Category: Articles by Otto Laske

In this chapter for volume 2 of Meta-Theory dedicated to the memory of Bhaskar, delayed in its publication since 2014 and forthcoming at Routledge at the end of 2020,  I outline a dialectical epistemology and CDF teaching method for absorbing Bhaskar's legacy into integral thinking. I do so since both are presently absent from the integral community's work that has shown itself immune not only to dialectical thinking based on Baskar's MELD itself, but also to new developments in adult-developmental theory set forth at on this site. In nuce, in this text I outline the IDM 'Case Study Cohort Method' taught since 2005 and geared to educating professionals for the sake of becoming a 'master developmental coach or consultant'. In this chapter, I suggest that adopting this method or a suited variant of it would facilitate integral training and practical interventions in society and organizational work. See for yourself. Laske Chapter on Application of Bhaskar's Meld 2020   Read More...

This manifesto decries the 'terrible' simplifications that tayloristic managment theories colonizing HR inflict upon the capabilities of human beings working in organizations. See for yourself how little of being human remains when you reduce human capabilities to mere competences and then ask contributors to add value for others than themselves. This manifesto consists of the co-authors' introduction to 'Practices of Dynamic Collaboration', Springer 2020, in June of 2020. Manifesto Against the New Taylorism Read More...

In this slide set, the co-authors introduce their just launched book entitled 'Practices of Dynamic Collaboration', Springer 2020. Book Discovery Session May 2020 OL Read More...

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...

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...