A Short Review of DTFM, the Dialectical Thought Form Manual (2017)

This Spring, the second editions of Laske's Measuring Hidden Dimensions: Foundations of Requisite Organization (2008) as well as its associated Manual of Dialectical Thought Forms (2008) appears under Publications on this site. Both publications can be downloaded for a nominal price at While the first text, referred to as MHD2, introduces crucial concepts for managing the digitization of business and grasp the challenges posed by new, non-hierarchical organization designs, the Manual is a much needed set of tools for "meta-thinking". Meta-thinking, or "thinking about thinking", is not a philosophical past-time but rather a way of thinking critically and complexly. Using Meta-thinking, what is said, the content of a communication, can be reflected upon, critiqued, and elaborated in terms of the quality and complexity of thinking that gave rise it. Imagine you work with a real or virtual team and are focusing on enhancing collaborative intelligence: what better tool could you possibly wish for? For instilling meta-thinking in individuals or teams, it is helpful to know where DTFM comes from. This is spelled out in some detail in the 2017 Acknowledgements recently written by Otto Laske who speaks to the history and relevance of this priceless tool for "agile" and "hyper-"... Read More...

A New Era Begins at the Interdevelopmental Institute, Gloucester, MA, USA (IDM)

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...

Press Release for Otto Laske’s New Book “Dialectical Thinking for Integral Leaders: A Primer”

To appear in July 2015 at Integral Publishers Integral Publishers (integralpublishers.com) and Otto Laske, Director of the Interdevelopmental Institute (www.interdevelopmentals.org), have joined forces in order to publish a book demonstrating by examples how leaders of large forums, organizations, institutions and board of directors can quickly acquire patterns of thinking that hinder them from getting stuck in seeing the world in purely static, “logical”, terms. Leaders have long yearned for ways of excelling in focusing their thinking on processes, relationships, and patterns of transformation that reflect the complexity and incessant change that is their daily bread. Especially when working with teams, leaders have worked hard to create collaborative intelligence, by exercising ways of thinking that, while logical, transcend formal logical identity thinking by integrating “what does not fit”. Rather than wanting to fall back into orthodox systems thinking, they have craved thinking tools that are as transformational as the world in which they have to act. Leaders need to search no further. Author Otto Laske has first-hand experience with schooling thought leaders in a new way of breaking down barriers of complexity and thereby making complexity manageable. In his book Dialectical thinking for integral leaders: A primer (2015, 130 pp.) he... Read More...