Combating
Absolutisms for More Effective and Balanced Solutions
By contrast, the methods of the other major approaches now widely used—mythic-religious, rational-scientific, and pluralistic—appear to have major biases built into them, because they advance their truth as the only fundamentally correct approach while condemning the others as inferior or even dangerous.
An obvious example is the rational-scientific method in its exclusive form. It focuses problem analysis (and solution) on systems and processes, and for the most part excludes issues associated with individual meaning, aesthetics, and group culture. Even systems theory, which claims to be "comprehensive" and "all-inclusive," in fact privileges the "it" and "its" domains—and explicitly denies irreducible reality to all of the "I" and "thou" and "we" domains of aesthetics, morals, and culture. In other words, science and systems theory absolutize their own favorite quadrants (the "it" and "its" dimensions).
Likewise, postmodern pluralism often grants reality to the social or cultural dimension (we), but it tends to deny any sort of objective reality. Pluralism tends to absolutize the "we" dimension and deny reality to objective "it" and "its." All science is therefore looked upon as a mere interpretation, much like poetry. But clearly, a diamond will cut a piece of glass no matter what culture it appears in. In other words, there are important objective truths (or "its") that need to be honored if any enduring solutions to the world's problems are to be discovered.
Thus, the Integral approach accepts the partial truths of both science and pluralism—they are each correct when dealing with their own quadrant or dimension—but denies that they alone have the only truth. By combining all of their important contributions, the Integral approach is able to offer fresh, comprehensive, and exciting approaches to resolving some of the world's recalcitrant problems.
Specific Applications
The value of a more comprehensive or integral map lies in the fact that it can be fruitfully applied to virtually any human endeavor, thus significantly increasing the probability that specific issues and problems can more effectively and efficiently be addressed and resolved.
These include such pressing issues as:
- Educational Problems and Solutions
- Business and Organizational Leadership
- Environmental and Ecological Problems
- Health and Medical Issues
- Political Problems and Solutions
- International Political and Military Issues
- Personal Transformation and Integral Spirituality
In the following section we will outline a few examples of how a more comprehensive and adequate approach—which takes into account the five major aspects of quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types—can offer fresh and innovative solutions to major problems. Obviously, in this short space we can only hint at the comprehensive nature of the Integral approach, but hopefully enough to suggest its possible importance.
Change Initiatives in Organizations: An Example from Business
The Integral Approach has many practical applications. It suggests that every transformational change effort needs to address all five of the major aspects of human beings. To do less than that is to leave out crucial variables that will seriously hobble effectiveness—whether the change effort involves helping individuals, creating personal meaning, addressing ecological issues, or managing sound and effective government and business leadership.
These insights can be applied to peak organizational as well as individual issues. Installing a new systems or process initiative without assuring an integrated balance of all relevant functions is a recipe for underperformance and in some cases disaster. Yet most leadership practices (in business, government, ecology, education) leave out some major aspect of human reality—they focus on only one quadrant, or only one level, or only one line, and so on—thus severely limiting their overall effectiveness.
This dangerous inadequacy returns to haunt the proponents of these partial models, as their very partialness tends to hobble truly effective change. Let's give a few well-documented examples of how such partialness can cripple business management and leadership theories and practices.
We have seen that all human beings have access to at least four major quadrants or dimensions: "I" or intentionality, "we" or culture, "it" or individual behavior, and "its" or systems behavior. In practice we find that most change agents (whether working with individuals, groups, or organizations) tend to focus on one of those quadrants at the expense of the others.
For example, behavioral modification focuses exclusively on the Upper-Right quadrant by attempting to directly change personal behavior. (In business, this includes such approaches as Total Quality Management and Theory X). Although they possess an important part of the puzzle of effective change, such methods do not address Upper-Left quadrant issues relating to individual psychological development and values-based motivations. Nor do they perform their interventions in the context of a supporting culture (Lower-Left quadrant) or organizational systems (Lower-Right quadrant). In effect, they leave out three-fourths of the factors required for a successful intervention.
Emotional intelligence training is one example of the methods (such as "Theory Y") that point out that productivity is often a product the emotional and subjective wellbeing of the people involved. In other words, it focuses on a particular line of individual development in the Upper-Left quadrant, which can be very helpful, but it leaves out crucial factors in the other three quadrants (which usually return to sabotage any real change).
Likewise, corporate and organizational culture consultants focus on the Lower-Left quadrant, pointing out that extensive research has shown that much of an organization's performance depends on cultural values in the organization itself—an important piece of the integral puzzle, but one that, by itself, leaves out vital factors in the other quadrants.
Systems theory experts and systems managers focus on the networks of dynamic flows of products and information in vast systems of interaction. Again, this is another important piece of the integral puzzle, but one that leaves out the important interior dimensions of the I and we domains (which usually return to sabotage the system). In other words, systems experts tend to work the Lower-Right quadrant, neglecting or even excluding the other three. And so on.
What makes the Integral Approach so innovative is that, by using a more comprehensive map employing all four quadrants, the important contributions of all of those methods can be incorporated into a truly effective approach that covers all the bases. Each of those methods is addressing an important dimension of human existence, and by seeing how each of them fits together into a larger picture, they can all be used synergistically to significantly enhance effectiveness.
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The Integral Approach
