Otto Laske Interdevelopmental Institute (IDM)

Creating Collaborative Intelligence

Otto Laske Interdevelopmental Institute (IDM)

Creating Collaborative Intelligence

irrealist social theories

CDF: A Social Science Framework for Understanding Human Agency

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In a presentation to the Center of Applied Dialectics of December 2021, made available in this blog, I share my recent thoughts about CDF, the Constructive Developmental Framework, as an integral component of social ontology, established by R. Bhaskar and M. Archer since 1975. Rather than following conventional notions of “developmental theory” as a stand-alone psychological discipline, given that CDF is a synthesis of developmental theories bringing together the social-emotional, cognitive, and psychological profiles of social actors, I consider adult-developmental studies as part of social science at large, and thus working under the mandate of throwing light on societal change. With this move, the way in which people advance toward maturity over the lifespan becomes a central issue in understanding how society reproduces or transforms itself, given that maturity is a central aspect of what in social ontology is referred to as Human Agency.

I show, in particular, that it is cogent to see research using CDF tools as the endeavor to formulate mini-theories of human agency, and is therefore also a way of explicating Stratum 4 of Bhaskar’s Social Cube on which Social and Cultural Agents as Embodied Personalities are addressed as a dimension irreducible both to social interactions between people (Stratum 2) and enduring social structures (Stratum 3). With this move, I open social science discourse to engaging with the dialectics (linkages) of all strata of the Social Cube under the mandate to avoid, in one’s research, any kind of conflation, whether downward (Durkheim), upward (Weber), or central (Frankfurt School; Habermas). While what Archer’s “dual analysis” amounts to when addressing issues of adult maturity is just beginning to be debated, a first step toward understanding people’s internal conversations and reasons for action is therewith taken.

In conceptualizing CDF as a social science framework in the broad sense, I accomplish the following:

  • end the isolation of contemporary Kohlberg-School ‘developmental theory’ from the social sciences
  • open research in adult development to the thought-form dialectic pioneered by M. Basseches and O. Laske
  • open a pathway to understanding human agency beyond the steril abstraction of ‘reflexivity’ holding sway in Second Wave Critical Realism
  • pioneer a path of empirical research into people’s internal conversations and reasons for action.

Final Version No. 4 of Otto Laske’s CAD Lecture 12-21

Zur Durchdringung organisatorischer Beratung mit Einsichten aus CDF

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In diesem Artikel fuehre ich im Einzelnen die Geschichte und die Eigenart des Constructive Developmental Framework (CDF) aus. Ich moechte zeigen wie insbesondere ein soziologischer Beratungsansatz wie New Deal  (Gucher 2015), aber auch aehnliche Beratungsvorgehen, durch Einsicht in die lebenslange Entwicklung von Menschen vertieft und im Dialog mit Kunden flexibel werden koennen.

Der Nachdruck im Text liegt darauf, dass alle Dimensionen von Sozialkapital — persoenliche Beziehungen, Emotionen, Aufmerksamkeit und Wissen — in ihrer Bestehensweise und Verwendung entschieden von dem Reifegrad von Individuen und Teams abhaengen. Dies legt nahe, die auf New Deal beruhenden Interventionen durch sozial-emotionale und kognitive Werkzeuge aus CDF zu bereichern und dadurch zu staerken. Insbesondere erhoeht man durch CDF die Dialogfaehigkeit von Gruppen und Teams und staerkt das fuer eine kollaborative Arbeitsweise notwendige gegenseitige Vertrauen.

Der Artikel behandelt sowohl wie man CDF durch Gruppenarbeit am Interdevelopmental Institute erlernt und wie man das erlangte Wissen in Kundenberatung und Coaching einfuehren kann.

Anfragen ueber Lehrweise und Kosten der CDF Ausbildung zur dialogischen Beratung bitte an Otto Laske, otto@interdevelopmentals.org, richten.

Durchdringung des New Deal mit CDF Feb. 2018

 

John Stewart Reviews Otto Laske’s Work on Dialectical Thinking

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Reviews of my work on dialectical thinking since 1999 are far and few between and have been long in coming. This delay has to do with the fact that my work on this topic responds directly to Bateson’s perceptive view that “the major problems in the world (today) are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think” (as quoted in this paper). Bateson’s perspective, much detailed philosophically by Roy Bhaskar, is a view of no interest in the present, entirely logic-based, global economy and its associated cognitive and social sciences.

In this clear and incisive article, John Stewart, organizer of the First Planning Meeting for the Second Enlightenment, explains in more detail why the topic of dialectical thinking touches upon the issue of the evolution of the human race and may well concern its survival. John Stewart on vol. 2 and Primer

Human Developmental Processes as Key to Creating Impactful Leadership

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Copyright 2016 by Graham Boyd & Otto Laske

In this article, the authors put forth a new approach to distributed leadership based on research in adult development and the pedagogical thought of Vygotsky, originator of the notion of zones of proximal development. The article attempts to re-totalize the issues neglected, or fragmented, by theories of holacracy and other models of shared leadership, in order to arrive at a deeper understanding of contemporary attempts to redesign organizational work in the direction of “organizations without managerial hierarchies”. In so doing, the authors leave behind present notions of “individual coaching”, “team coaching”, “managerial hierarchy”, and “organizational behavior”, among others, focusing squarely on contributors’ frame of reference (FoR; world view) that determines how they put their capabilities to work collaboratively and what their needs for developmental support are. The article’s essential argument is summarized in Tables 2a and 2b, one for each dimension of adult development.

The authors come to the conclusion that for holacracy and similar models to succeed, much more attention must be paid to the fact that unconventional organization designs challenge contributors’ self-identity and psychological well-being. They also show that a one-sided focus on tasks and competences (Task House) is counter-productive in that it neglects the crucial dimensions of how contributors make sense of the organizational environment (Organization House) and how they work to safeguard their adult-developmental goals (Self House). The articles makes a first attempt to spell out what are the deliberately developmental processes (Kegan-Lahey 2016) that must be put to work to evolve contributors’ “size of person” along with their shifting “size of role” in holacratic circles.

The article here posted is in its original form before it was streamlined for readers unfamiliar with developmental research. Palmgrave Chapter on Shared Leadership

From AQAL to AQAT: Dialogue in an Integral Perspective

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From AQAL to AQAT: Dialog in an Integral Perspective

In this paper, presented at the 2014 Integral European Conference, Budapest, Prof. Bruno Frischherz compares with great clarity the methodological tools offered by Wilber’s Integral Theory to those offered by Laske’s CDF.  The author shows that AQAL in its present form — focusing only on I, We, and It(s) — omits the category of You and, as a consequence, excludes the dialectic fundamental to engaging in dialog. The author also shows the lack of an ontological foundation of Integral Theory, accounting for its irrealism in the sense of Bhaskar, and thus shows it to be a continuation of the irrealism of western philosophy since Parmenides. He proposes a dialectical extension of AQAL called AQAT — “all quadrants, all (CDF) thought forms” — able to render the moves-in-thought naturally occurring in integral thinking but suppressed by Wilber. The paper stands as the clearest outline of AQAL as a purely formal logical theory with false pretensions to totalizing human experience. dialog_in_an_integral_perspective