Developmental Process Consultation in the Age of Agility: Reflections on the Critical Facilitation of Agile Functioning in Organizations

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...

Laske Social Science Archive, Section VI: German Writings (2004-2019), Texts and Slides

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 VI gathers articles as well as teaching slides, copyrighted and to be used accordingly. Articles 2008 Anleitung zur kognitiven Prozessberatung 2010 Wirtschaftpsychologie 2012 Habecker MHD Bd. 1 Rezension 2012 Habecker, Jenseits aktiven Zuhoerens 2015 Der Mensch im Anthropozaen Workshop Slides (Folien) 2004 [Folien] Unsichtbare Dimension 2006 [Folien] Humanpotenziale 2007a [Folien] Einleitung in das Entw. Coaching 2007b [Folien] Konstanz-Berlin Einleitung in das Entwicklungscoaching 2007c [Folien[ Luzern Persoenlichkeitspotenziale 2008 [Folien] Einleitung in das Entwicklungscoaching 2013 {Folien] Einfuehrung in Tiefes Denken Eine Einleitung in dialektische Denkformen 2019 [Folien] Komplexes Denken Wien Read More...

Laske Social Science Archive, Section IV: Writings (2010-2017) on CDF, the Constructive Developmental Framework

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 IV gathers explanatory as well culture-critical papers on CDF as an empirically grounded epistemology (theory of knowledge), including Wikipedia articles on CDF in English, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese, and comprehensive introductions to CDF for diverse audiences. There are also articles on work design and shared leadership seen from a perspective of CDF, including an article on developmental listening as the crux of using CDF expertly. Learning such listening by itself leads to a revolution of thinking, not only about the social world, but about the 'real world' as well. Wikipedia Articles 2013 English Wikipedia article 2014c Spanisch Wikipedia article on CDF 2016a Italian Wikipedia article 2016n Japanese Wikipedia 構成主義的発達論のフレームワーク Culture Critique 2012 CDF - End of developmental absolutism 2013 On the ethics of process consultation 2016d Human Systems in the Anthropocene 2016j What is everybody... Read More...

Laske Social Science Archive, Section III: Teaching Slides (2005-2016) on Developmental and Cognitive Coaching

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...

Laske Social Science Archive, Section II: Writings (2004-2009) on Developmental Coaching

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 II gathers writings from between 2004-2009, most of them focused on the new discipline of developmental coaching in the sense of CDF, the Constructive Developmental Framework. Some of the articles posted will be highlighted as to their focus starting in February of 2020. 2004 Can Evidence-Based Coaching increase ROI 2006a From Coaching Training to Coach Education 2006b On Leadership as something we Are 2006c Unity of Perspectives UK 2006d Why Maturity Matters 2007a Coaching_for_Development 2007b Contributions of Evidence Based Coaching 2007 2007c Leadership Coaching Tips 2007d Mentoring a Behavioral Coach 2007e Merging behavioral and dev. coaching The following article is the first in a series of articles on dialectical thinking; it extends to 2019 2009a Change-Crisis 2009b Contributions of Evidence Based Coaching   Read More...

Announcement of the ‘Otto Laske Archive of Social Science’, Parts 1 and 2

Over the next month, due to increasing demand, Otto Laske will make available a large number of his unpublished social-science papers on this site. The majority of papers is unpublished, but some important papers published more than 10 years ago will also be made available. Only very few papers are incomplete. The Archive is divided into two parts: Decade 1 (1999-2009) and Decade 2 (2010 to 2019) of IDM. Each part of the Archive will be in the form of a single blog and will comprise both papers and sets of slides, the latter used for teaching CDF in both English and German. The articles will be posted in chronological order and will be annotated to various degrees in order to make them accessible. Writings of the first decade of IDM begin with a critique of behavioral mindset generally, whether in management, coaching, or consulting. They extend the critical approach to organizations initiated by Chris Argyris and Elliott Jaques. These writings reconceptualize the tayloristic shibboleth of "Human Resources" on grounds of developmental thinking, a critique that finds its clearest expression in the forthcoming book by Jan De Visch and Otto Laske on collaborative intelligence (see ). To me, these writings... Read More...