exercise · all tools
Personal Polarity Map
Barry Johnson's polarity mapping applied to personal growth: an eight-step paper exercise that reframes a stuck self-improvement wish ("be clearer") as one pole of a polarity whose other pole holds a value you rightly refuse to abandon ("stay flexible"). Mapping upsides, downsides, a Greater Purpose Statement and a Deeper Fear turns an unsolvable either/or into a both/and with concrete action steps for each pole.
- Naming the Deeper Fear is quietly personal — in group use, keep maps private by default
- Not everything is a polarity; genuine problems-to-solve should be solved, not mapped
Practical
- Time
- 30-60 min
- Group
- 1–30 · individual, pairs, small-group
- Settings
- self-guided, in-person, online
- Materials
- Paper and pen; the 8-field map template (numbered steps published in the Phase 2 report)
- Mechanisms
- cognitive-reframing, values-clarification
- Change scope
- state → skill · repeatable
Instructions
- Where
- drive.google.com/file/d/1I0ThTPl75h3M6iLzZ7KgYOsiLcrZw3Bw/view — IDG Phase 2 Research Report & Toolkit (2022), open
- Availability
- Open online — published at the link, free to read
Source link not checkable automatically — the page renders in the browser rather than in the response; last read by hand 28 Aug 2026
This directory describes and points home; the instructions stay with the people who made them.
Origin
Barry Johnson (Polarity Partnerships) — Polarity Thinking / 'Polarity Management' (1992)
In this directory via IDG Phase 2 Research Report & Toolkit (2022)
The Thinking dimension's closing short exercise in the Phase 2 Toolkit, with full DIY steps and a worked example (Flexible ↔ Clear) published openly. Organizational polarity mapping (team/enterprise scale) is the same instrument at holding 2–3.
status: checked · added 2026-08-25