Spiral Dynamics

Spiral Dynamics is a theory of human development that looks at life conditions as the basis on which people build increasingly more complex conceptual models of the world. It depicts the world view of people at different levels of development and the way these levels are linked evolutionarily.

Spiral Dynamics is particularly useful for understanding and respecting people who hold different world views. (Note that the Enneagram looks at personality rather than world view. People with different personalities can hold the same world view, just as people with different world views can have similar personality patterns.) Inevitably we live and work with people who hold very different assumptions and goals, and this theory helps us to see and appreciate these patterns and to factor in these distinctions in the way we relate to them.

• Wikipedia page on Spiral Dynamics
• The Never-Ending Upward Quest is an overview of the system and an interview with one of the founders, Don Beck.
• A map for the Archaic Revival is another good overview that focuses on the evolutionary aspects and ties it in to 2011 current events.
• Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, leadership, and Change by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan is the basic (and very dense) text on the subject.