The Iceberg Model is a systems-thinking tool showing that the visible events we react to sit above less-visible layers: patterns of behaviour, then structures, then mental models. Lasting change comes from working below the waterline rather than reacting to surface events.
The “indigenized” or tree reframing replaces the iceberg with a tree — events as fruit, patterns as branches, structures as trunk, and mental models and worldviews as roots — drawing on Indigenous (for example Anishinaabeg) teachings about roots as the “mind” of the tree and the relational, living nature of systems. It’s offered as a more relational, grounded and culturally resonant alternative to the colder iceberg metaphor.
Note: this isn’t a single standardised framework with one canonical source; the iceberg-to-tree reframing appears in a few places, and this links the clearest of them.