Written by DAVID BURNBY
My good friend David Burnby, hero of the ‘Is Marriage PURPLE?’ Blog and author of ‘Of Cogs & Spirals…’, sent me the following message to post in respect of the Society article The Nature of Power….
Marx argued that the working class potentially have the greatest power (given that they are the means of production). The bourgeoisie are the agents of the ruling class and if anything are the least powerful as they their power is limited to that which the ruling class deign to give them in order to serve their interests. The ruling class have power as long as they own the means of production. Marx argued that the working class could seize the power anytime they wanted by effective organisation: revolution in other words. Sustaining the revolution in Russia was of course power by coercion, though this was not how it was brought about – it was the collective power of the working class which the ‘Nature of Power’ analysis doesn’t cover.
My history isn’t good enough to know whether or not Trotsky was a charismatic leader (though I suspect he probably was). He certainly didn’t hold traditional power and he had no legal authority, but I can’t believe the Russian revolution came about purely because of Trotsky’s charisma. I guess what I’m struggling to define is collective power – the power groups of people hold as a collective which is greater than that of an individual leader. Is there something of a GREEN-RED harmonic here to explain this? People love charismatic leaders. They attribute the post war stability in the Balkans to Tito, the second world war victory to Churchill, the rise of fascism to Hitler. Leadership is clearly a key component of power . But what of the kind of power that is exerted by collectives which is neither coercive nor authoritative? I guess I’m talking about anarcho-syndicalism as a wholly different kind of power not covered by “The Nature of Power” analysis. Power attributed to individual leaders can only be held in the leader’s functioning lifetime. History tells us that power by coercion is unsustainable (even if it takes two hundred years to overthrow). So ‘collective authority’ I would argue is the only sustainable type of leadership. But we’re crap at it. Is that because we’re hard wired to respond to authoritative/coercive power? Or can we learn collectivism? Discuss!
That’s the question of our time, isn’t it. My simple response is that while collectivism can be learned, there are significant undertows pulling us back away from it, and thus it may never prove sustainable on the large scale.
David Burnby wrote:
Marx argued that the working class could seize the power anytime they wanted by effective organisation: revolution in other words.
True, but even revolutions need leaders. And since large groups seem to want whatever their leader wants, they adopt the same values as those whom they follow. So if a group of workers get organized by a RED leader, the group as a whole becomes one RED unit and behaves in a coercive manner. Which segues nicely into your next point:
David Burnby wrote:
I can’t believe the Russian revolution came about purely because of Trotsky’s charisma.
I can’t believe that either. I’m no Russian historian, but I think Trotsky was mainly just in the right place at the right time to take advantage of Lenin’s ability to flaunt the words of Marx before him and thus tap into the zeitgeist. In a way, Marx himself was the charismatic leader of the revolution, twisted and rearranged by Lenin to serve his own coercive goals.
David Burnby wrote:
I guess what I’m struggling to define is collective power – the power groups of people hold as a collective which is greater than that of an individual leader.
That’s as good of a term for it as I’ve ever seen. It may be coming about (to some extent) in Iceland – where, as we speak, they’re preparing to elect randomly-selected individuals to draft a new constitution – but I don’t believe collective power has held much sway except in PURPLE tribes, small-scale BLUE (e.g., city councils, the College of Cardinals), or small-scale GREEN (e.g., cooperative living).
As soon as the sample size gets too large, the extreme RED and/or ORANGE among the population are driven to earn personal power by any means necessary, and the most charismatic/authoritative/coercive among them will, eventually, devise a path to the top.
David Burnby wrote:
So ‘collective authority’ I would argue is the only sustainable type of leadership.
As much as I hate to say it, I have to disagree. Collectivism has no way to incorporate the individualists among us into a collective whole. GREEN doesn’t believe in threats (e.g., hell, jail) or promises of greatness (heaven, money). In fact, GREEN doesn’t believe in RED at all (or BLUE or ORANGE, for that matter), and that’s why Marxism will always be lacking.
I think we will always have individualists among us, RED as well as ORANGE, and therefore any leadership that doesn’t take these into account will collapse (see: the global economic crisis). The sustainable model would divide power in a way that allows RED to be constructively RED, BLUE to be constructively BLUE, and so on.
And this, by definition, would be a 2nd-Tier solution.
Trey Harris, MNLP MTD MHt
Washington, DC
Hmmm…. Good points, well argued. It’s your last paragraph that troubles me. RED leadership is unsustainable – it lacks objectivity and rationality; will be reckless and doesn’t have the ability to see the longer view. BLUE will get itself so bogged down in regulation and compliance that it will buckle under its own bureaucracy. ORANGE is too self interested. GREEN is too contemptuous of the other three to recognise their contributions. Yet as you rightly point out, sustainable leadership will exploit the contribution of all levels of the spiral – as you say, a second tier solution. But isn’t that what a successful collective would do? What I’m unsure about is whether leaders can emerge as second tier thinkers that apply the appropriate vMeme (as a ‘mask of leadership’) at the appropriate time, motivated purely by the desire for success of the collective rather than ORANGE self-interest or indeed PURPLE tribal supremacy. Is this humanly possible? Or is it inevitable as you suggest that RED and ORANGE will become the dominant vMemes and usurp the common interest? Blanchard and Hersey recognised the need to match leadership style with the operational environment in the 1960s with their “Situational Leadership” model though without of course the understanding of SD.
Great points! I think we’re getting to the heart of it now.
David Burnby wrote:
It’s your last paragraph that troubles me. RED leadership is unsustainable – it lacks objectivity and rationality; will be reckless and doesn’t have the ability to see the longer view. BLUE will get itself so bogged down in regulation and compliance that it will buckle under its own bureaucracy. ORANGE is too self interested. GREEN is too contemptuous of the other three to recognise their contributions.
Yet all of these vMemes have their positive sides as well – REDs have more pride than anyone else, which can be incredibly powerful if channeled positively. BLUE has the ability to maintain strong systems and methodologies – what if it’s a second-tier system that they’re maintaining? ORANGE has an innate capacity for innovation, and when balanced by a strong blue, can drive an entire economy. GREEN’s strength is cooperation, and understanding of how everything we do affects something else.
Nowadays, we’re lucky if government understands one of these. But a leadership that understands ALL these strengths and how to channel them for maximum benefit will have the backing of all of the vMemes – the essence of sustainability. (This is what Meshworks is all about.)
David Burnby wrote:
What I’m unsure about is whether leaders can emerge as second tier thinkers that apply the appropriate vMeme (as a ‘mask of leadership’) at the appropriate time, motivated purely by the desire for success of the collective rather than ORANGE self-interest or indeed PURPLE tribal supremacy.
I’m sure there are already such people out there, and that there will be more and more as cultural comprehension (sociopsychology) becomes more mainstream. Whether they can position themselves as leaders is another matter – it’s certainly an uphill battle against the other individualists as well as the bureaucracies already in place.
David Burnby wrote:
Or is it inevitable as you suggest that RED and ORANGE will become the dominant vMemes and usurp the common interest?
If I suggested that, I didn’t mean to. I meant to suggest that if RED and ORANGE have their place in a new society, then it’s possible they can be satiated without having to take over completely.
I do believe that in any disorganized group, without a strong BLUE or GREEN glue, the RED/ORANGE will twist the common interest into a rallying cry for coercive action. We see this in Unions, Revolutions, and so on. So in this sense, fostering the collective BLUE/GREEN could be a powerful way to maintain rationality and perspective. But how can we do that? Going back to your original example, how might the Russian populace have been brought together WITHOUT a RED leader?
Trey Harris, MNLP MTD MHt
Washington, DC
Intriguing discussion, gents!
There’s a thought here that I’d like to add which is Don Beck’s that, if the leader’s concepts and language are more than half a step ahead of those to be led, then you will lose the followers. They simply won’t be able to identify with what is being said to them. To lead effectively requires that old NLP presupposition: match, pace, pace, lead – just that little bit out in front so that the followers can see you but there is no danger of losing you.
To do that kind of matching, the theory is that you have to get to 2nd Tier before you can comfortably understand and empathise with the needs and motivations of lower vMEMES. That means YELLOW which, in Don’s words, surfs the Spiral, attending to the lower vMEMES. But YELLOW is still a self-oriented vMEME. How much of the BIGGER PICTURE does it really get…? That would require TURQUOISE presumably and we don’t exactly know a great deal about that vMEME…unless you’re comfortable with mapping it to Maslow’s Transcendence. (And then, if Graves’ sample of that way of thinking was only 6, then Maslow wasn’t that much better with only 12! To my knowledge, there has been no systematic, scientific exploration of the 8th level since Maslow, Graves and Loevinger – even though there are frequent claims for TURQUOISE thinking and some undoubtedly do think at that level. (At least, their thinking is definitely more complex than mine!)
If the Gravesian/SD theory holds, then maybe – just maybe – TURQUOISE Transcendence will be capable of sustained collective leadership…? But TURQUOISE will need to use YELLOW to speak to the different vMEMES it seeks to lead.
Even if we could have a TURQUOISE-led collective leadership, a problem you both allude to is, whoever the members of that collective are, they will have still have their other vMEMES battling in their selfplexes to get what they want. So multiply how ever many members of the collective leadership by 8 (vMEMES)– that’s a lot of vMEMETIC energy to harness!
TURQUOISE is always a fun topic! I could go on for hours, as could most of us who’ve studied SDi!
And perhaps that is what we’re waiting for – a circle of TURQUOISE ministers who can hold power like a Jedi Council. I think we’re a long way away from that, though, so hopefully there’s another solution!
I think it’s up to YELLOW to get BLUE to recognize RED, ORANGE & GREEN as valid worldviews and full of good ideas!
Take the Icelandic situation, for example…a wide variety of vMemetic profiles will be working together, by design, to create a new constitution that’ll take each one of those value sets into account. In this situation, though, it’s no single collective that has the power – it’s supposed to be representative of every collective, every class.
Perhaps this is what Marx was hoping for?
Trey Harris, MNLP MTD MHt
Washington, DC
Excellent and thought provoking stuff Trey. I rather like the idea of the British Parliament being run by a Jedi Council! Much to think about in terms of the practical application of your ideas to leadership development.