The Beginnings of 'Integrated SocioPsychology'

Jan: Facilitated a session in Grimsby on 'Learning & Change' for Common Purpose South Humber as part of their 'Profile' programme.

Jan-April: Delivered 'Understanding MeshWORKS' for North Lincolnshire Council Community Investment Team members who had not been on the first tranche of training in late 02.
Commentary: Jenny Gavin-Allen saw the need for as many members of her team as possible to be exposed to Spiral Dynamics, related models of NLP and Adizes LifeCycle if they were to use the models conceptually in both the design and delivery of their services and their development as a team.

Feb: Delivered an interactive session entitled 'Planning: The Business Blueprint' for the Grimsby Europarc Innovation Circle.

Mar: First batch of A-level Psychology module results (from the January exams) included an 'A' and several 'Bs' and 'Cs', vindicating NLP-ish teaching style and addition of a very basic version of the Graves Model (on which Spiral Dynamics is based) to specification topics to give the students a broader picture of what Psychology is and how it can be used.

Mar: Notified my intention to wind down Humber MeshWORKS and concentrate on developing an integrated approach to the behavioural sciences.
Commentary: A painful decision but one which seemed entirely appropriate. After a 4-month period of consultation with supporters of the project, I stopped updating Humber MeshWORKS on 26 July.

Learning the A-Level Psychology specification in sufficient depth to teach it (at Vermuyden) had a profound effect on me. On the one hand it gave me a far deeper appreciation of the strengths of Spiral Dynamics and NLP - though it also exposed a few limitations! On the other hand, it showed me how fragmented the behavioural sciences were without Spiral Dynamics at their core.
 

From the start, the Humber MeshWORKS site had contained pages on theory. The theoretical element grew both in accordance with the development of my own understanding and as a result of input by guest contributors. By Spring 04 it was being used as a resource base by visitors with little or no interest in the Humber sub-region.

At the same time I felt my campaign to introduce Spiral Dynamics and NLP to the sub-region had gone about as far as it could for the time being. Several private organisations, schools and local government departments were applying MeshWORK principles to some degree or other. However, most of the key decision-makers in the area remained intractable in sticking to the old methods that had brought little success.

Time to move on!

April: Delivered in-house ISO 9001 Auditor Training for Karlshamns Ltd.

With the Karlshamns Auditing Team, April 2004 - (l-r): Lynsey Cropper, Stuart Cowley, Steve Stewart, Yours Truly, Diane Barker and Dave Milns. [Stuart Cowley/timer]

April: Delivered an interactive session entitled 'Managing Quality for Customers' for the Grimsby Europarc Innovation Circle.

June: Helped David Burnby facilitate evaluation workshops on the South Yorkshire Open Forum (for the voluntary and community sectors) for the Objective 1 Programme Directorate of Government Office for Yorkshire & The Humber.

July: First use of the term 'Integrated SocioPsychology' on this web site.

Aug: Asked back by Karlshamns to assist them in updating and refining their Quality System.

Aug: From my first year of teaching A-level Psychology, the annual results showed several B and C grades, with individual modules including an A and a number of Bs and Cs.
Commentary: Overall these were the best results Boothfetty had had at Psychology A-Level since introducing the subject to the curriculum. Vermuyden headteacher Anne McErlane was delighted - as were the students!

Aug: Facilitated the interactive workshop, 'How Leadership impacts on Business Growth', for the North East Lincolnshire Council 'Innovation Engine' programme.
Commentary: The Innovation Engine was the brainchild of Jennifer Crossland. The programme moved over its schedule from looking at personal capacity to processes for creating and sifting innovation ideas. The session I delivered was designed to take personal development issues and apply them to leading a business through change. Feedback from the participants was excellent.

Sept: Held the final Meeting of the Humberside MESH Network.
Commentary: The widening of the scope of the Network the previous year had also resulted in it becoming less focused. With my attention increasingly centred on understanding and developing practical applications of Integrated SocioPsychology, I felt I no longer had the time or resources to facilitate the Network.

See the tribute page for further detail of the demise of the Network.

November: Facilitated a 2-day programme of 'An Introduction to Spiral Dynamics for NLP Master Practitioners' in Peterborough for an infornal NLP group
Commentary: Drawn from across southern England, the members of this 13-strong group had all done their Master Practitioner training with NLP World in Brighton. Having bonded quite remarkably, they had resolved to learn together more about Spiral Dynamics - a basic version of which they had been introduced to on the Master Practitioner training - and sought me out. It proved to be an awesome weekend, with the group en masse making the progression from Neurological Levels through Spiral Dynamics to Integrated SocioPsychology.

Photos from this workshop programme can be viewed in the Galleries pages.

November: Hosted the first meeting of the Integrated SocioPsychology Discussion Group.
Commentary: In ending the Humberside MESH Network two months before, it had been my intention to found a group from the core membership to work with me in developing the concepts of Integrated SocioPsychology. From this first meeting, it was clear that not only were we going to be pushing the boundaries conceptually but that there would be a real emphasis on practical application.

Duncan Harper & Jennifer Crossland, Steve Gorton, Peak Yuen and Helen Ezard became the regular members of the new group.

December: Gave a presentation on Integrated SocioPsychology at 'What's in it for Everybody?', the ‘Active Partners’ conference of the Yorkshire & Humber Regional Forum.

Peterborough, November 2004 - wired for sound and making a point, watched by Master Practitioner Marty Skelton. [Susanna Huza]