EEF Expansion: Elements of the EEF—Tensions
Tensions are inherent strains to be named, navigated, and normalized. They can provide support in traversing the Orthodoxies named in the Equitable Evaluation Framework™.
Tensions are inherent in change processes, but they need not become breaking points.
Tensions can cause emotional, cognitive, or relational strain, requiring deft attention and
navigation. As individuals expand their being, thinking, and doing, opposition between existing practices and processes and emerging possibilities can create resistance, frustration, and confusion.
Rather than getting stuck in either/or, embracing a both/and approach recognizes complexity.Tensions provide a way to notice and surface the interrelationship of varying levels and issues in the practice of the EEF at differing perspectives. Tensions provide opportunities to name and address the dissonance (opposing ideas/approaches driven by different values and fears) and shift toward consonance (flow between one another). The aim and intention is not to “solve” tensions; rather it is to recognize, name, normalize, and navigate them.
Social Positions & Roles Deference to hierarchy and social status | |  | | Influence, Organize, Mobilize One's sphere of influence to step in or bring others along |
A Thing A project, program, study, etc. done in isolation or a vacuum | | | | A Body of Work An expansive view that offers through lines and ah-ha’s connecting intentions and concepts |
Individuals Individual competencies, needs, desires, and values | | Organizations Organizational capacities, culture, and mission | | Systems Structural conditions and underlying systemic drivers at play |
Technical Approaches A focus or priority on detailed tactical tools and approaches | | | | Conditions for Change The support and nurture of relationship, trust, and related factors that invite possibility |
Use & Adaptation Application and modification of information and insights from people and sources for one’s own credit | | | | Acknowledge & Attribution Recognition of the work that supports or informs your work with citation |
Urgent & Reactive Pressures of deadlines, dockets, deliverables and decisions that revert to default practices | | | Aligned & Responsive Time to pause and think about how the work might strategically integrate and advance aims and intentions |
Reading this, I keep coming back to the tension between consistency and context. Every person inside an evaluation is one of 1 in 8 Billion, and a framework that loses that individual grain ends up measuring the model instead of the people it serves. Thanks for laying the trade-offs out so clearly.
https://zonderbkr.com came to mind reading the section on shifting from dissonance to consonance, since that both/and framing echoes what I keep running into when groups treat tension as something to eliminate rather than navigate. The line about tensions not needing to become breaking points stuck with me, especially the reminder that the goal isn't to solve them but to name and normalize them. In my own work I've noticed teams relax noticeably once someone actually says the uncomfortable thing out loud, which is basically the consonance piece in action.