Category: Consulting

Given that CDF, the Constructive Developmental Framework, is more than a set of tools and therefore requires for its use a particular mindset, have you wondered what one might say are the main barriers to using it optimally? The short blog below is meant to give some answers to this question. Barriers to Using CDF   Read More...

Effective immediately, Laske’s research on developmental and dialectical thinking, found in two titles of ‘Measuring Hidden Dimensions’ called "volume 1" and "volume 2", is available in updated pdf form at . These titles can be purchased via Paypal, upon which they will be sent out by the Interdevelopmental Institute (IDM) within 48 hrs. of receiving notice of purchase. All English volumes were edited by Alan Snow, Sydney, Australia, for easier reading. Laske's 'social-emotional' research reported in volume 1 is available in several languages; his 'cognitive' research comprises volumes 6 and 7 below, where the Manual of Dialectical Thinking (no. 7) is now a stand-alone volume independent of volume 2 (no. 6), as seen below: MHD, Measuring Hidden Dimensions: The art and science of fully engaging adults, vol. 1, 3rd edition (English), US$50 MHD vol. 1, 2nd edition (French), US$95 MDH vol. 1, 1st edition (German), US$55 MHD vol. 1, 2nd edition (Spanish), US$75 MHD vol. 1, 2nd edition (Japanese), US$75 MHD vol. 2, Measuring Hidden Dimensions: Foundations of Requisite Organization, 2nd edition (English), US$75 DTFM (stand-alone Manual of Dialectical Thought Forms, formerly included in MHD vol. 2), 2nd edition, US$85. In the author's view, these 7 volumes present the most... Read More...

In this article forthcoming in the Integral Leadership Review in May, 2018, Jan De Visch and Otto Laske give examples of the benefits of focusing on complex dialogical thinking in leading and coaching teams, regardless of the specific topic a team is addressing. Their developmentally informed strategy of team intervention is based on insights deriving from working with DTF, Laske's Dialectical Thought Form Framework (2008). DTF sheds light on, as well as delivers cutting-edge tools for, turning around team collaboration in the direction of an upward spiral. The article is a review of the authors' book entitled "Dynamic Collaboration: Strengthening Self-Organization and Collaborative Intelligence in Teams". The book is the first to fully incorporate findings about adult development over the life span into the literature on teams, and in this sense pioneering. Review of "Dynamic Collaboration: Strengthening Self-Organization and Collaborative Intelligence in Teams" (De Visch & Laske 2018) For an introduction to the book click on Introduction-to-Dynamic-Collaboration. The book can be ordered at https://connecttransform.be/dynamic-collaboration/   For a summary of the most important topics and insights of the book see below:  Perspex Scenes Template (copy) on Biteable. Read More...

Otto Laske's contributions to social-science, process consultation, and the teaching of & mentoring in developmental thinking and listening extend from 1999 to the present day. Many of his articles, keynotes, and teaching materials in English and German, as well as translations into Spanish and Italian, have recently been posted on this website under individual BLOGS as downloadable pdfs. They are organized in the form of thematic collections. These writings are 10 or more years ahead of our time. Licensing of his work is available; so far, it has been adopted in Malaysia. The prominent topics in Laske's writings are: 1. Complex, dialectical, thinking as the peak of adult cognitive development, and its relevance in society today. 2. Pedagogy of dialectical thinking (methodology of learning complex dialog), exercised, taught and certified at the Interdevelopmental Institute, IDM, since 2000. 3. Theory and practice of evidence-based developmental coaching; its missed chances caused by neglecting adult cognitive development in individuals and teams by all those who boarded the social-emotional triumphalism train in the 1990s. 4. Team Coaching framed by Laske's social-emotional team typology (2005) and based on dialectical thought form tools, for unlocking team members' internal dialog (the basis of external team dialog as... Read More...

The papers collected in this blog center around the topic of complex thinking as a hallmark of individual freedom, organizational effectiveness, and societal well-being. They all focus on Lebensbefreiung, the unburdening from needless linear clutter in the mind and the obfuscation of communication. The articles point to, and explicate, a tradition of deep thinking that in the Western tradition began with Plato and survived to the time of Hegel and Heidegger, but through the onslaught of social media and simplistic 'agile' tool kits is presently at risk of being disavowed and forgotten, not only in education, but in training and management. The research reported in these papers is based on DTF, the Dialectical Thought Form Framework (Laske 1999, 2008, 2015, see publications at https://interdevelopmentals.org/publications/). DTF is a synthesis and refinement of work done by Basseches (1984), Bhaskar (1993), and Jaques (1994). It was born of the need to gain a comprehensive concept of adult development that has gone missing in the work of Loevinger, Kegan, and other 'developmental' researchers and their followers (like Wilber) by one-sidedly focusing on social-emotional, not also cognitive, development. By contrast, DTF transcends meaning-making toward sense-making both of which are needed to understand adult development in... Read More...

In diesem Blog stelle ich die wichtigsten der von mir seit 2004 deutsch geschriebenen sozialwissenschaftlichen Texte und Lernmaterialien zusammen. Sie betreffen thematisch, was ich Lebensbefreiung nenne, in dem Sinne, dass sie es dem Leser ermoeglichen, sein oder ihr eigenes Leben entwicklungsmaessig in tieferer Weise als bloss psychologisch zu verstehen, naemlich auf 'epistemische' Weise, die die Art und Weise betrifft, in der sich jeder von uns seine eigene Welt schafft. Die Texte zeigen, wie jeder von uns eine lebenslange Entwicklung durchlaeuft, welche die dramatischen Veraenderungen unserer Erfahrung der realen Welt ("Wirklichkeit") als von uns selbst konstruiert, und also auch als von uns selbst verantwortet, darstellt. Sie enthalten zudem eine Ideologiekritik sowohl positivistischer wie spiritualistischer Ansaetze zur Erklaerung unseres Lebenslaufs und unserer Lebensprobleme. Methodologisch gesehen betreffen diese Schriften meine Arbeit mit dem Constructive Developmental Framework (CDF, 2000), einer sozial-wissenschaftlichen Methodologie, die human resources insofern revolutioniert, als sie erstmalig empirische Daten zum persoenlichen Entwicklungsstand von Mitarbeitern in Unternehmen zur Verfuegung stellt, die eine Grundlage nicht nur von Coaching, sondern auch von Karriereberatung und Team-Aufstellung werden koennen. Zudem leisted CDF auch im Privatleben Hilfestellung einfach deswegen, weil es zu einem Verstaendnis des persoenlichen Entwicklungsverlaufs und Entwicklungsstandes beitraegt, das weder von der Psychologie noch von... Read More...