Don Beck (management consultant)

Don E. Beck
Born	1937
Nationality	American
Fields	Spiral Dynamics, Systems Thinking
Known for	Spiral Dynamics Integral
Influences	Clare W. Graves, Muzafer Sherif

Don Edward Beck is a teacher, geopolitical advisor, and theorist focusing on applications of large scale psychology, including social psychology, evolutionary psychology, organizational psychology and their effect on human sociocultural systems. He is the co-author of the "Spiral Dynamics" theory, an evolutionary human development model. He spent many years adapting the work of his mentor and colleague, developmental psychologist Clare W. Graves, Professor Emeritus in Psychology at Union College in New York.

Don Beck and Christopher Cowan in particular have ensured that Graves' work will not go forgotten. They diligently documented his work, thus recording his knowledge. In 1974, Beck read “Futurist” and was impressed. He was a professor at Northern Texas University and flew to New York to meet Graves. After two days of dialogues, it was clear to Beck that he wanted to spend at least 10 years recording Graves' knowledge, as the latter's health was deteriorating. Beck first met Graves in 1975 and worked with him closely until his death in 1986. Graves had published his theory of human development in 1974, a "bio-psycho-social systems" framework of value systems as applied to human sociocultural evolution which posits that the psychology of the mature human being transitions from a current level of cultural existence based on current life conditions to a more complex level in response to (or to cope with) changes in existential reality. Graves's model demonstrates the dual nature of human social emergence with state changes between communal/collective value systems (sacrifice self) and individualistic (express self) value systems.

According to the 1974 Futurist biography of Graves, he began decades of experimentation and research in 1952. In the The Futurist article, Graves classified a total of eight levels of increasingly complex human value systems consisting of a hierarchically ordered, always-open-to-change set of identifiable world views, preferences, and purposes. Through these value systems, groups and cultures structure their societies and individuals integrate within them. Each distinct set of values is developed as a response to solving the problems of the previous system. Changes between states may occur incrementally (first order change) or in a sudden breakthrough (second order change).

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