This Post is the first installment of Part 2 entitled Make World Transformation Visible and Believable - Part 2-1. Its materials are available to you in two ways. First, as two downloadable files - One for the edited Text material and one for the Visual material. Second, in the Extended Post below you can read the Text of the Part 2-1 section.
This Post begins presenting Part 2 of the The New Pattern for Success seminar series. Part 2 is entitled Mega-Force 1 - World Human Transformation to Living System Life and Work.
You can download the Text of Make World Transformation Visible and Believable - Part 2-1 - HereDownload NewPatSuc-Part2-1-Text-041707.pdf
You can download the Visuals of Make World Transformation Visible and Believable - Part 2-1 - Here Download NewPatSuc-Part2-1-Vis-032007.pdf
Click on the Continue reading link below to read the Text of Make World Transformation Visible and Believable - Part 2-1 .
I look forward to your Comments, Suggestions and Questions.
John Clayton Caris
For Previous Posts in this Series - Click the Links below
- Series Announcement for New Pattern For Success Seminar
- Introduction for New Pattern for Success Seminar
- Mega-Forces Overview - New Pattern for Success Seminar - Part 1-1
- The World Human Transformation - New Pattern for Success Seminar - Part 1-2
- Nature of Living Systems - New Pattern for Success Seminar - Part 1-3
- The Kondratieff Wave Cycle - New Pattern for Success Seminar - Part 1-4
- The Demographic Bomb - New Pattern for Success Seminar - Part 1-5
- The Cataclysmic Confluence - New Pattern for Success Seminar - Part 1-6
********************************
LIVING SYSTEM LIFE AND WORK -
THE NEW PATTERN FOR SUCCESS
A Series of Presentation/Discussions
To Explore Critical Issues
For Your Life and Your Business
by Dr. John Clayton Caris
Isis Institute
Part 2 - Mega-Force 1 –
World Human Transformation
to Living System Life and Work
Introduction - Our Isis Approach to Human Living Systems
This Part 2 of our program is about Mega-Force 1. It is the base for all of our work. It approaches Living System Life and Work in terms of the Human Psyche System – The most fundamental Living System at the foundation of all human affairs. This is the most useful way I have found for understanding human life and work and for making applications.
You recall from Part 1 that the Human Psyche System is the underlying energy field system for human life. It is not the human brain, which is the portion of our physical body that enables us to become aware of our psyche during our life on Earth. The psyche is the totality of all conscious and unconscious processes at the core of our life. Its transformations are what cause the transformations through the stages of our individual lives and through the stages of collective human history. I show that this knowledge is directly applicable to our lives and work.
To tell business people that the most important thing to understand about the New Pattern for Success is human psychology may sound strange. I assure you it is not. It is a new concept for many, but it is not strange. It is at the core of Living System Life and Work.
Rudolph Steiner, an early pioneer in what has become Living System thought for us, wrote: “Only he who understands life can become a truly practical man.” In this Part 2 of our seminars, our purpose is to approach Living Systems from the Human Systems viewpoint so we can directly understand the stages of human life and their practical consequences in individuals and organizations. With this knowledge we can become a new type of practical person who operates in the New Pattern for Success.
Most other discussions of Living Systems do not approach the subject of Living Systems from the nature of human beings and their organizations, which is our major interest. These conventional discussions approach Living Systems from a "Non-Human" Living Systems perspective. Specifically, they use an historical scientific perspective from biology or ecology or some version of modern physical concepts, such as quantum mechanics or physical field theory. This is not what we are interested in. We use a modern psychological science approach that deals directly with Human Living Systems. That is what we are interested in.
I find that the conventional Non-Human Living Systems approaches cannot lead directly to useful applications in life and work – Especially in business. They require making complicated analogies from Non-Human systems to Human Systems before they can try to be applicable to human persons and their organizations. I find the analogies that try to translate Non-Human Living System science knowledge into Human Living System science knowledge to be weak, often misleading or wrong.
These analogies do not, because they cannot, directly shed light on the transforming patterns of human motivation, behavior, organization, leadership, entrepreneurship, etc. Approaching Living Systems from the nature of the Human Psyche System enables us to make direct applications to the lives and work of humans. We do not need to make analogies about how biological, ecological or modern physics systems are like human systems before we can make applications.
I want to be sure I am being clear, so I summarize what I have said about our approach to Human Living Systems. Once we understand the Human Psyche System and its transformations, there is no need for analogies to make applications in life and business - Especially in business. The Human Psyche, its structure, its behavior and its stage-by-stage process of evolution that we discuss, are what we need to know to understand what is happening in the world and how to create, organize and operate a business organization containing real people. What you know when we complete this Part 2 is the “Real Deal” – You do not need analogies from molecular biology, genetics, ecology, fundamental particle physics, etc. What we discuss in Part 2 is in my judgment the most important human knowledge that a leading-edge business leader needs to have to implement the New pattern for Success.
I emphasize, our Human Systems approach to Living Systems from the viewpoint of the most modern science of the Human Psyche System is not the conventional viewpoint about Living Systems that almost always begins from the science of Non-Human Living Systems. But that does not concern me in the least. I hope that you come to the point that it does not concern you either. If I am right, this knowledge can give you significant strategic advantage in creating, leading/managing and operating a Living System Business. What we discuss should enable you to decide for yourself.
Begin Part 2 – 1 – Make World Human Transformation Visible and Believable
Slide 1 – Cover Slide
Slide 2 – I Made a Judgment
I made a judgment to violate PowerPoint guidelines for some Part 2 slides. I use slides with more than just a few keywords. Why?
The slides are organized as detailed summaries for you. What I say in this text does not always align exactly with the greater detail on many of the slides. I want you to have these slides as a useful record to re-read and refer to later. This Part 2 presents material with unfamiliar words and concepts. Slides with just a few keywords and not organized with a standard structure would not be as useful to you. From my experience you may not fully grasp this material immediately – It can happen weeks or months later. Then, slides that are complete and organized are important. My script will not use all the words on the slides or exactly as written. So my presentation flows more smoothly and emphasizes key content. Let’s begin
Slide 3 – World’s Biggest Story
The world’s biggest story is almost invisible!
With those words I began the Introduction. I said the world’s biggest story is Mega-Force 1 – The vast human transformation now in progress.
Slide 4 – Our Purpose
Our purpose in Part 2 is threefold:
- First – To make the story of World Human Transformation visible and believable to you; then
- Second – To begin understanding how a human Living System transforms because this is essential for learning how the world transformation of Mega-Force 1 works
[Note: It is Not the way linear systems change]; and then
- Third – To begin understanding how the Human Psyche System stages underlying our
lives and organizations evolved to the currently emerging stage of Living System Life and Work.
Let’s begin to make the story of world transformation visible and believable to you.
Slide 5 – Buddhist saying
An old Buddhist saying is:
Each age sees what it is prepared to discover.
This means each era of history can see only within the capacity of its most evolved Human Psyche System stage. To see beyond that we must be prepared to discover a new stage – A new pattern for success that transforms all of leadership, organization, operations and entrepreneurship.
Our objective in Part 2 is to gain the new Mindset about human transformation that prepares us to discover Living System Life and Work – The emerging age. The Mindset leap must come first – We must become the Right People first before we can successfully develop the Right Means to make applications. Otherwise we would be the wrong people trying to use the right means – That, as you know, leads to failure.
I have used an important term several times – The Human Psyche System. It is possibly new to you so I want to be sure that it is clear to you.
- The Human Psyche is the personal energy system that is the total of all our
conscious and unconscious processes. It is a Living System. We are embedded
in it. It inter-acts with the other personal and collective psyches we interact
with. So, groups and organizations also have a Psyche – a collective psyche.
- The personal Human Psyche is not the Brain – The Brain is our biological
system that, by inter-acting with our Psyche energy system, enables us to be
aware of our Psyche during our life on Earth. The Brain is also a Living System.
I can make a rough analogy. The Human Psyche System field is somewhat like a television signal surrounding us. The brain is somewhat like a television receiver that displays the transformed effects of the TV signal. The most serious limit to this analogy is that a TV signal is a physical electro-magnetic field while a Human Psyche System field is a non-physical energy field. Now let’s go on.
Slide 6 – Nature of Today’s Biggest Story
Recall this slide from my Introduction discussion. It means that – To discover today’s human transformation we must ourselves make a discontinuous leap to the Mindset of the new psyche stage appearing in the lives of leading-edge people. Our personal beginning to make this leap is the only way we can begin to see the new reality. As we experience the new Mindset we are then able to see the transformation unfolding in life and work. If we remain in the conventional mindset, still all around us, we cannot see such a leap, or the need to make one.
Let’s work now to see the new Mindset and the current human transformation by answering three questions:
- Are there others who have seen this transformation?
- What have they said that helps us to see it?
- What have they said that helps us believe it is real?
Yes there are others who have seen it. Let’s experience their words and Mindset to help us see the transformation and believe it is real.
Slide 7 – Rudolf Steiner
The Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, who I mentioned earlier, was one of the earliest examples of Living System vision. About 1900 he wrote in his book Theosophy:
Only he who understands life
can become a truly practical man.
At that time, and even today, the overwhelming mindset perceived a type of practical person that focuses on managing and controlling the outside material world – Certainly not being centered on the inner world to understand the process of human life as the means to then achieve practical success in the outer world. Steiner was saying that understanding the underlying pattern of life was the key to become a successful practical person on what I call the conscious Operating plane of life. He saw the need for fundamental transformation to a new approach for being practical. Over 100 years later Steiner is still a pioneer on the forefront of leadership.
Recall that in Part 1 I called these underlying patterns “Morphic Fields”, Structuring Fields or Guiding Fields. All Living Systems have them. Linear systems do not.
Slide 8 – Gerald Heard
The cultural historian Gerald Heard wrote about human transformation in his powerful book, The Five Ages of Man. He saw, as did the great historian Arnold Toynbee, the sweep of history in terms of human transformations through a number of stages. But Heard saw more. He saw human psyche evolution as the central force in man’s transformations through history and through individual lives. He saw transformations being driven from the inside of humans, not primarily from external forces and events. He wrote:
Man’s history …is a psychological story
for the spiral evolution of the psyche is
the theme of the human venture.
We excuse him for not seeing either the first stage of man’s Human Psyche System – Stage A – or the latest stage – Stage A’ Living System man – who was not nearly so visible when he wrote his book. We know now that we should say – The Seven Ages of Man.
Slide 9 – Carl Rogers #1
The pioneering psychotherapist Carl Rogers was specific about a vast psychological transformation at the heart of our current world’s upheaval. In his book, On Personal Power, he wrote:
There has been a spate (an eruption) of books from widely different
sources …seeing our culture undergoing some sort of drastic Change
and producing a new type of individual, a type of consciousness, a
way of being and behaving that will reshape our world.
Slide 10 – Carl Rogers #2
Later in the book, Rogers describes the person of the future. Who he saw coming is exactly the Stage A’ – Living System person we define later. Rogers wrote:
I am convinced that at this point we are going through a
transformational crisis from which we and our world cannot
emerge unchanged. …Today’s emerging persons …would
have been more or less at home in the world of the Renaissance
man, during another painful and exciting period of transformation.
Rogers clearly saw our current transformation, saw a specific type of emerging human and also saw that human transitions are traumatic and painful – And they are driven from the inside out into the world of external affairs.
Slide 11 – Carl Jung
For more evidence of a great internally driven human transformation we turn to another pioneer of Living System thought, Carl Jung. He wrote in The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man:
The upheaval of our world and
the upheaval of our consciousness
are one and the same thing.
He saw a broad human transformation in progress, and that the external world’s discontinuity is a result of human internal upheaval – Not the other way around that so many believe. He is another leading thinker who placed the inner underlying plane, or Morphic Field, as primary for understanding the outer world and its transformations.
Here is a Key point for creating our new Mindset –
External forces and events are Results – They are Not Causes!
These Results are indeed Real – But they are Not Real Causes.
Real Causes in Human Affairs – Personal and Collective,
are Underlying Patterns in the Human Psyche!
Again I emphasize, in Part 1 I called these underlying patterns “Morphic Fields”, or Structuring Fields and Guiding Fields. All Living Systems have them. Linear systems do not.
This idea is at the heart of the new Mindset for successful business leadership and strategy based on Living System science – That is what our Isis work is about. Many still have it backwards. They are looking for causes in terms of external world forces and events. Like technology, globalization, etc. that are indeed real, but are not primary causes.
An example is the current focus of econometric analysis on quantitative, mathematical models of events in the outside world to try to understand the past, the current and to discern the future – Rather than first focusing on understanding underlying cyclical patterns – Like the Kondratieff Wave Cycle I discuss in detail in Part 3.
As Jung said in a quote I gave you in Part 1:
What is happening in the human psyche is generally overlooked.
Go Back to Slide 7 – Rudolf Steiner
This is exactly what Steiner meant when he said that the path to being a practical person is through understanding the inner patterns of life. Here you see the Mindset of Living System Life and Work in action.
Let me ask you –
How many of today’s executives would stand up in their board rooms to say such things as the path to a new pattern for practical success in their business – NOT Many – If ANY at all. That is exactly the problem – They are locked into only the Operating plane of life and work and cannot see powerful unseen underlying forces that are guiding strategy and events. Many today are clueless about why their power – that used to be so great – is declining during a world transformation to a pattern that requires just such a foundation based on inner awareness. A poignant example is today’s tragedy of General Motors on the edge of bankruptcy – A needless tragedy of so-called practical leaders stuck in an obsolete mindset.
Now, let’s look at what leading-edge business and finance persons have seen about the current human transformation?
Slide 12 – Robert Greenleaf
One of the most famous is, Robert Greenleaf, who wrote in his classic book, Servant Leadership:
As I read the signs, we are in a period of radical transition
regarding power, authority, and decision making everywhere,
and a cloud has settled over all leadership and management
in any form.
His book was a catalyst for my work toward discovering Living System Life and Work.
Slide 13 – George Cabot Lodge
Professor George Cabot Lodge wrote a wake-up call to American business in his book, The New American Ideology. He wrote:
America is in the midst of a great transformation,
Comparable to the one which ended the Medieval Era.
…(His book is about) how the ideological basis of
Legitimate authority in America is being radically
transformed – The profound implications for our society
in general and the great corporations in particular.
Slide 14 – Alvin Toeffler
Alvin Toeffler, best known for his book Future Shock, wrote another smaller book I believe is more important. It is entitled Eco-Spasm Report. In it he wrote:
What we are seeing today is not simply an economic
upheaval, but something far deeper. …What is happening
…is the breakdown of industrial civilization on the
planet and the first fragmentary appearance of a wholly
new and drastically changed social order.
Slide 15 – Charles Tavel
Charles Tavel in The Third Industrial Age: Strategy for Industrial Survival wrote:
The early 1970’s have marked a turning
point in the history of world economy.
Slide 16 – Stewart Thompson
The Age of the Manager is Over by Stewart Thompson criticized the culture of big business management. He was blunt and to the point by writing:
The principles and practices of managing that at one
time created the most renowned industrial empires create
now only futility. …This is a theme worth studying for
managers owe it to themselves to understand why what
they’re doing doesn’t work anymore.
Unfortunately he offered no specific vision for what was to come. I do in Part 4 of our program.
Slide 17 – Dee Hock
Dee Hock conceived and implemented a transformational turnaround of the VISA card organization that is a clear example of Living System principles and leadership in action – even though he did not use those words to describe his remarkable achievement.
In his book, Birth of the Chaordic Age, he expresses himself on world transformation:
We are living on the knife’s edge of one of those momentous
Turning Points in human history.
…We are at that very point in time when a 400 year-old age
is dying and another is struggling to be born – a shifting of
culture, science, society, and institutions enormously greater
than the world has ever experienced.
“Chaordic” is the term he coined to express his understanding of the nature of business as necessarily Both chaotic and orderly. This is clearly consistent with the Mindset of Living Systems. We discuss Dee Hock and his bi-polar Living System leadership work in detail in Part 4.
Slide 18 – George Soros
Finally, I must mention George Soros. His personal views and professional work on the Open Society and in business and finance using his non-linear Theory of Reflexivity are examples of Living System life and work in action. In his 1998 paper entitled, The Crisis of Global Capitalism, he said:
Financial markets are best understood in terms of reflexivity
(non-linear feedback), not in terms of equilibrium (linear
behavior).
Here is another example of non-linear, bi-polar Living System thought by a leading-edge business man. He calls in several of his papers for a transformation in business and finance as well as in the organization and operations of society.
There are many other examples of leaders and organizations. I feature some of them in Part 4.
Slide 19 – Transition Slide
The world human transformation is now visible and we have evidence that it is
believable. I hope you see the words and thoughts of these persons to be consistent
with the Principles of Living Systems I introduced in Part1.
End of Part 2 – 1
Comments