We use a combination of the models below in all of our programs and workshops including Appreciative Inquiry and continuous learning cycles. When we create a program with you for your organization we also incorporate any models your organization uses or would like us to use. Below you will find our most frequently used models.

Appreciative Inquiry 4-D Cycle - Discovery, Dream, Design, Destiny

Continuous Learning Cycle™ - Developed by Executive Edge, Inc.; an action, reflection, strategy model

Executive Edge Relationship Continuum™ Model - Rapport, Empathy, Trust, Mutual Understanding

Executive Edge Self-Facilitated Team Learning™ - Exceptional learner-centered experiences include Self-facilitated processes for continuous improvement

Micro-World Learning Environment - Structure, Response, Outcome

Team Performance Model™ - Performance Improvement based on team membership and team purpose

Appreciative Inquiry 4-D Cycle:

Appreciative Inquiry is based on four steps (the AI 4D Cycle1) - Discovery, Dream, Design, Destiny. The appreciative process begins by asking people to tell stories about their experiences with success and relate these stories to their dreams for the future. The storytelling captures individual experiences and aspirations in order to build and reinvent community.

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The Continuous Learning Cycle™ by Executive Edge, Inc.:



The Continuous Learning Cycle™ model (refined from David Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle2) is a powerful tool for maximizing learning. The models begins with a concrete experience that is framed to mirror the client's culture, business models and learning objectives. After completing the experience, the learner follows a "What? So What? Now What?" questioning process that guides the learner through reflection, inquiry and transference of learning from the experience.

The CLC is also supported by a foundation of three learning dimensions-Content, Context and Community3. Tacit knowledge (the knowledge that people need in order to effectivey perform their jobs) is learned most effectively when "Content" is delivered within the "Context" and the "Community" in which the new knowledge, skill or behavior is to be used.

The CLC model not only elicits learning content (e.g. collaborative teaming), but it also highlights the context in which work takes place (e.g. multiple teams collaborating together in order to achieve a common goal) and the community within which work is performed (e.g. collaborative teaming in a community of engineers). The interaction between the CLC and the "Three C's" creates opportunities for discovery, exploration, experimentation, practice and application, strategizing and improvement.

Experiential Learning is one of the most effective methods of adult learning for developing tacit knowledge needed by a person or group in order to perform in the workplace. Vis-à-vis traditional learning (where content is delivered through lectures or presentations).



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Executive Edge Relationship Continuum™ Model:


Predictable stages in a group or team's progression toward achieving trust and mutual understanding. Beginning with building rapport and developing empathy, a group intentionally creates an environment in which trust can be established and nurtured. Once trust is established, mutual understanding is possible.

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Executive Edge Self-Facilitated Team Learning™ Model:



Self-Facilitated Team Learning™ is a process that guides group learning while placing the responsibility for facilitation almost entirely into the hands of the participants. Groups learn how to facilitate a process for extracting meaningful learning from experience while reaching toward the goal of continuous improvement. Not only do they move from a state of dependence to independence (from the external facilitator). Through self-facilitation they develop a sense of interdependence within their team or participant group. The external facilitator is thus freed to elevate learning to another level. Due to its learner-centered focus, Self-Facilitate Team Learning™ is especially effective in compressed time situations (in which learning cycle times are drastically cut).

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Micro-World Learning Environment:


People tend to respond to familiar structures in predictable ways, creating the same outcomes they create when faced with a similar structure in real life. When given the opportunity to respond differently, they see that they can create new, more positive outcomes. Our program participants experience a "Micro-World" (or Experiential Learning laboratory), created by Executive Edge, in which behaviors, relationships, interactions, and decision-making styles are reflected back in the form of recognizable group patterns and dynamics.

• While immersed in this "Micro-World Structure" (see diagram below), participants gain insight into how their Responses (individual and collective behaviors & actions) affect a desired Outcome (individual & team effectiveness).
• Because the "Micro-World" structure is designed to provide opportunities for learning and growth, participants are encouraged to develop and practice positive, proactive strategies for improvement while in this challenging yet safe environment.
• Throughout the program participants are encouraged to make conscious decisions based on their own comfort level for participation. The challenges offer opportunities for people to stretch their comfort zone, while also being able to support each other's decisions and achievements.
• This safe and challenging environment (made up of a series of activities and simulations) is designed to be highly interactive and engaging so that it triggers spontaneous responses from the team members that accurately reflect their workplace behaviors, interpersonal relationships, patterns and dynamics

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Executive Edge Team Performance Model™:

What is a Team? A team is a group of people working toward a mutual goal. Members have mutual accountability for achieving results. Teams are comprised of more than one person-and may include entire organizations.

Why Teams? Teams distribute the workload, reinforce individual capabilities, create participation and involvement, and collaborate to create new value.


Team Membership and Team Purpose drive a teams development needs. Is your team membership constant, transient or siloed? What is it's purpose? Functional or collaborative. Your answers will drive your learning needs, and we will help you to get to the answers and focus on what your team needs to develop.

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1 Cooperrider, David L. and Diana Whitney (1998). Appreciative Inquiry: A constructive Approach to Organization Development and Social Change.

2 Kolb, David (1982). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of learning and Development.

3 Means, Bob (2001). Thank you for sharing the Three C's with us.