These four questions are often depicted in a linear form, as in Figure 2. The inputs are transformed into outputs of greater value, based on specific organizing principles (Samuelson & Nordhaus, 1995).

Figure 2. Four Areas of Inquiry in Organizational Systems Design

With these four questions, we can now differentiate the three circles in Figure 1, with typical responses from the survey data to each question:

• How much. Responses from the inner-circle experience in Figure 1 describe resources such as the specific capacities people have, amount of existing inventory, and the outcomes already achieved. In experiences describing the middle circle of vibrancy, they see the same resources as the inner-circle groups and the development of new capacities and cooperative relationships, learning along the way. In the outer circle of vibrancy, people add the potential they see in the self, other, group, nature, and spirit. In summary, when we ask people economic resource questions about “how much they see,” the greater the vibrancy they experience, the more they see resources of outcomes, and development, and potential.
• Who decides. Responses from the inner-circle experience make resource allocation decisions using one of the five relationships: decisions are made by individuals or as pairs or as a group or by outcomes (nature) or by the book (spirit). In middle-circle experiences, decision making explicitly included two or three of the relationships, such as freedom to develop one’s own learning and relationship-building process (self), while mentoring others to do the same (other). In the outer circle experience, people describe decision making incorporating all five relationships, where everyone contributes their unique perspectives (group), developing their individual potential (self), and supporting each other (other) through creative processes (spirit) that developed pathways for developing the possibilities the group could see into specific outcomes (nature).
• By what criteria. The experience in the inner circle shows values based in observable outcomes, with decision making in one primary relationship. This might be the amount of available resources, such as money or raw materials for the group. In the middle-circle experience, people describe values around learning, the development of new capacities and the building of relationships, while delivering specific outcomes. In the outer-circle experience, people value the potential they can see in each of the five relationships (in me, in you, in us, in our process, and in the creative potential we manifest), as well as in the development of new capacities and relationships, and the simultaneous achievement of specific outcomes.
• The rules of interaction. The experience in the inner-circle highlights interactions based in the competition for scarce resources: those available right now. In the middle-circle experience, people interact cooperatively with others, sharing resources and connections, working relatively independent of each other. In the outer-circle experience, we see collaborative interactions founded on an explicitly shared higher purpose that celebrates and designs for the value of a diverse set of perspectives integrated to see new possibilities together, increasing individual and collective commitment to the manifestation of these possibility, and agreement of how to and work on them together.

Table 1. The Agreements Evidence Map