Category: Teleseminars

Are you a complex thinker, or interested in becoming one? – The world is in great need of such people. Otto Laske is a world expert on complex thinking. Since 2000, he has taught dialectical, meta-systemic thinking at the Interdevelopmental Institute (IDM), working with international groups of experts in their field and reflective practitioners generally, mostly consultants. Laske is continuing his teaching, starting the Spring of 2024. His teaching will focus on learning how to use DTF, the Dialectical Thought Form Framework (2000), recently broadly publicized by three books published by Springer under the title of “Advanced Systems Level Problem Solving (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-40332-3). Book #1 and #2 form the background to Book #3, the only existing Manual of Dialectical Thought Forms. Complex, dialectical thinking differs from logical thinking, abductive thinking, and conventional systemic thinking in that it is ‘meta-systemic’. Such thinking critically investigates the structure of one’s own thinking as articulated in real time (NOW), in whatever social venue and circumstances. As a result, Laske’s approach to teaching dialectical thinking is dialogical: people learn to listen deeply to each other and scrutinize the structure of their own thinking with the help of others, in the process becoming complex thinkers. Starting in... 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 III gathers teaching slides, most of them focused on developmental coaching in the sense of CDF, the Constructive Developmental Framework. For the most part, the slides should speak for themselves. They are copyrighted and should be used accordingly. 2005a HR Interpreter Course 2005b Intro Dev. Process Consultation 2006a Insights-into-Coaching 2006b London Insights into Coaching 2006c Post-Bureaucratic Management 2006d The Right Coach at the Right Place 2007a Brussels Coach Meeting Feb. 07 2007b Building Out Human Sigma 2007c HR Innovation with CDF 2008a Invitation to Cognitive Consulting 2008b Invitation-to-Cognitive Process Consultation 2008c Insights into Coaching 2009a Lisbon Keynote O. Laske 2009b Nad Philip's seminar introduction to CDF (French) 2009c Stuart-Vurdelja Prague presentation 2015 ICC-IDM Webinar 2016 ICC-ICM Social Emotional Course 2016 ICC-IDM Cognitive Course This paper begins a long series of workshops on dialectical thinking a... 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 I gathers writings from between 2000 and 2003 most of which are focused on issues of requisite organization, particularly HR. The central concept introduced is that of META-ENABLERS. This concept answers concerns brought to life by the Score Card. Meta-enablers are social-emotional and cognitive criteria of relevance to HR and organizations at large. Some of the articles posted will be highlighted as to their focus starting in February of 2020. 2001a Linking Two Lines of Adult Development 2001b A learning and growth metric 2001c Non-requisite organization 2001d Non-Tangible_Human_Resources 2001e The_Next-Step 2001f What do Meta-enablers add 2001g What_Lies_Beyond 2002a Exec. Dev. as Adult Dev 2002b How to get it wrong both ways 2002c Human_Resources_Beyond_Domain_Competence 2002d Growing the Top Management Team 2002e The Place where Work Happens 2003a A New Data Type 2003b Org._Learning_&_Dev. Read More...

Starting in 2014, coach education at IDM shifted to team coaching. In this blog, the reader finds materials that form the basis of my collaboration with Jan De Visch on the book "Dynamic Collaboration: Strengthening Self-Organization and Collaborative Intelligence in Teams" of 2018. One of the basic tenets of this book -- that organizations comprise different team levels or 'We-Spaces' -- derives from my social-emotional Team Typology found in volume 1 of "Measuring Hidden Dimensions: The Art and Science of Fully Engaging Adults" (2005, chapter 10). Below, the reader encounters some of the seminal ideas presented in the form of sets of slides and texts, each of them briefly commented upon as to its main topic. *** Introduction to Team Coaching based on CDF (2014) In this short text, I outline the IDM team coaching program. Based on an introductory 'Gateway' course, the program focuses on two main types of coaching: social-emotional and cognitive. Certification is based on undertaking a case study. Team Coaching for Maturity: IDM Gateway (2014) In this set of slides, I introduce coaches to the CDF perspective on organizational teams. The slides emphasize that teams are developmentally mixed (comprise divergent levels of adult development) and, in terms... Read More...

In this new book (to appear in 2016), addressed to CEO's, board members, and members of executive teams, Otto Laske takes an in-depth look at his Constructive Developmental Framework as a culture transformation instrument. The book focuses on organizational discourse culture as the lever by which fundamental changes come about when engaging with new forms of one-on-one and peer-listening once these are grounded in systemic dialectical thinking and an ability to "read" social-emotional meaning making in company discourse. In the tradition of consulting work based on CDF, culture transformation effects transpire in all areas of crucial important for company flourishing and breakthroughs: level of innovation, strategy design, talent management, peer-to-peer interactions in groups and teams, and the definition of new business models. The book delivers insight into the human operating system supporting holocracy. While "active listening" has been much emphasized in coaching, hosting, and DoJo4Life work, structured listening in terms of CDF is not only active but DEEP. It is deep because it is focused on joining two aspects implicit in every communication: the level of speakers' social-emotional meaning making, and the level of making cognitive sense of the world and handling its complexity. As shown in the book, both... Read More...

First part of the Laske - Cartmel Interview Series Read More...