Do you ever wonder?
- Why do people behave the way they do? Even when it is self-destructive?
- Why you just can’t get along with some people?
- Why we have so much conflict in the world?
- How can we lead different people in way that makes use of their own model of the world?
- How can we understand the values and worldview of our clients to design impactful interventions that makes sense to them?
The Start of Spiral Dynamics
The Graves model and Spiral Dynamics™ is the result of over 40 years of research and development of Dr. Clare Graves and further work by Don Beck and Chris Cowan, based on their work in North America and South Africa.
People and cultures go through different stages of development. These stages are colour coded in Spiral Dynamics to make it easier to keep track. These stages of development or memes are different modes of being in people and under the right conditions, changes happen to move them to another mode of being.
Background and Relevance
Spiral Dynamics offers several valuable applications for social workers, particularly in South Africa’s complex social context. The model provides a framework for understanding how individuals and communities develop different value systems and worldviews based on their life conditions and psychological capacities.
Spiral dynamics help describe the development of people, organizations, and wider society according to the value systems that motivate them. Social workers can use this to better understand why different communities respond differently to interventions and social programmes.
The Spiral Dynamics model has a variety of applications in the fields of personal growth and development, understanding social and cultural dynamics, leadership development, conflict resolution, and reconciliation. This is particularly relevant in South Africa’s post-apartheid context where communities are still healing from historical trauma.
For South African social workers, Spiral Dynamics can help:
- Navigate the diverse cultural landscape by understanding different value systems without judgment
- Address intergenerational trauma by recognizing how historical conditions shape current worldviews
- Design community development programs that meet people where they are developmentally
- Facilitate dialogue between communities operating from different value systems
- Support leaders in understanding the complexity of social change in post-apartheid society
The model’s emphasis on understanding rather than judging different worldviews makes it particularly valuable for social workers operating in South Africa’s multicultural environment, where traditional, modern, and post-modern value systems often coexist within the same communities.
Spiral Dynamics itself is a rather complicated theory, and variations of its core concepts has developed over time. The goal of this workshop is not to teach Spiral Dynamics per se, but to introduce social workers to this approach, utilising it to broaden their understanding of the role value systems play as motivation for people’s behaviour, and especially to introduce social workers to a new way of thinking about how change happens for people. Spiral Dynamics provides a unique perspective on “change”, the conditions necessary for change, and the concept of change as vertical or horizontal along the values spiral. This understanding alone can create a significant shift in the social workers thinking about how to plan interventions for the client. This workshop is therefore in introduction to Spiral Dynamics, and invites them continue exploring this approach after completion of the workshop.
Workshop
(New dates will be available soon)
This workshop is facilitated fully online via Zoom over the course of 6 hours, which consists of two 3-hour sessions.
The cost of the workshop is R600 per person.
The workshop is approved by SACSSP for 6 CPD points for social workers.
Overview of the content of the workshop
- My lens, my world (reflecting on personal values and beliefs)
- Foundations of Spiral Dynamics (history and key concepts)
- Exploring and identifying value systems (reviewing different levels of values)
- Conditions for change (how change is viewed from a Spiral perspective)
- Applications for assessment and intervention
- Ethical considerations and case study
The workshop is facilitated fully online via Zoom. Participants are required to remain on camera for the full duration of each session and should ensure that their equipment and internet connection is suitable for this kind of interaction. Attendance with a phone or tablet is not recommended – it is recommended to use a PC or laptop since some of the screens that will be shared may include text or diagrams that would be too small read on a cellphone screen. Due to the fact that this is a sensitive topic and to create a safe, confidential, inclusive space for all participants, each participant should attend from a suitable physical space (for example, not while travelling or while sharing office space with others). The use of headphones is recommended – alternatively participants should be in a space not shared with others. To respect the privacy of the participants, sessions are not recorded.
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