Thinking Process Workshop · Lesson 9 of 9
From solution to change
Validate the solution with a future reality tree, overcome obstacles with intermediate objectives, sequence the change, and meet each layer of resistance with the right tool. Ends with a final test on the whole toolkit.
The future reality tree
The future reality tree (FRT) validates the solution. It shows, with strong cause-and-effect logic, that the proposed injections actually bring the desired results, so that we focus on the right solution and our effort isn’t wasted.
To start it, take the core cloud with its injection and rotate it clockwise by 90 degrees: the injection at the bottom, then B and C, then A at the top. Then build upwards:
- The injection, usually a set of injections, at the base.
- Supporting injections where a step needs another condition to follow, including those that trim negative branches.
- Up through B and C: the tree shows how the solution achieves both needs of the core cloud.
- Up to A, and to the desired effects (DEs), the opposites of the original UDEs.
How to cause the change
Even a validated solution meets obstacles. The prerequisite tree lists each obstacle to implementing the injection, and turns it into an intermediate objective (IO): a one-time result that overcomes it. Arranged with necessity logic, the IOs show what must come before what; in daily use they are often kept as a simple IO map. Remember the distinction from lesson 5: injections exist all the time; intermediate objectives matter only while you are overcoming an obstacle.
The transition tree then sequences the actions: for each step, the need, the action and the expected effect, which becomes the starting point for the next step.
Six layers of resistance
Anyone proposing a change meets resistance, in a predictable order. Each layer needs agreement before the next one can be addressed, and each has its tool:
| Layer | Agreement needed | Tool |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Disagreement on the problem | Agreement on the problem | Current reality tree, from UDEs |
| 2. Disagreement on the direction of the solution | Agreement on the direction | Conflict cloud and injection |
| 3. “The solution won’t solve the problem” | Agreement that it solves it | Future reality tree, injections and desired effects |
| 4. “Yes, but there are negative consequences” | Agreement that there are no significant negative branches | Negative branches, trimmed by supporting injections |
| 5. “Yes, but there are obstacles” | Agreement on how to overcome them | Prerequisite tree and IO map |
| 6. Unspoken fears | Fears overcome | Transition tree, and listening |
Skipping a layer is the commonest reason a good solution fails. If someone keeps raising objections to your solution, check whether they actually agree on the problem.
Exercise: which layer of resistance?
- “Our delivery is fine; customers are just impatient.”
- “If we stop running stock, my people will stand idle and look bad.”
- “Good idea, but our system can’t release orders daily.”
- “Releasing less work won’t make orders faster.”
Getting feedback on your work
All the templates from this course are on one page: Thinking Process templates. Each has Check my work, which applies the rules you have learned, and Copy for review, which copies your work with a short brief, ready to paste into Claude or another AI assistant for a fuller review. Best of all, show your trees to the people who live in the situation: they are the only real test of whether the logic holds.
Final test
Answer all five. Get four right to complete the course.
1. Which statement is NOT true of sufficiency logic?
- It is represented by “if… then…”
- The existence of the effect guarantees the cause
- A sufficient cause guarantees the effect
- Two causes can be jointly sufficient for an effect
An effect can have other causes.
2. Which Thinking Process tool uses necessity logic?
- Current reality tree
- Conflict cloud
- Future reality tree
- Negative branch
In order to… we must…
3. Which question is best answered by the conflict cloud?
- How to cause the change?
- Where is the bottleneck?
- How to avoid inertia?
- What to change? (the direction of the solution)
It finds the conflict that holds the problem in place, and the injection that dissolves it.
4. The future reality tree is built from…
- The core cloud and its injection, rotated with the injection at the base
- The UDE list alone
- The prerequisite tree
- The negative branch alone, with all of its trimming injections added
It rises through B and C to A and the desired effects.
5. “Yes, but our system can’t do it” is resistance at which layer, and which tool helps?
- Layer 1, the current reality tree, since they disagree on the problem
- Layer 4, the negative branch
- Layer 5, the prerequisite tree with intermediate objectives
- Layer 2, the cloud
An obstacle becomes an intermediate objective.