Three Founding Documents of IDM, The Interdevelopmental Institute

This year, the Interdevelopmental Institute (IDM) turns 20. Conceived of as a virtual teaching, consulting, and coaching institute, it has outlasted 2 decades of neglect of the cognitive dimension of life as well as work, today the focus of 'cognitive coaching' and/or 'critical facilitation'. Over 20 years, the institute has educated close to 100 individuals in developmental thinking, both in its 'social-emotional' (Kegan) and 'cognitive' form (Basseches, Jaques, Bhaskar, Laske). The 3 documents here posted, written between 1999-2001, together form the historical foundation of work with CDF, the Constructive Developmental Framework. The first is entitled "An Integrated Model of Developmental Coaching", the second  "Foundations of Scholarly Consulting: The Developmental Structure/Process Tool (DSPT)"-- DSPT, the 'developmental structure/process tool' being the original name for CDF. (In the original name, 'structure' stands for the social-emotional, and 'process' for the cognitive, profile of an adult.). The third paper highlights the -- still unusual -- merger of two lines of adult development which is the highlight of CDF. While the first paper is an extensive introduction to the Three Houses as the mental space of developmental coaching and consulting, the second paper details adults' CDF profile in both of its dimensions. The 2nd paper reviews... Read More...

Grundlagen potenzial-orientierter Unternehmen: Einleitung in Dialektisches Denken in Organisationen

Attached to this blog, the reader will find a set of slides presented in a workshop held in Vienna, Austria, in February of 2019, for a company called Four Dimensions Consulting. It was the purpose of the workshop to introduce a German-speaking audience to the cognitive-developmental dimension of organizational work, especially team work. The workshop introduced participants to methods of cognitive interviewing associated with DTF, Laske's Dialectical Thought Form Framework of 2008. The focus of the workshop was shedding light on the close interweaving of the social-emotional and cognitive strands of adult development over the life span. The immediate pragmatic focus was assistance in learning about the four moments of dialectic and their associated thought forms. The workshop's Table of Contents is the following: Einstimmung • Einleitung in das Entwicklungsdenken • Teil Eins : Die interne Struktur von Humankapital • Teil Zwei : Im dialektischen Denkformrahmen arbeiten • Teil Drei : Methodologische Grundlagen des kognitiven Interviews • Teil Vier : Einfuehrung in die Praxis des kognitiven Interviews • Anhang A: Die vier Manager • Anhang B: Dialektik in Bildern erkennen Kurze Bibliographie Komplexes Denken Wien def3 2019 Read More...

Cognitive Coaching as a Tool for Building Enabling Environments in Distributed-Leadership Organizations: An Introduction to the Dialectical Thought Form Framework (DTF)

In the set of slides attached to this blog, the reader finds my presentation on cognitive coaching of January 2019, presented to a London consulting firm, MDV. The purpose of my workshop was to teach consultants a new form of developmental assessment and, based on it, of developmental thinking that is increasingly in demand in distributed-leadership organizations striving to become self-organizing. The workshop's distinct purpose was to contribute to augmenting the quality of team dialogue, as well as of critical facilitation of team dialogue, by scrutinizing the dialectical structure of human movements-in-thought, both in life and at work. The Table of Contents of the presentation is as follows: 1. The New Coaching Environment 2. Resources for Developmental Coaching 3. Essentials of Team Coaching 4. The Mental Space of Coaching in the Three Houses 5. Overview of Cognitive  Coaching Tools Provided by DTF 6. A Developmental Look at Organizations 7. Exercises: The Three Managers 8. The Art and Science of Cognitive Interviewing 9. Appendix: Thought Form Tables 10. Short Bibliography. Cognitive Coaching London def 2019   Read More...

An Artificially Intelligent CDF Coach: Considerations regarding App-Based Executive Coaching

In this blog, I briefly sketch a coaching app based on CDF. I detail an elementary design of the app and outline its purpose, function, and main benefits. Since learning CDF through workshops takes dedication and a level of concentration rare in present times, the blog suggests that: (a). learning to build apps for CDF-based coaching may be the optimal and quickest way to learn CDF; (b). since the majority of coaches is stuck in logic-based behavioral coaching, executives can expect a value-add from being coached based on the CDF-app designed in this  blog. Of course, building such an app requires people who simultaneously have experience building apps as well as a strong interest in delivering quality coaching. Two kinds of CDF workshops seem to be needed: 1. App-free: conventional, 2-4 day, workshops introducing students to the basics of CDF and providing opportunities for practicing developmental thinking with a client, also in preparation for building CDF-apps. 2. App-focused: a workshop geared directly to building a CDF-app. The first kind of workshop focuses on learning to embody a "CDF-stance" and "persona"; the second kind, on bringing CDF basics into a programmable form and shaping them in terms of the requirements of... Read More...

Laske’s ‘Transformative Effects of Coaching on Executives’ Professional Agendas’ (1999)

This blog contains a downloadable copy of Laske's Psy.D. dissertation of 1999 (2 volumes). The thesis was submitted to William James College, Newton, MA. Readers were Robert Kegan, Ph.D., of Harvard Graduate School of Education; Samual Moncata, Ph.D., of William James College, Newton, MA. (then called 'MA School of Professional Psychology'); and Tim Hall, Ph.D, of Boston University's Business School. The dissertation is a comprehensive social-emotional and cognitive study of 6 executives from the Boston, MA, area, the first of its kind. The dissertation comprises 2 parts: 1. volume 1 (5 chapters): methodology and findings 2. volume 2 (Appendices A to D, focused on the relationship of executive and adult development, and including interview data as well as  coaching recommendations based on interview scoring outcomes). On this blog, a third part comprises the volumes' figures. In nuce, the dissertation undertakes to show the limitations of theories of executive development given their neglect of the 'vertical development' axis, both in its social-emotional and cognitive dimensions. It introduces the distinction between 'ontic' and 'agentic' development barely acted upon in organizations even today, as well as the issue of the linkage between the social-emotional and cognitive dimensions still unacknowledged in today's developmental research.... Read More...

A Conversation on Mentoring in Organizations Transitioning to a Less Hierarchical Culture

In this conversation with Paul Anwandter of INPACT, Santiago de Chile, in October 2018, we discuss the new landscape of mentoring that includes applying insights from research in adult development. We discuss the obstacles and failures but also the challenges of such mentoring in reference to a class on developmental coaching I teach at INPACT, a yearly event that concludes the INPACT coaching program. An important issue in the discussion is the difference between U.S. and South American organizational culture.   Read More...