SSF Weekly Reflection #3: Developing The Six Stages Framework
Week Ending: 26 June 2026
One of the unexpected gifts of this week wasn’t a new concept within the Six Stages Framework. It was a new way of thinking about the framework itself and developing the Six Stages Framework.
For some time, I have been using the SSF Weekly Reflections to capture everything that emerged during the week—new concepts, professional reflections, website developments, current affairs, educational psychology, podcasts, books and future ideas. The reflections became a place where everything seemed to belong.
This week I realised that perhaps they were trying to carry too much.
That realisation prompted a simple but important question:
Does every idea belong in the same place?
The more I reflected on this, the clearer the answer became.
Some ideas are reflections.
Some are theories.
Some deserve to become books.
Others grow into conversations, podcasts or practical tools.
Perhaps the role of a knowledge framework is not simply to generate ideas, but to create the right environment for each idea to develop.
Developing the Six Stages Framework into More Than a Framework
When I first developed the Six Stages Framework, my focus was understanding human behaviour—how people move towards empathy, belonging and inclusion, or towards exclusion, fear and hostility.
Increasingly, however, I find myself thinking not only about the framework itself but about the body of knowledge growing around it.
This week that became much clearer.
Rather than one continuous stream of content, several distinct strands began to emerge:
- SSF Weekly Reflections — recording how my thinking evolves.
- Through the SSF Lens — analysing current events and human behaviour.
- SSF Concepts — explaining the framework’s core ideas.
- The Matopos Philosophy — exploring timeless questions about wisdom, belonging and what it means to live well.
Each has its own purpose.
Each asks different questions.
Each contributes to a broader conversation.
The framework is no longer simply something I use.
It is becoming an ecosystem of connected ideas.
A Change in Perspective
One of the lessons I have learned over many years as an educational psychologist is that we often focus on structure without considering purpose.
The same is true of knowledge.
Not every thought should become a chapter.
Not every observation should become a theory.
Sometimes a weekly reflection should remain just that—a reflection.
Sometimes an observation deserves much deeper exploration.
This week reminded me that developing ideas requires patience as well as curiosity.
Ideas mature over time.
Giving them the right home may be just as important as having them in the first place.
Looking Ahead
Interestingly, this week’s conversations also gave rise to another question that I suspect will shape future work.
Rather than asking whether people are prejudiced or are inclusive, I began wondering whether we might think instead about the states people inhabit, and how those states shift over time.
That idea is still developing.
It may become a future article—or perhaps something much larger.
For now, it serves as a reminder that frameworks continue to evolve when we remain open to new questions.
Reflection Question
As you reflect on your own work or learning this week, consider this:
What idea are you trying to make fit somewhere it doesn’t belong?
Perhaps it doesn’t need more effort.
Perhaps it simply needs a different home.
Perhaps it simply needs more time to develop
Closing Reflection
One of the strengths of any framework lies not only in the answers it provides but in the questions it continues to generate.
This week reminded me that growth is not only about developing new ideas.
It is also about recognising when those ideas have outgrown the place where they first began.
Perhaps the most important question I asked this week was not “What have I accomplished?”
It was:
“What has changed in my thinking?”
And sometimes that question changes everything.
Part of the SSF Weekly Reflections series by Dr Shungu M’gadzah, exploring the continuing evolution of the Six Stages Framework and the psychology of belonging, leadership and human behaviour.
Internal Links
- SSF Weekly Reflection #1
- SSF Weekly Reflection #2
- Through the SSF Lens
- SSF Knowledge Hub
- About the Six Stages Framework
Through The SSF Lens Linkedin Newsletter 1
