A Guide to Navigating Team Dynamics and the Escher Cycle
In this article, we'll uncover how these archetypes critically shape a startup's journey and offer insights that can redefine its path to success. Understanding these psychological blueprints can be your game-changer, whether seasoned or just beginning.
Jungian psychology
Jungian psychology explains how we see the world through certain templates, called archetypes. There are many, but a popular analysis by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette has boiled them down to four main ones:
- King: Think of a wise ruler who understands the situation and knows what's best for their kingdom. Represents passive masculine energy. This archetype emphasizes order, discipline, and governance.
- Warrior: The doer; someone who takes action. Represents active masculine energy. Example: Activists like the Civil Rights movement leaders or ambitious entrepreneurs. This archetype is characterized by its fervor, bravery, and initiative.
- Magician: The creative thinker, someone who finds new solutions to tough problems. Represents active feminine energy. This archetype resonates with imagination, inspiration, and transformation.
- Lover: The supportive force, like a parent's love for their children or a leader who brings out the best in their team. Represents passive feminine energy. The Lover archetype is all about love, compassion, and understanding.
While the names are masculine bound, men and women can embody any archetype.
And it’s not just individuals who embody these archetypes, organizations, and businesses behave in similar ways. As a collective, we all have elements of the King, Warrior, Magician, and Lover. Sometimes they can be too strong, too weak, or just right. Look at successful companies, and you'll often find their unique constellation of archetypes. For example, one could say that Apple blends the creativity of the Magician with the Lover's care for design.
The AUDIO Cycle
The AUDIO Cycle handles the four stages of change and innovation in a business: from realizing a problem exists to understanding the problem, creating a solution, making it happen, and maintaining operations.
By syncing one's archetype with the relevant stage of this cycle, you can ensure that every team member is operating in their zone of genius. Think of it as aligning one's 'psychological DNA' with the business rhythm for optimum results.
This is how each archetype aligns with a specific stage of the Audio Cycle:
- Awareness (Spotting an issue) - Best for Kings.
- Understanding (Getting the issue's core) - Another stage for Kings.
- Designing (Creating a Solution) - Perfect for Magicians.
- Implementation (Executing the plan) - Made for Warriors.
- Operations (Continuous delivery) - The Lover's forte.
Understanding your dominant archetype can guide you to the right stage in the AUDIO Cycle. Couple this with the distinctiveness of the role (from routine to highly unique tasks) to find where you'll shine the brightest.
Escher Cycle
Besides the use of the Audio Cycle, incorporating the idea of the Escher Cycle can provide your business with a competitive edge over rivals. The Escher Cycle is a self-reinforcing flow of information, improvement, and advantage within a business or economy.
Overlaying it with archetypes shows that this isn't just a business process. It’s also about how different people (with their dominant archetypes) contribute, make decisions, and act in the business.
Practically, the Escher Cycle suggests that the success of a business is deeply influenced by the psychological dynamics of the people involved and whether the right people are working in the right roles - from a psychological point of view. The more closely aligned, the better the flow of ideas, the more efficient the decision-making process occurs.
In conclusion, understanding the Escher Cycle can lead to more holistic strategies for improving business processes. Businesses can recognize the importance of diverse personality types and viewpoints in generating innovative ideas and decision-making.
