Tag: Otto Laske

The way we encounter the world is anchored in our ways of attending to it. They not only change the relationship we have to the world we unceasingly construct; they also fundamentally determine the world we encounter. Thinking in language when untutored in dialectical linking puts us under the control of left-hemisphere, logical, thinking, -- a mode of being now rampant that constrains the quality of our life and creative work. For this reason, we are in need of re-socializing ourselves through building up in our mind new ways of listening, speaking, writing, 'thinking', reading, communicating, coaching, and facilitating. To further re-socialization in adults, IDM is launching 5-months long practica of dialectical thinking.  The next Practicum starts at the end of November 2020. For details, see and Since nobody can learn news ways of being from books but only through supervised practice, IDM Practica are structured in terms of a sequence of activities carried out by members of small cohorts of 4-6 participants mentored by Otto Laske, originator of the Dialectical Thought Form Framework. Have a look at the structure of the Practicum at the first link below and learn about the correspondence of Practicum Activities and Learning Targets at... Read More...

Self-development, in capitalistic society a mere appendix of professional education for the sake of playing an organizational role, is increasingly making a comeback as a personal goal. This come-back seemed out of the question until recently, being an outcome of attempts to consciously reverse the demise of liberal education by which universities reduced themselves to trade schools and job preparation camps. The factors involved in the re-emergence of me-first education are many, including the pandemic’s destruction of the conventional work world and gains in the social media/AI link. While still acknowledged only half-heartedly as to their importance, these factors together form the springboard from which new self-developmental curricula will emerge. Job and role holders, whose skills' half-life is shrinking by the day, are gradually realizing that managerially supported schemes of self-development are ploys intent on hindering taking full responsibility for one’s own development in the normative sense of adult development. Research at the Interdevelopmental Institute (IDM) since 2000, as well as the Institute's teaching practice of “develop yourself first” have made visible the deep interweaving of emotional and intellectual maturity, referred to in its Constructive Developmental Framework (CDF) as the interleaving of social-emotional and cognitive levels of adult development. That... Read More...

Increasingly, the issues on which the survival of our civilization depends are 'wicked' in the sense of being more complex than logical thinking alone can make sense of and deal with. Needed is not only systemic and holistic but dialectical thinking to achieve critical realism. Dialectical thinking has a long tradition both in Western and Eastern philosophy but, although renewed through the Frankfurt School and more recently Roy Bhaskar, has not yet begun to penetrate cultural discourse in a practically effective way. We can observe the absence of dialectical thinking in daily life as much as in the scientific and philosophical literature. To begin to change this situation, Otto Laske, who comes from the Frankfurt School and has renewed dialectical thinking in Measuring Hidden Dimensions of Human Systems (2008) and Dialectical Thinking for Integral Leaders: A Primer (2015), is offering an intense practicum for thinkers and members of think tanks inside and outside of organizations, as well as members of organizations and consultants. He is using a mentoring approach in which mentees take responsibility for each other's work as in an organizational team, offering a safe and open space in which practical as well as visionary people can come together... Read More...

On September 17, 2020, 110 professionals from 35 countries met to pay tribute to the power of developmental and dialectical thinking as taught at the Interdevelopmental Institute by Otto Laske. 15 practitioners of international provenance spoke about how the Constructive Developmental Framework (CDF), established by Otto Laske in 1998-1999, has been instrumental in their professional work as consultants, managers, and coaches, and has in addition influenced their adult-developmental journey. Gathered through efforts by Jan De Visch, a Master Developmental Consultant and Coach who graduated from IDM in 2010, the speakers demonstrated that CDF has emerged as a powerful tool for aiding companies on their way to fully distributed leadership and to reaching a requisite level of agility and dynamic collaboration. The application of CDF to psychiatry and theological leadership education was also a topic. Otto Laske would like to acknowledge how inspirational it was for him to witness that and how CDF "lives" in its practitioners' daily work. He is honored by their tribute, which in his view is also a tribute to initiatives aiming to expand the narrow limits of present-day adult development research and consulting into the broader realm of real-time dialogue and dialectical thinking, on the path... Read More...

In this chapter for volume 2 of Meta-Theory dedicated to the memory of Bhaskar, delayed in its publication since 2014 and forthcoming at Routledge at the end of 2020,  I outline a dialectical epistemology and CDF teaching method for absorbing Bhaskar's legacy into integral thinking. I do so since both are presently absent from the integral community's work that has shown itself immune not only to dialectical thinking based on Baskar's MELD itself, but also to new developments in adult-developmental theory set forth at on this site. In nuce, in this text I outline the IDM 'Case Study Cohort Method' taught since 2005 and geared to educating professionals for the sake of becoming a 'master developmental coach or consultant'. In this chapter, I suggest that adopting this method or a suited variant of it would facilitate integral training and practical interventions in society and organizational work. See for yourself. Laske Chapter on Application of Bhaskar's Meld 2020   Read More...

Team collaboration has become a pivot of organizational success. If people had an intuitive awareness of the structure of their thinking, team work would be a lot more effective since a greater mutual understanding and decision making would prevail. Such an awareness being absent, what meta-cognitive strategies can we use to heighten such an awareness? As the book 'Practices of Dynamic Collaboration' shows, a very effective strategy consists of  intentionally listening and speaking based on dialectical 'thought forms'. Discover how the collaborative intelligence paradigm derived from Laske's Dialectical Thought Form Framework works when applied in five crucial organizational practices seen as dialogue practices. Sign up for partaking of introductory sessions on team dialogue practices at: Also view literature links at , Section A, and pertinent teaching materials in Section B. For IDM Services, go to https://interdevelopmentals.org/services/ Read More...