Blue Meme Management at American Corporations

We have come to a point where GM, Ford, and Chrysler are all in the doldrums. Chrysler's divorce from Mercedes was particularly painful, for the hush hush verdict from most Germans is that Chrysler is an inferior company. And all this despite the fact that all three companies hired a cadre of consultants and university professors to study the successful business models of their brethren, Toyota and Honda, from across the ocean. Worst yet, American management is supposedly trained at the best business schools in the world, the likes of Harvard and Stanford. You can be assured that the top ranks of these companies is certainly lined with graduates of such top business schools.

So what gives?

Following an Integral model, the analysis is simple: American management operates at a Blue level of consciousness, while their counterparts are operating from an Orange level. There is ample evidence for this, but first a few definitions. The Integral Model that I'm talking about is based on Ken Wilber's approach as delineated in his many books. A good starting point would be A Theory of Everything, by Ken Wilber. Part of this model delineates levels of consciousness through which society has grown and is growing. The Blue level of consciousness is focused on maintaining order through authority and power structures, the orange level of consciousness is focused on organizing through rational and scientific principles. In addition, a Blue level of consciousness is contained by and superseded by Orange consciousness. In other words, orange thinking includes an understanding of power structures, but blue thinking does not grasp or value scientific thinking.

Looking through this lens we can clearly see that Toyota and Honda have implemented an Orange level of organization. There is very little distinction between management and workers, trade union are integrated into decision making, work flows are based on what makes most sense for a flexible and effective production, and product choices are made based on scientific principles as well as detailed marketing surveys. For example, Toyota's commitment to Hybrid cars was very much based on their belief that something has to be done to create cars that are environmentally friendly, and that commitment was based on scientific consensus about the environment.

By contrast, American Automobile companies are dogged by chronic conflict with unions, political maneuvering at top posts, outlandish management compensation, efforts to eliminate workers through automation much of which has less to do with efficiency and more to do with power structures. So while American car companies have studied orange business in Toyota and Honda, they have not been able to adopt it in a Blue consciousness organization.

As such business schools have to ask themselves this: are they in the business of simply teaching management techniques, or do they need to figure out how to move their students to a higher level of consciousness. If the answer is simply to teach techniques, then students will have to increasingly turn to other sources of learning if they are to create the companies that will compete and survive in the new globalized economy.