Author: Otto Laske

In this essay, i make the case that a new theory of adult development is needed that is no longer a one-sidedly 'left-hemisphere' enterprise. By this annotation I refer to the bi-hemispheric structure of the human mind. Specifically, in this essay I assert that a theory of adult development fails for 2 main reasons: (1) exclusion of sense making as dialectical thinking, (2) failure to honor the intrinsic relationship between meaning making (ED) and sense making (CD), the first of which is mainly grounded in right-hemisphere experience while the second is anchored in left-hemisphere re-presentation of experience. 2020 ILR submitted to ILR rev1 OL Read More...

Consultants who have absorbed the Constructive Developmental Framework (CDF) are used to developing a big picture view of society, addressing in their thinking issues of societal importance. One of these professionals is my colleague Jan De Visch who has worked with CDF for more than a decade. Jan's focus has recently been what he chose to call 'collaborative intelligence' in organizations, a topic that for him is an managerial, epistemological, as well as ethical one. As his co-author of a book on Practices of Dynamic Collaboration (that appears at the end of May 2020 at Springer), I am gratified to post his recent thoughts about what the current health crisis could trigger when viewed in positive, transformational terms. Choosing the example of a Belgian company having to shut down its operations, Jan reflects on the changes that he witnessed  in how employees re-assessed the work they do, and on the new capabilities people showed in the pursuit of doing what they decided was an ethical imperative. The new book is a sequel to our 2018 book entitled Dynamic Collaboration which can be found at www.connecttransform.be, together with a 'Playbook' which is a compilation of its main insights. The day after... Read More...

One sunny day, the term 'agility' woke up and realized it had become a virus. It no longer knew whether it meant a human capability, an organizational characteristic, or both, and what to make of them ...  It also wondered how to combat the pandemic its human carriers had unleashed. What kind of helpers would be available to fight the pandemic? Were perhaps the helpers themselves already infected? And these uncertainties have only grown in the meantime.   In this blog, I am asking which of four models of 'helping' (consultation), first outlined by E. Schein, are optimal for supporting a move to organizational agility. In the text attached below, I reflect on the suitability of each of these models, at the same time asking helpers (consultants) to ask themselves "what kind of helper do I want to be?" Schein's pivotal contribution to consulting consists in going beyond both an 'expert' and a 'doctor/patient' model of consulting and upgrading it to a consultation to clients' mental process, whether the clients are organizations, colleagues, or family members. In CDF, the Constructive Developmental Framework, I have taken a further step, suggesting to upgrade a merely behavioral understanding of mental process to an... Read More...

I came upon an earlier piece of writing of mine entitled as above and thought it might be worth pointing to. It was published in Integral Leadership Review, and is found at Here I only republish the article's abstract. My interest in this article of 8 years ago was renewed by reading Iain McGilchrist's "The Master and his Emissary" (2010), in which the author makes it clear that, and why, we are endangering our own survival by culturally privileging the left hemisphere in which logic and language are located. The author debunks the simplistic notion of 'left' and 'right' hemisphere, showing how highly intertwined they are despite their conjuring up for us entirely different world views. He urges a cultural shift away from the culturally enabled despotism of the left-hemisphere which, despite being only the 'emissary' of its right-hemisphere 'master', behaves as if it were the master itself, with existentially dangerous consequences for human life. Abstract of my 2012 In this paper, I outline the graspable existential meaning of human cognitive development. By “existential” I refer not simply to the epistemological positioning of a person to the world as a knower but to the conceptual forces of the social world... Read More...

The Laske Social Science Archive gathers Otto Laske’s writings on organizations written between 1999 and 2019, many of which have retained their value vis a vis new fashions of management thinking. Its sections are numbered chronologically. The Archive makes available both texts and slides, the latter for pedagogical purposes. The articles gathered are bundled according to topic. They can be downloaded free of charge. Archive VI gathers articles as well as teaching slides, copyrighted and to be used accordingly. Articles 2008 Anleitung zur kognitiven Prozessberatung 2010 Wirtschaftpsychologie 2012 Habecker MHD Bd. 1 Rezension 2012 Habecker, Jenseits aktiven Zuhoerens 2015 Der Mensch im Anthropozaen Workshop Slides (Folien) 2004 [Folien] Unsichtbare Dimension 2006 [Folien] Humanpotenziale 2007a [Folien] Einleitung in das Entw. Coaching 2007b [Folien] Konstanz-Berlin Einleitung in das Entwicklungscoaching 2007c [Folien[ Luzern Persoenlichkeitspotenziale 2008 [Folien] Einleitung in das Entwicklungscoaching 2013 {Folien] Einfuehrung in Tiefes Denken Eine Einleitung in dialektische Denkformen 2019 [Folien] Komplexes Denken Wien Read More...

The Laske Social Science Archive gathers Otto Laske’s writings on organizations written between 1999 and 2019, many of which have retained their value vis a vis new fashions of management thinking. Its sections are numbered chronologically. The Archive makes available both texts and slides, the latter for pedagogical purposes. The articles gathered are bundled according to topic. They can be downloaded free of charge. Archive V gathers articles written  DTF-based dialectical thinking as the developmental peak of adult cognitive development, seen from the ontological perspective of Roy Bhaskar's work on 'Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom' (1993). The emphasis in these writings falls on the intrinsic relatedness of 'dialectical' and 'dialogical' thinking and the hypothesis that speaking in real time makes ontological truth claims regarding how the real world works (rather than being a mere behavioral activity). These articles pave the way from monological and logical to dialogical and dialectical thinking, for purposes far beyond organizational management. Cognitive assessment through case studies is seen as the royal road to mastery of critical facilitation in teams and social forums more generally. 2015 Creating Integral Collaborations 2016a An Integral Epistemology 2016c Dialectic Interpreted in the Logic of Commerce 2016e Laske on Bhaskar 2017a... Read More...