The Perry Approach is a ten-phase method for working with the conflict between where you are and where you want to be. Built on the Evaporating Cloud from the Theory of Constraints, it was developed by Karl Perry for the messy, beautiful complexity of human conflict — internal, interpersonal, and organisational.
Where it came from
Karl first encountered the Evaporating Cloud in 2005, on a Theory of Constraints intensive in Huntly, New Zealand. The method itself came from Dr Eliyahu Goldratt — an Israeli physicist who recognised that most stuck systems aren't blocked by physical constraints. They're blocked by hidden assumptions.
Goldratt's original Evaporating Cloud was designed for business conflicts: production versus quality, centralisation versus local autonomy, standardisation versus customisation. It worked because it surfaced the assumptions sustaining the conflict and made them testable. Once an assumption was named, it could be challenged. Once challenged, it often dissolved — and the conflict dissolved with it.
In 1994, Goldratt's novel It's Not Luck extended the method to personal conflicts. His daughter, Efrat Goldratt-Ashlag, went further — naming the deepest tension running through every human conflict as the pull between security (the confidence that what we expect to happen will happen) and satisfaction (the sense of achievement that requires moving beyond what we already know). We need both. They often pull in opposite directions. That isn't a flaw; it's the human condition.
At that point, the Evaporating Cloud stopped being a business tool. It became a map of human experience.
What Karl added
Over twenty years of applying the method across aviation, healthcare, manufacturing, public sector, and union–management work, Karl noticed where the original Evaporating Cloud shone — and where it hit walls. The Perry Approach evolved to address these gaps:
- Start where you are. The current state (D’) sits at the bottom of the cloud, honoured rather than judged. Where you are right now — the behaviour, the pattern, the situation that keeps you stuck — exists for legitimate reasons. The work is to understand those reasons, not override them.
- Map hidden benefits explicitly. Most cloud work stays abstract about needs. The Perry Approach asks specifically: what would you actually lose if you changed? That's where the real need lives — and until it's named precisely, no alternative can honour it.
- Three thinking modes, not one. Drawing on Dave Snowden's work on the three modes of reasoning, the Perry Approach maps each to a distinct phase of working with the cloud. Deductive thinking maps the cloud — building the logic of the conflict step by step. Abductive thinking challenges the assumptions holding it in place — the creative leap that asks what if this assumption isn't true? Inductive thinking builds new patterns through repeated practice — embedding the breakthrough into habit and behaviour over time. Most methods rely on one mode. Lasting change requires all three, and the Evaporating Cloud provides a structure where each has its place.
- Transcendence, not compromise. The breakthrough isn't choosing between needs and wants, or splitting the difference. It's finding a bigger version of your current belief that can include the needs of your future — a larger belief structure that no longer requires the current behaviour to protect what matters.
- Current state and future state. Traditional Evaporating Cloud work focuses on the conflict itself — the two opposing positions and the needs behind them. The Perry Approach is unique in placing equal weight on the current state (D') and the desired future state (D) as explicit, honoured positions on the cloud. This grounds the work in lived reality rather than abstraction: practitioners always know where they are and where they are heading.
- Technical and adaptive components. A further distinction runs through every solution the method produces: the difference between technical and adaptive components — and where each sits on the cloud. Technical components are the concrete, designable, implementable parts of a solution — the new process, the new structure, the new agreement. On the cloud, these live in the tactics: the practical changes that express the breakthrough in day-to-day reality. Adaptive components are the shifts in thinking, belief, and behaviour that make the technical solution holdable. On the cloud, these live in the assumptions — specifically the assumption that must shift for D to become possible without abandoning the legitimate need that D' was protecting. The adaptive work is the movement from the old belief to the transcendent belief: the larger belief structure that can hold both needs. Practitioners who skip the adaptive work and jump straight to technical solutions find the conflict reasserts itself. The cloud makes visible why: if the underlying assumption hasn't shifted, the old behaviour still has legitimate reasons to exist. Both kinds of work are necessary. The cloud shows which is which.
- Evaporating Cloud meets the Prerequisite Tree. The Perry Approach combines the Evaporating Cloud with the Prerequisite Tree — another of Goldratt's Thinking Process tools — to build action plans with the same rigour applied to the cloud itself. In the traditional approach, obstacles in a Prerequisite Tree are listed and overcome. In the Perry Approach, obstacles are scrutinised with the same discipline applied to Undesirable Effects (UDEs): each one is tested, its assumptions surfaced, and its legitimacy examined before an intermediate objective is designed to address it. This produces action plans that are stronger, more resilient, and grounded in the same quality of thinking that dissolved the original conflict.
Perhaps the most far-reaching connection Karl made was linking three frameworks into one integrated system: the Evaporating Cloud, Efrat's Cloud (the security–satisfaction tension), and the Human Synergistics International Circumplex.
Efrat Goldratt-Ashlag identified security and satisfaction as the fundamental human tension running through every conflict. The HSI Circumplex — developed through decades of validated psychometric research — maps twelve thinking and behavioural styles into constructive, passive-defensive, and aggressive-defensive clusters. When the two are connected through the Evaporating Cloud, something powerful emerges: the pull toward security maps onto the defensive styles (the patterns that protect us from threat), while the pull toward satisfaction maps onto the constructive styles (the patterns that move us toward growth, connection, and achievement).
This connection makes behaviour and culture measurable. The Circumplex isn't a theory — it's a validated diagnostic instrument. At the individual level, the Life Styles Inventory (LSI) measures thinking patterns. At the group level, the Group Styles Inventory (GSI) measures team interaction. At the organisational level, the Organisational Culture Inventory (OCI) measures culture. All use the same twelve styles and the same visual model.
By integrating the Circumplex with the Evaporating Cloud, the Perry Approach gives practitioners an empirical foundation for the adaptive work. You can see where someone's thinking sits on the Circumplex, name the assumptions sustaining those patterns on the cloud, and measure the shift when those assumptions change. Behaviour and culture stop being abstract aspirations and become observable, measurable, and — through the cloud — changeable.
The result is a ten-phase process documented in this book and practised live each week in the Conflict Club.
How this connects to the wider work
The Perry Approach is the methodological foundation of two pathways.
The first is to become a ThinkingCoach — a coach who supports leaders and teams to gain clarity, dissolve conflict, and change things. This is the YourThinkingCoach pathway — Levels 1 to 4:
The Conflict Club is Level 1 of YourThinkingCoach pathway — your gateway into the practitioner community. Weekly live practice on real Evaporating Clouds, where the method becomes embodied.
Conflict Club Host is Level 2 of YourThinkingCoach pathway — the entry point for anyone who wants to help others use this methodology as part of how they think, lead, and work with conflict.
Thinking Coach - Level 3 of YourThinkingCoach pathway — deep exploration of your thinking patterns using the Life Styles Inventory and the Three Cloud Method.
Thinking Coach - Level 4 of YourThinkingCoach pathway — adds the perspective of others. Using LSI 2 alongside your LSI 1 results, you explore the gap between intention and impact — and develop the language to work with the human system at its deepest level.
The second is to become a High Performance through Engagement (HPtE) Practitioner — a consultant who leads organisational performance out of frustration and conflict. This is the HPtE Practitioner pathway — Levels 5 to 7, for facilitators, OD professionals, and union and management leaders applying Evaporating Cloud thinking to industrial relations, organisational design, and large-scale transformation.
HPtE Practitioner - Level 5: Facilitator - Building Capability — Enhance your facilitation skills to lead HPtE improvement teams. Master collaborative problem-solving, navigate tough discussions, and document outcomes effectively.
HPtE Practitioner - Level 6: Trainer – Developing Others' Capability — Master the skills to effectively train others in HPtE methodology, building facilitation expertise and strategic thinking in your organisation.
HPtE Practitioner - Level 7: Leading Enterprise Transformation — Become a leading practitioner in enterprise transformation. Design, implement, and sustain complex programs effectively while mentoring others in your organisation.
The paths build on each other. The book you're reading sits at the entry point. It teaches the method. Practice — live, with others, on real conflicts — is where it becomes yours.
Where to go next
- New to the method? Start at
Chapter 1: Why Conflict is Your Secret Weapon. The book is the most complete written introduction to the Perry Approach.
- Ready to practise? Join the Conflict Club — Level 1 of the YourThinkingCoach pathway, where the method comes alive on real clouds, every week.
- Working at organisational scale? Explore the HPtE Practitioner pathway
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Published by Employment Relations Centre Limited