A New Level of Thinking is Mandatory

Business literature and business school thinking today is rational, scientific, methodical, and full of gems in process improvement.

It is not enough.

In integral theory such thinking is classified as Orange level of consciousness, following a rational and evidence-based approach to solving problems. There is nothing wrong with this. If fact, such thinking is essential and important.

But increasingly business leaders are faced with a globalized world and a diverse population, and much of what goes wrong, goes wrong here, for business leaders fail to understand each other's perspectives, and basically miss the boat on what people want.

So, of-course, the response from the social sciences departments would be that it is a post-modern world where all meaning is subjective, where values are pluralistic, and people are all equal. But this is not enough either.

What is needed, is consciousness of consciousness. An awareness of your own values and the values of others, and the ability to detach yourself from such values and objectively examine what values are essential to the operation of an organization, and also to understand how to pull the organization, the whole organization, up to this new level of consciousness.

The level of consciousness I am talking about is classified as Teal in the Integral Hierarchy of development and I am arguing here, that this level is the minimum that is needed for the new global corporation. For without a proper awareness of your own assumptions, and an understanding of development, organizations will not be able to address the needs of their consumers. Worse still, they will not even understand why their customers are behaving the way they do. And it is not simply good enough to have tolerance and function in a pluralistic society, for in order to work together, a common set of values is necessary, a focus that unifies the organization is necessary, and without a Teal level of thinking, workers are not equipped to deal with challenges to their own assumptions.

So in summary, whereas we have hobbled along in the past with lower levels of consciousness, this has only been possible because one culture has dominated the world. But in a new multi-polar world, this is no longer the case, and organizations will need a minimum Teal level of thinking not only to succeed, but to survive.