Spiral Evidence

“Genius means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.”
-William James

The writers of a book called Spiral Dynamics, Donald Beck and Chris Cowan spent years developing the work of a researcher named Claire Graves. Graves’ work at Stanford was based on extensive cross-cultural research and found that people develop through many stages in their lives from the survival needs levels of early childhood to multi-perspectival levels of adulthood. Beck and Cowan took this work, advanced it and applied it to how organizations (businesses, governments) could function better. Their work has been used by many companies and was instrumental in helping South Africa devise it’s post-apartheid government.

Spiral Dynamics illuminates what an approach using a framework such as the Integral framework can accomplish. Adopting a multi-dimensional method puts one in the position of disengaging from one’s own point of view while combining different perspectives. This has been found to be up to 10 times more creative and effective than more traditional thinking. Their own cross-cultural and cross-demographic research confirms:

“When individuals or groups thinking through [multi-perspectives] are given a task, they generally get more and better results while expending less time and effort. They often approach the activity in surprising ways others would not have considered. This is more than efficiency; it reflects the activation of thus-far uncommitted brain power…[They] tolerate, even enjoy paradoxes and uncertainties…[they] are able to fix problems while others fret, manipulate, query higher authority, form study groups, or play theory games….[These thinkers experience a] dropping away of the compulsions and anxieties (fear) of previous levels, thus enhancing the person’s ability to take a contemplative attitude and rationally appraise realities. As fear receded, the quantity and quality of good ideas and solutions to problems increased dramatically…[There is] an ability to learn a great deal from the many sources, and a trend to getting much more done with much less energy or resources.”

For many people this sounds like an appropriate description of the way they think and work. Yet many are not aware of this distinction. By using the framework and being aware of multi-perspectival thinking any project can be enhanced and completed faster and with more depth.

“Instead of seeking new landscapes, develop new eyes.”
-Marcel Proust

Story-Showing

Not storytelling. It is not that storytelling is bad it is just that storytelling is a literary term and film is so much more than literature. Considering the possibilities of film shouldn’t we set the medium free by thinking in terms of storyshowing? When writing one tells a story and it can be beautiful but the image is surrounded by words with film the image merges directly into the viewer’s mind, pure and autonomous. How powerful that is and if we remember that, always thoughtful of that power, the content and form meet providing more emotional engagement with the aesthetics and the content for the viewer. Storyshowing is way more effective than stodgy, literary storytelling. Film and the CGI effects available to us in this age make anything possible on the screen. Even things that go beyond words are possible.

In our short film Noun9 we faced the dilemma of how to storytell about a man who was trapped by his need to define himself and his girlfriend as a noun. How in words do you tell that? We realized you don’t. We had to change our approach to show it, not tell it. Then the possibilities of the medium opened up to us. We could envision this concept instead of trying to put it into words and CGI provided the images. Moving-sound images that beautifully and gracefully mingle with the mind of the viewer. Not words and words and exposition that confuse and take up time and block the experience. Concept-creation and concept-experience, in images not words, goes right to the center of the brain bypassing those hang-ups people get when you try and tell them something. Just show it.