40. THE ADVENT OF STAGE IV
ORGANIZATIONS

STAGE IV ORGANIZATIONS HOLD THE PROMISE OF BEING THE MOST ADAPTIVE INSTITUTIONS HUMANKIND HAS EVER DEVISED.

Developing the capacity to sense and actualize emerging futures constitutes a new form of knowledge creation. Learning to reliably apply the principles and practices expressed in this book, particularly in large organizations and institutions, is a high challenge. That challenge has been met by only a handful of exemplary enterprises. If even a small number of others begin to join them, we could stand on the edge of an epochal transformation. A small number of people in higher states of consciousness can have a disproportionately positive effect on the rest of society, because of the nonlocal effect of human intentions.

Rising Stage IV organizations can become living examples for others to follow. They have the capacity to respond promptly and effectively to accelerating change in the business environment.

Stage IV organizations hold the promise of being the most adaptive institutions humankind has ever devised. If even a small number of these institutions were global in scope, it would have an even more profound effect. Leaders of global organizations are true planetary citizens. Because their business units transcend national boundaries, their decisions affect not just economies, but societies – not just the direct concerns of business, but global issues of poverty, the environment, and security. These rising Stage IV executives and their organizations constitute an economic network whose operating philosophy can bind the planet in a common destiny.

In addition to the incipient rise of the Stage IV organization, there is another phenomenon occurring: the rise of the citizen groups, social entrepreneurs, and independent-sector organizations (nongovernmental organizations). Each one carries a different label, but they are all connected by a common motivation to represent the voices not accounted for otherwise. These elements of society, if developed properly, can embody the movement toward a Stage IV global civic society required to complement the work of the Stage IV institutions of commerce.