Category: Workshops

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...

Warum nicht mit alten Vorurteilen brechen die aus der positivistischen Tradition stammen und alle im Flachland landen? Dazu ist im Zeitalter des distributed leadership mehr Anlass als je. Die alten Kompetenzschablonen sind tot, und nun wie weiter? Vielleicht hülfe es, sich zu erinnern dass Menschen sich ihr ganzes Leben lang entwickeln? Das würde auf die Erwahcsenenforschungen führen, die in diesem Buch von Otto Laske (übersetzt von Rainer v. Leoprechting 2010) dazu verwandt werden, neue Einsichten und Werkzeuge in die Weisen des Umgangs mit ‘human resources’ einzuführen. Das Buch zeigt die Stufen der lebenslangen Entwicklung der persönlichen Erfahrungen, die jeder in seiner Arbeit und seinem Leben macht, und die zu stets grösserer innerer Freiheit und Selbständigkeit führen. Das Buch gibt dazu neue Werkzeuge an die Hand und zeigt auch, wie man über die Verwandlung der Arbeit durch neue, z. B. holakratische Umgebunglen, nachdenken sollte.  Humanpotenziale erkennen, wecken, und messen: Pay Pal Dazu Weiteres auf: Gateway auf deutsch 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...

One of the new IDM initiatives is a 'Rewiring Team Dynamics' workshop which will be organized as a three day seminar in April 2015, near Brussels/Belgium. The key question is: How can we create groups that can learn from mistakes faster, more efficiently, and more consistently than competitors do?' The background of this question is the simple observation that a lot of groups systematically under-perform. They do not make good decisions and they do not solve complex problems in a collaborative way. Traditional Team Building Traditional team building interventions, which are mainly behaviorally focused, do not seem to work when team members are highly developed (especially when they are knowledge workers). The top interventions advised from a behavioral point of view are: foster constructive debate in meetings push back when consensus forms to quickly use devil's advocate thinking look for competing explanations to challenge your observations get some distance, step away, and then try again in order to recognize and interpret complex data use visual graphs or flowcharts to juxtapose the larger picture with the individual puzzle pieces reframe situations and always examine several more options use impromptu meetings when time is limited to generate more options, including unconventional choices... Read More...

The Move into Irrealism and How to Counter-Act It By Otto Laske The signs of a mutation of human consciousness since 2000 are becoming more and more clear: The real world disappears behind subjective screens propped up by objective social forces seeking profit. What the profit is meant to be used for is less than clear, and one can fear that it will serve psychological immaturity. The fact that consciousness overlays “itself” with screens signals a shift in the relationship in which empirical, actual, and real world are seen. Ontology, almost forgotten, is clubbed over the head once more. The disdain for empirical data, long in coming, and visible in the denial of global warming as well as integral speculation, seems to gain a stronger and stronger foothold. In Twitter, the links to the network of screens become shorter, and what was already short, like attention, is further shortened. What are the social consequences of this trend? Piaget thought of adult development as an increasing move out of ego-centrism, that is, the focus on “my little personality”. This hypothesis, followed in empirical research into the evolving self, is still on target, but the people using it are no dialectical thinkers.... Read More...

Over the last few months I regularly stumbled over clients struggling with the same question: 'how can we create groups that can learn from mistakes faster, more efficiently, and more consistently than competitors do?'. The background of this question is the simple observation that a lot of groups systematically underperform. They do not make good decisions and they do not solve complex problems in a collaborative way. As the saying goes, two heads are better than two. If so, then three heads should be better than two, and four better still. The belief is that different people take note of different 'parts', and if those parts are properly aggregated, they will lead the group to know more (and better) than any individual. Reality, however, teaches us that this rarely happens. Groups often fail to live up to their potential as decision making bodies. Instead of aggregating the knowledge and wisdom of their members, they end up making bigger errors than individuals would. The scientific community identified two main reasons why group errors occur. The first is that group members often receive incorrect signals from other members.  The second involves reputational pressures, which lead people to silence themselves or change their views... Read More...