21st CENTURY VALUES
A Partnership in Values & Culture 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

"What if a malignant version of some fear-laced  "-ism" - " this Truth is the only Truth and will prevail at any cost" - suddenly rears its head for conquest and domination?  Can the glass-fibre infrastructure of the global village withstand terrorists fighting holy wars or self-righteous crusades."    

"Ancient ethnic sores are  belching fire while transnational companies linked by satellites conduct their business oblivious to the feudal past below."

Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change by Don Edward Beck and Christopher C. Cowan.  Blackwell Publishers, UK - 1996  

Since the events of 11 September, 2001 the world has changed forever and will never be as it was before that day.   If Modern Civilisation and the human species is to survive and prosper in the 21st Century then it will be necessary to reframe our world using a totally different process and paradigm than in the past. 

Dr Don Beck and Chris Cowan in Spiral Dynamics published in 1996 made the following points:

"Captains of both the private and public sectors are restructuring, downsizing, reengineering, and playing catch-up with the change curve, only to fall further out of trim.  Gridlock is everywhere.  At many levels, we are flying through turbulent storms of severity and complexity never even mocked-up in our simulations.  Why is this?"

"Deep-seated and fundamental belief structures have been tilted, causing us to question everything. In the past we were isolated by physical distance and smoke-signal communications. Now we know too much, too soon. When one place is upset, it reverberates globally within the hour. We inhabit a polyglot, diverse, but not yet interdependent world. All of the stratified life forms, from tribal to info-tech societies, are in daily conflict over niches and resources." 

"The complications of this diversity can be overwhelming.  Virtually any social, environmental, or spiritual cause with PR savvy can get down-centre-stage media exposure on global TV.  It is as if every human mindset that has ever lived is returning to demand a place in the sun and a piece of the pie."      

"Finally, our expanding sciences and technology have shrunk all those good folk into global villagers.  No one can hide.  CNN collapses both time and distance.  The World Wide Web concentrates knowledge.  What happens anywhere is instantly known everywhere." 

Some possible consequences as outlined by Don Beck and Chris Cowan in Spiral Dynamics were:

What if there are no jobs for the thousands of professionals whose positions are disappearing due to right-sizing, flattening and lay-offs?

What if there are not enough niches for the millions of intelligent Third World "have-not's" being drawn like moths to the developed nations?

What if the next Attila shows up on global television with the threat of unleasing pocket-sized nuclear weapons built from Black Market surplus by laid - off physicists and acquired in exchange for bread?

Great Ideas are Forged in Chaotic Times
It seems we are at break point following the events of 11 September, 2001 and the subsequent developments from that date.  Dr Clare Graves the initiator of the Values technology, further developed by Beck and Cowan, warned in The Futurist in April, 1974 that mankind was preparing for a "momentous leap" and we should pay heed.  

The late Professor Clare W. Graves, Union College, New York said it best:

"At each stage of human existence the adult man is off on his quest of his holy grail, the way of life he seeks by which to live.  At his first level he is on a quest for automatic physiological satisfaction.  At the second level he seeks a safe mode of living, and this is followed in turn, by a search for heroic status, for power and glory, by a search for ultimate peace; a search for material pleasure, a search for affectionate relations, a search for respect of self, and a search for peace in an incomprehensible world. And, when he finds he will not find that peace, he will be off on his ninth level quest.

As he sets off on each quest, he believes he will find the answer to his existence. Yet, much to his surprise and much to his dismay, he finds at every stage that the solution to existence is not the solution he has come to find.  Every stage he reaches leaves him disconcerted and perplexed.  It is simply that as he solves one set of human problems he finds a new set in their place.  The quest he finds is never ending."

Mission of the Global Values Network
The identification, development, display, interpretation and dissemination of key strategic data to assist in the nurturing of the emergence of a healthy global society.  This will be achieved through the development of "Natural Integral Systems" by using the value / cultural codes that shape our world.

The Value and Cultural codes are those as developed by Dr Don Beck of SDi and the Institute for Values & Culture over the last 25 years and extensively used by business and others in both developed / developing economies around the world.    

Leadership
The leadership of this project will be shared by the Institute for Values & Culture / SDi in the US and the GlobalValuesNetwork.com in South Africa.  The direction will be provided from these bodies in close association with imaginative leaders from partner organisations who have a "New Integral Vision" of the future.

The Business Concept
The GVM will provide direct benefits to stakeholders by providing them with an in-depth strategic understanding of human values and culture in both developed and developing countries.  It will also provide guidelines on how to handle various situations in an integrated and holistic way.

The design of the GlobalValuesMonitor.com is based on a fully Integral Model and in close collaboration with like-minded research organisations around the world.  See  www.globalvaluesnetwork.com for further information on the Integral Values Technology.

Partnership Structure
The Partnership Structure will cover the full spectrum of Business, Academic and other organisations.  This initiative will be a Partnership in Applied Research and Education with the objective of providing a fully flexible Integral approach to assist in the positive management of Global Diversity.

The overall objective of the GVM will be to mobilise the global understanding of Values & Culture and how these issues impact on other aspects of modern life.

GIS Report Technology
It is planned to use GIS technology to reproduce the data but using three dimensional stacks of the Value Systems.  This will allow for an easy visual presentation of the data at the global, regional and country level.  The GVM will allow for this information to be displayed in a completely new visual way, while at the same time allowing for easy interpretation of the key data.

Live Database Information
Although the GVM Report will be published on a regular basis it will also be possible to access the database at any time for live updated information.  This on-line service will be available to Partners and clients of the GlobalValuesNetwork.com as required.

It is anticipated that the first GVM Report will cover a representative sample of countries on all the continents.  At the same time potential "global hot spots" will also be surveyed as a top priority.  As far as possible special funding will be made available in order to assist in the understanding of the key developmental issues involved in these specially identified countries / regions.

Prepared by Alan Tonkin
CEO:  GlobalValuesNetwork.com
21 January, 2002