Wellbeing Central: Different Stations Different Views!

"People don’t change much! We could be taught and moulded only until we are children but not much after that."

We may have heard these sentiments many times before, but is it true? We know that children grow and develop in stages – new born, infant, toddler, pre-schooler, School aged, and teens before they become adults.  But what happens after that? Do adults stop growing and developing?  

Just like children, adults also develop through stages which is known as vertical growth.  In this episode, I take a dive into adult development based on my PhD thesis findings and my personal experiences. I offer examples of the seven key stages of adult development through my own journey and invite your own reflections on how it may help you better  understand people and situations in your life. 

Share your thoughts and feedback @wellbeingcentral.org

Transcript

Hello, I am Dr. Archana Mishra, and welcome to Wellbeing Central!

People don’t change much! We could be taught and moulded only until we are children but not much after that…...  

We may have heard these sentiments many times before, but is it true? 

We know that children grow and develop in stages – new born, infant, toddler, pre-schooler, School aged, and teens before they become adults.  But what happens after that? Do adults stop growing and developing?  

Many of us believe that we become adults and then we remain more or less the same in how we deal with the world. However, while working on my PhD I came across the concept of Vertical development…. which deals in how we have the potential to grow our worldview throughout our lives. We grow in two ways – horizontal and vertical. When we read, or learn about new things, or get trained in new skills then that helps our horizontal growth. During such growth, we learn new facts or skills but we continue to see and understand the world the same way. However, when we grow vertically, our worldview shifts and we begin to experience the world around us differently. This is more challenging because it depends on our interaction with the environment, and how we make meaning of that interaction. Even in the same environment, different people make different meaning of their interactions.

I’m sharing about vertical growth because when I came across it, I learnt a completely new way of understanding my experiences, dealing with new situations, and connecting with people around me. As part of my research I had to learn about the adult developmental theories and examine how and why business and community leaders understand wellbeing differently. While working on this part of the research I began to examine how I see and understand myself and the world around me, and how it has changed over time. 

So let’s look at how this works. Just like children, adults continue to develop in stages. The main difference is that most children develop without any extra effort but adults need a beneficial environment to move from one stage to the next. For us to develop, our environment must be challenging as well as supporting at the same time. Basically, when our current way of seeing the world is no longer sufficient to deal with new complexities that come our way then we have the opportunity to grow provided we are supported in that growth process. For example, when we move to a new place where people think and live differently than us then our current worldview may seem insufficient and we need to acquire new perspectives to flourish in the new context. Another example could be when we move from a technical job to a managerial one that demands a completely different way of dealing with situations. In these cases, we can grow if we are also supported by people and resources around us.

The concept of vertical development has been studied by many prominent scholars such as Robert Kegan, Bill Torbert, Suzanne Cook-Greuter, and Ken Wilber. They have found nine stages of adult development but these seven are the most commonly found among us: we move through the preconventional stage called Opportunist, then to the conventional stages of Diplomat, Expert, and Achiever, before moving to the postconventional stages of Redefining, Transformational, and Alchemical. 

At each stage, we  have a unique action logic – the logic we use to make sense of our lives. At the earlier stages, our action logic is simple and then gradually, it becomes more complex when we can see more broader and deeper. Think of it like climbing a mountain…. at the base of it, we can only see what is in front of us and as we start to climb up, we can see more things and the view continues to change until we reach at the peak. At this level, we can not only see the whole view clearly but also other mountain peaks and valleys around us. Here, we have a complete picture of all that we have experienced during our climb, and also, we can now understand the journeys of those who are still climbing. 

For more detail about the main characteristics of these stages, please visit my website: wellbeingcentral.org. but here, I’ll give examples of each of the seven stages through my own journey.

I recall my early adulthood when I was at the preconventional Opportunist stage… at that time, I believed that I was on my own and needed to protect myself – physically, emotionally, or  intellectually. At this stage I was preoccupied with my own needs and didn’t mind bending the rules to get what I wanted. I tended to put blame on external factors,  rejected feedback, and  saw rules as loss of freedom. It was survival at all cost. So this stage served me by giving me the ability to protect myself but as I experienced life more, this did not seem enough. I began to question my preoccupation with just my needs and that helped me move to the conventional Diplomat stage.

At this stage, I wanted to belong and be liked by others. So, I suppressed my own needs and interests to fit in and keep clear of any conflict. I observed rules, conformed to the group norms, and showed loyalty to family and friends. I held a very strong right versus wrong attitude and was conscious of my appearance and status. My main goal was to please  people and gain social acceptance. So, now, I had a sense of belonging… which was missing at the earlier stage. 

While I was at the Diplomat stage, I moved to Australia from India. There, I became aware of how I was blindly following the norms and preoccupied with being liked and accepted by others. I realised that I had lost myself trying to please others, so I now needed to stand out. I tried to do that through my skills and expertise and in doing so, I reached the Expert stage. Here, I focussed on making a distinctive contribution at work and in my social life. I was always trying to win by being right and became critical of others who disagreed with me. I became  efficient, perfectionist, opinionated, and valued decisions based on knowledge and evidence. So I only sought feedback from other experts in my area. Similar to the Diplomat stage, things were either right or wrong… black or white for me. I wasn’t fully aware that there can be many opposing and valid perspectives about the same thing. While this stage served me through knowledge and expertise, I also began to have  some self-awareness and saw the limitation of this worldview. My awareness further intensified when I changed jobs and moved to different cities and countries that demanded a broader perspective and more effectiveness.  Here, my move to the Achiever stage began and I started to have a basic understanding of how I am a part of several systems – for example, our body is a complete system, and likewise our family, our society, our workplace, etc, are all complete systems but they also connect and interact with each other. 

 Up until the Expert stage, I was mainly concerned about myself but at the Achiever stage, I began to think about my community as well. I became an active advocate for the issues I believed in and undertook several personal and professional commitments with high energy and enthusiasm. I also actively looked for likeminded people and found comfort in knowing that they saw the world the same way as I did. But over time, I began to suffer from multiple commitments which made me exhausted and may be also a little bitter. I realized that this way of being was no longer working for me. I needed more balance in life. At the same time, I began to see value in letting go of the black and white perspective and embracing the grey areas. I could also see the limitations of being surrounded only by people who had the same worldview. While at this this stage, I achieved a lot and became more effective, it also made me tired and I started to lose my enthusiasm and energy. I began to ask “what am I doing all this for?” …..during this time, I also had the realisation that I had invested very little on my spiritual health as I mentioned in the first episode. Then, after some years of self – inquiry and regular dialogues with people ahead of me, I stretched and reached out to enter the next action logic - the postconventional Redefining stage. 

 As the name suggests, at this stage, I began to redefine and critically analyze my entire belief system. I questioned my underlying assumptions, and the complexity of the several systems that I was a part of. I realized that everything I believed in was not entirely true and slowly I started appreciating differences. I became more open to engaging with opposing points of view and embraced conflicts and contradictions relatively easily. Now I could see the value in engaging with different belief systems, traditions, cultures and other ways of being as it allowed me to expand and grow.  

 I gained a more flexible and accommodating worldview at this stage, but I could not make decisions easily as everything seemed right and wrong at the same time. It was tough for me, I felt like the ground had shifted underneath me and there was nothing to hold on to.  It reached a critical point where this action logic no longer served me as there were many moments of confusion and a complete lack of clarity about everything. My life situation demanded action on many fronts and I felt incapable of meeting that demand with my current action logic. Luckily, I had the opportunity to undertake a developmental training where I could share my situation and was supported by my trainers and peers.  As a result, I began the journey towards the Transformational stage. Here, I am now able to  slowly integrate the strengths of earlier stages, and despite the complexities involved, I feel better able to make clear and informed decisions. Even when I can see multiple realities all at once, they do seem to have some structure that I can follow. I am now developing an ‘all of us’ approach to dealing with people and becoming more able to manage complex relationships. I have also become more aware of my own traits and shadows which allows more room for self-improvement.

I am now getting comfortable in seeing the world through my current action logic but if my environment becomes more complex then I may begin to experience the limitations of the Transformational stage.  In that case, if I find support for further growth then I may reach the Alchemical stage. 

If and when I reach the Alchemical stage, in theory, I may become better able to  embrace common humanity. I would be able to challenge  paradigms of thought and action and will have a deeply internalised sense of self-knowledge which I could hold with an empty mind.  I may be able to see light and dark, order and mess, and be able to better deal with them. Time and events will become more fluid and I’ll be truly integrated with the entire system that I am a part of. I’m only speculating these changes based on the characteristics of this stage.  I haven’t reached there yet and I don’t exactly how my worldview will change once I’m there.  

So you can see how we progress to each new stage only by journeying through the earlier ones. No one can skip a stage. How long we will be in one stage and how many stages we will cover in a lifetime depends on us and our environment. At each new stage, we acquire a new perspective and gain better ability to become aware of, and hence influence and integrate multiple aspects of life. This is the same as climbing a mountain where we gain an increasingly higher vantage point. Therefore, people at later stages can understand those at earlier stages but it doesn’t go the other way.

When we move to the later stages we do not leave behind the action logics of the earlier ones. Just like children do not forget to crawl once they start walking and do not forget to walk once they start running, the earlier action logics are still available to us in case our circumstances demand that.

Also, in the moments of stress, depression, anger or any other crisis, we tend to fall back to earlier stages and use more simple action logics to make sense of the situation.

 I’d like to emphasize that no stage is better or lesser than the other, each has its merits and limitations as I have described through my own journey. It is the context that makes one stage more suitable than the other. People at different stations have different views and if we truly understand that then we’ll  be able to have more empathy and compassion both for ourselves as well as for others. If you are comfortable and flourishing at your current stage then that is the best place for you. However, if your environment demands more growth then some specific trainings, self-reflection, and engaging with people who live and think differently than you could be very helpful.

It is also important to understand that while we can expand our worldview throughout our lives, our awareness of ourselves and the world around us will always remain partial and incomplete. We all carry only a piece of truth and never the entire truth. Human development is a never ending journey with several stations, and each station is valuable for what it offers. So, as we move further along on this journey, it is important for us to try to meet people where they are without wishing them to be somewhere else. 

            Now, I conclude this topic by asking what do you notice? Could you see where you came from, where you are, and where you may go if you continue to grow vertically? Do you think this could help you better understand people in your personal and professional lives? 

I invite you to reflect on these questions and if you need any clarity or have suggestions, please write to me on my website: wellbeingcentral.org.

Thank you for listening, and stay tuned for the next episode where I’ll share with you how I found my own oasis in a desert. Until then, let’s get one stop closer to wellbeing central!!