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The Quadributions Model: A Simple Tool That Took 25 Years to Figure Out

6th Feb 2026 by Caitlin Walker in #DramaFree, Outcomes, Systemic Modelling

I've been working with teams for 25 years now. Social workers making impossible decisions with too little time. Leadership teams stuck in the same arguments. Community groups trying to work together across deep differences. Teachers managing complex classroom dynamics.

And I kept noticing the same thing happening in meetings.

Someone would share a problem. The group would either dive into it for 40 minutes, or someone else would immediately jump to a solution. Resources that were right there in the room went unnoticed. People's genuine concerns got labeled as "negativity." Aspirations stayed vague. And everyone left exhausted without much to show for it.

The intelligence was in the room. The goodwill was usually there too. But something about how we were paying attention wasn't working.

What I Figured Out

It took me 25 years to see something quite simple: there are four basic types of things people contribute in meetings, and we need all four.

Problems
What's not working, what's difficult, what's in the way. This is useful information about the system, not complaining.
Resources
What's helping, what's working, what capacity already exists. These are often invisible until you specifically ask about them.
Undesired Outcomes
What we're trying to avoid, what we don't want to happen. This isn't being negative—it's clarifying what matters.
Desired Outcomes
What we're working toward, what we want to create. Direction, not fantasy.

All four are contributions. All four matter. And most meetings unconsciously spend 80% of their time in just one or two of them.

The Bit That Actually Makes It Work

Here's what I've learned from Clean Language work: if you can recognize which type of contribution someone is making, you can work with it properly.

Someone shares a problem? Good. Ask Clean Questions to help them (and the group) understand it fully. Then maybe extend to resources: "And when [problem], what resources do you have for that?" Or shift to desired outcomes: "And when [problem], what would you like to have happen?"

The key is to genuinely accept what they've offered before trying to move anywhere else. This isn't a manipulation trick. People know when you're really listening and when you're just waiting for them to stop talking so you can redirect them to where you want to go.

Accept and extend. It's from improv theater, but it turns out to be fundamental to how groups can actually think together.

Why "Quadributions"?

I needed a name. "Four Quadrants of Contribution" is accurate but clunky. My colleague suggested "Quadributions" and I realized it actually works. It reminds people that all four types are contributions, which is the whole point.

Plus it's easier to say in a meeting.

What Changes When You Use It

I'm not going to claim this solves everything. But here's what I've seen when facilitators use it:

Meetings don't go in circles as much. When you know you're going to attend to all four quadrants, the conversation has somewhere to go.

Resources that were always there become visible. Most groups have more capacity than they realize—they just haven't been asked about it.

People can name concerns without being shut down. When "undesired outcomes" is a legitimate category, fears don't have to lurk in the background controlling things.

Everyone's thinking gets valued. Some people naturally spot problems, some see possibilities, some worry about pitfalls, some focus on goals. All of it's needed.

Teams get better at navigating complexity. After a while, they start doing this themselves without a facilitator. They notice when they're stuck in one quadrant and shift their own attention.

The 25-Year Bit

I didn't set out 25 years ago to develop this model. I set out to understand how Clean Language could help organizations work with complexity. That led to Systemic Modelling. Which led to hundreds of hours sitting in meetings noticing what actually helped and what didn't.

The Quadributions Model is really a distillation of all that noticing. It's taken me this long to make something this simple that still respects how complex real situations are.

Early on, I was fascinated by sophisticated frameworks and intricate processes. Those have their place. But what I've learned is that the tools that actually get used on a Tuesday morning in a stressed team meeting are the ones that are simple enough to remember and robust enough to trust.

Testing It

Every tool I develop gets tested immediately in real contexts. The Quadributions Model has been used with:

Social care teams making decisions about child protection
Executive teams navigating organizational restructures
Community groups with serious disagreements
Teachers managing classroom discussions
Strategic planning sessions
Conflict resolution conversations

If it doesn't work when things are difficult and messy, it doesn't work.

How You Learn It

I've designed a 90-minute session for facilitators. You'll:

See examples of all four types of contribution
Practice recognising them in real time
Watch a live demonstration
Try it yourself with feedback
Get a bank of Clean Questions for each quadrant
Leave with a template you can use immediately

The goal is practical competence, not theoretical understanding. Can you use this in your next meeting? That's the measure.

What's Next

I'm curious about where this goes. How does it work in different cultures? What happens in virtual environments? Can individuals use it for their own thinking, not just group facilitation?

The model is young. It'll evolve as people use it and tell me what they discover.

The Actual Point

After 25 years, here's what I know: groups are capable of extraordinary thinking when they can access all the intelligence in the room. The Quadributions Model is just a way of helping that happen more reliably.

It's not magic. It's attention. Where we put it, how we move it, what we value when we get there.

Turns out that's enough.

About the Work

I've spent 25 years developing Clean Language applications and systemic modelling methodologies. The Quadributions Model is part of that larger body of work, all of it focused on making systemic thinking practical and usable in everyday organizational life.

If you'd like to learn the model, I'm running 90-minute sessions at facilitator conferences. If you want to go deeper, there are longer training programs that explore the full suite of Systemic Modelling tools.

For more information, contact me.

A note: This work builds on the foundational Clean Language developed by David Grove. I'm standing on his shoulders, and on the shoulders of everyone who's taught me something in the last 25 years—which is a lot of people.

About Caitlin Walker

Caitlin is a director of Clean Learning and the developer of Systemic Modelling™. She is the author of From Contempt to Curiosity, which details many of the innovative and transformational projects she’s led across our community from the most dispossessed to leading think tanks.

Caitlin graduated in Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies and completed four years post graduate research in ‘Strategies for Lexical access’ including fieldwork in Ghana. She began modelling teaching and learning while at SOAS, volunteering intermediary classes to translate information presented at lectures into different learning styles for the students. At the same time she was a youth worker in Kings Cross bringing these leading edge tools to groups of young people.

She went on to set up literacy clubs in King’s Cross, where children could come to learn to spell. From 1996 – 1999 Caitlin was an Education tutor with the Dalston Youth Project, a Home Office run experiment to offer accelerated learning to at-risk students, alongside mentoring, to keep them in school. She ran these sessions as NLP modelling workshops and achieved excellent results with the students. The project won a Crime Prevention and Community Safety award for Great Britain. In 1999 she was offered the opportunity to develop her work in a business context and she created the ground breaking metaphors@work process. These techniques are available on the Creative Management section of the Open University MBA program and on a 10 week modular course on Practical Thinking. She has co-designed and she co-delivers a Masters Level module in Coaching and Mentoring at Liverpool John Moores University.

She has since developed her modelling skills from small scale group development to whole scale organisational culture change programmes. She designs and delivers tailor made learning and development programs for addressing diversity, conflict, leadership, managing mergers and creating ‘learning organisations’.

Caitlin practices in a variety of contexts. Clients include: Jeyes Group, Liverpool John Moores University, Pharmacia, Hull City Council, South Yorkshire Police Service, Bexley Care Trust, New Information Paradigms, Work Directions UK, Crime Concern, BT, Police National Search Centre, Celerent Consultancy, Carbon Partners, Ealing LEA, and Working Links. She has trained a number of in-house trainers to carry on and develop the work without creating dependency on her expertise. She has systematically tested and developed her ideas in challenging arenas and her robust products have become sought after learning aids.