I used to think like that, sorta.
Read Kegan & Lahey’s “Immunity to Change” book, on people’s unconscious-mind’s mechanism for fighting-off growing-up.
Then let it percolate in your mind for a few decades, while you watch humankind’s process.
I’d now make a law requiring that the top people be Kegan5 unconscious-mind-development ( he calls 3, 4, & 5 something like “socially-based sentience”, rooted in needing to feel liked, “self-authoring” mind, which I call Bulling-BOSS mode, it’s an obnoxious mode male-culture values because it’s so “alpha”.
Youtube’s Wranglerstar & Veritasium are both poster-people for it, 1 in working-class Kegan4 the other in middle/upper-middle-class Kegan4, & both displaying Kegan4’s obnoxiousness.
I spent most of my adult life in it, and wish I could just retroactively slice most of my life from Universe.
“systems-of-systems” mode is Kegan5. )
it’s consistent that if you field a Kegan3 person to be your negotiation-representative, and the other side fields a Kegan4, you’re run-over.
If you field a Kegan5 & they field a Kegan4, you’re run-over.
IF they field a Kegan4, THEN you need equal/opposite bullying, in order that the zero-sum-game not beat your side to shit.
However, IF they have the uprightness to field a Kegan5 & you can too, THEN Win-Win becomes possible.
Young-adults, Kegan3’s ( the Kegan3 stage can continue for the entire rest of a person’s life, from post-adolescence to 100yo or more, but it is mentally/psychically a young-adult stage ), cannot accept that evil is real, the way someone mentally-older can.
Kegan3’s are in the absorbing experience into their unconscious-mind, stage.
Kegan4’s are in the pushing meaning out of their unconscious, “authoring” themselves through that unconscious-pushing-out process stage.
Kegan5’s are in the this is true for them, that is true for these other people, the-other is true for me, and this is how it all fits together stage.
I’d not permit any naive Kegan3’s to rule any major operation, nor permit any zero-sum-game-“validity” Kegan4’s to rule anything important.
That book gives people the means of converting fighting-off-growing-up to actually-successfully-growing-up, and so it is worth many life-years or life-decades, to many.
Nobody in the whole world has any reason to accept that my values have any validity in them, though, that is true.
All who hold that there is no understanding which should be prerequisite to authority, well they all outnumber me, don’t they?
shrug
This I’ve found tests to be true, however.
( bonus point:
it has been published that the DreamTeam formation is a team-of-7, with 2 who match the Kegan5 mental-development, 2 who match the Kegan4 mental-development, & 3 who match the Kegan3 mental-development.
The Kegan4’s bursting with ideas, but not understanding all the systems-of-systems gotchas, means the team is more likely to be able to innovate,
the Kegan5’s, if they can do it without demolishing the Kegan4’s morale, can ask questions to corner the Kegan4’s into considering all sorts of things they hadn’t, so they prevent lots of stupid mistakes,
& the Kegan3’s are the “glue” which holds the team coherent & harmonious.
I’m mixing multiple sources together, but they really were identifying the same thing, only each was doing-so without some of the other pieces.
New Scientist had an article on The Dream Team, years ago, Chris McGoff’s book “The Primes” is part of it, the Kegan & Lahey book is part of it, some HBR stuff as well, perhaps some stuff from the managers-of-programmers books, what’s her name, Roth? can’t remember…
fit it together, though, and it fits properly: there is a balance which produces working momentum, instead of institutional-mentality, and that working momentum is based on the substance of the minds of the people in the team, and ignoring the unconscious-mind-development stage … is ignoring the BIG part of each person’s iceberg.
: )
