Sort your question by person and by time
Name whether your question is about you, about the people you act with, or about things at a distance, and whether it concerns the past, the present or the future.
Pourquoi ça marche
Chandler and Torbert (2003) lay out a grid: first-, second- or third-person research on first-, second- or third-person practice, in the past, present or future. Torbert (2013) reports this as 27 possible combinations and ties each person to a different aim: third-person research seeks objectivity, second-person research seeks mutuality, and first-person research concerns personal integrity. On this page’s reading, objectivity here means findings that do not depend on who observes them, and mutuality means a shared, two-way relationship among the people involved. Placing a question on the grid shows which kind of evidence can speak to it.
Comment faire
- Write the question you are trying to answer in one sentence.
- Ask: is it about me, about us (the people I act with), or about things at a distance from both of us?
- Ask: is it about what happened, what is happening now, or what I want to happen?
- Note which evidence would settle it: your own attention, the others’ words, or measured data.
- If the question mixes two of these, split it into two questions.
Données probantes
The grid is Chandler and Torbert’s (2003) framing, and Torbert (2013) reports it as the 27 combinations of person and time. It is a conceptual device, used to sort questions. The sources read do not test whether sorting questions this way improves them. (mechanistic)
The grid is a conceptual tool from the method’s developers. Its usefulness to a practitioner is not tested in the sources read.
Sources
- Chandler, D., & Torbert, W. (2003). Transforming Inquiry and Action. Action Research, 1(2).
- Torbert, W. R. (2013). Listening into the Dark: An Essay Testing the Validity and Efficacy of Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry for Describing and Encouraging Transformations of Self, Society, and Scientific Inquiry. Integral Review, 9(2), 264–299.
Erreur fréquente
Using the grid to classify people. It sorts questions and activities, not who someone is.
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Plus de pratiques pour Torbert’s Action Inquiry: Practicing Timely Leadership
- Check which territories of experience you are holding
Pause and check how many of the four territories of your experience your awareness is holding right now.
- Notice the attention doing the noticing
Notice the attention doing the noticing, as something distinct from your thoughts, your sensations and what you are looking at.
- Test your reading of someone while you are still talking
Check your reading of another person while the conversation is still going, instead of acting on it and finding out later.
- Research your own action while you are in it
Study your present action while you are in it, and let what you notice feed back into what you do next.
- Keep team feedback in people’s own words
Keep the actual phrases people use when they describe your effect on them, instead of averaging them into one score.
Concepts associés
- Torbert’s Seven Action Logics of Leadership
Seven ways leaders make sense of pressure, how common each is, and how to work with your own
- La théorie sujet-objet de Kegan, en pratique
Passer d'être mené par ses présupposés à pouvoir les examiner
- First, Second, Third and Fourth Person Perspectives
How the number of viewpoints you can hold grows, what the research does and does not show, and how to practice it in a real disagreement
- Le leadership adaptatif, rendu pratique
Distinguer les défis adaptatifs des problèmes techniques — et diriger en conséquence