UNITARY DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY (UDT)
UDT is a meta-theory of Developmental Learning created by Dr. Myles Sweeney – a Psychologist and Organization-Development (OD) practitioner with some experience of Regional Development. Two initial volumes were published through Routledge (Sweeney 2023a and 2023b, re. Psychology and OD resp.). However, it is equally valid for people and organizations, as well as societies and economies, and books re. the latter are in progress. Each are defined, for developmental purposes, as micro-, meso- and macro socio-economic systems – or more specifically, human systems functioning through socio-economic capabilities.
From the humble beginnings of devising a model to distinguish organizations that could take on change from those which could not, the assumption arose from the author’s experience across each field – including e.g., rescuing Psychiatric patients from erroneous diagnoses, and dealing with a particular company collapse from a failed Change initiative – that validity for one domain had to mean validity for all, and so it proved.
The resultant UDT diagnostic / developmental model particularly addresses the causes of high failure-rates in each domain such as Traction and Sustainability, as well as related paradigmatic deficit. It also covers all activities and capabilities across the developmental paradigm, so that practitioners from different schools within each of the 3 domains can draw on it to complete and strengthen their models, processes and practices. Fundamentally, UDT asserts that there is a unique pattern to natural human development, that it is damaging to people to thwart that process, and that all Change or Developmental interventions should adhere to this pattern. It makes this assertion because of the correspondence between its Phases and those of other models of development, change, and degradation, so that it can be said that all pioneers were seeing the same process, but incompletely.
Briefly, it is a 7-Level model of development, recovery, habituation and degradation that shows correspondence to most other models across each domain, but typically, adds significant value through completing them; revealing paradigmatic biases in each; being whole-system in scope; and also because it is operationalizable as either a Discussion Tool / Catalyst, a Change-Management process, or as a diagnostic- / data-based developmental intervention, and should improve outcomes across the board.
Navigate using Table of Contents
- An Overview of UDT
- UDT and Psychology: A model of Developmental Learning for Psychological Maturation and Recovery
- UDT and Organization Development
- UDT AND MACRO-SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
- UDT AND SOCIETY
- Conclusion
- References
- Reviews
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An Overview of UDT
UDT purposefully addresses a deficit in both developmental science and practice that is reflected in appalling but validated failure rates for developmental interventions across each domain as referenced in each section below, which e.g., has materialized for organizations since the 1960s when the challenges of the VUCA environment began to outstrip management practice and has reached critical proportions of 85% with the more recent advances such as Digital Transformation – whatever may be expected with AI! And while Learning has been offered as solution across the board – e.g., Learning Life, Learning Organization, Learning Region, e.g., {Morgan, (1997)](), Learning Economy – and most recently Learning Society by Nobel Economist Joe Stiglitz – but there has in fact, been no operationalizable normative model of Developmental Learning to facilitate such aspirations, until UDT.
The model reveals 7 Levels of normative natural developmental-learning, homogenously organizing 15 Phases, and it also shows how Habituation occurs along this hierarchy in already-established patterns from the lowest habituation stage characterized by e.g., Egocentricity, Sociopathy and Exploitative Leadership, to the highest level which is reflective of Regenerative Leadership, and also Regenerative Eco-System which succeeds in balancing Agility with Resilience and is marked by facilitating integrative growth of off-spring whether they are the children of a family, or the off-shoot enterprises of an agile organization such as Haier which is case-studied in detail in Vol. 2. UDT proposes that the Schemas of these polar-opposite Phases act as Inversive and Regenerative Singularities respectively, that act on everyone to Invert or Rejuvenate the natural developmental-learning drive; and the nearer the Habituation or Maturization to either on the hierarchy, the stronger the effect. Diagnosis and Development occurs along the hierarchy as Y-Axis, for Capabilities organized homogenously in Dynamics as X-Axis, resulting in Matrix Frameworks as in Fig. 1 and Fig. 5 below.
As detailed below, beyond bringing order to Developmentalism, the theory offers significant advances to each domain. For example, in Psychology, it offers theoretical grounding for the statistically-based DSM-5 Clusters of Personality Disorders. Its re-definition of the troublesome concept of Culture as Habituated Maturational Stage, is shown to be clinically valid and correlated with performance outcomes for organizations and nations alike. In Economics it answers calls from leaders such as Jeffrey Sachs for a new operationalizable model of human nature; policy-design congruent with that nature, etc. Furthermore, it also brings a degree of resolution to the many calls for greater integration of Systems Thinking in each domain. It also greatly expands our understanding of Linear, Lateral and Integrative Mindset Configuration is tragically polarizing our world in disintegrative fashion in many Societal systems from Religion to Politics, which are also addressed below.
The higher Levels of UDT Maturity reflect increased Agility with Resilience at all levels of Society which predispose towards better outcomes in times of increasing uncertainty and complexity, while enabling management through human nature rather than against it in all spheres. Along with the three defined academic domains, it adds similar value across Societal systems re. Education, Justice, Criminal Rehabilitation, Spirituality, Culture, Art Appreciation, Politics, History, etc. From a global perspective, it is evident from the fields of Politics, Management, etc., that the sophistication or complexity of the Economic dimension of our Socio-Economic systems which includes Technology, Finance, etc., has far outstripped the capacity, sophistication or Maturity of our Social Dynamic to manage them; but UDT represents a significant advance towards redressing this imbalance in all-inclusive systemic modelling; and overall, it can further the prospects of generating a more mature world.
UDT and Psychology: A model of Developmental Learning for Psychological Maturation and Recovery
The following analysis presents a) Background indicators for a need for such a theory; and b) an introduction to the Phases of natural developmental learning across the Lifespan with brief descriptions of Habituations at each of these Phases in already established patterns; and c) an outline of its normative process for developmental interventions, and how it can aid various approaches to Mental-Health Recovery.
Background
The science of Psychology has progressed though the last century from one paradigmatic shift to the next; and typically, at some cost to what had already been learned. E.g., such shifts have occurred from Psychoanalysis with its emphasis on pathology arising from arrested or traumatised early development, through Behaviourism emphasising the management of mental connections made from experience that could be positive or negative to Learning, to Cognitivism emphasising Information-Processing Capability maturing in line with Neural Structures, Humanistic Psychology emphasising the validity of the Self arising from patterns of personal choice and expression, to Post-Modernist rejection of grand theory in favour of emergent learning in Dialogue approaches. While UDT shows the immaturities of previous Grand Theory both in Psychology and elsewhere, it also offers needed structure to Dialogue interventions, and indeed, can be seen to bolster the validity of each school to address specialist issues.
However, the critical problem for Psychology is not only theoretical disparity and disjunction which UDT goes a long way to resolve, but again the Failure Rates attending its application in practice re. Development and Mental-Health Recovery. Across the Applied Psychology field, failure occurs as follows: Criminal Recidivism at 49% (Markham, 2022); 77% for Psychological Recovery when defined as remission for a year (Saltzer et al., 2018); Educational Underachievement averaging 23.5% across all levels and types of pupils (Mazrekaj et al., 2022); etc.
UDT and Psychology
The following Tables present a brief introduction to the UDT Phases of Development and Recovery, the Patterns of Habituation for each Phase called Stages, and also, how they correspond to established theory and models both from Psychology and elsewhere.
(e.g., Cartwright et al. 2009)
Erik Erikson also provided a model of Psychological Development that offered Stages as resolution of Developmental Crises which otherwise left a negative pattern of adaptation which are virtually all associated with the Inversion Zone (1). This is obviously not the same rationale as UDT’s Habituation which occurs at all Stages and typically, in congruence with MBTI Personality Types along the hierarchy.
Linearity, Laterality and Integrativity
Although these concepts are familiar in Psychology, UDT expands them considerably, and arguably, to significant effect. UDT asserts that we are all born either Linear or Lateral depending on e.g., MBTI typology, but that it is the function of Maturation to grow beyond the limitations of such programming to develop Integrativity. It is long recognized that Linearity is a prominent feature of Western life. As Lee (1950) put it “In Western culture, the line is so omnipresent and inescapable, we are incapable of questioning the reality of its presence” (p.92). Literally, it organizes thought and action to favour Divisiveness, Hierarchy, Short-Termism, Continuance, Dominance, Simplicity, Black-and-White thinking, etc., and many theorists have showed how it stifles Education, Justice, Organizational Agility, Self-Actualization, sciences such as Psychology, and called for paradigmatic shift to e.g., Systems-based approaches (Capra, 1982). In UDT, it is particularly associated with Absorption (1a), Tropism (2a) and Formalism (4a).
Before UDT, the appreciation of Laterality had been limited to its relationship with Creativity (6a), but UDT expands the concept to include any Habituated predisposition to obstruct progression, and such Habituation occurs also at Disconnected Depressive (1b), Equilibrium’s Social Lateralism (3), with the latter being associated with e.g., impossible all-inclusiveness. Integrativity describes the growing capacity to take on board increasing complexity in a constructive manner and ideally, incorporates the best of both Linear and Lateral mindsets such as discipline and social conscience, resp. Ideally, it is the autonomous natural drive of curiosity through which a human system matures. The problem for Global Society is that it is – and always has been – fractured along the lines of these three mindset and Cultural configurations in Politics, Religion, Education, and all Societal systems; and a brief introduction is given below to how UDT can diagnose and aid redress of the immaturity of such chronically Habituated Linearity and Laterality, and promote Integrative Maturization for each. One of those critical fracture lines that is polarizing Politics is Immigration: Lateral Inclusivity Vs Linear Conservatism.
UDT and Mental-Health Recovery
Each school of Psychology has afforded its own approach to facilitating Mental Health Recovery, and in line with the correspondence above to different Levels of Maturation, so each is best suited to addressing Habituations at corresponding Levels. Psychoanalysis is associated with Repressions and other manifestations of Level (1) Inversion; Behavior Modification is associated with de-coupling Conditioning effects associated with Level (2); Cognitive Therapies seek to change Schemas of Level (4), but variations cover many Levels; Humanistic Counselling aims to raise awareness to the fulfilment of the Authentic Self that is associated with the higher 3 Levels. On the other hand, Open Dialogue is an approach that has grown to cover virtually the range of UDT process, but, as argued below, can still gain considerably from UDT. Furthermore, when seen through the UDT prism, each type of therapy tends not to stray beyond the parameters of their associated Levels. Hence, Psychoanalysis performs much like a surgeon focusing on the simple removal of the pathological material and not concerning its process with much remediation beyond that. Such approaches can be seen to fall far short of where they should be bringing people, and although the Tavistock approach incorporates some issues of a Level (3) nature, UDT proposes that each client should be given guidance through the entire developmental process to become a fully actualized person rather than being left “as neurotic as the rest of us” as Freud originally envisaged. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) covers a range of approaches that also includes a focus on Emotional factors. Generally, the therapy seeks to alter the way of thinking that is seen to precipitate Depression, Anxiety, etc., and then to address the behavioral changes to embed redress. UDT can surely inform schema analysis and what the theory would call Conversion to a higher-Level Schema. Furthermore, UDT can also guide behavioral development through the Phases to bring sustainable life congruence between thought patterns and behavior. According to Padesky and Mooney (2012), CBT starts its remedial process with Self-Talk which is associated with Phase (1c), but ideally, built on (1a) and (1b) and should progress in congruence with the UDT Phases.
Like Dialogue approaches in the other domains, Open Dialogue Therapy (ODT) emerged in post-modernist fashion as reaction to failed grand theory within Psychology and elsewhere; and while UDT reveals and repairs the immaturities of such theory, it offers needed remedy to ODT as well. ODT is the closest process to the UDT model as it incorporates e.g., a constant relationship with a Critical Singularity (2a), the inclusion of friends, workmates, etc. (3b), re-skilling (4a), etc. Its figures suggest it is successful across most mental-health issues, though these figures are called into question (e.g., recovery defined as working within 2 years rather than remission for 1 year), as is the discipline through which the process is delivered. UDT arguably gives Open Dialogue theoretical grounding, normative structure, and again, completion.
Another recovery process that parallels UDT, but across the whole process is the eclectic Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) approach which arose in the last 20 years or so, specializing with Obsessive-Compulsive and Anxiety issues. It combines Behavioral, Cognitive and Humanistic elements in a practical process which focuses on replacing psychological pathology with a sense of meaning in life. In UDT, this is associated with Level 7 which should provide a Conversion principle to all therapy. Again, however, the approach has been criticized for lack of discipline (e.g., Herbert and Forman, 2013); and again, as with all therapies, UDT can provide helpful meta-theoretical support.
UDT and Organization Development
The following analysis gives some background indicators of the need for such a theory; builds on the exposition of UDT above to show how UDT achieves necessary paradigmatic shift and equips organizations for the challenging 21st century market environment which is afforded the acronym VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous).
Background
In the prevailing VUCA environment, Organizational Effectiveness and Returns are correlated with Agility which encompasses ongoing Adaptability and success at planned Change Management and Organization Development (CM/OD). Recent research places the average premium for Agility at 30% (Hamel and Zanini, 2018; Holbeche, 2018; Walter, 2021). On the other hand, and keeping with the maturational polarization modelled by UDT, the discount associated with organizations run in even authoritarian fashion is seen as even more significant (Spain et al, 2016, Boddy, 2011). Other research finds that only 20% of organizations have a level of functionality that could qualify as Agile (McKinsey). Interestingly, the appalling Failure Rates for CM/OD which are remarkable consistent since the 1960s (for the definitive accounting, see Burnes, 2017, pp. x-xiv) generally run at 75%, but with some interesting highlights: M&As which are actuarially chosen and designed for success have only 50% success as measured against sector average within 3 years (Grogan, 2014); Digital Transformation at 75% for all organizations, but at 85% for those lacking core IT competence in relation to e.g., BRP (Somers et al., 2000); etc. Furthermore, prevailing models of CM/OD are heavily criticized for their lack of theoretical grounding.
UDT addressing the causes of Failure Rates
The root causes of underachieving are the same for organizations trying to achieve Agility and those implementing CM/OD. Given the rates of Agility, most organizations trying to achieve the desired outcomes and implementations are overstepping the Developmental-Learning Capacity of the system, thereby undermining Traction; and they are also working without normative guidance for Sustainability. The model can be used in organizations in three ways a) as a discussion tool; b) as a Change-Management process for discrete issues; and c) through formal questionnaire-based diagnosis / developmental interventions that can be targeted or as an ongoing recycled process. As with Personal Development, the latter process offers a) diagnosis of the Developmental-Learning Capacity across all Critical Construct Capabilities so that they can be targeted to provide Traction; and b) normative step-by-step guidance through all levels of Development to optimise Sustainability. Above all, UDT ensures that development occurs along the lines of how humans and human systems actually learn, and in congruence with human nature rather than against it, and the process for Recovery is the same as for Development, except that it may be more radical, i.e., starting with Phase (1a).
Fig 1 A Sample UDT Organization-Development Framework yielding a Maturity Profile and Index
UDT and Organizational Culture
A sample paradigmatic breakthrough is UDT’s advance in understanding Culture (both organizational and national) and in operationalizing Cultural Change. The standard definition of this really troublesome feature of organizations has been “the way we do things around here”. In contrast, UDT provides, with clinical precision, the definition of Culture as Stage of Maturational Habituation. Such clinical validity arises because the 10 Cultures that have been defined by the most advanced research in the field by Schwarz and colleagues , map onto 10 of the 15 UDT Stages, and moreso, they do so in the sequence that corresponds to how these 10 Cultures are ordered in relation to contribution to Returns as shown graphically in Table 6 in the Economics section below and mirrored in Organizational research by Porto and Ferreira (2017). It follows that Culture Change simply becomes another OD intervention through UDT.
UDT in Action: A Change-Management Process
Most Change and Developmental initiatives seek to generate the functionalities associated with Levels 5 to 7. However, the reason that most fail is a function of what emerges from the McKinsey graphic above which can be translated to say that 75% of organizations are habituated at Level 4 or below. What UDT makes clear is that Traction for such interventions will diminishes with lower Habituations, and that in such cases, the CM process, must begin with Phase (1a) in what can be called a Radical change process. On the other hand, if an Capability is diagnosed at Level 5, there should be the potential to use a Next Step process and introduce the functionality of the next Phase relatively directly with prudent pre-framing and organization. This may also apply to Level-4 Habituation, if the qualitative data indicate a positive Hysteresis.
The following Table 5 is given as an example of the UDT process in action, as it captures the main points of the UDT Change-Management process for introducing a discrete Change initiative. The model can also be used as both a Discussion Tool and in a formal Diagnostic/Developmental process; and together, these represent its 3 types of intervention in OD/CM, whether it is used with a Team, an Organization or to improve a specific activity such as Collaboration or M&A Integration.
Agility and Resilience through UDT
Fig. 2 Percentages of Organizations at different levels of Agile (McKinsey)
As depicted in Fig. 2, 27% of organizations can be said to be at Level 4, 28% at Level 1, while the term “Trapped” does not really distinguish where along the 3 lower Levels such organizations may be, but only 20% of organizations achieve Agility as defined by McKinsey and other researchers, even though such Agility provides an average 30% premium to Returns (Hamel and Zanini, 2018; Holbeche, 2018; Walter, 2021). All other approaches can only advocate an elemental copy-and-paste approach to Agile development, and this approach is ruinously and definitively Disintegrative in its own right. However, while Hamel’s exemplar of Agile Organization is Haier, as shown in Vol. 2, every noted element of its functionality maps onto the UDT Framework, so that UDT can facilitate the development of Agility but critically, with intrinsic development and momentum. Furthermore, and primarily because of particular Phases that embed each Level systemically, this Agility comes with Resilience in the pattern shown in Fig. 3.
There is a wealth of research to show that the style of Leadership reflected in Levels 1 and 2 behavior, are detrimental to organizational performance whether through e.g., Exploitation or Bullying (Boddy 2011; Spain et al., 2016) and Dominance and Arrogance (Silverman et al., 2012) resp., while the latter found, as predicted by UDT, that Arrogance is in fact, negatively correlated with Self-Esteem. Furthermore, in a study of Resilience, Kavanagh (2021) found that pre-pandemic UDT Maturity predicted better outcomes during the crisis.
Fig. 3 UDT Maturization expressed through increased Resilience and Agility
UDT AND MACRO-SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Developmental Interventions in the Macro-Economic sphere are associated with the worst failure rates across the 3 domains with e.g., (Roodman, 2007) finding 0% predictability for such interventions, while there is considerable pressure from within the discipline to modify many measurements to chime with a systems and humane perspective, and the models of human nature on which much of Economics theory is based are considered to be disastrously simplistic be e.g., Jeffrey Sachs. The better-known models of economic growth such as the Lewis, Harrod-Domar, Solow, and Romer growth models are relatively limited, both in scope and their access to any normative developmental process, with the latter simply relying on equations. Rostow’s model below has quite a few elements that appear in the UDT modelling, but some of those that correspond with Phases are out of sequence, while – as with some OD models – there is confusion between what UDT defines as Capabilities and Growth Phases.
Fig. 4 Rostow and Lewis models of Economic Development
Fig. 5. UDT model of Macro Socio-Economic Development (in development)
Ultimately however, typical prevailing approaches to Economic Development amount to little more than throwing money at the problem, resulting in what (Edwards 2014) describes as Toxic Aid – a term which pretty much chimes with Inversive (1a) functionality. Unlike traditional approaches to Economic Development, UDT facilitates a systemic analysis and offers a prescriptive developmental process for macro-economic systems which can incorporate Social as well as Economic factors for greater Traction and Sustainability. It is hoped that greater awareness among leading Economists such as Akerlof, Spence, Stiglitz, Heckman, etc., of the need to incorporate the Social dimension, as well as New Economist thinking such as Rimington and Levitt Cea (2022), paves the way for a UDT approach. As elaborated upon in Vol. 4, it should be encouraging to Economists to note the positive correlation between Culture as Maturity and GDP when translating the findings of Liñán and Fernandez Serranno (2014) in Table 5,
Just as UDT organizes existing theory associated with the lower Level in Psychology, it does much the same with Opaque Economy as shown in Table 7, By corollary, UDT can then differentiate strategies that should apply to interventions for such systems and people Habituated at the different Stages, and particularly those of different generations within such systems.
On the theoretical and paradigmatic fronts, according to Sachs (2014), Economics is stuck in theoretical feedback loops from which it needs to escape:
“Two schools of thought tend to dominate today’s economic debates. According to free-market economists, governments should cut taxes, reduce regulations, reform labor laws, and then get out of the way to let consumers consume and producers create jobs. According to Keynesian economics, governments should boost total demand through quantitative easing and fiscal stimulus. Yet neither approach is delivering good results. We need a new Sustainable Development Economics … ” http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/promote-sustainable-development-economics-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2014-11 (Retrieved 20th Jan 2015, author emphasis).
Capitalism is defined as an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit (e.g., Gilpin, 2018), and the dominant view persists that it is the only core means to drive sustainable macro socio-economic development through harnessing human motivation and distributing resources, since other types of system have had to incorporate it in some fashion or other. What UDT brings to the argument is in effect finishing work done by e.g., Perez (2003) in profiling the different forms of Capitalism from the lowest maturity of (1a) Exploitative Capital to (7b) Regenerative Capital which by definition would have support from all intervening levels of system including e.g., Level (3) Social Supports; (4) Legal Framework; (5) Dynamic Market Structure; (6) Rewards for Creativity, etc., etc. It follows though that excess accumulation of power and resources reduces the dynamic allocation of resources (5) and other benefits of more mature Capitalism, and reduces the maturity of an Economic System to Level 2 at best, such that the Linearity that arises at the two lower Levels seeks to undermine Integrative efforts such as the United Nations, European Union, International Court of Human Rights, etc., the general rule of Law (4), Social Cohesion (3), Science (e.g., Climate), Higher Values, etc., and the Maturity of Society in general. Furthermore, systemic centralization has been shown to undermine Innovation and Creativity (1c and 6). In general, it can be said that UDT offers to integrate the best of e.g., Socialism with Capitalism in a coherent full-system integrative model that is human friendly.
The main advances which UDT offers the discipline of Economics are related to e.g.,
• Providing an Integrative modelling of human nature rather than the Disintegrative Linear version on which Economics is based (as called for by e.g., Jeffrey Sachs);
• Bringing the same completion to models of Economic Diagnosis and Development (Rostow, 1962, etc.) that it brings to those in Psychology and Organizational Science;
• Offering a comprehensive modelling of Policy Design and Implementation as aspired to by Mullainathan whose efforts are restricted to using tactics derived from Consumer Behaviour studies;
• Adding value to market and population profiling;
• Transforming Regional-Development strategies such as Clustering and Regional Branding so that they are Regenerative (7b) in systemic effect;
• Offering a comprehensive modelling of higher-order Economics such as Innovation Economics (Courvisanos and MacKensie, 2014), and Regenerative Economics which the discipline aspires to model either through simplistic and limited concepts such as Circular Economy, or in somewhat congruent but highly theoretical approaches such as Fath et al., (2019)
• Giving clinical validity and theoretical depth to concepts such as Informal and Opaque Economy where the different types noted by researchers correspond with the 2 lower UDT Zones, and should be managed according to UDT process for developmental purposes
• Grounding and expanding Perez’s Cycles of Capital – Predatory Vs Productive; and Profiling Capitalism in all its manifestations;
• Expanding modelling of Transition Economy (Falcetti et al., 2005) and providing Diagnostic/Developmental Process for Transition Economies
• Grounding De Soto’s emphasis on Tenure;
• Offering a normative process towards the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals
• Grounding Guiomard’s “Designer Economy” with which it has considerable correspondence
• Giving validity and theoretical depth to Arthur’s Complexity Economics and Innovative Economics as Phase 5 & 6 Maturities;
• Providing a hierarchy to understand these advances within the evolution of the Economics Paradigm which – like Psychology – followed the UDT Phases concluding with Regenerative Economics (7b) which UDT transforms from its prevailing Lateral Circular emphasis.
• Significantly broadening the scope of the discipline of Behavioral Economics beyond the prevailing paradigm which is still dominated by Choice Theory and Consumer Behavior, and doing so in both micro, meso and macro spheres,
UDT AND SOCIETY
The UDT project sees fault-lines across Society as a result of Legacy Immaturity in the management of systems such as Education, Justice, Families and Religion, and that only a culture-proof model like UDT can guide towards an objective Maturization for each. At the level of the individual, and as a basis for Societal Maturization re. Family and Personalized Values, the project focuses on Emotional and Spiritual Maturity.
UDT and Education
Education systems influence people over their formative years and have considerable advantage towards shaping Maturity for a nation’s citizenry, but this advantage has not been utilized through a lack of Maturization modelling and Linear Paradigm emphasising data uptake and continuance. On the contrary, there was a purposefully developmental emphasis to education in Europe in the early medieval period which Charlemagne championed and was fashioned by the Irish monks who had regenerated Europe from the Dark Ages. However, this was supplanted by a resurgent Rome which changed Education to a Linear paradigm, and this has persisted through Victorian times as an Imperialist agenda and a need to provide replacements in a bureaucratic system rather than enlightened mature people. The result is significant disenfranchisement and disintegrative labelling of people with lesser IQs; disenfranchisement and disillusionment of those with Creative Minds; Underachievement averaging e.g., in a most recent study, 23.5% across all levels of potential, i.e., students capable of achieving 65% in assessments, only achieving 41.5% in the Belgian Primary system (Mazrekaj et al., 2022); while the disparity has been shown to increase as cohorts advance through the Education System, e.g., Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham (2005) found that the correlations between IQ and Academic Performance declined from 70% in elementary school to 50% in secondary school and to 40% in college; and Vocational Choice driven by expectations of position and wealth rather than congruence for Actualization – all of which signal Inversion in action rather than Integrativity and a basis for various expressions of Sociopathy in Society. At more than one Davos 2023 panel discussions broadcast by CNBC on the 18th Jan., leaders from the US highlighted the difference between theirs and European systems which give alternative career paths through e.g., Apprenticeships, to those who do not have an aptitude for academic learning, and bemoaned the damage done by the US system where such people are disenfranchised (e.g., Davos: Top business leaders discuss the future of jobs (cnbc.com).
In significant congruence with the UDT approach, in February 2015, Educational Researchers at the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtue in the University of Birmingham, UK, whose School of Education is ranked in the top 50 globally (https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/education/jubilee-centre/index.aspx), released the results of a survey in which 80% of teachers said that educational performance would benefit from emphasis on what the study – in synch with other such initiatives around the world – termed Character Education which relates directly to Maturization, while at the same time, the study emphasized the detrimental effects of a focus on exams.
As an aid to efforts underway to transition, UDT offers a) a process that can guide personal development through the average 20 years that an Educational System can now expect to have to shape emerging citizens of the world; b) a description of an Education System as Regenerative Eco-System; and c) a process to get Educational Systems to that Level of Maturity as a vitally necessary basis of a Mature World.
UDT and Justice Systems
UDT can bring guidance to Justice Systems in many areas such as analysing the Maturity of enacted or proposed Law; enhancing Criminal Rehabilitation process; and addressing the impact on Impartial Justice from Linear and Lateral bias in the appointment of Judges. Much Law is shaped by either Linear or Lateral Paradigm, and UDT can provide a prism through which such Law can be re-evaluated. For instance, the standard Dispute-Resolution clauses for Partnership Agreements revolve around what are called Auction Russian-Roulette approaches which amount to a facility for the more financially-resourced partner to buy out the less resourced partner. These clauses are unnecessary in a world that is used to arbitration processes, and they are even found to be unenforceable in some jurisdictions, but they persist when they should be deemed a threat to the very heart of partnership which is Trust (Fleischer and Schneider, 2012).
UDT can also guide Criminal Rehabilitation which is in need of improvement given e.g., 44% recidivism within a year of release in the US (Recidivism Rate by State 2023 - Wisevoter), insofar as the process “can put lives back on tracks that nobody knew existed”.
Linearity Vs Laterality plays out very significantly in the appointment of Judges to the highest courts in a way that fosters political bias – however unintentional because of the affinity between Linearity and Conservatism, and Laterality with Socialism. Furthermore, Concrete Linearity is evident in Literalism or Textualism which are terms used to describe the practice whereby Judges adhere concretely to the writings of a Constitution to the point of Tropism (2a) to Law that may have been shaped by knowledge, needs and biases of a different era. UDT proposes that the only hope for impartial Justice is to appoint people who have clearly demonstrated a Maturity beyond Linear or Lateral Habituation and bias, (i.e., of Levels 5, 6 and 7), and ideally, have a record of judgements that reflect a Regenerative-Leadership (7b) Maturity. The independence of the Judiciary from political interference is an important facility, but the Justice System – like any social system – cannot be allowed to regulate itself, for fear of the inevitable tendency to Invert and become a Self-Serving system rather than a customer-focused system. The same can be said for the other branch of Society charged with holding power to account which is the News-Media system, and the case of the Leveson Inquiry revealed in the UK in 2012.
UDT and Emotional Maturity in Society
Psychology has progressed through internal paradigmatic shifts which have never placed the study of Emotions to the fore. Hence, the awareness of Emotional Complexity itself is quite poor, and obviously, until a normative model was available, so too, was the study of Emotional Maturity. The Emotion that receives most focus as basis for promoting mature families is Love, and, like Aggression is typically presented in a descriptive quadrangle graphic, but its UDT profiling runs all the way from Abusive or Narcissistic Lover to the Regenerative Family Eco-System which optimizes outcomes for all members and especially offspring. Such a deeper and more graphic understanding of Love can aid towards better choice of partner and understanding of all relationships within the family, thereby mitigating against e.g., the prevailing 42% and 45% failure rates in marriages in the UK and US, resp. UDT offers profiling of Emotions such as Aggression which runs from Predatory Aggression, Passivity and Protection-seeking of Stages (1a) to (1c), to the assertive Self-Defensive, Other-Defensive Aggression, and Regenerative Aggression of Zones 6 and 7, noting different neurology for each. An example of Regenerative Aggression is the Irish 1916 Rising against English Imperialism, that arose from a deep Cultural Revival Movement, was led by poets and social visionaries, whose heroic sacrifice turned the tide of public opinion to back the struggle which soon resulted in Independence after 700 years.
UDT and Spiritual Maturity
The world is increasingly turning to Spirituality as the single most important dimension of human life, and yet related divisiveness is arguably causing the most destructive fracture lines in Global Society. Even with such high stakes involved, Spirituality is appallingly poorly defined and managed. Such deficit ultimately reflects the paradigmatic Immaturity of the dominant Religions and their related Theologies, and is directly causal to far more catastrophic failure than any other domain when measured in terms of the effects of the destruction and chaos caused by Religious Wars, Disillusionment-led Mental Illness, Moral Collapse, etc., and the rise of Postmodernism which is quite Inversive to the natural Developmental Drive.
The UDT project primarily addresses the Roman religion as shaped by a distinctly Concrete-Linear bias, but is should be clear that such bias also applies to Middle-Eastern religions, while Lateral bias has shaped Far-East religion. The following question which is mostly covertly evident in Western Theology (e.g., Manson, 1950) is critical: fundamentally, people have to choose whether events in the Gospels such as the Resurrection and Pentecost were real physical events or accounts of experienced Spiritual events. Of course, for those who have had such an experience, this is an easy choice. On the other hand, given that the 4 Canonical Gospels are the product of Concrete Linearity, it is very easy to conclude that indeed, what were originally Spiritual events, were assimilated by such-minded people and cultures over time into being recorded as physical events, and the like-minded Roman Empire chose these accounts and fashioned the Church accordingly. This argument maintains that e.g., Resurrection was most likely originally a Spiritual experience of Jesus by a number of people, but that, through Concrete Linearity, there formed a branch of his movement that understood the event as concrete and physical, and proceeded to manage his mission accordingly, and also in Linear continuance of what was considered worthy in the past through linearly linking events to the older texts as well as practices and traditions associated with e.g., the Sun and Mithras, even though, as reported in those same Linear Gospels, Jesus warned that the new wine should not be put in old wineskins or it would sour (Matthew 9:14-17, Mark 2:18-22 and Luke 5:33-39).
The emphasis on Physical Experience is captured by arguably the leading Theologian of the medieval Roman Church Thomas Aquinas; and the paucity of the Psychology on which the position stood should be noted:
“Our natural knowledge begins from sense. Hence our natural knowledge can go as far as it can be led by sensible things (ST I-I, Q 12, Art. 12). The nature of man requires that he be led to the invisible by visible things. Therefore, the invisible things of God must be made manifest to man by the things that are visible”, (ST. I-I, Q. 43, Art 7.)
It should also be pointed out that the position that the God with whom one engages in authentic (7b) Spiritual Experience is the Creator of all things and can be understood from the physicality he created, is an entirely Concrete-Linearity construct and captured perfectly by the Linear Time designation in terms of being Alpha and Omega, in other words beginning and end. In post-Jesus Theology, this perspective is seen in Rom 1:20 when St Paul wrote: “Since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-- his eternal power and divine nature-- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made”. Of course, this positioning always runs into the problem of a perfect loving God creating and facilitating suffering and evil, while earliest Spiritualist positioning has proposed 2 distinct Spiritual Systems with 2 distinct Agencies responsible for each, with the one corresponding to a (1a) profile of singularity and eco-system, and the other to a (7b) profile.
The absurdity of foundational Linearity is surely recognized in the decision by the founding architects of the Roman Church – Constantine and Augustine – not to have themselves initiated into the Church by Baptism until they were actually dying, because the complexity of Forgiveness was beyond them – and the institution they shaped until – as described in detail by Poschmann (1964, pp. 123-137) – the Irish Monastic Church of the 6th century formulated and enacted the concept of Penance, based on their own Celtic laws and practices.
Of course, one of the tragic consequences of the obvious absurdities of the Roman position is that many people turn from both the Church and God; and also, that even people who have had authentic (7b) Spiritual Experience, (and especially those of Concrete Linearity who have difficulty with Accommodation and tend to revert to Assimilation) cannot reconcile that experience with the established view of God, and again, often, all is rejected. Furthermore, while much Roman theology is given to a focus on people at the end-of-time escaping an unredeemable world, UDT advocates Spiritualization and Life-Congruence to enable Maturization of the world to the same congruence. With advancing knowledge in more recent times, many leaders from Psychology and Theology have espoused that both experience and experience-based faith need to be at the heart of any religion, and that religion that ignores or subverts such Spirituality is both absurd and without substance (e.g., James, 1902; Jung, 1959; Wesley; Underhill, 1975; Rahner, 1981; Ratzinger, 1983, p. x). Collins (2020) details efforts to return to what he calls an original Pentecostal mission, but these have not taken hold in Rome, probably due in no small part to a natural cultural abhorrence for the erstwhile seeming chaotic nature of the field of Spirituality which UDT organizes along its hierarchy.
Briefly, in the field of Spirituality, UDT offers the following:
• A normative culture-proof analysis and profiling of experienced Spirituality ranging from Spirituality as a destructive force in e.g., the medieval Crusades, through e.g., various types of Shamanism, to Spirituality as the ultimate fulfilment of human nature. This capacity to bring order to the field could facilitate an Accommodation of Spirituality in organizations that demand such order
• A clear expose of how throughout history, Spirituality has been corrupted by both Lateral and Linear Mindset and Culture:
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The corruption from Linearity is most dramatic in the West because Linearity has characterised the power structures of Western Civilization through its entire and varied Imperialistic ages (while Laterality has had the same effect in the East), with intrinsic biases towards Hierarchy, Dominance, Elitism, Perfectionism, Divisiveness, Episodic over Declarative Cognition, a pre-disposition towards Sociopathy, etc. Its effects are clearly demonstrated in instances of a) Linear Redaction throughout the Synoptic Gospels; b) Linear paradigm enacted in clear contradiction of directives from these same Gospels (pouring new wine into old wineskins, etc.) and Perfectionist Theology such as the exceptionalism of an Immaculate Conception of Jesus’s Mother
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Religious Laterality is associated with e.g., Lack of Purpose, Distrust of Natural Drives, Denial of Self, All-Inclusiveness, Indiscipline, Loss of Focus, Unattainable Agendas, etc.
• A process to achieve Authentic Spiritualization
• Spiritual Sustainability as both
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Spiritual Maturation and
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Spirituality-Congruent Life-System Maturation
• A realistic Theology
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Devoid of Linear and Lateral Absurdities
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Consistent with UDT’s Regenerative Leadership and Regenerative Eco-System
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Congruent with Regenerative Theology – a branch of Roman-Catholic Theology that becomes more grounded and expanded through UDT
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As with Psychology, UDT can provide a framework that integratively positions and informs Theologies and Movements
• A plotting of the various types of Spirituality as Habituations along the Stages of the Maturation process from the lowest Stage as e.g., Predatory Religious War to the highest of the 15 Phases as Regenerative Spiritual Eco-System. This can bring order to an otherwise chaotic understanding of Spirituality, so that it might be fully reconciled with religions which otherwise cannot take it on board effectively and with validity.
As with development across all activities, all of the above are shown to be resolved by the natural Integrative maturation process as espoused by UDT; and instances from across Spiritual Traditions including the developmentalist Irish medieval Christianity and Brehon Law – which were designated by Charlemagne as the basis of his Holy Roman Empire but were completely anathema to Linear Imperialism and targeted as such through the Vatican-enabled Norman Invasion of Ireland in particular – are offered as examples of a more Integrative approach albeit within a Christian tradition. A mature world cannot tolerate division on what many regard as the most important facet of human life, and UDT offers a way forward to a world of mature Spirituality as a basis for a Mature World, and it is possible that peace and validity can only be served in that Spirituality which is not tied to any particular tradition or founder, and UDT offers a real path to such a solution.
UDT and Negotiating, Conflict Resolution and Peace-Building
Negotiating and Conflict Resolution are fields where the distinction between Linearity and Integrativity is well established, where the former describes a Win-Lose approach from entrenched Positions, and the latter a Win-Win and especially when using tactics that address Interests in novel ways (see e.g., Bazerman, 1994). However, UDT would suggest that a Win-Win approach is really a Lateral approach whereas Integrativity would demand a reflection in planned outcomes that would see in future relationships Dynamic Learning, Actualization of the Relationship in a new emergent Identity akin to Partnership, and finally provide both Integrative and Regenerative Leadership and Ec-Systems going forward, while the Regenerative Vision should ideally guide process from the first Disorienting Dilemma Phase. This is especially important in Peace Building, and a UDT-based analysis of such efforts around the world proves useful in Vol. 3. E.g., the Marshall Plan that shaped international relations between warring countries after WWII had many hallmarks of UDT’s Regenerative Peace Building. So also had the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement which is singularly marked by the accommodation of expression of each side’s identity and aspirations, and this is a clear and full Level 6 Accommodation of Self-Expression.
UDT and Politics / Human Rights (see also Macro Socio-Economic Development section)
Some Governance Systems blatantly deny Human Rights to their citizens, while others pay them less service than they maintain when assessed objectively. UDT goes some way to provide normative guidance to the efficacy of good governance enhancing human rights for the betterment of the national system. This is evident from the correspondence between UDT and the profiling of Culture with GDP by Liñán and Fernandez-Serranno (2014) as cited in both the Organization-Development and Economic-Development section. Nations with Cultures where Human Rights are Inverted have the lowest GDPs, so this argument, which is most graphically represented through the UDT model, clearly shows how self-serving and ultimately self-destructive such ruling systems really are, while they also stifle Innovation. It must be noted that even the most benign Dictatorship is still only a (2a) system even if the leader is of (7b) calibre, and that it has little prospect of Maturation through any likely succession or transition, but rather has the far greater chance of Inversion to an exploitative (1a) system. Binary-choice elections such as in the US and UK tend to lead to Polarization which is definitively Chaotic over time. Proportional Representation can lead to more diversity in Governance, which is abhorrent to Linearity. However, with mature negotiation, a pattern of more Integrative Government can ensue. Above all, if Maturity is to prevail in Governance, power must never be entrusted to anyone who has publicly displayed such signs of Immaturity as Narcissism. Inversely Disruptive by nature, they will naturally, abhor and seek to destroy Integrative institutions and practices. Furthermore, it can be said that for their Level of Immaturity, Life is just a game that they must be seen as either winning or as unfairly treated – regardless of which end of the socio-economic spectrum they reside – and they will take and get away with their Disintegrative agenda as far as they are allowed under the cover of their typically cynical world-view narrative that their world is in a terrible state and needs their radical action. Groupthink takes hold in such systems where they are in power, and, as in all cases of Groupthink, contrary narrative struggles to take hold (Janis, 1982). At the other end of the UDT hierarchy, UDT’s re-definition of Maturity in terms of combining Agility and Resilience, seems to apply very well to calls from within Political Science for less staid modelling of Political Maturity, as most recently called for by Loughead (2023).
UDT and Post-Modernism
Post-Modernism is a term used to describe the prevailing Western Culture of the early 2020s which is said to be characterised by Scepticism, Disrespect for Authority, Subjectivism and Relativism with suspicion of the workings of reason and science. Philosophers agree that this Culture and Mindset arose as a result of the failure of Religion and Grand Theory. UDT demonstrably, goes a considerable way to exposing the Immaturity of both and also offering Integrative-Regenerative alternative, and because of its applicability to so many domains and activities, it can arguably, offer a unitary platform for a more mature world.
Conclusion
Human nature – and probably all of nature – follows a distinct intrinsic developmental path to Complexity. Previous models of Developmental and Change Processes have intuitively modelled different Phases of that process within their own paradigms with descriptions shaped by biases and specialized focus within each paradigm. Remarkably, when translated into the language of Learning through UDT with its unprecedented theoretical grounding, these Phases are seen to be in the correct sequence, but each pioneering attempt failed to model that sequence in full because of the above limitations, until this most comprehensive and cross-disciplinary exercise. Leaders and developmental practitioners of every level of Society, and anyone who has taken up any portion of the challenge of devising a better world, should give it serious consideration.
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Reviews
Organization Development & Change Management
“There is a lot of great thinking here … I agree with the author that too much failure in Change Management is due to the use of simplistic models … he has given us a useful tool to deal with the leading challenge of our time which is Complexity … He is to be congratulated”
Review of a seminal 50-Page paper on UDT and OD, by William Joyce, Prof. of Strategy, Dartmouth College; leader of the 2 largest Turnarounds in Corporate History at General Electric and General Motors; and author of MegaChange, USA
“Re-inventing Change Management and making organizations fit for the 21st century”
Review of a seminal 50-Page paper on UDT and Change Management for a global competition which it won, by Gary Hamel, Prof. of Strategy, London Business School, UK; Forbes’s “the world’s leading expert on business strategy”, USA
“Myles is a leader in Organization Development, Psychology and Economic Development. Human life has become overly complex and even more challenging for organizations to keep pace. Its people like Myles who give us a better understanding of human systems”
S-M post by Paul Rooney, Head of Change, Service Design & Innovation, Dept. of Justice, Ireland
“It seems that we have been thinking along the same lines for quite a while. … From a systems point of view, we define two types of leadership: leadership as articulating and promoting a vision (the traditional concept), and leadership as facilitating emergence. The second type of leadership arises from the understanding of change processes in living systems, including organizations”
Private correspondence from Nuclear Physicist Fritjof Capra, the leading international authority on Systems Theory; author of The Turning Point; and co-author of The Systems View of Life, USA
“This model is the best insight into bad Organizations since Prof. Clive Boddy’s “Corporate Psychopathy”, but has the benefit of offering normative process to get things right again”
Book Review by Christine Louis de Canonville, MIACP, a Leading Reference Authority on NPD for Organizations and Case Trials, Ireland
PSYCHOLOGY
“The author is extremely well placed and clearly very knowledgeable in this area … This book provided comprehensive and balanced coverage … This text is a novel contribution … I would strongly recommend publication, it is an outstanding work”
Book Review by an Independent Reviewer for Routledge, UK
“I couldn’t be more impressed with the comprehensiveness of your critique and integration. This is a truly impressive life’s work, Congratulations”
Project review by Marian Sharkey, Director, Intrapsychic Humanism Society, USA
“The most explicit model of Learning that I have seen”
Review for Funding Agency, Enterprise Ireland by Noel Sheehy, Prof. of Psychology, John Moores University, Liverpool, UK
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
The Economic-Development division of the UDT project has received encouragement from leading academics/practitioners such as US economists Mike Spence, Joe Stiglitz and Brian Arthur, and behavioral economist Liam Delaney (UK), as well as guidance from Senator Sean Barret (Ireland), Sir Anthony Atkinson (UK) and the Economic and Social Research Institute. However, unlike the other divisions, no formal reviews of this material have yet occurred. Expressions of interest in performing such a review and/or engaging with this division of the project for publications and research purposes would be welcomed.