Tag: Thought Forms

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...

In a time of increasing digitization of human resources and their management it is urgent to explain the limits of replacing human intelligence by algorithmic intelligence, or molding the use of human intelligence by algorithms. What is required is not only a deeper understanding of the human capability for work delivery, but the intrinsic limits of boosting work delivery algorithmically given the nature of human intelligence, attention and accountability. In this new preface to the second edition of my 2008 publication of Measuring Hidden Dimensions of Human Systems (MHD2) I highlight the many new concepts this publication introduced almost 10 years ago. I want to promote deeper insight into the nature of human action logic compared to algorithmic logic, and the need for strengthening human action logic by way of deliberately developmental processes, both social-emotional and cognitive. The volume demonstrates that work delivery becomes possible in individuals as well as teams by the mind's construction of an “internal workplace”  that accounts for both motivation for work and conceptual clarity in delivery of work. As shown in the book, the internal workplace is influenced by both the social-emotional and psychological dimensions of personality combined with the level of thinking complexity at... Read More...

Can you imagine being part of a dialog in which you not only listen to what your interlocutor is saying but also to the underlying structure of his or her thinking?  If you had knowledge of the thought form structure of human sense making, this way of listening, called “dialectical”, would enable you to point to what is missing (absent) both in your own and others’ verbal communication. It would thereby help you deepen your and others' thinking in real-time dialog. Your critical listening would then not be restricted to content but would equally focus on underlying thought structures used by your interlocutors. In a team and group context, you would be able to point to interlocutors’ thought gaps in a compassionate, inter-developmental, way. Such gaps are not “academic”. They are more serious than that since they translate into gaps between how people think and how reality works. It is this kind of dialog that the present article introduces. The article paves the way for an intelligent reading and teaching of the Manual of Dialectical Thought Forms (DTFM), which in the near future will become available in pdf form on this website under Publications. The article introduces cutting-edge thinking tools... Read More...

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...

Reviews of my work on dialectical thinking since 1999 are far and few between and have been long in coming. This delay has to do with the fact that my work on this topic responds directly to Bateson's perceptive view that "the major problems in the world (today) are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think" (as quoted in this paper). Bateson's perspective, much detailed philosophically by Roy Bhaskar, is a view of no interest in the present, entirely logic-based, global economy and its associated cognitive and social sciences. In this clear and incisive article, John Stewart, organizer of the First Planning Meeting for the Second Enlightenment, explains in more detail why the topic of dialectical thinking touches upon the issue of the evolution of the human race and may well concern its survival. John Stewart on vol. 2 and Primer Read More...

There is a vast lack of knowledge about how one's own level and phase of development as an adult uncanningly and forcefully causes the kind of suffering one feels most keenly. This short article is meant as a pointer to what is missing in all of the "helping" literature and the well-meant helping activities in a society which continues to be characterized by master-slave relationships in a multitude of forms. What is everybody losing out on     Read More...