Part 2

                                                                                               Working in the Lower Right Quadrant
The focus shifts substantially when dealing with the structures and insitutions of any social grouping, from a family to a plc..to a community earmarked for regeneration! (The word 'organisation' can be used in this context to mean any form of grouping, from a marriage to an international corporate...to the leadership of a regeneration project....)

As a basic example, the schematic below sets out some of the more obvious partners in a regeneration MeshWORK and the kinds of questions they might need to ask.

CAPI
Local Authority~Community Group~Schools & Colleges~Manufacturing Industries~Health Care~Service Industries~Social Services~Probation Service~Leisure Industries~Police~Business Support Agencies

TURQUOISE
Does the organisation see itself as looking after the 'whole' and as many of its components as it can in the interests of the whole? Which complementary organisations that can add to understanding and capability are invited to participate on the basis of 'who should do what to meet the needs of the whole?
 

YELLOW
Does the organisation trust 'Integral Leaders' to puruse topics that might initially seem off-topic but which actually make the difference? How easy is it for 2nd Tier thinkers to operate?
 

NEW TIER OF CONSCIOUSNESS BEGINS
GREEN
What equal opportunities/anti-discriminatory policies are there – and do they work? What is the concept of a 'decent society'? What mechanisms are in place to ensure this vMEME remains practical and cost-effective?
ORANGE
How are improvement and achievement supported? What measures of 'success' are seen as desireable? What controls are there on self interest manipulators? How are the negative by-products of Capitalism contained?
BLUE
Does the law & order system work? Are the laws clear? Are there enough honest & committed Police? Do the Churches push morals? Are our industries efficient & regulated? What mechanisms are in place for managing polarised differences?
RED
Are there opportunities for the SAFE expression of this vMEME – eg: sports, pubs & clubs/dancing. Is there enough power from higher authorities to exert control?
PURPLE
Are our family units safe places? Are we investing positively in our young? Are our schools venerated as the places where we 'form' the young of our tribe/species?
BEIGE
Are the means to meet people's basic physiological needs working? Is there enough adequate housing? Does the health care system work? Are the healthcare/midwifery units enabling us to procreate the species OK?

Clearly the means by which any form of society functions is relevant to this Quadrant.

A complementary way to approach this Quadrant is to use Adizes Organisation LifeCycle. This is especially potent when dealing with structure in a fairly-defined organisation with a variation in the roles of its members. Adizes model was developed from work in commercial companies and remains more suited to that kind of organisation. Nonetheless, it can, with some degree of adaptation, be used effectively in most kinds of organisation, Adizes claims he has even used the construct to save marriages!

                                                                                              Working in the Lower Left Quadrant

I'll never forget movie tough guy Clint Eastwood once pooh-poohing his 'loner' image, saying, "Man is a social animal."

A truism no doubt; but the kind of sentiment that propelled George Herbert Mead and the other founders of Symbolic Interactionism to focus on people and how they interact - positively, to create a common Identity through shared values, beliefs, memories, understandings, intentions and all the other components of culture.

(However,other theorists, from Karl Marx to Jürgen Habermas, have seen the determination of culture as being brought about through conflict - usually also involving what we would call the Lower Right.)

The example below gives some idea of what questions might be asked of our regeneration MeshWORK in the Lower Left Quadrant.

CAPI
Local Authority~Community Group~Schools & Colleges~Manufacturing Industries~Health Care~Service Industries~Social Services~Probation Service~Leisure Industries~Police~Business Support Agencies

TURQUOISE
Where are the "Big Picture" thinkers who can see how it all links together and who understand the deep natural spirituality of man and the planet?
 

YELLOW
Where are the people who can see the Spiral and – for at least for some of the time – operate beyond their own values and challenge their own and others' limiting beliefs? Who can simply accept others for the way they are but also plan their change if necessary?
 

NEW TIER OF CONSCIOUSNESS BEGINS
GREEN
Do people accept each other as equal? is there a culture of helping the less advantaged? Is it automatic to challenge racist, sexist, ageist, etc, statements. How are people facilitated in working together?
ORANGE
Where are the wealth creators and the innovators? Are there people who believe they can do more than others - and can plan how to do it? Is there encouragment and support for them?
BLUE
What kind of support do the police have? Are there 'no go' areas? Do people expect other people to do 'the right thing'? Does the community share strong ideas of what's right and wrong and will people disapprove openly when taboos are broken?
RED
Are people encouraged to let their 'hair down' and have a good time? Do people generally know how to enjoy themselves? Are young people encouraged to find their 'own voice' or are they kept tied to their parents' 'apron strings'?
PURPLE
Do we look out for one another? Do our communities have strong identities, able to take their places in the world? Are the tribal elders and shamans in place and respected? Are our tribal rituals and taboos honoured?
BEIGE
Is there a zest for being alive amongst our people? Do people know how to get help for the basics? Do people care for the homeless? Is it physically safe to be on our streets? Are couples making babies?

Occasionally MeshWORK designers do develop variations on the standard 4Q/8L structure to meet the specific needs of their projects. Probably the best known of these is the very powerful one developed by Gernia Van Niekerk who has got several wholescale MeshWORK projects off the ground in rural South Africa. Her version is sometimes known as 'The Gernia Variation'.

Even with the enhanced mapping 4Q/8L provides, MeshWORK designers need to watch for the nuances of vMEME Transition Stages and, both in and across the Quadrants, the working together of vMEME harmonics.

Once the questions are answered, it is then possible to start constructing strategies that will meet the needs at all the levels in all the Quadrants, bearing in mind the greater good of the entire Spiral and the fact it may not be possible realistically to meet all needs at all levels in all the Quadrants all the time.

                                                                                                  The Need for MeshWORKS
MeshWORKS are often necessary because of some kind of conflict. Certainly interventions often cause further conflict - at least in the short term. Therefore it is very helpful to know how vMEMES approach conflict - which Don Beck (2003) has mapped out in the Assimilation Contrast Effect, thus enabling anticipation of responses and strategies to absorb and/or counter their effects.

Here we must bear in mind the assertions of Ichak Adizes that certain tensions are natural and inevitable and our efforts should be on managing and balancing them, rather than trying to resolve them. Which means that even the most well-designed MeshWORK will never arrive at a final, ultimate solution. Because things change and balances slip, there need to those who understand the MeshWORK and and are able to adjust and fine-tune it as Life Conditions inevitably change.

I have used 4Q/8L in helping to design MeshWORKS at organisational levels. Click here to view a case study of work with a commercial company (Hodgson Sealants Ltd) and click here to view work with a local authority team (North Lincolnshire Council Community Investment Team).

So many initiatives fail or, at best, only partly succeed because they attempt to deal with what the intervention designers think should be important to the client people/user group. (In other words, such interventions are concerned with the intervention designers' values.)

MeshWORKS work because they deal with people's values - what's important to them now, in the past (where appropriate) and in the future (where appropriate).