Introduction Paul Zuiker

Paul Zuiker (1962) first came across Spiral Dynamics when he started his own business as an independent organizational consultant after leaving an organizational consulting firm. “It fascinated me enormously, especially that step to ‘yellow,’ that ego-transcending piece, that all felt very authentic to me. I suddenly understood why I had felt out of place at the agency I was working for. Everything fell into place”.

While studying Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Paul goes to Zambia for a year. There he is engaged in applied technology development at the University of Zambia in Lusaka.

After his studies, he leaves for Mexico for 2.5 years to work at a technical institution of the United Nations (UNIDO) on the development of the first robots. They succeed in 2.5 years, and already in Mexico he wonders what the secret behind this rapid development is. Is it knowledge or perhaps something else? It soon becomes clear to him that human commitment, the drive of his colleagues and himself, is the major driving force behind this rapid progress.

After returning to the Netherlands, Paul joins Unilever as a project engineer, where he automates production lines. After a while he realizes that he finds technology interesting, but that people are much more interesting to him. This seems like a big change, but then at Unilever he is already managing in a different, very intuitively way than usual for a while. He goes by his feelings, not so much looking at information. And with success, but no one understands how this is possible. Paul runs into this more and more often. He does a good job, but clearly does not fit into the corporate frame of Unilever.

Then, through a friend, he comes into contact with Bureau Kern Konsult, a very innovative organizational consulting firm at the time. There he starts his career as an organizational consultant in 1994 and it feels like coming home to him. The work suits him. Despite his studies and experience being in mechanical engineering, he steps effortlessly into the world of organizational development. At the time, the firm is ahead in a number of areas, especially in the area of humane leadership. Paul joins the board. Together with colleagues, he develops the Project-based Creating method. The book he wrote about this with his colleagues became a bestseller.

But after several years, it feels like he’s at a dead end. He sees what’s going on, but he can’t manage to reverse the course that the agency, with all its success, has fallen into. In his opinion, it remains too stuck in its comfort zone.

Paul interprets it as follows: “Reasoning from Spiral Dynamics, you could say that it was a very ‘green’ agency, making nice money, and ‘orange,’ but this ‘orange’ was always in the service of ‘green,’ so that because of the big money, the ‘green’ ended up serving the ‘orange.’ I could not interpret this as such at the time, but intuitively I felt resistance in myself. I noticed and knew that we had to make a next step, towards ‘yellow’, but we were stuck in the ‘green’ and there was a regression to ‘orange’ “.

The whole thing oppresses him more and more. He leaves, takes the plunge, and starts his own business. Then his father-in-law and fellow organizational consultant tips him about Spiral Dynamics (SD). Paul is immediately hooked. “It fit like a glove,” he says. Suddenly he can place many things he had experienced abroad. Like the strong superstition of many Zambians, which he experienced frequently while studying in that country. He suddenly sees that this has nothing to do with intelligence, but with ‘purple’ consciousness; appropriate to the low complexity of the environment in which they live together in the bush.

In 2004, Paul went to the United States, where he was trained in SD by Don Beck. He goes  together with Wilbert van der Leijden, who for the same reasons as Paul at the time, had quit his job as an organizational consultant at McKinsey firm.
Together they decide to write an article on the development history of the Netherlands from the perspective of SD. The article eventually becomes a book, Nederland op doorbreken (Netherlands on a breakthrough) on which they worked full-time for a year and a half. Paul: “For me, this book was the textbook I had wanted to read myself about SD”.

In 2006 he starts his own agency together with Wilbert, Emergent, which focuses primarily on community development. But this turns out to be too far ahead of its time. There are groups working with society, but not integrally. The governing bodies, mostly municipalities, cannot yet handle it in terms of complexity.
Paul: “An organization can never develop beyond the consciousness of its leader. It is my vision, my motivation to get the right people in the right places, especially in the top positions in organizations.”
After a few years, Wilbert van Leijden steps out of Emergent and Paul continues with it on his own.

In addition to his own company, he starts ValueMatch (VM) in 2011, together with Auke van Nimwegen. By then, they already give trainings on SD on a regular basis.
Paul sees his role within VM mainly as a developer. Paul: “Not everything I develop ends up there. I let Auke determine which things are suitable for ValueMatch, because he has a better idea than I do of what the VM customer wants. We then develop it further together. Other, more experimental things go on the shelves of my own company Emergent.”

In his view, VM is primarily a ‘yellow’ and ‘orange’ company, with ‘orange’ serving the ‘yellow’. Paul: “That’s what Auke and I have in common: the commitment to deliver an authentic sound, with me being more of the research and Auke being more of the development and communication.”

What does he find most fascinating about his work? Paul: “Human development, that fascinates me the most, I find that extremely fascinating and this is, in my view, excellently expressed by SD. And I can put it into practice in integral organizational development, and by guiding teams and working as a coach in personal development, where HRM is my natural cooperation partner in organizations.”

What has SD brought you? Paul: “It has taught me to make sense of my passion. SD allows me to quickly see where any bottlenecks are in an organization and what transition is at hand. It lies in the human ability to transcend problems and form a new perspective (consciousness or values system). It is in the human being and is reflected as the fingerprints in everything the human being creates, so also in an organization.”

How does Paul see the future of VM? Paul: “Auke and I do not make plans, we believe in flow and synchronicity (coincidence does not exist), then things happen that make sense. But I hope that with VM we succeed in equipping HR departments integrally with all our tools, that we may welcome more organizations as clients besides self-employed people, and that we manage to spread the ‘yellow sound’ internationally, including the practical tools to work with them. Because that’s how we can get the right people in the right place.”