SPARC is Transformational:
Our Model of Change

This series was written for the people who hold human development as a professional calling (CHROs, Chief People Officers, Vice Provosts for Faculty Affairs, Foundation Program Officers) and for the Presidents, Provosts, and executive leaders who partner with them.

This series is for anyone who has invested in leader development, seen leaders changed by the experience, and then watched the institution absorb those leaders back into the same patterns that preceded the work, or watched them leave.

The series is an extended description of a different approach, grounded in research and practice, that we believe yields more substantial and sustainable change. Across eleven pieces, it describes the SPARC Transformational Partnership Model (TPM): its theoretical foundations, its architecture, and what it produces. The pieces move in sequence from problem to design, practice, evidence, and vision, and they are based on the diagram below, which emerged from SPARC's ongoing reflective practice.

A note on perspective: these pieces are written in the voice we use in our partnerships. It is sometimes analytical, sometimes direct, and sometimes a first-person "we" that means us, literally. We are a small firm. The experiences described here are the products of real relationships, with real people, in real institutions. We think that voice, authoritative where the research warrants it and personal where the work requires it, is appropriate for what this series is trying to do.

The title, Our Model of Change, refers to the conviction that runs through all eleven pieces: lasting change in institutions comes from the developmental work that happens beneath the program on the surface. That work is invisible on most dashboards. It is the subject of this series.