The term “vMEME” (the superscript “v” is for “value”) refers to a core value system expressed through a culture’s memes, i.e., its ideas, habits, and cultural preferences and practices that spread from person to person. In MEMEnomics Said E. Dawlabani reframes our economic history and the future of capitalism through the unique prism of a culture’s value systems. Focusing on the long-term effects of economic policies on society, he expands psychologist Clare W. Graves’ concepts of the hierarchical nature of human development and the theories of value systems of Beck and Cowan’s Spiral Dynamics. He presents our economic history in terms of the hierarchy of five of the eight value-systems or vMEMEs of human existence that we can now identify. These new value preferences emerge as people interact with their environment to solve the problems of their “life conditions.”
A more effective leadership model for the new business environment. Spiral Dynamics in Action explores the evolution of modern business, and provides a model for moving forward amidst ever-increasing complexity and change. Only by truly understanding other people's perspectives can you bring them together to achieve the extraordinary, and this book provides a field guide to the different motivations, behaviours and talents in your team to help you lead diverse groups more effectively. Focused on action over theory, the Spiral Dynamics model includes cutting-edge leadership practices, management systems, processes, procedures and techniques to help you bring about real-world results. The nature of change is consistent, but that doesn't make it any less enormous or complex to deal with. As a business leader, you are tasked with not only navigating change yourself, but also guiding others through the maze successfully. This book shows you how to shift your perspective, hone your focus and deliver what your people need by: Understanding the reasoning behind different perspectives. Helping people play off one another's strengths to achieve a shared goal. Adopting cutting-edge practices, processes and procedures for improvement. Taking action to re-connect an increasingly fragmented environment. The marketplace has gone truly global, workforces are increasingly diverse and companies are taking on powerful new social responsibilities. It's a lot to take in, let alone manage, but the responsibility of leadership is to gather disparate parts and make them into a whole. It's your job to turn anchors into rocket fuel, and motivate and inspire your team to the top. By digging to the core of each person, each culture and each problem, you uncover a roadmap to high performance; Spiral Dynamics in Action shows you how to guide your people through any changes and emerge stronger than before.
Beinhocker has written this work in order to introduce a broad audience to what he believes is a revolutionary new paradigm in economics and its implications for our understanding of the creation of wealth. He describes how the growing field of complexity theory allows for evolutionary understanding of wealth creation, in which business designs co-evolve with the evolution of technologies and organizational innovations. In addition to giving his audience a tour of this field of complexity economics, he discusses its implications for real-world issues of business.
An ancient goddess in the light of a contemporary love story . . .Ishtar is the Mesopotamian goddess of love and war. Like the Greek Persephone, she descends to the Underworld and can return to Earth only after great hardship. Her story is that of the universal patterns of feminine power that transcend the dual nature of existence, balancing life and death and the forces that perpetuate the cycles of our universe. Today, this archetype represents the resurrection of the power of the feminine that for centuries has been absent from our human story. Said Dawlabani's poignant memoir, The Light of Ishtar, draws parallels between the ancient goddess and his wife and soulmate, Elza Maalouf, recognizing inner energies that are universal to us all. For over a decade, the dazzling futurist Elza Malouf spearheaded the resurrection of feminine power in the Middle East. A passionate agent of transformation, she championed women's rights everywhere. With Don Beck, leader of the Spiral Dynamics theory of human evolution, she and Said cofounded the Center for Human Emergence Middle East. She is author of the award-winning book Emerge! The Rise of Functional Democracy and the Future of the Middle East. And Said, applying values systems to large-scale change, became an eminent speaker and author as well. Brilliant and dynamic, this Lebanese American couple seemed destined for greatness on the world stage―until in 2014 disaster struck. With excerpts from Elza's own unpublished memoir, Said tells the story of their backgrounds in Lebanon and their early romance in the States. He draws on Joseph Campbell's hero's journey to chronicle their ascent to prominence in their respective fields as part of their mythic call to adventure. Then with rare courage he explores the dark side of the psyche when, at age forty-nine, Elza begins descending into speechless dementia. Ishtar's journey to the Underworld mirrors them both as Said battles with the dark forces within himself and within the medical community, trying to restore Elza to health. But, unlike the goddess, Elza can't return to live in the world as she once did. In telling the story, Said explores the patterns at the heart of transformational experience: the deep wounding, the grief, and the long road to acceptance, recognizing that a life dedicated to improving the human condition does not rise above caring for one human being. Reframing his and Elza's experience through Ishtar's powerful myth provides a compelling example of how we can all lead richer and extraordinary lives. Said's spiritual observations elevate perception to a place of universal awareness. He demonstrates how myth, wonder, and mystery are constantly around us if we transcend the physical lens through which we usually interpret life. On the far side of such transcendence is the true meaning of love that goes beyond time and space. Said shows how a union of two souls represents the greater search for the beloved and how the coming together of the feminine and the masculine mirrors a universe in harmony. At the end, he can take solace in the simple pleasures that still remain, as he and Elza sit companionably in their garden by the sea.
A WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER! From Whole Foods CEO John Mackey and his coauthors, a follow-up to groundbreaking bestseller Conscious Capitalism—revealing what it takes to lead a purpose-driven, sustainable business. John Mackey started a movement when he founded Whole Foods, bringing natural, organic food to the masses and not only changing the market, but breaking the mold. Now, for the first time, Conscious Leadership closely explores the vision, virtues, and mindset that have informed Mackey’s own leadership journey, providing a roadmap for innovative, value-based leadership—in business and in society. Conscious Leadership demystifies strategies that have helped Mackey shepherd Whole Foods through four decades of incredible growth and innovation, including its recent sale to Amazon. Each chapter will challenge you to rethink conventional business wisdom through anecdotes, case studies, profiles of conscious leaders, and innovative techniques for self-development, culminating in an empowering call to action for entrepreneurs and trailblazers—to step up as leaders who see beyond the bottom line.
Spiral Dynamics introduces a new model for plotting the enormous economic and commercial shifts that are making contemporary business practice so complex and apparently fragmented. Focusing on cutting-edge leadership, management systems, processes, procedures, and techniques, the authors synthesize changes such as: Increasing cultural diversity. Powerful new social responsibility initiatives. The arrival of a truly global marketplace. This is an inspiring book for managers, consultants, strategists, and leaders planning for success in the business world in the 21st century.
This book presents human-centered concepts and solutions for mobility, logistics and infrastructure that will make our growing metropolitan areas more livable and sustainable.The still accelerating megatrend of urbanization is leading to constantly growing metropolitan areas. This creates a whole series of challenges for municipalities, as well as citizens, such as overcrowded traffic routes, limited building space and an increasingly difficult supply situation. With this book we want to answer the following question: How can people live in densely populated areas and meet their needs in terms of mobility, freedom, self-determination, security, prosperity, communication or in other words: how can metropolitan regions be made humane? The answer to this question requires innovative ideas and approaches in various areas: Sustainable designs of infrastructure Economically and ecologically efficient logistics and mobility approaches Intelligent applications for navigation and communication All these ideas must be measured against the needs of citizens and should thus be developed following a human-centered design approach. This ensures that innovative solutions will be widely accepted by the public. In addition, they also have the potential to turn citizens into active co-designers of future metropolitan areas.
This paper attempts to merge the concepts and theoretical frameworks of the disciplines of Anthropology and Economics, and attempts to create a new sub-field in Economics called ‘Anthropological Economics’ which is mired in Anthropological concepts and principles and seeks to maximize not only human welfare and happiness but also wealth maximization across cultures, while considering both the psychic unity of man, universal human needs and culture-specific factors. Thus, Anthropological Economics is expected to be inter-related to other disciplines of Economics, but remain complementary to them i.e., it is not expected that it will intrude into other sub-fields of economics, replace them, or override their principles in any way. It will therefore draw upon other aspects of economic theory, and enrich them suitably. It is therefore expected that all aspects of Economic theory will be taken into consideration for policy formulation and decision-making, including those of Anthropological economics, and independent, context-specific judgment will always be applied. The new proposed field of Anthropological Economics proposes to take the idea of Human Welfare to its logical conclusion by extending the work already carried out in various sub-disciplines of economics, and integrating it more tightly with various concepts in Anthropology. Many new tools and techniques are therefore, proposed as a part of this paper, and we believe these will suitably enrich the field of Economics as well. While many attempts have been made in the past to integrate the fields of Anthropology and Economics, we hope this endeavour will take this exercise to a much higher level, by creating a new generation of “Anthroeconomists”. We also hope it will eventually help move mainstream economics away from Neo-classical approaches to Anthropological and human-centric approaches.
