What is your orientation to change?

The Quadrants of Engagement

The Quadrants of Engagement is a simple tool designed by Renee Lertzman to help you reflect and consider your primary theories of change – and to help you and your teams gain self-awareness.

Mouse over or tap on the Quadrants to read more about Messaging, Experience, Behavior, and Systems.
Use this assessment tool to see where you or your organization falls within the complex intersections of The Quadrants.
PIO messaging
Messaging
Emphasizes narrative.
You are inspired by the power of narrative and values-based language to convey and persuade people to take climate action, trying to use the right kinds of frames—phrases, language and words that resonate for specific communities, sectors and populations. Your key change question is, “What is the most compelling story to engage people?”
PIO behaviour
Behavior
Emphasizes behavior change and motivation.
You lean into the power of behavioral economics in shifting behaviors—from pledges, commitments, intention-setting and nudging — to using incentives and rewards to stimulate desired actions, and fees and penalties to punish undesirable ones. Your key change question is, “How can we get people to do x?”
PIO systems
Systems
Emphasizes solutions.
You concentrate on systems-level change, design thinking, and, in particular, on solutions and innovation. You leverage tools such as challenges, incubators, accelerators, and solutions-based approaches is your mantra. Your key change question is, “How can we design and scale the solutions needed, quickly?”
PIO experience
Experience
Emphasizes feelings and conversations.
You bring empathy and compassion for the emotional dilemmas that block behavioral shifts. Your interventions include conversation-based platforms, arts-based activism and campaigns, and emotional intelligence training. Your key change question is, “How can we support people to resolve ambivalence, and turn complicated feelings into action?”

What are the Quadrants to Engagement?

There are four main orientations to our theories of change when it comes to how we tackle climate and environmental action. These orientations are not right or wrong, good or bad.

Understanding where we are in the Quadrants helps us see where our struggles lie. It helps us see where we have room for new capabilities. It helps us challenge assumptions. It helps us learn ways we can become more integrated across common orientations. Creating integration is the goal of all our work.

Use this assessment tool to see where you or your organization falls within the complex intersections of The Quadrants. Remember that the goal is to create integration across these four common orientations.

What is your theory of change?
What is your organization’s theory of change?

You suspect that if you use words and framing that resonate with people, especially their values, they will engage more. You believe if we change the message, we change the game.
Never
Always
Never
Always
Your favorite tactics and strategies draw a lot on behavior economics, such as feedback systems, nudges, defaults, and incentives like prizes and rewards. You believe change should be "easy."
Never
Always
Never
Always
You are inspired by how design thinking and systems thinking can spark climate solutions at scale. You believe that innovating solutions is really the ticket out of this mess, and enjoy tactics like challenges, incubators, accelerators and competitions.
Never
Always
Never
Always
You see a clear connection between emotional intelligence and climate change work, and tend to focus on feelings and emotional responses. You are drawn to projects and practices that use small group or large-scale conversations as a platform for change.
Never
Always
Never
Always
You ultimately believe that effective messages have the most power to influence behavioral change and impact the success of your work.
Never
Always
Never
Always
Your main preoccupation is with raising awareness through public engagement via media, engaging influencers, and social media memes.
Never
Always
Never
Always
You prefer using pledges, commitments, and statements to engage people.
Never
Always
Never
Always
You believe that ultimately it is technological innovation that will help to mitigate climate change.
Never
Always
Never
Always
You believe that addressing underlying emotions is a key to unlocking and shifting behaviors towards low carbon lifestyles and products.
Never
Always
Never
Always
You believe that creating green teams, ambassadors, and champions is the most effective way to shift carbon demand and create behavioral change.
Never
Always
Never
Always
You focus on crafting persuasive messages that highlight the value of the environment and biodiversity and the 'wrongness' of high carbon footprints.
Never
Always
Never
Always
You feel that a good app has the potential to shift behaviors at scale, and that gamification is a key lever for change.
Never
Always
Never
Always
You are inspired by solutions-driven work: exciting, innovative ideas to reverse global warming.
Never
Always
Never
Always
You are guided by psychological research that looks at the irrational, affective dimensions of human behavior, including anxiety, denial and avoidance.
Never
Always
Never
Always
Your energy is dedicated to ensuring systemic changes are identified and implemented.
Never
Always
Never
Always
You believe in your heart of hearts, that if people really understood more about the issues, they would react and respond as you have.
Never
Always
Never
Always
You believe economic benefits or incentives will be the key to societal adoption of green technologies.
Never
Always
Never
Always
You focus on policy, legislation, and international agreements related to climate change.
Never
Always
Never
Always
Your campaigns incorporate the development of micro-campaigns to specifically target emotional challenges like overwhelm or anxiety.
Never
Always
Never
Always
You partner and work with psychologists to design engagement strategies that are more tuned in to your target stakeholders, users, participants, and audiences.
Never
Always
Never
Always
Please, complete all questions to submit form and built your personalized quadrant