Journey to TOP

Interest in issues that were to be classified in THEE had begun when I became an undergraduate. However, I would date the origin of this journey to an invitation given to me in 1979 by Prof. Elliott Jaques to join his research group at BIOSS, the Brunel Institute of Organisation and Social Studies in London. I was at a loose end, having completed psychiatric and psychoanalytic training, and academic research spells, first in child psychiatry and then in adult psychiatry.

I had become stimulated, as well as frustrated, by limitations in the therapeutic and academic approaches to assisting change in people, families, organizations and societies. That is why I was open to the value of Jaques's most powerful and persuasive work: A General Theory of Bureaucracy.

I was disappointed that Jaques was mostly in the US—where he returned permanently in 1982. I participated in some group discussions he led at BIOSS, but my contacts with him alone were few. It took me many years to realize that his «levels of work» theory was a discovery of a specific complicated part of a taxonomy. Interestingly, it was homologous with another popular theory that was emerging at the same time: Spiral Dynamics which eventually found a similar place in the taxonomy.

One of my first big projects dealt with helping a governing body develop policies. But nobody in the client organization seemed to know what «policies» were. There were either too many or not enough of them, depending on whom I spoke to. When I looked at official documents labeled as policy, it was a hodgepodge. I asked myself: "how can anything be done intelligently if the people involved don't know what they are talking about?" As I didn't know either, I investigated the literature dealing with policy and purpose: and found a mess. That's how my taxonomic inquiry proper began.

During this initial period I benefited greatly from collaborating with colleagues. Ralph Rowbottom oriented me to what society is really about, and we critically reviewed #, revised and refined levels-of-work ideas together. Jimmy Algie helped me observe that management teams spend much more time arguing about the best way to decide than deciding. I came to see the way identity-differences were revealed in debates and disagreements within academe, in organizations, and in everyday life—without the disputing parties being properly aware of this. Both Jimmy and Ralph contributed to my early work on purpose and values.

To understand my own research, I reflected on inquiry. Fortunately, the heavy lifting had been done by C. West Churchman, and this led to my first published taxonomic papers. I was also fortunate to meet up with Stephen D. Sinnott, a gifted psychic. We worked together over some years exploring how the imagination functioned.

An increasing range of topics caught my eye including: experience and the origin of psychoanalytic theory-based factions; the nature of change and political ideologies; the elements of communication and varieties of language use; and more. There were sufficient formal parallels and resemblances to lead me, around 1985, to invoke the notion of «trans-disciplinary science» and create the SIGMA Project to bring these disparate strands of work together. SIGMA is an acronym of Systematizing Imagination, Goals, Management & Action. Varied applications of frameworks to practical problems were gathered under the name: The Technology of Common-Sense^®.

I moved out of the University at end-1989, partly because the overheads on my consulting had become unacceptably high, but mainly because academe was not providing a supportive home for my design-oriented technologies.

My initial work on purpose and values suggested that this arena was both critically important to human action in society, and also rather widely misunderstood. So I committed myself to produce a comprehensive text that would expose my ideas, require my full commitment, and allow for maximum criticism by others. The end result over the 10 year period was Working with Values: Software of the Mind (1995). The writing only stopped because the proliferation of awarenesses meant that the natural end-point kept moving into the future.

I set up The SIGMA Centre as a private consultancy-research business. However, more than half of my time was spent developing frameworks and completing the book. This work led to a greater appreciation of dualities in human functioning and to the dynamic relations between levels in most forms of hierarchy being identified. These formal findings and others were rapidly applied to frameworks found in different fields to check their validity and to discover more.

An important book produced in response to client needs during those years was Strengthening the Management Culture (1994). For the first time, there was a link between a typology—where people deeply and naturally disagree in perpetuity, and a maturational process in the context—where everyone needed to work together and accept each others views.

This was something of immense significance, practically and theoretically. The capacity to predict and assist with psychosocial transitions was suddenly possible. With that and the application of structural discoveries from the purpose and values framework to diverse areas like cooperating, participation and political ideologies, it started to look as if the many and varied structures might somehow interlock.

British society was changing, and not for the better: authoritarianism was on the rise and money was becoming an obsession. So I turned my efforts in an entrepreneurial direction. One such was an attempt to introduce frameworks to Singapore. Although terminated by the Asian crash, the venture helped me grasp what the drive for wealth and prosperity was about. In developing two biotechnology companies I observed, at close hand, thinking and interacting in business and finance. This led to the discovery of further frameworks.

Meanwhile the sheer number of frameworks, their similarities and their many differences started to force my attention to their relationships. Then, one night, I woke at 3am suddenly seeing how they must be unified. It was quite an experience. In the following days, I worked on this possibility. Slowly everything fell into place without much forcing. Many puzzles remained of course, but I was confident about the major breakthrough.

By that time, I had come to the conclusion that a more precise name for my discovery was the Taxonomy of Human Elements in Endeavour, THEE. I developed predictions to test THEE, and started to try to find ways to represent and communicate the unification. This proved difficult, and I sought analogies and homologies that could assist.

To deal with the lack of general interest, I worked to put the discovery in the context of other scientific and social inquiries. I also studied anew some key features of the Taxonomy: like its permeation by identity; the need for reflective awareness to engage; its dependence on both willing autonomy and acceptance of responsibility; and its two legs: the psycho- & the -social, which together create the psychosocial world of committed action.

As THEE is a system, it seemed that software and the internet would be essential for development and dissemination. For a long time, the internet was too slow, and software too clunky and expensive. But that situation eventually changed. By 2007, costs had plummeted, broadband had transformed internet access, and software was becoming ever easier to design and use.

An invitation to speak at the Global Organization Design Conference held in Toronto in July 2007 encouraged me to present THEE as a whole in public for the first time. The reception was positive and suggested that a new effort to communicate via the internet might now succeed.

I considered a business as part of going on-line, but realized this would cramp my imagination and distract me from pursuing fundamentals wherever they might lead. I decided instead to develop the website to disseminate the Taxonomy on a pro bono basis. And so the THEE Online Project (TOP) was borne.

In getting the website ready, I realized it was time to focus on frameworks near the root of THEE. These deal with basics like creativity, happiness and the meanings of life. I also responded to the global financial crisis by developing frameworks for politics.

Moving all publication, past and future, on-line meant revising (and usually correcting) previously published material, converting sketchy notes into a disciplined web format, and making new inquiries. In the absence of conventional reviewers, I looked to users for feedback.

By this time, I had become convinced about the structure of the Taxonomy and worked out numerous frameworks in detail. It was time to look across these to identify similarities, focus on puzzles, and commence at last the speculation that I had consciously inhibited for decades.

I therefore created an Architecture Room on the website to state the research challenges and present what I found.

The crucial puzzle was the similarity of forms across so many aspects of personal functioning. Why were entities with similar taxonomic formulae similar in psychosocial reality? Above all, why were there 7 of everything? The conclusion that I reached was that the Root hierarchy has 7 levels and they generate directly or indirectly all the other 7 level forms.

New meta-THEE conceptions were developed, principally: domains of functioning, psychosocial pressures, primal needs, and primal means. It became evident that every single taxonomic cell could be uniquely defined as a combination of the 7 root-derived psychosocial pressures. This suggested a similarity with a neuronal ramification.

Investigating the neurophysiological literature, I found that Jaak Panksepp had devoted himself to studying whole animal functioning and affects. His masterly summary of the field identified 7 neuro-biological circuits that appear to match the 7 Primary Domains in an uncanny fashion. Can this be a coincidence? I doubt it.

At this point, I felt my work was completed. But there were still parts of the Taxonomy that had not been addressed.

Looking across Domains to identify and correct errors enabled development of a system for naming frameworks. A major effort is going into the 49 Q-complexes, each containing multiple frameworks, because these had barely been touched.

Two Domains, Change and Willingness, have only been superficially considered. These will need focused attention if I can summon this.

All this work is being posted in the Frameworks in Development section. The original Satellites in the Frameworks prior to Theory section is not being reviewed and revised to take into account the latest Architecture Room conceptualizations.

In 2022, it became evident that the previous website was no longer suitable, and so a simpler sparser but better organised website was devised and posted in 2023.