we do need to drive this quicker. How can we do that? And you're taking everything with you and making decisions from a much more objective place. That, yes, sometimes might upset green, but there'll be enough there that you're listening to them.
Speaker 1:So green feels like it's sort of you know, the peak of the mountain, because we're all going to be, you know, be human. Well, you're really kind. Yeah, that's the thing. When you're in green, you do feel like you are in the most sort of evolved and in the right value set, which unfortunately then has the opposite effect of what you want. But you can't accept that. Well, it feels so true and so right. It feels so true and so right. And of course, that's what's happening from every other value set.
Speaker 1:And yellow gets this, because whatever value set you're in, you can only see down, you cannot see up. So green can't see up to yellow and in fact, yellow often looks to green like it's a bit red, because it feels a bit like it's um, cutting through and being a bit not taking if not hasn't heard everybody or hasn't used everybody's opinion, but of course, from yellow you're saying this is the best way for the system. Yeah, not everyone's always going to be happy. In fact, orange isn't entirely happy because I've actually taken a decision that's going to create less profit but overall it's going to be better. So it can feel like it's almost like red, but we've started to find a much more systemic way of operating that isn't polarized, isn't just from one position. You can see the whole system and you can see from there, because we'll get to yellow sort of further on the whole system, and you can see from there, well, because we'll get to yellow sort of further on.
Speaker 1:But you can see from that position, you can start to genuinely integrate systems, be that organizations, be that sort of distribution lines all over the world, be that governments, be that global law or justice, because you're able to step back and say, well, that country is operating from purple or blue, that country from green. They're trying to talk to each other from their own value sets. This is like you know. This is like green Westerners going into Afghanistan and sort of talking well, you know, let's all get equality going on and get the, you know, but from where they are, which is much more in a sort of red, purple bit of blue. It's a different language, whereas yellow can see it and they can sweep in and talk from a different place. But we'll get there. So just to mention on yellow, so in terms of the qualities of yellow and the values of yellow very disruptive thinking, very happy with big change, big risk, complex thinking, and so can really really think about, innovate and operate in systemic change. So we need yellow when things are going to really shift dramatically. They're comfortable with that. They'll step into that.
Speaker 1:The flip side of yellow is that they can be difficult to understand. The cars of that complex can feel quite abstract. It can feel abstract and intangible. It can feel like you can feel quite lonely in yellow, because if you don't find other yellows, it's difficult to get people to understand you.
Speaker 1:To a business conference and they were chatting in the past. They were chatting about this conference, rolling their eyes at the leader that had clearly been speaking, saying sort of same old nonsense, didn't know what they were going on about and I was like that's yellow, because they would have been talking where we're going big vision, big picture and of course these guys I could tell even from the way they were talking were real implementers, nuts and bolts. You know what do we need to actually do? And they were saying I don't know what we're supposed to do with it and because that's the difficulty, you need to translate from yellow what it actually exactly. We'll talk about communication on another episode.
Speaker 1:So, so that those are, those are the value sets, those are the colors, and I guess a couple of things to say, which is it's not that any of these value sets are better than the other one. So, as Philippa said earlier on, you are not fixed in terms of your colour, your value set. You will spiral up and down depending on the context in which you find yourself in both throughout your life, but also literally through a day or a week. So they're not better or worse. They're all useful for different things, and I think, whether it was Don Beck or Ken Wilber or someone else gave the analogy of you know the difference between a bicycle and a car. Well, you know, if you're off-roading in a forest, you probably want to have a mountain bike, you probably wouldn't want to have a sort of smart sports car, but if you want to get somewhere on the road to, you need a car.
Speaker 1:So it's the context in which you're in and we would often say things like look, you don't want the rebels and the mavericks in your accounts department, but you might want them on your sales floor. But equally, let's imagine someone who's working on a factory production line. Now they're probably going to need a bit of red to make decisions, definitely blue in terms of following process, maybe a bit of orange in terms of doing things efficiently and, you know, sticking to cost, making money. If they are in yellow and their job is quite a manual, repetitive job, it's not going to be particularly fulfilling for them or particularly useful for what that role needs. So again, it's depending on what you need or you're doing and also you know in your personal life what's around you and what's possible. So then, it's not that they are better or worse. All of the colours are useful and all of the colours are what they're unhealthy and healthy behaviours Exactly.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you think about a job I don't know whether it's a security, night-time security person or you know, I don't know any number of jobs where you're really operating on your own. If you, if you don't have red, maybe some blue for the rules, but if you're, you know if really your value set is green and about people you're going to be very unhappy in our job. So it's exactly that it's about. You know who and where. But you might want your leader of that organization that has the factory um, in yellow, but you don't exactly that. You don't need everybody to be everywhere all the time. You know you, you, you probably want you know for companies that really sort of, for people that feel like red is really challenging. Your company might be being kept afloat by people out at the front line with high red and orange and that's why you've got such a successful organisation at some level. So that's why in this model it's really important to value flex, flex, flex.
Speaker 1:And we do often say when we see other profilers being used in organisations, it's very. It's unhelpful often to give people their profiler and say you are this and kind of walk away, because we've often seen that there is a perception that's that in some organizations some colors are valued better than others and of course that's not how these bare fathers should be using. It's certainly not how to do that. Well, I was saying to you the other day there's an energy. I love that. I see in you and I see in other friends of mine that sometimes that fierce mama bear energy rises up where you know you've been in a process or you're being asked to do something in a certain way and eventually your child is. It's the detriment of your child and for all of the process that that the blue that is supposedly the right thing to do. At some point you'll just be like no red mama bear rises up and says enough. Yeah, exactly, this is what's happening. There's the boundary. She's she or he's doing this and not that, and I love that energy.
Speaker 1:The final thing I will say on this, and I'll pass to you, is we would explore these in much more detail and how to communicate to different colours and how to lead organisations. The last thing I'll say on this is think of this model and this map. First of all, you can think about yourself and perhaps where you think you sit, but you can think about this model in terms of so many things. So you can think about it for you individually, from when you're born right through your life. You can think about you moving and spiraling through those colors as you develop and through different situations. You know things are tough. You'll spiral down to another color perhaps. So you as an individual, certainly as a family, a family or system. You can think about these value sets and what's going on and what's valued and perhaps what you find what you find tough organizationally. You can think about this. So you can probably look at your organization and think about their values, literally, their mission statements and values and where they sit in in the in the spirals, and also what the actual culture is underneath that.
Speaker 1:You can think about this in terms of countries. So you could literally map the world in terms of countries. So Scandinavia is a very good example of bringing into yellow, that's pushed hard, into green, maybe into yellow still quite a bit of orange. Other countries. So, for example, in the US elections, can shift value sets of countries depending on what's kind of rising up and what the majority is. So you can think about value sets politically as well, and of swings and shifts within countries over time.
Speaker 1:So historically, of course, you know if I think about the UK, we're very much in orange at the moment, gently pushing a little bit into green, but you know, swinging back and forth a little bit. But if you think about back at the medieval ages, you know really not in orange, yeah. And you think about the feudal system. Yeah, italy, of course, before it unified. You know those very purple and you can still, you can feel the flavors of these, of these colors still in cultures. You know germany, of course, got a lot of blue with them, sort of workers, councils and the regulation. So you can start to see not just how your personal relationships but how your, how country relationships are work because they're different.
Speaker 1:So before we go, I'm going to all just finish on. You can also think about this just on a moment-to-moment basis. Every day we're moving through these colours and we talked about traffic lights, sort of traffic lighting through, and here's a really good way to think about the spirals, right, so you're in a car and you get to some temporary traffic lights in a sort of roadway near you and they're on red and they just don't move and they don't change, they don't change, they don't change, and it goes on and on and on. Now this is where it gets interesting about how, how different, how people from the different colors, the different value sets will respond red, eventually they will just drive through. I'm going, I don't even care, and actually, if there's a car in front of them, they'll be beeping. Oh, they'll go around it. Oh, exactly, they'll beep or they go, shout at them. They just want to go. It's me, I'm doing it my way. I'm getting out of here. This is not working for me. It's not working for me.
Speaker 1:Blue will probably wait. Yes, it's red. There must be a reason. There must be some rules here. They've there's. There's obviously something very important going on. There's a procedure. I'd like to wait quite a long time. Yeah, I'd like to wait quite a long time. She's very longer than me. If you were driving, I'd be. I'd put your foot on the accelerator. So blue is going to trust that there's some rules in place.
Speaker 1:Orange is going to go back to the eye position. It's going to find a different route. It's going to be strategic. It's going to work something out that's much better for it. It's very happy to take other people with them, but, honest to god, if they, if they, if they put any blockers in the way or they um, you know are problematic, or then they'll just go. Well, you know, forget it, but I get out and have a chat with them. I get out and have a chat with them. Orange is very strategic. So find a solution. You'll find a solution. Yeah, I think. Yeah, exactly, I think. I think the app ways is very orange because it's constantly finding new routes. This is better. Better route, better route.
Speaker 1:Exactly, green will get out and see if everyone's all right. Take a poll. Yeah, got any water? Has anybody? Any old people, any children will take care of people. Might get some food out, have a picnic. It's not really about getting anywhere, it's just about taking care of everybody.
Speaker 1:What does everyone think? Yeah, let's have a chat. What do you think? Yeah, no, because we haven't. Yeah, but the van down the road, they might not want to go through. Okay, so that will take forever and then it might be quite nice and then yellow will be sitting there going.
Speaker 1:Ah, I can see what the council is trying to do. I'm going to get in touch with them. There's a much better overall. There's a. There's a better town planning system here. We could do this much, much better. In fact, I've just come up with an idea for how to, how to, how to how to do roadworks without interrupting the traffic at all.
Speaker 1:So yellow goes system. So, in in the moment, yellow might be able to work out for everybody. Right, this is what we? I think we can do this, but it will also be thinking really big picture. I'm not sure we even need traffic lights anymore, like it would just be much, much bigger picture thinking. So that's a real and Turquoise where we might get to one day, sort of Dalai Lama-esque would just let the system unfold.
Speaker 1:It will trust and of course it's often right that the system will eventually just find the best solution for itself. And you do see that happen a lot with things like traffic. I do sometimes think that with trains so when trains are really delayed or cancelled, I see lots of people sort of rushing to get on a different train just so they can get to some kind of station. Just keep moving, keep moving. And I sometimes think I wonder if I just wait, it might be quicker to get home because something will arise, something will evolve. It may not always be the right answer, but sometimes it really is. Yeah, sometimes it does. Okay. So that is Spiral Dynamics.
Speaker 1:So it's been quite a long podcast from us because it's such a wonderful model, and we haven't even spoken yet about the communication, how this operates within cultures and organisations, how this has been used as a model globally to really shift, to break through political blocks and exactly that and bring parties together. So we'll come to that. But for organisational failures as well. You can see the colours arising. Yes, you can see the colours arising, but for now, notice where you are based on these colours, notice where people in your life, at work and at home, are. We'll give you some tools to start to manage and influence and shift and communicate better with people operating from different value sets, different colours. For now, just start to notice. Can you start to put on your multicoloured glasses, the lenses, this week? So enjoy, go, spiral into the next two weeks and we'll be back with the next episode very soon. See you soon.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the 4D Human being podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. Do take on board some of the insights, tools and tips, because every time that you try something new to get back to choice, you are making a vote for the you that you want to become and I love that phrase, pen, I do too. And please do share this episode with somebody that you know would really benefit from the lessons and learnings we've been chatting about today. And, of course, if you're interested in more from 4D Human being, do get in touch. We run workshops, trainings, online in-person conference events and keynotes. We've got the 4d on demand platform for your whole organization and we do have a free essentials membership where anybody can sign up for absolutely free to access some of our insights, tools and tips. So do get in touch with us if you'd like to hear more. We cannot wait to hear from you and to carry on the conversation on the Conversation.