Seven Capacities. Two Directions.
The Sin to Synergy framework does not begin with a list of virtues to acquire or a list of flaws to correct. It begins with a single claim about what a human capacity actually is: dysfunction and skill are not two different things, drawn from different sources. They are the same seven innate capacities, oriented differently.
Ego Reaction and Accountability are not opposites. They are the same underlying capacity for self-regard — oriented toward defending the self in one direction, and toward examining the self honestly in the other. The same relationship holds across all seven pairs named below. On this account, development is not installation — adding something a person did not already have. It is reorientation — turning a capacity that is already fully present, and already fully active, toward its constructive rather than its defensive expression.
This distinction changes what the work actually is. A framework that treats dysfunction and skill as separate things can only ask people to suppress the first and acquire the second — effort added on top of who they already are, sustained for as long as the effort holds. A framework that recognises them as the same capacity, differently oriented, asks a more precise question: what would have to change about the conditions a person operates in, for the capacity they already have to point the other way?
Suppressed, Not Absent
If dysfunction and skill are the same capacity, the prevalence of dysfunction in organisational life is not a shortage of virtue. It is a pattern of orientation, and patterns of orientation are produced by conditions.
Structures — organisational, institutional, cultural — have systematically rewarded the dysfunction orientation of these seven capacities and actively suppressed the skill orientation through personal cost. The person who withholds information to protect their position is rarely punished for it; the person who surfaces an inconvenient truth often is. The person who hoards a resource to secure their own standing keeps their advantage; the person who gives it away early frequently loses it. Where this is the operating condition, the skill orientation is not simply undeveloped. It is actively selected against.
The practical implication is that development work aimed only at the individual — teaching the skill, praising its use — will reliably lose to conditions that continue to reward the opposite. The seven programmes described elsewhere on this site each build the specific conditions under which the skill orientation stops costing more than the dysfunction it replaces.
Two Acronyms, Both in Capitals
SALIGIA names two distinct things, and the framework has never claimed they correspond to each other position by position.
The first SALIGIA is classical: the seven deadly sins in their traditional Latin order — Superbia, Avaritia, Luxuria, Invidia, Gula, Ira, Acedia. Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, Sloth.
The second SALIGIA is the framework's own: the seven deadly skills — Supportiveness, Adaptability, Leveraging, Inclusiveness, Generosity, Innovation, Accountability.
The two lists share an acronym and nothing else in their ordering. The relationship between them is not positional; it is mechanical. The sins, in their contemporary organisational form, manifest as the seven dysfunctions named below. The dysfunctions are what the seven skills exist to address — not as opposites picked to rhyme with the sins, but as the constructive orientation of the same underlying capacity.
Seven Dysfunctions. Seven Skills. Seven Archetypes.
Read in the classical Latin order of the sins. Each row names the same capacity twice — once in its suppressed orientation, once in its developed one — and the professional archetype that orientation produces.
The capacity for self-regard, turned toward defending the self rather than examining it. Reoriented, it becomes the willingness to receive honest information about oneself and one's decisions.
The capacity to secure resources, turned toward accumulating them privately. Reoriented, it becomes the capacity to give what is genuinely useful before a relationship has earned its terms.
The capacity for appetite and desire, turned toward the need to be seen as excellent. Reoriented, it becomes the capacity to sit with a genuine problem for as long as it takes, rather than reaching for the answer that best demonstrates competence.
The capacity to measure oneself against others, turned toward comparison that erodes a group's shared direction. Reoriented, it becomes the capacity to find and deploy the underused resource already present in a person or a situation.
The capacity for appetite toward more, turned toward relentless activity that cannot change course. Reoriented, it becomes the capacity to change position when the evidence requires it, without losing the thread of what matters.
The capacity for strong reaction, turned toward ranking people against one another. Reoriented, it becomes the capacity to find what each person's contribution requires and to make room for it.
The capacity to conserve effort, turned toward withdrawal and quiet non-participation. Reoriented, it becomes the fully directed attention to what another person is actually experiencing, and the willingness to act on it.
Where the Framework Becomes a Programme
The architecture above is what every programme the Institute offers is built from — not a summary applied afterward, but the design logic each programme's sessions, sequencing, and assessment are derived from directly.
Opus Synergiae, the Institute's flagship, works this architecture across twenty missions and eighteen to twenty-four months, for organisations. Cursus Synergiae works the same seven-skill arc across twelve missions and twelve months, for organisations whose context cannot sustain the longer timeframe. La Soglia, Perspettiva, and Condotta are the individual entry points — each working a specific subset of the seven skills, in the context of a specific stage of professional life.