This series of blogs on the Transition from Green to Yellow is by Guest Contributor, Leida Schuringa.  Leida is a coach, author and SDi-trainer located in The Netherlands. She is very interested in applying SDi on societal issues. She worked in the non-profit sector and international development (at this moment in projects in Malawi and Czech Republic) and is involved in the Center for Human Emergence, Netherlands (CHE-NL). She has written books about project management, handling diversity and community empowerment. Her passion is to contribute to cooperation between people from many different backgrounds.

The Problematique: Why it all matters

The evolutionary process seems to have fallen into regression (example: the election of Trump). Ken Wilber explains (1) that Green Postmodernity got stuck and didn’t pick up its role as the next ‘Leading Edge’, because of its excessive view of subjectivity, in which all is linked to context and truth doesn’t exist. In the extreme, in Green nothing is more true and more of value than anything else. Because a clear vision and focused choices are lacking, many people fall into confusion and are looking for strong (Red) leaders.

Now what? Postmodernity has fulfilled her role in the development of the social welfare state, the increasing attention for sustainability, communication, personal growth and solidarity with others. According to the theory of evolution (like Spiral Dynamics integral), the next step is the transition to integral thinking, integral acting and integral (personal and collective) leadership. If this transition from the Green postmodern to the Yellow integral perspective stagnates, the risk of chaos and regression is huge. Available solutions to actual and future problems (e.g. to realize the Sustainable Development Goals) cannot be implemented because we need the integrated benefits of all previous value systems to find requisite solutions for today’s complex problems.

If the transition succeeds, we will see people, organizations and societies take the lead based on human-oriented openness and a clear transcending view with a capacity to integrate differences into innovative solutions. These leaders are integral thinkers and actors. They are no longer motivated by their own interests or only one perspective, but are able to see what is functional for the survival and even flourishing of humanity as a whole. Beyond polarization.

Note 1: See Ken Wilber: Trump and the post truth world, 2017

This series of Blogs on Transitioning from Green to Yellow by Leida Schuringa are extracts from a longer article which you can download here.  This series includes the following: