The hierarchy
- Environment: where, when, with whom
- Behaviour: what you specifically do
- Capability: the skills and strategies available
- Beliefs and values: what is true and worth it, as you hold it
- Identity: who you take yourself to be
- Purpose/beyond: what it is all for (later versions)
The diagnostic use
Its real value: locating where a stuck problem lives. A capability-level problem (needs practice) is mis-solved by identity-level reassurance; a beliefs-level block is mis-solved by environment changes (new desk, new city). Coaching conversations get precise fast when interventions are matched to the level — and escalate respectfully upward only as needed.
The honest caveats
The "neuro" framing is asserted, not neurological; the hierarchy derives loosely from Gregory Bateson's levels of learning, and researchers rightly bristle at the brain-mapping claims. Used as an intervention-matching map it is excellent — used as neuroscience it is marketing. IONI teaches it as the former.