Reflection 2: Models for Understanding:

There is a deceptively simple model used in the development of training materials that carries a profound insight about the nature of learning. It is called the Whole-Parts-Whole (WPW) model. As the name suggests, it begins by presenting the whole – the complete picture – before moving into the constituent parts, and then returning, at the end, to the whole once more. Straightforward enough. But, as with most things that appear simple, the complexity lies in what that final ‘whole’ demands of us.

This reflection explores the WPW model alongside Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning – revised more recently by Anderson and Krathwohl – and asks a question that I believe is central to both education and executive development: do we ever truly get to the final whole, or do we settle for something far less?

The Whole-Parts-Whole Model: More Than a Sequence

The WPW model is, at its core, a framework for creating shared context. The opening “whole” provides learners with an overview – a map of the territory. It answers the implicit question every learner carries into a room: “What are we actually doing here?” Without that initial orientation, the parts risk becoming disconnected fragments, interesting perhaps in isolation but meaningless in relation to one another.

The middle section, the parts, is where most of the instructional effort is typically focused – and understandably so. Each part requires careful, systematic explanation. Where possible, the sequence should be logical and follow a natural progression. This is the territory of analysis, of breaking the complex into the comprehensible.

But it is the third step, the return to the whole, where things get genuinely interesting – and genuinely difficult. Aristotle’s observation that “the whole is more than the sum of its parts” is frequently cited, less frequently understood, and rarely fully operationalised in practice. To understand the whole is not simply to gather the parts and arrange them neatly. It requires a qualitatively different mode of thinking – one that appreciates interaction, emergence, and systemic effect.

Put more plainly, the WPW model says:

• Here is the thing under consideration.
• Here are the parts that make it up and how they function in relation to each other.
• Here is the whole again – but now consider how all the parts interact and build into something greater than a collection of individual components.

That third step is not a summary. It is a synthesis – and synthesis, as we shall see, operates at a fundamentally different cognitive level.

Bloom’s Taxonomy: A Framework for Cognitive Depth

In 1956, Benjamin Bloom and his collaborators published what has become one of the most widely referenced frameworks in education: the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Bloom, 1956). The original taxonomy identifies six levels of cognitive skill, each building on the one before it:

1. Knowledge – recalling or recognising specific information.
2. Understanding – selecting, describing, and explaining ideas or concepts.
3. Application – applying and using information in similar situations or circumstances.
4. Analysis – appraising, critiquing, and questioning the individual parts.
5. Synthesis – arranging, constructing, formulating, and combining.
6. Evaluation – assessing, choosing, and predicting the value of things in relation to a specific purpose.

The relationship between Bloom’s taxonomy and the WPW model is instructive. The description of synthesis – arranging, constructing, formulating, and combining – is broadly aligned with what the final “whole” in WPW requires. There is, however, a critical difference: the WPW model does not stop at combining. It asks the learner to go further – to understand how the parts interact to create emergent properties that none of the parts possesses individually. This is the terrain of systems thinking, and it demands more than synthesis alone. To achieve meaningful impact beyond the classroom, the final whole should also include what-if. What if one part was missing or two parts were inverted? What if a new component were added? What aspects, external to the whole, influence the functioning of the whole? The final whole does not just involve how the parts fit; it also needs to trigger a questioning mindset.

The Revised Taxonomy: Adding “Creating” to the Picture

A more recent and useful adaptation of Bloom’s original taxonomy was proposed by Anderson and Krathwohl[i] (2001) in their work Their revision made two significant changes: it merged the original levels of synthesis and evaluation, and it added a new and higher level – creating.

This addition of creating as the highest cognitive level is, I would argue, deeply aligned with what the WPW model ultimately demands. To truly understand a whole is not only to be able to describe it or reconstruct it from memory. It is to be able to use that understanding generatively – to design something new, to solve a previously unencountered problem, to create a novel configuration of familiar parts. This is the level at which executive development operates most critically, and it is the level most frequently absent from both formal education and management training. Creating is the objective of these reflections and is working toward, one short reflection at a time.

Four Concepts that Complicate the Final Whole

Engaging with the concluding whole – whether in the WPW model, Bloom’s taxonomy, or real-world strategic thinking – requires grappling with at least four core conceptual challenges. These are not merely theoretical constructs, they are live issues in any room where strategy, culture, or change is being discussed.

1. 1. Paradigms

A paradigm is “a set of assumptions, theories, or beliefs that serve as the foundation of concepts or institutions”. Paradigms are, by their very nature, largely invisible to those operating within them. They shape the questions we think to ask, the solutions we consider valid, and the possibilities we can even imagine. In educational terms, a poorly examined paradigm can result in a facilitator presenting the whole in precisely the same way they first presented it – missing the point of the WPW model entirely.

• 2. Metacognition

Metacognition – described as monitoring and controlling one’s own knowledge, emotions, and actions – is essentially thinking about thinking. It is the capacity to observe one’s own cognitive processes, to notice when understanding is shallow, and to actively seek greater depth. Without metacognitive awareness, learners may believe they have reached the final whole when, in fact, they have only rearranged the parts.

• 3. Groupthink

Groupthink is “a mode of thinking in which individual members of small cohesive groups tend to accept a viewpoint or conclusion that represents a perceived group consensus, whether or not the group members believe it to be valid, correct, or optimal”. In practice, groupthink is the enemy of the final whole. It creates a false sense of having arrived at synthesis when, in reality, the group has simply converged on the most comfortable shared position. Educators and facilitators working with executive teams must be particularly alert to this dynamic.

• 4. Systems and Systems Thinking

A system is “a set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole”. Systems thinking extends this by advocating considering any given issue as a whole, emphasising the interrelationships between components rather than the components themselves (Senge, 1990). This is, in many respects, the intellectual engine of the final whole in WPW. Without a systems orientation, the return to the whole risks being little more than a tidy summary – a recap rather than a revelation.

Deep Simplicity: Order Within Complexity

There is another dimension to the WPW model that is easily overlooked, and it sits at the opposite end of the cognitive spectrum: the concept of deep simplicity. Within what appears to be chaos or overwhelming complexity, there is almost always an underlying order – a pattern that becomes visible only once one has truly understood the parts and how they build up to the whole.

Fractal geometry offers a useful illustration. Benoit Mandelbrot, who pioneered the mathematical study of fractals (Mandelbrot, 1982), demonstrated that extraordinarily complex natural forms – coastlines, snowflakes, mountain ranges – are generated by the repetition of simple rules. At the most basic level, a drawing is a combination of dots. Those dots can be broken down into ink or graphite molecules, each with identical molecular structures, and so on. An example of this can be seen in the art form referred to as pointillism. The extraordinary complexity of a detailed image emerges from the systematic repetition of remarkably simple structures. The order is there; we simply have to develop the capacity to see it.

In organisational settings – and particularly in strategy, culture, and change management – this principle has direct implications. Complexity is real. But complexity is not the same as randomness. Dave Snowden’s Cynefin framework, Simple, Complicated, Complex, Chaotic, and Disorder (Snowden & Boone, 2007), offers a useful distinction here: complex systems are characterised by emergent, unpredictable behaviour, but they are not chaotic, and the appropriate leadership response to complexity is very different from that required in chaos or complicated contexts. Beneath apparently chaotic organisational dynamics, one almost always finds identifiable patterns, recurring dynamics, and systemic structures that, once understood, make the apparently inexplicable entirely predictable. This is precisely why systems thinking is not a luxury for executives; it is a core competence.

Implications for Education and Executive Development

The practical implications of all of this for those of us who work in education and executive development are significant. Too much of what passes for learning in organisational settings operates at the lower levels of Bloom’s taxonomy – knowledge transfer, basic comprehension, and, at best, application. We present information, we explain, and we perhaps demonstrate application. We seldom create the conditions in which learners genuinely reach synthesis, evaluation, and – most critically – creation. Unfortunately, this is true not only in education but also in many strategic management settings.

The WPW model, properly understood and applied, is a framework for doing exactly that. But it requires that the facilitator or manager approach the final whole with the awareness that it is not a summary – it is a new cognitive event. The final whole must be constructed, not simply recalled. It must reveal something that was not visible in the first presentation of the whole, because understanding the interactions between parts produces insights that the parts themselves cannot provide.

This has direct implications for how we design programmes, assess learning, and evaluate whether genuine understanding has been achieved. If our assessment asks learners only to reproduce or describe, we are testing the parts. If we ask them to analyse and critique, we are moving deeper. But if we ask them to create – to design a novel solution, to construct a new framework, to build something that did not exist before – we are finally testing the whole.

A Final Thought

Within chaos lies order. The challenge – in education, management, organisational development, and in life – is developing the cognitive tools and the reflective capacity to find it. The WPW model, understood in the light of Bloom’s revised taxonomy and the concepts of systems thinking, metacognition, paradigm awareness, and groupthink, provides a framework for exactly that kind of development.

The question, ultimately, is not whether we teach the parts effectively. Most often we do. The question is whether we ever truly get to the final whole – and whether we have the courage and the skill to help others get there too.

References

Anderson, L.W., & Krathwohl, D.R. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. Longman.

Aristotle. Metaphysics, Book VIII (translated by W.D. Ross). Cited in various editions.

Bloom, B.S. (Ed.). (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook I: Cognitive domain. David McKay.

Senge, P.M. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organisation. Doubleday.

Mandelbrot, B.B. (1982). The fractal geometry of nature. W.H. Freeman.

Snowden, D.J., & Boone, M.E. (2007). A leader’s framework for decision making. Harvard Business Review, 85(11), 68–76.

The author acknowledges the use of Claude, an AI assistant developed by Anthropic, for language editing and improving the readability of this text. Responsibility for the concept, research, content and final blog remains with the author.