Is Development Really Development?

I just received my latest Leadership Maturity Profile (SCTi-MAP) back from Susan Cook-Greuter's people and I tested pretty high. For those of you not familiar with Susan's work or system, you can visit my website page on perspectives and download the article titled Cook-Greuter: 9 Action Logics.

I tested as a magician, which means I am in the top 0.01 percent of human ego development. This means that when I am in most groups I am probably the most developed person there (with the exception of all of the groups of very developed people I kick it with). This means that if I am at Dodgers Stadium watching a game, I am probably the most developed person in the stadium.

This is a problem.

When I first received the email with the data and my score, I felt a moment of elation and satisfaction: "wow, I'm hell'a developed." In the next moment I deconstructed and reconstructed about 40 different perspectives on what this meant and held them all simultaneously for a bit, as this is what I do with pretty much everything generally making me fairly dysfunctional (more on this in a second). I then fell over laughing with the thought: if I am somehow as highly developed as this suggests then we are in a world of trouble, as most of the time I feel like a dysfunctional douche bag. Most of the time is an exageration. I would say that I feel like a dysfunctional douche bag about 25% of the time. The rest of the time I feel pretty ordinary, normal. Sometimes, very rarely, I feel neat, but this is typically based on grooming.

I certainly don't feel I am at the top 0.01 percent of human development - really anywhere close.

Interestingly, this score wasn't a huge surprise. I know the system fairly well, and I felt that I had slid into this way of being and space of perception over the last year (it's been a challenging and beautiful year). This all leads me to the title question: is development really development?

I can look at myself, and with all of my developed capacity to see deeply, clearly into myself and reality, I can say I have a lot to learn and growing to do. There is so much about reality, spirit and self that do I now understand or comprehend. And, yet, at the same time, I am deeply, truly satisfied with myself and who I am in the world. I have never been this free to be a dysfuctional douche bag, and I have never at the same time wanted more for myself and those I touch: ah, the gorgeous world of paradox and polarity.

There is huge emphasis placed in the integral and spiritual world on development. This is probably our largest and often unchecked preference. I am going to begin looking at it more closely, asking the questions: why the preference on development? is what we consider to be development really development? if not, then what might be?

Always unfolding.