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Vital Signs of Change: Beyond Strategic Planning to Systemic Wellbeing 

The objective of this workshop is to give people the framework to shift from a mindset of measurement to a mindset of feedback. Based on complex adaptive living systems, the integral framework will recalibrate current “flatland” metrics that contribute to fragmented, static, regimented views of what we measure. Integral assessments, scorecards and vital signs monitors give users whole system views of life conditions, criteria for identifying living systems and perspectives for connecting the relationships between individuals, teams, organizations and communities within human systems. Participants will gain insights into the fuzzy logic of emerging complexity, qualitative and quantitative measures of capacity development and an inquiry framework that dynamically links self-organizing systems, cyclical change and long term stability.

10 Reasons You Should Attend

1. Learn three economic paradigms that show you how to select appropriate values-based metrics.
2. Examine three accountability frameworks that explain why we report results the way we do and why each framework has limitations.
3. Get the big picture -- from the Big Bang, to Big Government, to Big Corporation to the Big City -- that shows the contexts of what we need to measure and why they are so important.
4. Understand how little changes can make a big difference in complex human systems.
5. Explore the importance of the four integral domains of knowledge and how each measures success differently. 
6. Develop an appreciation of flow, feedback and feed forward as vital signs of wellbeing at different stages of organizational lifecycles.
7. See how fuzzy logic can reveal how organizations should re-balance and re-focus their resources for optimum return on investment.
8. Learn how to interpret Change States, Values Assessments and CultureSCANS for strategic planning and corporate wellbeing.
9. Get practise in applying new skills in a vital signs learning laboratory with other Spiral Dynamics integral peers.
10. Obtain coaching from skilled SDi specialists, who are applying these practices as engineers, accountants and organizational development professionals.

Who Should Attend?

Strategic planners, executives, scenario developers, facilitators, coaches, managers, accountants, performance managers, HR managers, IT, Balanced Scorecard Users, Balanced Needs Scorecard Users, Integral Thinkers, GIS Mappers, engineers, city planners, social planners, developers, supervisors, government, NFP, private sector, foundations, chief information officers, chief financial officers, values based leaders, organization developers, geographers, psychologists, students

Participant Activities

Participants will be active in:

• Questions and answers about “Memes, Genes and Beans” and how they contribute to integral scorecarding
• Demonstrations of OnlinePeopleSCAN assessments for use with individuals, leaders, teams, organizations
• Applications of OnlinePeopleSCAN assessments for natural system development of teams, organizations and communities
• Discuss limitations of Strategic Planning and differences with Systemic Wellbeing
• Learning Lab or Field Trip to collect data to develop the integral 4Q8L observation “muscles”
• Sapient circles to create data and/or interpret data
• Mining data bases to recycle and recalibrate deep wells of existing knowledge where connecting patterns are not obvious
• Using Feedback loops to make recommendations for change
• Evaluation of Prototypes for use with capacity development of individuals, teams, organizations, communities, cities

Main Features

In this Spiral Dynamics integral training participants will learn the basics of designing feedback loops using spiral dynamic design principles. They will be introduced to key aspects of complex adaptive systems and the self-correcting nature of sustainable systems. 

As a context for recognizing the value of feedback systems, participants will learn a brief history of emergence and how it has shaped the universe, world and human systems we live in. We will review a brief history of organizational patterns, economic paradigms and metric development.

Participants will examine the basic path of human and organizational complexity using the integral lenses of learning, actions, relationships and productivity. Participants will be challenged to reconsider the sustainability paradigm of social, economic and environmental interconnections and recalibrate it to an integral context.

We will use Spiral Dynamics to review what is important to people at different scales of daily existence – from success as an individual, to wellbeing in the family, effectiveness and efficiency in the workplace, satisfaction in community and service to global concerns. We will recognize the influence of change states on measurement and feedback and how to use indicators to reflect such conditions.

Comparisons will be made between different metric systems such as strategic planning, values based corporate strategies, balanced scorecards, balanced needs scorecards, integral scorecards and systemic wellbeing monitors.

Different adaptations of the integral scorecard will be illustrated for individuals, organizations, communities, cities and eco-systems.

Action research from a variety of sectors will be shared to illustrate the power of integral measurement approaches.

The course will include the following:

ü  Designing Natural Feedback Systems

[In contrast to rigid, inflexible, specific templates]

• The underlying principles and processes of “the natural.”  How to detect the ebb and flows, the unique patterns within the dispersal of information and energy unique to diverse environments.  How to detect the deepest vMemetic code within human systems and in power centers. Ways to detect the “natural flow” within your organizational, culture or community contexts.
• Re-appreciating the scientific method. What is the value of science to expanding our knowledge base? How do we use an integral design to select  methodologies and produce valid data?
• The basic characteristics of “design.”  Forms, types, expressions, and manifestations of different types of feedback loops  from specific blueprints to linear sequences to simultaneous happenings to feedforward/feedback loops, and to fields of wisdom and knowledge that connect functions and people in holonic zones.
• An assortment of “Natural Design Vital Signs.”  + Understanding nature’s dynamic math + Fractals, Chaos, Complexity + Cycles and self-correcting feedback loops +Deciphering vMemetic Codes   +Constructing vMemetic Maps +Holons, Zones and Quadrants  +Creating Integral Scorecards +Exploring Relationship Maps   +Applying Templates   +Reading Expressions   +Assessing People + Creating Validation and Verification Approaches

ü  Metrics for Change

[In contrast to linear, static, fragmented freeze-frames]

·         Conducting a SituationalSCAN.  How to scan the complexity of different scales of human systems.

·         What is the internal and external setting?  How to identify the dynamic patterns of capacities emerging in the human environment. 

·         Enabling strategic Feedback Systems.  Using 4Q8L lenses to discern, create, explore and adapt sufficiently simple AND complex vital signs monitors for the 21^st century.  Finding data, owners, accountability, interpretation.

·         From field observation to shared understanding.  Developing a scorecard to report the state of health you want to convey. 

·         Checking the Change Landscape.  How to reflect the dynamic change realities in your reports.

ü  10,000 Meter Messaging from the Second Tier

[In contrast to narrow gauge, small scale, low altitude measures of the First Tier]

·         Basic Assumptions of metrics from the Second Tier: distinguishing characteristics

·         Limitations and adaptations of First Tier Metrics

·         Emerging Second Tier prototypes

ü   Selecting Measures that Matter Here, Now, as Sustainable Wellbeing Feedback Loops for These People

[In contrast to prescribed, authority ordained, inflexible metrics imported from elsewhere ]

• Naming what is important for survival here; expressing how our environment speaks; selecting measures appropriate to our survival and wellbeing, sustainable economies, relevant relationships; collecting data; owning the responsibility for collection and reporting; acting accountably to report  the data; analyzing and interpreting the data
• Evaluating our effectiveness; making changes to our feedback system; recalibrating as we learn
• Understanding that what the globe needs measured for global health may differ from local measures for local health. How do we reconcile these tensions?

ü   Integral Scorecards, Vital Signs Monitors   

The Assessment-Lab: Where vMEME codes and Spiral Dynamics integral principles are translated collaboratively into effective integral scorecards and vital signs monitors

• Integral Data Collection: The vMemetic selection of subjective/intersubjective and objective/interobjective data
• Integral Indicators: How to select and report integral indicators that convey meaning at different levels of scale. How to hyperlink for increasing granularity and/or cluster for increasing meta-connectivity.
• Integral Metamaps: Learning how to calibrate data into 4Q8L datasets at different levels of scale
• Integral Dashboards: How to align and present key data, scorecards, maps with stakeholders, users, constituents, etc. to enable understanding and action