Ego's Response to Companies via Spiral Dynamics

[PepperBlossoms]

This is in regard to Civil Engineering firms (but other companies will fit similar framework).

Stage red - "Look at me I am dominating. Look at how good I am at getting work." Cares for employees to the extent that they will do whatever the employer wants, regardless of ethics. Will lie, cheat, steal, etc. as needed. Will do projects without care for the impact such as climate change, animal cruelty, war, etc. - oil/gas, fast food, meat restaurants, pesticides, military bases, coal/plastics plants, etc. Will yell at employees and make demands of them, have no care for work life balance, employee well being, reputation, etc. May pay employees dirt wages and have prostitution/money laundering/etc. Willing to cut corners on checking work and quality of work. Doesn't care if work is polluting the environment or destroying habitat or killing creatures or indirectly contributing to bombing/war. There may be wild cocaine/alcohol/etc. use. Rules/regulations are seen as barriers and not applicable to self. (Ego sees that it is looking bad and creates some rules for itself and moves on to stage blue.)

Stage blue - "Look at us, we are a family firm. Look at how good we are at following the rules." Cares for employees to the extent that they agree with the rules the employer has set. Unwavering in whatever rules the employer thinks are necessary even if those rules have nothing to do with the work itself. Employer not open to hybrid or remote work, not open to new ideas, wants things done based on tradition, culture, how they have always been done, etc. Does things by serving the needs of the clients and following rules and regulation but still is not considering/aware of the impact of the work such as on climate change, animal cruelty, war, etc. Management sees employees as dedicated servants who must bow down to the company. Will drug test employees to make sure no one is under the influence and has a zero tolerance drug policy. Enforces a dress code and arrival/leave time that everyone is to abide by. Develops cookie cutter approaches, QA/QC process, and lots of forms to fill out to improve quality in reaction to the stage red issues of errors and getting in trouble. Employees may tattle and shame when someone breaks a company rule. (Ego sees that it could be making more money if it adapted its techniques and methods more and moves on to stage orange.)

Stage orange - "Look at how successful we are. Look at how much money we make and how big our company is." Cares for employees to the extent that they make the employer lots of money. When money is a question, the employee is canned. Values profit and share price over anything else. Has goals to grow the company, get more projects, more clients, and more offices. Open to remote/hybrid/clean energy projects if and only if it is profitable. Will seek out work based on what is the most profitable and will adapt based on where the money/success is. Management sees employees as money sources rather than as people and may get cocky. Often has long work hours and tends to not pay overtime as it does not want to pay employees more than it has to because of the profit it values. (Ego sees that it could look better to clients and employees if it claimed it cared about community values other than just money and moves on to stage green.)

Stage green - "Look at how much we care about social values, the environment, etc." At this stage and beyond, likely to be more flexible with work hours, provide significantly more PTO and maternity/paternity leave, and allow full remote/hybrid/in office (based on what employee prefers) as it values wellbeing of the employee and sees that happy, well rested employees produce higher quality work and stay longer. Willing to pay employees overtime but also strives to have enough employees such that overtime is not necessary and understands the benefits of work-life balance. Proactively seeks out involvement in some sort of work/activities related to LGBTQ, gender equality, clean energy, net zero carbon, sustainable infrastructure, poverty, education, assisting developing countries, etc. for the intention of making a difference to save the planet/environment/people unlike the previous stage that would have only done it if it made it money/attention/fame as well as also wants to attract the type of people who care about that kind of stuff. Open to point out ethical flaws that it sees in the industry and openly claims that its purpose is for social justice/clean energy/etc. and does not want to tolerate things that would harm that. Open to hiring people with a criminal record as well as of any race/gender/country. May be more likely to give employees healthy food options (and possibly even vegan) rather than junk food/pizza/candy as in previous stages. Coworkers are seen as compassionate teammates to aid in saving the world. (Ego sees that it could do better if it took on some more perspectives other than just the social justice warrior stance and moves on to stage yellow.)

Stage yellow - "Look at how holistic and multi-perspectival we are. Look at all the aspects we are considering and knowledge that we have." Looks at the work not just from the company/employee/human perspective but rather from multiple perspectives such as different disciplines, the environment, future generations, long term impact, animals, bugs, aquatic life, birds, trees, aesthetics, etc. Considers the point of view of the client, the people in the city, etc. Considers taking projects all over the world. Considers how work will integrate. Values learning, training, group discussions, and employee feedback and willing to spend money on this. Values beauty and makes an effort for the site to look aesthetically pleasing and interesting. Open-minded to new ideas and collaboration. Open to hiring people with different backgrounds and sees every person as having different experiences, value set, interests, needs, skills, etc. Has more nuance and complexity with design - all projects are unique. Coworkers are seen as peers to theorize, rationalize, and debate models of understanding with. May scientifically still be trying to create models and equations to describe the chaos of rainfall, earthwork, fees, etc. (Ego sees that life is a game and moves on to stage turquoise.)

Stage turquoise - "Look at the wild and crazy changes we are imagining and making to the industry and as reflected in our work. Look at all the epiphanies were are having and delusions we are noticing." Willing to take the most risks, perspectives. Notices that the rules of engineering, running a business, social norms, money game/social justice game/engineering game/family game, etc. are all made up and willing to play around with those and change them. Willing to question the norm and question itself and how it fits in to everything else with a universal lens. Has the most awareness of itself, industry concerns, etc. Sees how stuff is typically done and open to radically changing it and trying something completely different as life is a game and everything will get destroyed anyway and all of the employees will not live forever as they are now but rather everything is transforming infinitely forever. Most aware of all of the "structures" humans have created/projected and willing to poke fun at them and change them. May see past all the engineering equations/models as attempts to describe the chaos of reality that can never fully be trusted or relied on and that the chaos will never be fully understood as one will never have all the perspectives or know if one is missing any perspectives and note that reality itself keeps on changing. Coworkers are seen as part of universal self. Aware of the impermanence of everything that is now including the employee, their family, the environment. Thinking heavily about how the work now will impact people/creatures/life/universe of tomorrow with the idea that those tomorrow will then take what one has done now and use that to make more changes. Passion for empathy, equality, beauty, curiosity, etc. not just because it would make it money but rather because it can. Open to allowing employees to take psychedelics to help with the imagination/awareness aspect which gives it a leg up over the majority who are not. One may be the most conflicted at this stage with doing anything related to harming the environment, meat restaurants, pesticides, etc. as it sees through a non-dual lens of everything being one and hence by harming the animals/environment, one is harming oneself as it sees it being one rather than dualistic/separate. One is the most aware at this stage of all of the intricacies and connections there are. One may have trouble with life purpose noting that anything done will get transformed so many times in terms of infinity that it wont be there anymore forever after one finishes it, no matter how good the design is. One may just do stuff for the ride and exploring reality as all money, knowledge, and projects are temporary and in a way, imagined/constructed. Humans are seen as not separate from the universe but rather are the universe. There is no world to save other than the idea of the one we are familiar with as the world isn't going anywhere other than transforming. We are complying with the current money system that humans have set up in the survival game that we are collectively creating even though there is nothing to survive because the universe is forever.