{"id":3679,"date":"2026-07-24T15:00:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T19:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffadvancement.com\/?p=3679"},"modified":"2026-07-24T21:25:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T01:25:50","slug":"a-little-more-about-steve-jobs-and-how-his-approach-led-to-my-3-4-5-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffadvancement.com\/?p=3679","title":{"rendered":"A Little More About Steve Jobs, and How His Approach Led to My 3->4->5 Theory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tetrahedronics is all about seeing how things work as a system. In other entries in this site, you’ll find why there needs to be at least 5 elements in every system, and how systems thinking is necessary in order to understand and therefore solve some of the issues facing our world, and, especially for tuition-charging PK-12 schools, some of the issues facing your school.<\/p>\n

The typical person can hold 3 thoughts in mind simultaneously.\u00a0 If you remember Sesame Street, there was a produced segment that featured a small child being sent to the store for loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter.\u00a0 He was proud of himself when he returned home remembering the assignment his mother gave him.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, that’s what most people can remember.<\/p>\n

Three things.<\/p>\n

That’s why so many leadership diagrams today have three circles which enunciate three concepts.\u00a0 One of the most famous is Jim Collins’ “Hedgehog” concept from his text, “Good To Great.”<\/p>\n

This focus on “3” is why lists become important, as they helps us remember tasks consisting of more than 3 items, since our brains can actually focus only on one thing at a time.\u00a0 Mutli-tasking is simply the ability to change foci rapidly – which, as researchers are discovering, is exhausting.<\/p>\n

And if you were wondering why you’re feeling tired and run down from all that work on your computer – especially if you’re working on multiple screens – that’s why.<\/p>\n

Too much input; not enough time to process; no potential to focus (since even when we do, interruptions happen – and they’re always considered to be more important that what you’re focusing on), and, the more interruptions that happen, the longer it takes to re-focus on what the task at hand was.<\/p>\n

Distraction leads to more distraction.<\/p>\n

When Apple introduced the iPhone, Steve Jobs said it could do three things – it was a telephone, a music player, and a device that could access the Internet.<\/p>\n

After the cheers and some jeers subsided, everyone found out that the standard software included a camera. Not only was it clever marketing not<\/strong><\/em> to announce this ability, since announcing it could cause many camera developers to get even more entrenched into the smartphone market, but only a few people would remember the three main concepts present in the presentation. To introduce a fourth would have many folks saying, “It’s a phone, a camera and a music player,” while others said, “It’s a camera, a phone, and a device to access the Internet.” The conversation between those two individuals cited could cause an argument, when, in reality, they’re both right.<\/p>\n

That’s one of our challenges as human beings – we need to be able to hold more thoughts in mind at the same time, while realizing we can’t focus on more than one at a time.<\/p>\n

Learners in the classroom do this by employing mnemonic devices (such as remembering the first letters of each line of a multi-elemental list), but when such information is submitted for an exam to assess the learning, the elements are forgotten if the mnemonic devices are not reinforced.<\/p>\n

If you’ve been a visitor to SchoolAdvancement (now ArchangelAdvancement) as well as STAFFAdvancement, you’ll recognize a number of acronyms to help you remember the elements of a system.\u00a0 Most notably, what started out as DREAM has become ARMED, as the letters stand for the elements of Advancement – Asset Management, Retention, Marketing, Enrollment and Development.\u00a0 Interestingly, that’s the priority order as well.\u00a0 If you’d like more information about why these elements function as a system, AND are aligned in that particular way, send an email to staffadvancement@gmail.com<\/a> with the words “Systemic Elemental Alignment” in the subject line.<\/p>\n

3>4>5 (That’s short for “Three leads to Four leads to Five) not only asserts that we have to be able to hold 4 elements in mind simultaneously, but we have to somehow get to 5!<\/p>\n

Individuals have asked me, “Then what’s the 5th item in the iPhone?”<\/p>\n

I’ve responded that the 5th element in any system is sometimes very difficult to find, but once it’s identified, the answer is so obvious that the reaction usually is, “Of course! I should have known that!”<\/p>\n

The 5th element of the iPhone is its ability to be a personal digital assistant – a PDA.<\/p>\n

I was a user and raging fan of Palm prior to the Smartphone era, and even lamented the fact that some productivity applications that I had on my Palm weren’t available for iPhone, Droid, Windows or Blackberry. I even contacted a friend who wrote great Palm applications who told me he had no intention of learning a new programming language, so he wouldn’t be making his products available to the popularity explosion of handheld computers.<\/p>\n

The PDA had a calendar, a task list, contacts listings and a journal function, but it wasn’t a phone, a camera, a device that could play music, and it certainly couldn’t access the Internet.\u00a0 However, the iPhone can do all those things that the PDA did.<\/p>\n

Do we use them all at the same time? No. But do we know all those things are there and at our disposal? Yes – but we have to think about it.<\/p>\n

And now, with AI, we just have to ask for it.\u00a0 It’s becoming a habit…just as looking up what makes all-purpose flour different from self-rising flour on the mobile phone browser did a decade ago.<\/p>\n

Keep looking for those 4th and 5th elements, and the systems you’re working with will start to make sense.\u00a0 Remember, the 4th element is one that is closely related to one or all of the three, and the 5th one will tie them all together.<\/p>\n

Here’s another example.\u00a0 There are actually 5 learning styles.\u00a0 The three that everyone in education as well as professional development in the corporate world are Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic (or Tactile).\u00a0 However, technology has helped to define the 4th.\u00a0 It’s the Representational learner.<\/p>\n

Visual is someone who has a learning preference for what they see.\u00a0 Reading was always considered to be a Visual strategy, but when you consider that watching a video or a movie is more “visual” than reading is, one can understand that reading is a representation of words and their meanings That also helps us to understand why some learners have difficulty with reading, and how those with dyslexia can still be learners with a visual learning preference.<\/p>\n

The 5th element is the one that is connected to all four of these strategies, but is often overlooked.\u00a0 Think of it this way – what would be able to connect all those elements together?<\/p>\n

If you said, “A teacher,” that would create the “Mentoral” learner.\u00a0 It’s the learner that needs a teacher or a coach to encourage them and guide their learning, deciding which of the four other strategies may be most effective.\u00a0 This kind of learning style is still employed today by those in the trades, since plumbers, carpenters and electricians complete apprenticeships as part of their learning.<\/p>\n

If you’re finding this is a difficult concept to grasp, that difficulty is precisely why no one likes systems thinking.\u00a0 We like linear thinking (first\/next) or process thinking (if\/then).\u00a0 In both of those we go from one step to the next, or can choose which path to take based on a desired outcome.\u00a0 System thinking requires that all elements be identified, AND be in play simultaneously.<\/p>\n

Consider that the four learning styles mentioned do not require a teacher to be present for learning to occur.\u00a0 Someone can see something, hear something, do something or read something and if a change in their perspective or understanding occurs, learning has taken place.<\/p>\n

However, for those students that “just can’t get it” until someone explains it to them, those are are learners that need the teacher.\u00a0 The teacher is the expert who can evaluate each of their students to determine which preferred learning style each of them has, and establish a strategy for each to achieve to their full potential.<\/p>\n

Taking this concept a little further, there’s an “overarching” result of the five systemic elements…which would be the “Experiential” learner, since all five elements are essential for the optimal experience of learning.\u00a0 It can be said that it’s the “Experience of the experience,” which is a very “meta” concept.<\/p>\n

If you agree, does this realization shed a new light on the role of the teacher?<\/p>\n

If you answered yes, then the system is working.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Michael V. Ziemski, SchoolAdvancement\/STAFFAdvancement, 2012-2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tetrahedronics is all about seeing how things work as a system. In other entries in this site, you’ll find why there needs to be at least 5 elements in every system, and how systems thinking is necessary in order to understand and therefore solve some of the issues facing our world, and, especially for tuition-charging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3671,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tetrahedronics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffadvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffadvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffadvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffadvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffadvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staffadvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3680,"href":"https:\/\/staffadvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3679\/revisions\/3680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffadvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffadvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffadvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffadvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}