How to grow
Self-growth by leveraging frameworks for change
Designers and strategists often leverage frameworks to help understand a path toward a transition at the macro level. Consider the complexities of managing change in large companies or when tackling wicked social or cultural problems. But what about change at the micro-level? What about change in ourselves? These same frameworks have relevance for people as we go about our own inner work.
In doing my own inner work, I have found frameworks for change incredibly helpful. They aid in my growth as a person and help me to visualize changes in my life and my experiences. I’m drawn to frameworks that make space for reflective practices in that process.
These are two of the frameworks I find most valuable to use on my own.
The Spiral of the Work
“The Spiral of the Work” is from the Work That Reconnects.¹ This is a journey with four stages, from inside out:
- Coming from Gratitude
- Honoring our Pain for the World
- Seeing with New Eyes
- Going Forth
Coming from gratitude is an opportunity to quiet the mind and center ourselves. By quieting down the racing thoughts of the mind, we can find presence and begin to make space for the new. When we honor our pain, we experience it, acknowledge it, and allow for acceptance. Then, when we see with new eyes, we observe, sense, and make connections we might not have seen before. Finally, going forth is taking (new) action that we feel called to throughout the process.
The Spiral is reflective, as it allows for stillness, connection, and sensing before we take any action. Actions are not reactive; they are responsive and grounded. This process may be fractal and repeated at different scales, in a single moment or across years.
Theory U
Similar to the Spiral, Otto Scharmer’s Theory U is another well-known framework for change.² It contains these seven main steps/elements:
- Downloading past patterns
- Seeing with fresh eyes
- Sensing from the field
- Presencing/connecting to the source
- Crystallizing vision and intention
- Prototyping the new by linking the head, heart, and the hand
- Performing by operating from the whole
Theory U is primarily intended for use with groups and teams within organizations or other communities. Still, it has relevance as a solitary reflective process for change. In the first half, we understand what is by observing and beginning to make sense of the old and the current. Presencing can be that quiet moment to connect to intuition and begin to turn the corner into what might be. The last three steps design the new through imagining, creating, and testing it out.
These and other similar frameworks for change expose the value of reflection in innovating or making change in the world. Whether reflection is happening in group settings or by individuals alone, the steps overlap across these frameworks. And the steps can be the same, whether the work is meant to manifest itself in the external world or an internal one.
Applying These Ideas
Interested in exploring these ideas further? Here are a few activities you can try to help relate these frameworks for change to your own experiences.
- Consider a recent change or transition that’s occurred in your life (in your habits, behaviors, thoughts, emotions, etc.). How did you get from A to B? Write out the steps that you took.
- Highlight any reflective steps. How did they help? Were there any parts of the process that might have been well-served with some sort of grounding pause?
- Sketch it out on top of the Spiral or the U, whichever resonates most, and overlay your steps. Do you find any gaps? Are there any steps that you found yourself stuck at? Were your steps more heavily weighted on one end? Did you found yourself going forward and backward or out of order?
- Are there any changes you are trying to make in your life now? Map out your first steps using one of the frameworks.
Which of these frameworks resonates the most? Do they seem like they’d be helpful to apply to changes you’d like to make in yourself as you grow?
[1] Macy, J., & Brown, M. Y. (2014). Coming Back to Life: The Updated Guide to the Work That Reconnects (Revised ed.). New Society Publishers.
[2] Scharmer, O., & Senge, P. (2016). Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges (2nd ed.). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
