The Integrators: The Next Evolution in Leadership, Knowledge and Value Creation

In the 1970s and 1980s a new breed of management writers emerged, with a view to taking management theory, and practice, onto the next level of its evolution. However, in spite of the rich and innovative thought-leadership that developed in those decades, somewhere along the way, the world of management and enterprise, took a wrong turn at the dawn of the nineties. In other words, while certain writers acted as a transitional influence, reacting against the ’analytical management’ of old, the powers that be went backwards rather than forward, leadership and entrepreneurship (including social entrepreneurship) being a regressive rather than a progressive development. As such, the author in an attempt to take the management agenda forward, duly influenced in the 1980s like so many others by the ’east’, drew on the Indian energy system to co-evolve a variegated approach to management that included leadership and entrepreneurship, but also much more. Here, the author takes the reader into a psychological (spectral), and a cultural (integral) journey, set alongside individual, organizational and societal learning and innovation in each case. Such a journey will serve to both differentiate and integrate, thereby bringing about managerial and enterprise unity-in-variety. Lessem transcends both standardized notions of management and also unduly personalized approaches to leadership and entrepreneurship that are universally applied to all-comers in all cultures. The outcome of such will be the introduction of Integrators in the 21st Century to replace leaders, managers and entrepreneurs from the 19th and 20th Centuries.

Table of Contents:
Part I. Spectral Origination 1. Entrepreneur to Integrator: The Next Evolution in Leadership, Knowledge and Value Creation 2. Origins of Spectral Theory: A Trans-cultural and Trans-neural Heritage Part II. Structure & Dynamics – Foundation 3. The Character Spectrum: Horizontal Differentiation and Integration 4. Spectrum of Activation and Development: Youth to Maturity : Origination to Transformation Part III. Emancipation and Integration 5. Commonwealth to Cooperative Integrators: Worldly-wise Sekem and Commonwealth to Mondragon as Cooperative 6. Organizational to Communal Integrators: Sahyoun and Medlabs in Jordan/Adodo and Pax Herbals in Nigeria 7. Corporate to Societal Integrators: Van der Coff in South Africa to Ariyaratne in Sri Lanka 8. Worldwide Integrators : Eco to Civic Integrators - Branson and Virgin Group/Johar and Impact Hubs Part IV. Conclusion and Transformation 9. Vertical Spectrum : Creativity and Innovation - Spectral to Integral 10. When Spectral meets Integral: Ancient Egypt to Global Reach 11. Annex: Spectral Integrator Type Inventory (SITI)

About the Author :
Ronnie Lessem was born in Zimbabwe of central European parentage, and graduated from Harvard Business School and the London School of Economics. He has written some 30 books, the last six together with Alexander Schieffer, on self, organizational and societal development from a transcultural, transformational perspective. He has also been an international management consultant in Europe and America, India and Africa for three decades.

Review :
‘Challenging the prevailing myth of leadership as an individual activity, Ronnie Lessem makes a compelling and timely case for the "integrator" whose work emerges out of, and transforms the larger ecosystems of organization and society. Deeply resonant with the global challenges of the 21st century, the author has produced nothing short of a tour de force, and this work will rank alongside some of the greatest books on management wisdom.’ Sudhanshu Palsule, Duke University, USA ‘The Integrators is a fascinating book for managers and leaders within and outside organizations. The spectral management theory, developed by Ronnie Lessem and his colleagues, has a strong potential to help individuals uncover their strengths and qualities, making them better leaders and performers. It offers a new perspective to our understanding of the different ways and different stages of progress individuals follow on their road to leadership and beyond and the impact they make on organizations through learned use of their personal qualities. It is based on inspirational ideas, backed by rigorous academic research that has validated it and manifested its contribution to the scholarship of organizational management and leadership.’ Yehuda Baruch, University of Southampton, UK ‘As a facilitator of transformational change, in one of the world's largest technology companies, and as a recent graduate of a PhD program in Integral Development from a university co-founded in South Africa by a so called transformational leader par excellence, Nelson Mandela, I am well aware of the need to both incorporate and also transcend leadership, as we now know it, in a transnational and transcultural light. In this book Ronnie Lessem, like myself as an Iranian-German of dual Afro-European heritage, illustrates how the fusion of entrepreneurship, management and leadership leads to a fundamental transformation of each and all of such, a cultural and developmental integration so to speak. In particular due to the exponential spread of digitization in line with disruptive innovation there is a need not only to create new customer value, it requires new values in business, society and leadership to avoid a predator-capitalist downturn. As Vice President of Group Transformational Change at Deutsche Telekom Group I can see that Lessem’s work has significant bearing on our own activities, and can recommend it to those pursuing similar organizational transformations across different parts of the world.’ Reza Moussavian, Vice President, Group Transformational Change, Deutsche Telecom ‘The Centre for Human Communication, first founded in Torquay in 1972, was a thrilling and magical place to be. Kevin Kingsland adapted the inspiration he received from Christopher Hills and many others in Centre House in London and combined it with an authentic yoga tradition. With a polymath mind he sought to test his understanding through the creation of a centre that would practise what it preached, not just study it. The Spectral Model that we all investigated with him, was used as a map that not only guided our investigations, created our organizations and helped us understand ourselves and our communication with each other, but also began to emerge as an archetypal "model of models". Ronnie Lessem, in this book, shares the result of his investigations of these same functions as they operate within the level of business organizations across the world and how the personalities of their creators and managers create truly successful communities, not just companies. Kingsland’s unique contribution was to inspire a flame of desire for the understanding of something that can be a real guiding hope for the future of humanity. It continues to burn brightly in Ronnie, myself and many others.’ David Pike, Consultant Psychologist and Director, EducarePartners, UK