What does it mean to be human?
Human nature seems to me to be characterized by the following primary traits.
When Darwin first suggested that humans shared a common ancestry with apes and other animals, many people were shocked by the notion. But Darwin’s principles of evolution are now considered to be scientific fact by the vast majority of responsible scientists in biology and related fields.
When companies attempt to implement [lean][] principles, some of their biggest stumbling blocks seem to be the cultural elements. While some of the [Toyota][] methods are very clear and specific, the cultural issues often seem more difficult to pin down. Many organizations seem to translate the most obvious elements into terms that they are comfortable with, but something often seems to get lost in the translation, and their lean implementations struggle because they have not really modified some of the basic ways in which they think about their work.
Since the CMMI is in some ways a developmental model, it may help us to better understand its strengths and weaknesses if we compare it to other, more general, developmental models.
The Integral Approach, as espoused by Ken Wilber and others, is a much broader system that can be applied to individuals, to organizations and to entire societies. It too includes a developmental model, with levels identified by colors rather than numbers, as well as another dimension subdivided into quadrants.
A number of authors and systems of thought have proposed the concept of a series of developmental levels that represent basic value systems or levels of consciousness and culture.
Chief among these are Spiral Dynamics, as espoused by Clare W. Graves, Don Beck and Chris Cowan, and Integral Theory, as espoused by Ken Wilber.
These developmental levels can be seen in the fields of psychology, sociology, economics and organizational development, among others.
