IAM brings integrative metatheory to the largest questions of our time under the banner “Applying Big Pictures to Big Problems”, with research across four vectors: the metacrisis, worldviews, integrative metatheory and social impact.
2024 was a year of building for the Institute. In May it set out plans for incubation grants that fund leaders applying integrative metatheory to specific issue areas, and by the end of the year it had announced the Cultural Complexity Index, SALT for Climate and the Strategic Metacrisis Mapping Initiative. The Cultural Complexity Index uses the Computerized Lectical Assessment System to measure hierarchical complexity in historical and contemporary texts, and SALT for Climate offers sensemaking, action and leadership training for people leading climate efforts. In June, a roundtable on integral policing brought together a retired lieutenant, a former Icelandic officer and a serving chief of police, and named developmental leadership as a lever for change.
Each of these initiatives places leadership capacity at the point where a big picture becomes practice, which is the territory of Alan’s work. Over three decades Alan has integrated late-stage human development, ontology, psychodynamics, generative language, integral and metaintegral theory. Generative Leadership gives metatheory a human carrier: leaders whose capacity to hold complexity grows alongside the frameworks they use. Details of the Institute’s Research Forum, initiatives and network are at appliedmetatheory.org.