Jerry Coursen on Clare W Graves #2

Part 2

Jerry:From the cycles found in nature Graves concluded that 'what goes around comes around'. So, it seemed reasonable to him that there'd be cycles in the model he was proposing. Since he was already using a ladder metaphor, he could model the cyclic nature he believed to be a part of his model with a second ladder.

Emergence doesn't come about that way. The surprise that is the emergent event comes from interactions of the components that give rise to it. The cycles that seemed reasonable to Graves are not a part of the way emergence works. On the other hand, intuitively, before Complexity Science arose, Graves identified his model's 'emergent' nature. This is one of the things that separates Graves' model from every other similar model (at least, that I'm aware of.) And to be fair, initially, Graves' ladder metaphor included only a single ladder with steps labeled 'A' through 'M'. I'm told by some who knew him that Graves was never convinced as to whether his model was better served by one or multiple ladders. Current science pertinent to emergent systems supports only a single line of sequential emergences.

Another factor that could have swayed Graves toward tiers was the success he had with this concept when he shared it with his constituency. While Graves was never particularly embraced by academia, he found a welcome reception for his ideas when he took them to the business world. What the business world was looking for was control. Graves' idea that there were 'higher levels' of thinking to which 'lower levels' of thinking should be subordinated resonated with the purchasers of business consulting services. A second, higher tier to which the purchasers of Graves' services believed they belonged made Graves' model all the more saleable.

Keith: A sub-text to my agenda in taking on teaching Psychology is to spread Graves into British academia. As a notable academic yourself, what do you think it will take to get academia to take Graves' ideas seriously and give them the rigorous exploration and testing they deserve?

J: Thanks, but except to a few students, I'm not that notable. But the question you're posing is a good one. There are a lot of problems to overcome before Graves' ideas might be taken seriously by the academic establishment. These problems seem to break up into two categories. First are the problems that Graves himself created. For whatever reasons, he was not a diligent scientist. He didn't pursue research the way successful researchers do. And he didn't publish a great number of papers - that would have helped. And, worst of all, from time to time he'd lay claim to something that was just patently untrue. So, to overcome these issues: do the necessary research, develop a body of literature, and make revisions of 'Graves 1.0' so as to get the 'bugs' out.

The second issue is tied to the way Graves' material has been developed since Graves died. The objective has often been sales and revenue generation. The result of this has been the branding of various competing products built on Graves' model. Despite Graves' claim that his model was the result of his attempt to apply the scientific method towards the reconciliation of the plethora of psychological theories, there has been no application of the scientific method towards the validation and development of the model he created or to any Gravesian model that came thereafter. There is no scientific Graves' model. But, competing in the marketplace, there are a number of widely divergent models based on Graves' ideas.

So, to have it taken, as you say, “seriously" - there must be people who are willing to do the necessary work. First Graves 1.0 needs to be debugged and updated within the framework in which it was created. And this needs to be done in the framework of the scientific method.

So, where do you find people who are willing to do the work? Actually, you almost have to ask first why anybody'd be willing to work on Graves' model. And here's where anyone who has had experience with Graves' model, in any of its various forms, becomes important. Despite the problems I've mentioned, Graves' model has yielded predictable, desired results when it has been used as the theoretical basis from which to formulate strategy in several instances. It is this unique power of Graves' model to produce predictable, desired strategic outcomes that causes us to believe it is worth further investigation. If the people who have successfully used Graves' model will not or cannot do the necessary work, they are still very important in that they bear testimony to the demonstrated effectiveness of Graves' model in formulating strategies that consistently yield expected results. Such models are rare and of value to science.

The successful uses of Graves' model of which I'm aware primarily reside in the business world, although it has also been used in the political arena. One instance uses Graves' model as a tool for improving organisational communication vertically. For example, it can be and is used to teach upper level managers how to communicate with entry level employees. Among other uses, this has formed the basis for successful union avoidance campaigns. The results of those campaigns have been extraordinarily successful, plus they have yielded win-win results for employees and management. Graves' theory has also been used in similar fashion to improve organisational morale and employee retention. And it has been applied in the creation of more efficient work unit design and hiring strategies. Graves' model has also had success as a political tool for understanding 'value' demographics from which successful marketing strategies have been developed based on improved one-way communication. Reform of an entire nation, South Africa, has been attributed to such use of Grave's model as have successful election strategies. The bottom line to all this is that Graves' theory has yielded repeatable, predictable results despite our lack of scientific understanding of the model.

Understanding, validating, and developing Graves' model should allow for its wider application to other disciplines. In this regard, Graves' model has hardly been explored at all. I've mentioned its potential connection with medicine. Graves himself thought his ideas could be used to improve the educational process. He also suggested its use for prison reform. With appropriate scientific study and revision, a Graves 1.1 model could provide a useable tool from which a great number of biopsychosocial problems could be 'explored' and 'tested'.

K: It's critical what you say about consistently yielding expected results. In the run-up to 2000, the Arlington Institute was on a commission from the Defence Department to scenario-plan for potential fall-outs from the so-called 'Millennium Bug'. As part of that, they did 10,000 Spiral Dynamics assessments – both in the US and abroad - and found "no significant deviations".

On a micro-level, around about 6 months after my first 'Introduction to Spiral Dynamics & Related Models of NLP' course, I went for a beer with one of my 'graduates'. He told me he'd spent that 6 months testing SD and totally failed to find any instance where it didn't describe accurately his and others' experiences.

J: I can go that one better. I've been at this for nearly fifteen years testing to see if I can find an instance where Graves' theory wouldn't fit. That's the essence of the scientific method. The way you validate a theory is to look diligently for exceptions. Graves' theory seems to always fit.

K: You're way beyond me in terms of Neuroscience and Complexity Science but I can understand situations in terms of vMEMES….Finally, thoughts on the future of Jerry Coursen, the Gravesian concepts, Neurobiology, Psychology, etc, etc...?