As the Interdevelopmental Institute (IDM) enters a new era, it wants to communicate what it has learned and what, based on its learning over nearly 20 years, it can now deliver to CEOs and Boards. Find out how the Institute's main methodology, called Constructive Developmental Framework (CDF), addresses contemporary issues such as the digital transformation of businesses in all of its facets. Take note of the critical realism CDF tools embody (thanks to Roy Bhaskar's work on a dialectical ontology), and IDM's critical theory practice that now provides a new home for Frankfurt School insights just in time ... Sincere thanks to the international community of students who have made IDM widely known through their own work over many years! A New Beginning at IDM Read More...
Category: Dialectical Thinking
What Everybody is Losing Out On by Bypassing 40 Years of Research on Adult Development
There is a vast lack of knowledge about how one's own level and phase of development as an adult uncanningly and forcefully causes the kind of suffering one feels most keenly. This short article is meant as a pointer to what is missing in all of the "helping" literature and the well-meant helping activities in a society which continues to be characterized by master-slave relationships in a multitude of forms. What is everybody losing out on Read More...
Human Developmental Processes as Key to Creating Impactful Leadership
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... Read More...
Living through four eras of cognitive development
This article is based on my research in adult cognitive development, published in Laske 2008 and 2015. It reminds the reader that his/her thinking undergoes life-long changes that have a dramatic impact on work effectiveness and quality of life, especially the latter. The notion that there are no changes in thinking after early adulthood is thoroughly debunked. It is shown that the structure of “thinking” is built of “thought forms”, and that how these forms are linked and coordinated internally determines not only the flexibility of thinking but also how far human thinking is enabled to grasp the real world in all of its complexity. "Thinking" is also shown to shape emotional life since every emotion is saturated with thinking, in contrast to mere feeling. The article places thinking into a developmental progression from Common Sense to Understanding to Reason and Practical Wisdom, inspired by Bhaskar’s notion of the UDR movement (Bhaskar 1993). It showcases an independent line of adult development of great influence on Kegan's "social-emotional" sequence of stages. ILR August 24 2012 Read More...
Merging Behavioral and Developmental Practices: An Integral Framework for Deep Listening and Thinking
In this paper, the authors (Otto Laske, Alessandro Rossi) lay out a practical approach to integral counseling (part A) and consulting to teams (part B), based on the Constructive Developmental Framework (CDF). The main topic is how to combine interventions for strengthening developmental level and cognitive fluidity, seen as intrinsically related as well as mingled in practice. CDF tools are described as prompts that trigger evidence about the frame of reference based on which clients and teams think, feel, and make decisions. Theoretically, the proposed framework includes and transcends both Wilber’s quadrants and Bhaskar’s moments of dialectic, showing a path toward integral constellations work for which teachable and learnable pragmatic tools are presently hard to find. A Developmental Framework for Deep Listening and Thinking Read More...
From AQAL to AQAT: Dialogue in an Integral Perspective
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 Read More...