Tag: collaborative intelligence

  Those interested in dialectical thinking will be pleased to know that Otto Laske's volume 2 of 'Measuring Hidden Dimensions'  of 2008 has been thoroughly revised and is in the process of becoming available again in the form of a three-part monograph under the title of this blog. The title does justice to the fact that the monograph has relevance far beyond applications in work contexts and is a must-read for systems thinkers venturing outside of the purely logical domain of intellectual endeavor. Since its first publication the scope of interest in complex thinking -- beyond the mechanics of using thought forms -- has broadened. Outside of being of interest to organizational thinkers, a broader, evolutionary, perspective , spearheaded by John Stewart and Lawrence Wollersheim, has emerged that centers on the planet's global crisis. These authors address two capital aspects of human flourishing: (a) self-evolution, and (b) meta-systemic wisdom the core of which is dialectical thinking (see https://www.evolutionarymanifesto.com/SpandaArticle.pdf, by John E. Stewart). Another target audience of the monograph comprises high-level systemic thinkers with an integral focus, whether they are active in think tanks, government, or intelligence agencies, as well as architects and artists whose work focuses on transformation. The three... Read More...

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...

In this new book to be published by Springer in the Spring of 2020, the authors deepen insights shared in 'Dynamic Collaboration' (2018) focusing on the adult-developmental foundations of 5 crucial organizational practices. A brief outline of the structure and content of the new book is posted below, together with pertinent contact information. The central topic of the book is how by strengthening the quality of team dialogue at three different developmental levels -- continuous improvement, value stream management, and business model transformation -- companies can increase their agility and integrate artificial intelligence methods into their functioning. In the concluding chapter, the hypothesis is advanced that to become 'humane', organizations need to be 'deliberately developmental' throughout to begin with. This entails that they need to resolve the Taylorism-inspired worker/IT dichotomy they have been living with and acting up since 1900. The book is in 7 chapters, each of them outlined in its content below. Parties interested in the book may contact the authors as indicated in the pdf below. High-level summary of Springer 'Practices' rev3 OL Read More...

Dieser Workshop der Firma Four Dimensions, Wien und Salzburg (), offeriert Personalverantwortlichen, Personalentwicklern, Beratern und Coachs eine Einfuehrung in Methoden fuer die Bestimmung des emotionalen und kognitiven Reifegrades von Individuen und Teams. Diese Methoden leiten sich aus Otto Laske’s Arbeiten am Interdevelopmental Institute (IDM), Gloucester, MA. her. Instruktoren sind Simone Rack, Rainer v. Leoprechting, und Otto Laske. Interessenten die an diesem Workshop teilnehmen wollen schreiben bitte an simone.rack@4dimensions.at Sketch of Workshop Agenda Wien Read More...

Much is made of teams these days, and rightfully so: they are the backbone of putting in place distributed leadership in organizations. New research offers a very straightforward hypothesis consisting of 3 parts: teams comprise different developmental levels, thus are "developmentally mixed" teams 'think': their work is based on analyzable and coachable movements-in-thought teams follow behavioral needs (and associated pressures on them) that are anchored in the psychological profile -- self concept, approach to tasks, emotional intelligence -- of their individual members. teams' 'meaning making' is more strongly "social" than "emotional", compared to individuals, and thus more strongly intertwined with the fluidity of their cognitive functioning. When you put these seemingly simple pieces together, as Jan De Visch and I have done in our recent book entitled "Dynamic Collaboration" found at --  you reap very sophisticated insights not only into how teams function but also into what you can do to make them work better. Read More...

For the longest time, teams have been managed, as well as researched, based exclusively on behaviorist tenets: the notion that by focusing on how team members "behave", their collaboration can be made more effective, even 'self authoring', or whatever the latest fad dictated. For the same long time, managers have spoken rather than listened, and if they listened, they only listened to the content of what team members were saying, -- rather than to the structure of team members' thinking, as well as their own, on which speaking is based. What is more, teams have been addressed only by way of purely logical thinking that turns whatever it encounters into an inert object (rather than acknowledging it as a living entity). As a result, the meaning of team work has been driven out of it, and only what team work descriptively "is" has remained standing, yielding predictably shallow team interventions. To change this counter-productive state of affairs is the purpose of Jan and Otto's book, entitled Dynamic Collaboration: Strengthening Self-Organization and Collaborative Intelligence in Teams (ConnectTransform & IDM Press 2018). They succeed at this by demonstrating in detail that behavior is only one dimension out of three that are relevant... Read More...