Tag: DTF

My colleague and friend Jan De Visch has recently made enormous strides toward a 'dialogically savvy app', -- an app that triggers deep and critical thinking in order to foster dynamic collaboration. The app is accompanied by the Re-Thinking Game, an implementation of DTF, the Dialectical Thought Form Framework. DTF is an ideal framework for preparing yourself to become a Critical Facilitator because it enables a learner to acquire the skill of 'building complexity' with clients, a process by which clients become aware of the 'terrible simplification' they perform on the real world by way of logical thinking. Jan is an graduate of the Interdevelopmental Institute (IDM) where he learned to think in terms of the moments of dialectic and their thought forms (see the many blogs on this computer to learn more). Below, have a look at what Jan has to say about the difference between conventional and critical facilitation (facilitation based on critical thinking). In Jan's and my definition, the difference between a conventional facilitator and a 'critical facilitator' is the following: A facilitator functions from a 'participant perspective.' He looks at an organizational system as an outsider and intervenes in it to achieve certain objectives. S(he) is... Read More...

The Frankfurt School is well known, liked or not liked, due to its pervasive influence in the domain of culture critique. As on account of increasing threats to democracy its legacy is once more coming to the fore, there is a strong tendency to focus on the products and results of the school's activity while totally bypassing quite another legacy of the school, namely, rigorous teaching of complex, 'dialectical' thinking. In this blog, a veteran attendant of Frankfurt School Hauptseminars, directed by Max Horkheimer and Th. W. Adorno, from 1958 to 1966, Otto Laske, speaks up to remind those interested in the school of its huge promise for helping (young and young remaining) minds achieve new depths of reflection and circumspection, not only about society, but also about the cosmos at large and about themselves in their societal and ecological predicament. Otto Laske reviews the teachings of the school's Hauptseminar which focused on Hegel's Logic of 1812-16 as a vehicle for achieving fluid and holistic systemic thinking, more than ever needed in the world we live in, which we created without much further thought about the consequences of our actions supported by fabulous technologies. Taking a measure of Hauptseminar teaching... Read More...

The future of work is not a topic for logical thinking as much as it is one for revamping logical into complex, 'dialectical', thinking. The difference between the two is explained and exercised in a workshop in Brussels whose program can be downloaded here. If interested in this workshop, held on January 18, 2019, near Brussels, write to [email protected], my co-author of a book on collaborative intelligence of teams entitled "Dynamic Collaboration" (2018). In the downloadable attachment, the program is commented upon from a dialectical-thinking point of view by Otto Laske. Program Jan 18 2019 Brussels Read More...

In this wide-ranging interview, Robin W. helpfully challenges me to answer questions that arise regarding DTF, the Dialectical Thought Form Framework, and developmental consulting to indiviuals and teams based on a dialogical and constructivist viewpoint generally.  In rereading the interview, I have here and there slightly edited my answers to Robin's question. In addition, I have supplied an answer regarding his question about "power", which I see rooted in monological rather than dialogical thinking. My thanks once more to Robin Wood for his excellent questions. Interview with Otto Laske in ILR May 2018 AS Read More...

It is almost 20 years ago that, following Argyris' research on theory-in-use vs. espoused theory, I began to show that both of these personal 'theories' are rooted in adult development over the life span. I began to take these personal ideologies apart into their social-emotional and cognitive dimensions and showed that they are intrinsically related. Today, what Argyris was addressing is seen rather differently, namely as the core of what Jaques (1998) called Role vs. Self and what nearly 20 years later Kegan/Lahey (2016) called Job 1 vs. Job 2. In both cases, a person's organizational role and functioning is set against the person's integrity and developmental agenda. While Jaques saw Self (Job 2) as cognitive, Kegan/Lahey see it as social-emotional. And the two never met! I and my co-author, Jan De Visch, show in a recent book on teams (see ), that Job 1 and 2 are intrinsically intertwined. We shall further that wherever Job 2 -- the individual's or team's concern with their own integrity and safety -- overwhelms Job 1, distributed leadership, which is based on work in circles, breaks down. It never occurred to the worshipers of 'competence' that this concept is intrinsically linked to that... Read More...

In these two articles of 2002/03, I warned that competence models provide a view of human resources that is too limited to make possible organizational survival, not to speak of innovation, in the digital economy. The two articles below remind us how long it took for this message to sink in. In coaching and mentoring, the message is still kept in abeyance, however neurolinguistically dressed up they now present themselves. 2002_Laske_Otto_Human_Resources_Beyond_Domain_Competence 2003_Laske_Otto_Capability: A_New_Data_Type Read More...