PTOP Structures
Our biggest question as we started to develop our theories of practice was "what does one look like?" The answer we settled on was "whatever you want it to look like!" ... daunting.
We hope that these example structures (each of which at least one person in our group used) can alleviate some of that stress. That said, part of developing a theory of practice is deciding what you want to use it for and, therefore, what it needs to look like to accomplish that goal. Don’t be limited by what you see here. Your imagination is your only limit.
What Does Your World and Your Work Look Like in __ Years?
While we already shared a school, schedule, and physical space, we intentionally held our PTOP sessions outside of our usual routines — gathering in apartment living rooms, a co-working space, and at picnic tables by the river. These out-of-context spaces offered a small universe free of filters and open to earnest reflection.
Visual Representation
If you're more of a visual person, try drawing, diagramming, collaging, or other means of visual representation to articulate what a theory of practice might look like.
"I Seek a Practice of ..." Word Cloud
Starting with the prompt of "I seek a practice of ..." jot down words that you think would describe the practice you're hoping to articulate in a theory of practice. You can ruminate on these words through a variety of other techniques.
Letter to Self
James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, R.M. Rilke, and Anna Deveare Smith have all used the form of the letter to communicate to someone coming in the future—a nephew, a son, young poets, young artists. Take this format and write a letter for your future self, using some of the guiding questions outlined in the Process, as a way to get started or as the format of your entire theory!
Job Evaluation Tool
One purpose used in conjunction with others in our group was a tool to evaluate job opportunities. Your theory of practice can be a mechanism to see if those opportunities or your current work is aligned with your vision for the world or how you want to grow.
Metrics for Self Evaluation
Many of us carried a similar question after our first drafts: “How, in the future, do I make sure I’m being accountable to my theory of practice? How do I know if I’m living up to it?” Try adding in small paragraphs in your theory that start with phrases like "I know I am __________ when _________." For example: “I know I am supportive when my colleagues consistently come to me for insights about their work.”
Conversation
One way we worked on our theories of practice was through various types of conversations — within our group, with classmates, with others. This method was particularly helpful for those of us who are verbal processors; the experience of discussing our values, experiences, and goals sometimes came more fluidly in conversation than structured writing.
Inviting Conversations
"I chose to use my experience of developing my Personal Theory of Practice as an excuse to have conversations I’d been meaning to have with other important people in my life. As I was exploring what it looked like to express my professional values and aspirations, I tried to define these verbally through conversation with others. This approach was as simple as saying to friends/family: “hey, I’ve been working on developing my own Personal Theory of Practice and recently I’ve been exploring what __(fill in the blank with anything, i.e. good facilitation/leadership/equity/community development) ____ means to me. What does that look like for you?” Referencing the development of my own PTOP often created a space to have conversations that might not have happened otherwise. I brought up these conversations very intentionally in order to provide additional reflective spaces for myself. Having to further refine my own understanding in order to express it clearly to someone else was very generative for me." - Jessica
Therapy
Some of us spoke with therapists about our PTOPs during their development. The conversations raised in our group sessions, individual work sessions, and therapy often overlapped. Work done in each of the spaces helped us bring more focus to the others.
Recording Self
"Recording myself was particularly helpful in the development of my PTOP once I was already mid-way through. At that point, I knew the overarching themes that I wanted to speak towards, but I hadn’t yet developed the right wording to capture my own understanding in writing. I sat alone in my room with my phone as a recorder and spoke about each of the themes I had identified. This approach requires letting go of the exacting nature of a written edit. To use this approach, I had to be comfortable with my PTOP as a work in progress — or an ongoing conversation, if you will. This approach provided a space for elaboration and addition of other themes and topics. Eliminating the ability to do minute editing of specific words and taking off the pressure to use the “right” language in writing was, for me, particularly freeing." - Jessica
Sharing with Heroes, Mentors, and Loved Ones
Sharing your PTOP while they are still in development can be done however formally or informally as makes sense in the context. Some of us included questions to the reader(s) when we shared the PTOP, such as: do you think this document is a true reflection of me and my professional values? What does/does not ring true? Where should I expand?
Workshopping
If you’re working in a group, workshopping will be a key way to develop your PTOP. This assumption is integrated into the Process and the model agendas. This occurred at different scales — shorter sessions to longer sessions dedicated to one person — at different times throughout our process. At its simplest, it consisted of one person sharing their PTOP, other group members reading it, then group members asking questions.
Provocative Questions
Asking good questions is a key way of identifying a kernel of an idea that could be expanded or further interrogated. These questions should be open-ended and do not necessarily need to be directly answered in the session in which they were asked. Examples: “I want to know more about how you define leadership or what good leadership looks like to you.” “Can you describe in more detail what it might look or feel like to work in an organization that values your professional development?”
Outside Resources
Our workshops often included recommendations of outside resources for folks to take a look at and build from for their next draft. These included articles, books, podcasts, poems, and art. While these recommendations were often spurred by one person's draft or conversation, they were usually of interest to all. We'd share these over email after the session and save them to a shared document so that everyone could access them, building a library of resources along the way.
Process / Experience
We made time in some of our sessions to talk specifically about the process of writing our PTOP. This was helpful as a space to rant or express frustrations, doubts, challenges, excitements, and/or breakthroughs with our work. Letting this out often unlocked suggestions on next steps and we regularly found inspiration from each others’ approaches.
Values Identification
Identifying 3-5 core values we wanted to (or already did) hold in our professional practice was central to our process. The following techniques are best when followed sequentially.
This exercise often raises questions about the divide (or not) between professional practice and personal life, (i.e., should I be leaving out values that are important in personal life, like family for example, but may not be a part of my professional life?) It can be helpful to explicitly decide that this exercise is for professional values that can overlap with personal values, but may not be exactly the same.
Spreadsheet
We downloaded a list of 500 values from Threads Culture to start. The list is not comprehensive but is a great place to begin. We took a quick 30 minutes to review the list, marking “yes/no” to each value if they resonated with us in our guts. Most of us narrowed that list down to 70-90 values. Then, we did a second round of narrowing with the goal of a short list of ~30 values.
Post-Its
Once we each had about 30 values on our list, we wrote each value on a post-it note and put them on a wall. This simple act helps give material heft to the experience. Lawrence, inspired by his experience in Infinite Growth, recommended that we leave these post-its on our walls for about three weeks, taking time to arrange & rearrange them into groups. For example, one of us nested “Reliable,” “Trust,” “History,” and “Dedication” under “Accountability,” but these groupings and affiliations are different for everyone. The goal is to have 3-5 groups. After the groups seem fairly solid, see if one value rises to the top as a categorical leader or an overarching theme for the group, like “Accountability” in the example above. Those 3-5 header values might be your 3-5 core values. Take some time to assess if these ring true and shift as needed, over a day, a week, months, or years — it’s your process.
Cards
"I started the first draft of my theory practice with values identified via the techniques above with the phrase "I seek a practice of … ." These words — love, power, change, connection, reckoning, and more — served as jumping off points for different paragraphs, but I wanted to understand more of what I meant by them. Following a workshop session, I decided to write each of these words on a small card (a 3"x5" notecard cut in half), somewhat inspired by a set of “heart cards” a partner of mine once had. I would pick out one of these cards and carry it in my pocket, glancing at it when I would take out my phone or keys. Sometimes I'd end up carrying a card around for a couple weeks, others a couple days. I would eventually tape the card into my notebook and write — sometimes pages, sometimes a few paragraphs — about what a practice of that word meant to me, drawing on the stray thoughts I’d encountered when I glanced at the card during my day.
Different meanings of those words would come to me, and this process opened up different ways of understanding words I found important. When I started a second draft of my theory of practice, I sat with that notebook and took excerpts from different entries, weaving them into a larger narrative." - Jonathan
Writing with Your Values
The next step in this exercise is to incorporate the values into your PTOP. Some of us did this by writing a sentence about each of the values to define it and/or elaborate on what it means to us. One mechanism for creating that personal definition is by drawing on the nested words identified above. Some of us created a hierarchy of values by importance; some of us felt that was limiting. This stage can happen however it is most helpful to integrate your professional values into your PTOP.
Journaling
Individual
Set yourself a timer for anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes and free-write with your theory of practice in mind. This can be a great starting place from which to pull out themes and tweak/edit/question later. It can also be a tool to flush out stale stories we tell ourselves but which may not fit your theory of practice.
Group
Within our sessions, we would often do short journalling sessions, with the added bonus of group accountability.