William Bergquist and Gary Quehl
[Note: The complete book (Caring Deeply: Engaging the Four Roles of Life-Fulfilling Generativity) is available for purchase. Use the following link: Caring Deeply.]
Welcome to this digital magazine that addresses the important issue in our contemporary world about what “caring deeply” really means – and how an understanding of the caring process, in all of its dimensions, can be of great value to anyone involved in the professional coaching enterprise.
Five Reasons to Read the Essays in This Digital Magazine .
First, deep caring is about a psychological process called “generativity” what was first identified by the prominent psychologist and psychoanalyst, Erik Erikson. Unfortunately, the literature on generativity is scarce (even though it is one of the eight stages of Erikson’s fundamental stage theory – and is relevant to many adults living in the Western World at the present time.) We introduce you to the existing literature as well as contribute our own findings and thoughts on this topic.
Second, the literature on generativity primarily focuses on what we identify as the “second act” of generativity and only George Vaillant expands on this focus (identifying what we label the “third act” of generativity. We propose that generativity is engaged through four acts.
Third, our four-act generativity analysis enriches and provides clarity regarding the nature of “deep caring” in Western societies (and perhaps other cultures in our world).
Fourth our four acts of generativity provide valuable guidance for those who wish to increase civic engagement in their community (our analysis being based on an extensive study of civic engagement in two communities).
Finally, our four-act analysis offers a way in which to view how generativity and deep caring are manifest in many different ways – ways that are linked together through the comparable dynamics of generative caring.
So . . . we welcome you once again to this series of essays on generativity and deep caring. Please find links below to each essay. We provide an essay approximately once each month.
Essay One: The Deep Caring Crossroads: A Life of Generativity or Stagnation
There are many choices available to each of us during a lifetime. These choices can lead us to a self-renewing life or to stagnation and decline. Many of these decisions concern the way and the extent to which we care about other people, our heritage and our community.
Essay Two: Four Ways to be Generative
While most theories of generativity and deep caring identify a specific stage in our life when we choose to be generative — or stagnant–we propose that there are four ways to be generative and that they can operate at any point in our life.
Essay Three: A Life of Deep Caring
We have choices to make. Do we choose generativity or stagnation? Do we undertake the risk of teaching and learning? Or do we accept the status quo and refuse to take a risk? When we are stagnant rather than generative we continue to do the same old thing.
Throughout our set of essays, we will draw on an analogy to theater and will describe four roles of generativity that can be played by anyone, at any point in their life.
Essay Five: Expanding and Extending Our Region of Care
Generativity is clearly a multi-dimensional concept with many different manifestations; nevertheless, we propose that each of the four roles tends to be center stage at a specific time in our life. Following is a preview of the prominent role of generativity being played most often at specific times in our life.
Essay Six: Introducing the Cast of Characters
Having outlined the roles to be engaged in this play about generativity, it is time to further set the stage by introducing the men and women to whom we turn for insights and narratives about generativity and deep caring.
Essay Seven: The Preconditions for Deep Caring
We have now set the stage by introducing the fundamental theme of our play: deep caring. We have identified the four roles of generativity and have identified the cast members who not only are providing the action but are also providing much of the script. We have also acquainted you with our four Featured Players. One more task needs to be completed in setting the stage. We want to provide a preliminary backdrop for this generativity play. What is required for someone to be generative? What do we need to engage in deep caring?
Essay Eight: Generativity One–Raising Children and Engaging Projects
We begin our investigation of generativity with child-rearing and project-building because of the lingering impact these early forms of mature caring have on our lives. We propose that the early dynamics of caring in what we are calling Generativity One continue to influence us when we interact with our grown children, when we become grandparents, and when we serve as guardians in passing the torch for projects and organizations about which we deeply care.
Essay Nine: The Challenges and Benefits of Generativity One
Typically, there are two major questions that face any person or couple when they have begun to raise children or begin a mutual project. The first of these concerns the amount of time and other resources that each person and the partners together devote to raising children or conducting their project. Chronic stress, due to shortages, rather than acute crises often influence and can even destroy the health of an individual and the health of an intimate relationship. We have to place child rearing and project management at the top of the list that demand scarce resources. The second question concerns the ways in which children will be raised and a project will be managed. This can be just as stress-ridden and conflict-filled as the problem of scarce resources. We examine both of these stormy issues, then look at the unique manner in which couples address them when they bring children from a previous relationship, or a project from a previous time in their lives, to the relationship.
Essay Ten: The Enduring Role of Generativity One
Generativity One does not disappear as we grow older: That is one of the dominant themes in this set of essays, and we believe it provides an important contribution to the literature on generativity. The first role of generativity not only doesn’t go away; it provides many of us with an opportunity to “do it better” as we grow older.
Essay Eleven: The Enduring Role of Generativity One as Leader and Grandparent
In the tenth essay we focused on our continuing role as a parent. Generativity One remains in place throughout our life. In this essay we explore two other ways in which generativity one continues to play an important role: (1) as leader of an organization and (2) as grandparent. We also address the most challenging dimension of generativity one: the death of a child or end of a cherished project.
Essay Twelve: Generative Two–Expanding Perspectives and Actions About Deep Care
So far in our exploration, we have been presenting a new narrative about the nature and dynamics of generativity. In this essay, we rely on a script that has already been written by the original playwright, Erik Erikson—and by subsequent authors and researchers in the field of adult development.
Essay Thirteen: Generativity Two–The Existing Concepts
The two key developmental theorists to devote considerable attention during the late 20th Century to generativity were John Kotre and Dan McAdams. It was Kotre (1984) who first expanded on Erikson’s concept of generativity and the motivational base for this developmental stage. Specifically, Kotre suggested that generativity is “a desire to invest one’s substance on forms of life and work that will outlive the self.” (Kotre, 1984, p. 10) It is quite understandable and appropriate that Kotre identifies this wish for some form of immortality as a key motivator for generative action. It is also quite understandable that some developmental theorists have identified other sources of motivation and have referred to the inherently narcissistic orientation to be found in Kotre’s challenging proposition. We will return frequently in this series of essays to the issue of desired immortality and the role it plays in motivating generative actions.
Essay Fourteen: The Enactment of Generativity Two: Legacy and Leadership
In this essay, particularly astute observations are made by our Sage leaders about generativity two and the power of appreciation as a leverage point for the generation of energy and strategies for collaboration. Generativity seems to reside, finally, in a commitment to vision and the movement beyond one’s personal interests (setting aside ego).
Essay Fifteen: The Enactment of Generativity Two: Mentoring Individuals and Organizations:
This essay is devoted to insights offered by our Sage leaders about Generativity Two, as represented in the processes of mentoring both individuals and organizations. We begin with our leaders’ reflections on their role as mentors. We then expand this perspective by talking about four related roles played by generative leaders: mediator, monitor, motivator, and mobilizer. Along with mentoring, these become the “Five M’s” of Generative Two leadership. (Quehl and Bergquist, 2012).
Before moving on to Generativity Three and Four, we want to review ways in which a transition from Generativity Two occurs. As in the case of Generativity One, the second generativity role may be with us throughout our adult lives. It might not always be operating in the spotlight, but it can play a secondary role to Generativity Three and Generativity Four. Somewhere between the spotlight and this supporting role is our role as grandparent in the organization with which we are affiliated.
We begin with the grand parenting role and the way in which we are honored (or not) in that role. We then turn to a strong, underlying transition that occurs in the lives most of us lead as mid-centurions (men and women between 50 and 70 years of age). We start listening to voices from various rooms in our psyche that have remained mute for many years. These voices often lead us to Generativity Three and Four. The voices can also be denied or ignored for many years, and this often leads us to stagnation. So, we need to pay attention. We identify mid-centurions as the “men and women of Autumn” who are generative rather than being stagnate. Like the glorious foliage of the Fall season, these Autumnal women and men are more than living out the middle and late stages of life. They are bursting with colorful and generative perspectives and deeply caring actions.
Essay Seventeen: Moving from Generativity Two to Generativity Three–Returning to Major Life Issues
Random events become strange attractors. They call to us and require our attention. They form an alliance with our inner voices. Suddenly other events begin to organize around this attractor and form a constellation or psychic “pothole” of activities, interests and dreams. This essay concerns these events and how they lead us to new challenges—and perhaps a second moratorium where we once again address major life issues.
Essay Eighteen: The Heritage Drive: Preserving Societal Values
Generativity is about caring for that which should be cared for, and this includes the ongoing presence of critical societal values. It is about caring not just for a specific person, organization or community. It is about caring for an idea, for the history of action and achievement, for a particular artifact (e.g., painting, building) that represents a lingering value or exemplifies an ideal of beauty. In Generativity Three we are guardians of something that already exists – or existed in the past. McAdams (McAdams, Hart, and Maruna, 1998, p. 15) hints at this third generativity role when identifying the way in which cultural demands serve as an external motivating source of generativity.
Essay Nineteen: The Heritage Drive: Extending Legacy in Time
This essay is about the nature and range of Generativity Three. It is also about the motivations that drive the push toward guardianship. While we will identify many different motivating drives in exploring the varieties of Generativity Three engagements, we focus on five that are central and reoccur: (1) nobles oblige, (2) living in a tangible culture, (3 safeguarding specific traditional values, (4) outliving ourselves, and (5) caring deeply by “passing it forward.”
Essay Twenty: Generativity Three: Ceremony, Preservation, Display and Honor
This essay and the next are filled to the brim with diverse acts of generativity, because we think the acts of Generativity Three are least likely to be identified, classified or fully appreciated. We identify eight modes of Generativity Three, but expect there are many more:
(1) Offering ceremony (celebrations, parades and other ritual enactments).
(2) Preserving (keeping something in its original state).
(3) Displaying (allowing people to observe the preserved object).
(4) Honoring (setting aside a specific day or product in recognition of the contribution made by a specific person, group or event)
Essay Twenty One: Generativity Three: Consecrating, Gathering, Preserving Values, Story-Telling
In this essay we identify four modes of Generativity Three:
- Consecrating (setting aside a specific place where an important event occurred or setting aside a specific place that is related tangibly to a specific person or group).
- Gathering (bringing together people on regular basis who have shared a profound experience).
- Preserving values (providing clarity, representation, demonstration, monitoring or reinforcement of specific, cherished values).
- Story-telling (sharing the history of specific people, events, traditions).
In this essay we explore each of these acts of Generativity Three, deploying our Four Featured Players and the interviews we conducted with our Sage leaders. We also look at other examples of these four forms of guardianship we have witnessed in our own lives, among our friends, and in various written accounts.
Essay Twenty Two: Generativity Four–The Varieties of Civic Engagement
Generativity Four is about extending the space into a broader community and ensuring that a legacy is expanded, embedded, and preserved in this community. Stated simply, Generativity Four is about doing something much larger than Generativity One, Two, and Three. It is about doing something more than preserving the past and preparing for our own deaths as older adults. Rather, it has to do with building something new for the future by advancing civic welfare in own community. In this essay we offer some of the stories of both Emerging and Senior Sage Leaders regarding their civic engagements.
Essay Twenty Three: Generativity Four–Generativity Roles and Responsibilities
There are a variety of ways in which sage leaders say they help the organizations in which they are primarily engaged in their Generativity Four roles. Seven themes reflect how Sage leaders say they most help their favored civic organizations: personal leadership, specialized expertise, collaboration, finance and fund development, energetic presence, thoughtful listening, and serving as mentors.
Essay Twenty Four: Generativity Four–Expanding the Space
Many Sage leaders muse about the ways they are most helpful at the strategic level of their favored organizations. They exemplify the push in Generativity Four toward expanding the space in which they deeply care. This expanding of space comes in two important forms: (1) increased diversity of civic engagements and (2) movement to a broader perspective regarding how to impact on one’s community.
Essay Twenty Five: Generativity Four–The Satisfaction of Civic Engagement
It is not surprising that Sage leaders of all ages continue to work in their favored civic organizations, because they derive great personal satisfaction and meaning from these Generativity Four experiences. Both Emerging and Senior Sage leaders deliver the message that what they especially enjoy about their civic involvements is work with other people. For them, Generativity Four civic engagement is not only about seeking the betterment of their community; it’s about collaborating with others to bring this result about—to engage collectively the “bigger picture.” In sum, most satisfaction comes from bringing together an engaged group of people to mobilize and achieve a shared civic goal.
Essay Twenty Six: Generativity Four–Motivation
Throughout this set of essays we have identified various sources of motivation that lead individuals to become generative and engage in deep caring activities. There are five motivations that seem to be particularly salient with regard to Generativity Four. These motivations, in turn, lead to what we have identified as “quiet leadership.” The five motivations include altruism, the desire to give back to society and serve the greater public good; self-interest, doing what we want for our own benefit; achievement, being successful in situations that require excellent or improved performance; affiliation, wanting to be with people who are enjoyed; and power, the desire to have influence on situations or on others. All of these motivations have a place in the civic engagement world of Sage leaders.
Essay Twenty Seven: Generative Four–The Sacrifices
The subject of civic engagement begs the question of whether the involvements of Sage leaders come at high cost, and whether such sacrifices are off-set by the personal benefits they receive. It is in this domain that we anticipated the greatest differences between Emerging and Senior Sage leaders. Of the 50 Senior Sages who were interviewed, 49 say there is virtually no sacrifice involved, that their civic work is enriching their lives. While the older leaders in most cases are now retired, or at least have fewer family constraints, the 50 younger Emerging Sages are typically in the midst of career demands and family obligations. This suggests that two questions need to be asked: How do they not see civic engagement as yet another pull on their time, talent, and energy? How do they not see this voluntary work as a sacrifice?
Essay Twenty Eight: Generativity Four–The Benefits of Civic Engagement
The generative motivations that Sage leaders attribute to their civic involvements, and the benefits they receive from them, are closely linked. But benefits possess a different quality than motivations. Emerging and Senior Sage leaders all identify with the rich source of human talent and energy that exists in the community. Like the founders of Grass Valley and Nevada City, they see gold in the foothills—but the gold is human capital rather than a mineral.
Essay Twenty Nine: Generativity Four–Generativity or Stagnation?
We conclude our exploration of civic engagement and Generativity Four by turning once again to the fundamental choice that Erik Erikson first identified when describing the stages of adult development: generativity or stagnation? Virtually all our Senior Sages know persons in the community who possess sage leadership qualities but are far removed from being civically engaged. Senior Sages describe them as affable, generous, and knowledgeable persons but voice frustration in not being able to motivate them: “So why can’t I get them involved? Why don’t they readily recognize the personal benefits that can come from civic engagement?
Essay Thirty:Searching for the Generative Society
Dan McAdams and his fellow connoisseurs of generativity have edited an entire book on The Generative Society (St. Aubin, McAdams and Kim, 2004). We will highlight several findings and proposals offered in this book, especially as related to the four roles of generativity we have introduced in this set of essays. We will then turn briefly to the broader consideration of the social-economic structure of a society and the important interplay between social-class and generativity. We conclude with our own thoughts about the nature of a generative society, gaining insights from the generative women and men we interviewed during the Sage project.
Essay Thirty One: Social Class, Agency and the Generative Society
Civic engagement and other acts of generativity might be the privilege of social class, rather than being a sign of altruism or personal commitment. Perhaps, as some of our Sage leaders observed, stagnation and the absence of civic engagement might be at least partially attributed to the inability of many people to find time or energy to move beyond their own economic struggles (and to move beyond their own Generativity One role as a challenged provider to their family). We turn to consideration of the important interplay between social-class and generativity, gaining insights from the women and men we interviewed during the Sage project.
Essay Thirty Two: The Origins of Generativity in Spirit
We propose in these final essays that Generativity is ultimately about more than child-rearing, organizational leadership, mentoring, preservation of traditions, and civic engagement. It is about something even deeper and more personally transformational. At the heart of the matter are two forms of Generativity that women and men often experience during the middle years of their life: Generativity of Spirit and Generativity of Soul. Spirit is about achievement and about lifting upward. It is the form of generativity that was identified in the earlier essay as Agency. It is about the joy that comes with accomplishment and recognition. It concerns our discovery of higher order truths and our commitment to higher order values that motivate our collaborative work with other people in our family, in our organizations, and in our community. This generativity ensures that our presence is felt in the world, and it often serves as a bridge between Generativity One and Generativity Two.
Essay Thirty-Three: The Origins of Generativie in the Soul
While Generativity of the Spirit is primarily concerned with accomplishment and agency, Generativity of the Soul concerns connection and communion. It concerns discovery of that about which we truly and deeply care. If Kotre is correct in suggesting that the primary motive behind the generative impulse is a desire to live beyond ourselves, then is the search for soul essentially a quest for some form of immortality? Living in a secular world, is generativity and deep caring the way in which we continue, in some way, to live beyond our death? Generativity resides “on stage” throughout our adult life, but it becomes more powerful and more often at center stage as we grow older. The allure of generativity might increase as we grow older precisely because we come to realize that most of our life lies behind us rather than ahead. We are facing what Rudolph Otto (1923) calls the “numinous”: a great chasm that is devoid of all meaning and that resides at the end of life. We have a strong desire to live somehow beyond our current self and to fill this chasm with generative accomplishments and a lingering memory of good will among those who outlive us.