in this issue

Featured Article: Beyond the Muddle: A New Perspective on Social-Emotional Development By Otto Laske Gateway Turns Many Cherished Assumptions Upside Down A Comparison of Two Developmental IDM Certificates Introducing Case Study Mentoring Progress on the Translation of volume 1 of Measuring Hidden Dimensions IDM Winter/Spring Courses

FEATURED ARTICLE: “Beyond the Muddle: A New Perspective on Social-Emotional Development”

By Otto Laske

The Present State of Developmental Work

Since the 1970s, adult development has been increasingly researched not only regarding the growth of thinking (‘cognition’) but also of other, related strands of human behavior, such as emotion, value-based action, faith, spirituality, sensitivity to cultural differences and others. Regarding these lines of development a precedent was set in the 1970’s by J. Loevinger and R. Kegan. These two researchers established an arena of research where the emphasis fell on how adults make meaning of their own life, and position themselves toward the world at large.

For Loevinger (1976), this was a matter of introducing a strictly structural, assessment-based point of view of adult development in general. At the time, this was a very important step. For Kegan (who was then entering clinical practice) it was rather a matter of distinguishing between ‘affective’ (in the psychoanalytic sense) and ‘cognitive’ behavior and finding a “dialectical context” from which both of them emerge (1982, viii-ix, 83). Loevinger’s and Kegan’s precedent has stuck. As a consequence, those who today think developmentally largely orient themselves to either’s work.

Scant Reception of Research into Cognition

The crucial issues and methods of adult development have evolved since the seventies, as they should have. Today, we have a lot more knowledge about each of the strands that go into making up an ‘adult’. Especially insight into cognitive development has been deepened, but these new developments have had a scanty reception in today’s consulting, coaching, and leadership development fields. I have in mind especially the following four lines of research:

1. Basseches’s studies in dialectical thinking and its impact on adult development at large (1978 f.)
2. King and Kitchener’s studies on stages of reflective judgment (1977 f.).
3. M. Common’s (et al.’s) and K. Fischer’s studies on meta-systemic thinking (1980 f.)
4. Jaques’s studies in the cognitive stratification of organizations reflecting levels of adult cognitive development (1964 f.).

All of these researchers share a cognitive emphasis. They have pursued a ‘neo-Piagetian’ agenda focused on epistemology (theory of knowledge), a “dirty term” for some. In terms of their acceptance in the minds of educated people, especially consultants, they have been shortchanged by the emphasis on meaning making that was put in center place in the 1970s. This emphasis has become anachronistic. It is time to redefine the adult development research agenda, as I am attempting to do in volume 2 of Measuring Hidden Dimensions.

What has emerged as the prominent blind spot of present developmental consulting is the premature identification of social-emotional and cognitive development. To put it differently, the deep differences between these two lines of adult development have been disavowed, and the emphasis has fallen on volition and emotion, in contrast to thinking. As a result, insight into the relationship between social-emotional and cognitive development has not progressed. (One can only understand the relationship of two things if one first strictly separates them.) Referring to cognitive development as that of sense making, and to social-emotional development as that of meaning making, one can say that ever since the 1970s these two lines have been thoroughly MUDDLED due to loss of separation.

IDM Research

In my own thinking, teaching, and writing, since 2003 a threefold emphasis has emerged regarding this muddle:

• Strict separation of sense and meaning making for the sake of understanding their relationship better.
• Integration of Basseches’s, King and Kitchener’s, and Jaques’s research into a comprehensive theory of adult cognitive development.
• Hypothetical linking of sense and meaning making in consulting practice, based on my own assessment research.

I have become convinced over recent years that not separating sense and meaning making, or cognitive and ‘social-emotional’ lines of adult development, has become a hindrance not only to understanding their relationship on a deeper level, but also to acquiring a more holistic notion of human consciousness and its development in adults. While these two lines are developing within ONE consciousness, that consciousness is a highly complex network of developmental lines that at times lag behind, at times lead, the others.

A Possible Reason for the Developmental Muddle

I see the core of the muddle that has developed — which in my own mind I call the “Loevinger Fallacy” with all respect for Loevinger — in insufficient understanding and practice of dialectical thinking in the developmental-research community. This is a cultural issue having to do with the tradition of North American pragmatism. At the core of the muddle is a lack of the kind of thinking that Basseches’s 1984 book on “dialectical thinking and adult development” forcefully thematized twenty years ago. Basseches himself, now focused on clinical issues, has left behind his interest in organizational and sociological issues that were included in his studies of the late seventies. As a consequence, a move from individualistic to more socially relevant studies in adult cognition seems indicated today. Since presently developmental psychology has no (or little) interest in business, and business has no (or little) interest in developmental psychology, we are presently moving in a zone of academic self-indulgence.

The lack of dialectical thinking is shared even by those who today specialize in cognitive studies. This is astonishing since logical thinking naturally grows, not only into more complex logical, but also into dialectical, thinking. While this perspective is perhaps more “European” than “American”, it would seem to behoove American researchers to take more of an interest in dialectical thinking. (This is hard for them to do since dialectical thinking is rarely taught in the US.) As of now, their emphasis is strictly behavioral and without an understanding of the “dialectical context” (Kegan, 1982) from which both the cognitive and social-emotional lines of development derive. It is not enough to use the term ‘dialectic’. One needs to practice dialectical thinking and make it explicit.

Proposal as to How the Two Lines of Development May Relate

In volume 2 of Measuring Hidden Dimensions, I am attempting to clear up the muddle, making a first step toward integration of diverse cognitive studies. I do so with an organizational emphasis, attempting to do justice to the eminent role of epistemic development outlined by King and Kitchener (1994). Throughout, I see adult consciousness as a transformational system in the dialectical sense. Therefore, I hypothesize, based on my own empirical assessment findings, that cognitive development acts as a motor of social-emotional development which, in turn, enhances epistemic development that further feeds cognitive development, as shown below:

Fig. 1 – The Epistemic Interrelatedness of Social-Emotional Stage
and Phase of Cognitive Development

To put it differently, the nature of adult development (with regard to its two main strands) is such that cognitive scores are ‘leading indicators’ defining the process by which social-emotional shifts actually occur. These shifts, in turn, inform epistemic position (or stage of reflective judgment) which has an influence on further cognitive development. Gaps between social-emotional and cognitive scores signal the fact that individuals progress along the two trajectories in different ways, most often to the detriment of their life and work. Gaps between them are not mere ‘skill’ gaps (Fischer, 1980), however. They are the movers and shakers of human development as well as causes of developmental arrest and regression.

Facit

As Hannah Ahrendt shows in her brilliant book on The Life of the Mind (1971), the distinction between cognition seeking truth and ‘thinking’ seeking meaning is well established in Western philosophy. So is the distinction between volition (will) and judgment. It is time for the developmental sciences to take note of it.

Gateway Turns Many Cherished Assumptions Upside Down

By Otto Laske

Again and again, I hear from students who are taking, or have taken, the introductory IDM Gateway course that attending class seems to turn many assumptions they have held about their work and themselves upside down. As one student put it, “you are overthrowing the apple cart of my life”. I have asked myself why that might be so and here want to report a few findings about that, or rather some hypotheses.

By introducing to three different perspectives on “human being” and, having separated them clearly, providing the challenge of putting them together in a future case study, Gateway puts the “thinking”, “social”, and “psychological” Ego in relationship to each other as forming the unified transformational system shown below:

As a result, the student is challenged to see him- or herself as composed of many communicating agencies, with a focus on work rather than life. If s(he) has heretofore followed some notion of “personality”, Gateway provides a much more complicated picture and also a lot of detail, raising new questions.

Briefly, the psychological Ego is conceived along psychodynamic lines where the Ego’s task is to harmonize three potentially conflictual agencies called ID, Superego, and Social Reality. As Freud showed, the Ego, in pursuing this task is “in over its head”. In fact, it can do the job only since it is embedded in adult development. In this way, the Ego itself undergoes unceasing change that is simultaneously cognitive and social-emotional, linked by what in volume 2 I call the “epistemic” self that is defined by stages of reflective judgment. The distinctions Gateway makes between “meaning making”, “cognition” [aiming for truth], and judgment are all solidly rooted in the history of philosophy. In Gateway, they are addressed empirically, based on research findings, rather than speculatively.

When the student (who may be a coach, consultant, manager, mediator etc.) begins to look at his or her client in terms of the diagram above, the complexity of what s(he) is dealing with in work forcefully becomes apparent. This may be unsettling, as unsettling as having to think about oneself in the terms suggested above. (In fact, before one has thought about oneself in terms of these perspectives, one cannot apply them to clients.)

The ramifications of the hypothesis diagrammed above are far-reaching, both for writing an IDM case study, and for developing a practice guided by what we know today about each of the three (or four) dimensions shown above. In building a developmental practice, writing one or more case studies in Module D, E, or Program II is therefore a crucial step. The diagram above is an invitation to systemic thinking, and that is what is centrally learned at IDM.

A Comparison of IDM’s Two Developmental Certificates

By Otto Laske

“Developmental thinking” is a broad term. Since the Fall of 2007, IDM provides two pathways for learning to use developmental knowledge professionally:

• The Certificate of Developmental Assessment
• The Certificate of Developmental Interviewing and Supervision.

While both share a broad common base, the emphasis in the practical case study portion of Program One for each of these certificates is different. Below, I make the difference more clear.

All IDM certification is based on Gateway, the introductory course, and Modules A and B dealing with social-emotional and cognitive adult development, respectively. The difference between the two certificates lies in the exclusion of knowledge about psychological balance in the Interviewing Certificate. Excluding Module C leaves the practitioner without an objective knowledge base about clients’ behavior, except if other behavioral assessments are substituted for the Need/Press Questionnaire.

If you primarily want to interview and supervise clients in your consulting practice, the absence of clinical knowledge about their behavior — such as extreme needs in conflict with aspirations, or gaps between professional aspirations and workplace experience — may not matter to you. You will be able to “situate” your clients in a developmental landscape that not only regards their meaning making, but also the way they construct reality conceptually. This is one step beyond developmental coaching programs outside of IDM who are mainly social-emotionally oriented. Inclusion of the cognitive assessment enriches insight into how the client poses problems and acts upon his or her own problem formulations. If the client’s critical thinking deviates from his constructive thinking, or where there is an imbalance between ways of addressing different conceptual aspects of ill-structured problems, you can assist a client further. In supervision of any kind, this is as they say “invaluable” or a “must”. It makes you ponder whether as a knower the client is lagging behind, or surpassing, her development as a social being.

As shown by Module C, there is a facet of behavior that is crucial to know about regarding clients, and that is the psychological balance they maintain and the cost they incur for delivering work. Are a client’s subjective needs for integrity, safety, work efficiency, etc. in balance with the client’s aspirations? Does the client lose energy due to internal conflicts that never flows into the work itself? Is the client frustrated because her expectations and aspirations on the job are disappointed by what she actually experiences in the organizational environment she works in? Is the client “over-affiliating” with others to the detriment of her work discipline? All of these questions are addressed, and answers to them documented by empirical data by the Need/Press Questionnaire. As the name says, this questionnaire focuses attention on the gaps between internal needs and ‘press’ (pressures), whether these are internal (ideal press; aspirations) or external (actual press; corporate culture).

As a result of including study and practice of the Need/Press Questionnaire, those who obtain a Certificate of Developmental Assessment develop a broader view of their clients than those obtaining a Certificate of Developmental Interviewing and Supervision. They are able to scrutinize more deeply why a client may be stuck, inefficient, stressed, frustrated, or not working optimally. In particular, they are able to address such ‘clinical’ issues from a developmental perspective. Since Module D is supporting the writing of a single case study, Program Two provides opportunities for further practice in drawing the three assessment perspectives — Modules A, B, and C — together. By contrast, the Certificate of Developmental Interviewing requires 4 case studies up front.

Introducing Case Study Mentoring

IDM Case Study Mentoring supports students in completing one or more case studies. This happens by way of discussing case study strategy, logistics, and actual interview and questionnaire evaluation for the purpose of writing a feedback report, and giving feedback to volunteer interviewees.

Since experience has shown that the 8x2 hr sessions of Modules D and E are in most cases insufficient for putting in place even a single case study, not to speak of three additional ones for the Developmental Interviewing and Supervision Certificate, the IDM Director of Education now offers two kinds of Case Study Mentoring in 4-hr blocks:

• After Module C, in preparation of a Certificate of Developmental Assessment obtained by writing a case study in Module D (and possibly, Program II), thus before entering Module D.
• After Module E, in preparation of a Certificate of Developmental Interviewing and Supervision.

The first offering is referred as Mentoring I, the second as Mentoring II.

In each case, students book a four-hour block of time with the mentor to discuss their personal and professional issues in writing one or more case studies. Since the class is meant to further their individual projects, class attendance is restricted to 3 students, with a minimum of 2 participants. Students delayed in working on their first case study can also attend Mentoring I or II.

While in Mentoring I, the focus is placed on the integration of Module A, B, and C data, the focus in Mentoring II is on the actual ‘scoring’ of developmental interviews that have been done.

See http://interdevelopmentals.org/certification-mentoring.php

For further information, write to the Director of Education at IDM, Otto Laske, at otto@interdevelopmentals.org

Progress on the Translation of Volume 1 of Hidden Dimensions

For some time, those interested in developmental thinking have been asking for a translation into their native language of volume 1 of Measuring Hidden Dimensions. Since the subject matter of volume 1 is largely based on North-American research, learning it requires a different kind of thinking that your native German, French, or Spanish may endow you with, which is not to say that as an English speaker, you can absorb it without effort.

The status of the translations of volume 1 is presently as follows:

• A final version of the German translation by Rainer v. Leoprechting is expected in late summer of 2008.
• A final version of the French translation by Marie Garance Leroy is expected in early fall of 2008.
• The Spanish translation by Dr. Lina Ronquillo has begun.

In 2008, a revised edition of the English version of Measuring Hidden Dimensions volume 1 will also appear, to rid the book of remaining typos and errors.

Pro Action Europe, Brussels, Teaches IDM Courses

Pro Action Europe, Brussels, is the most advanced affiliate of IDM in Europe. This Winter and Spring, Rainer v. Leoprechting continues to teach IDM Gateway and Module A courses. A short description of Rainer’s endeavors is found below, together with information about his classes.

Pro Action Europe

Pro Action Europe is a community of professionals and public leaders founded by Rainer v. Leoprechting in 2002. It is its mission to promote the renewal of the public sphere in modern societies and the development of leadership within public initiatives and organizations in Europe and around the world. As Rainer writes: "For Pro Action, Otto Laske's work stands at the core of leadership development, which explains its central place in our learning cooperative." For details, see www.pro-action.eu.

Pro Action Europe Offerings, Winter/Spring 2008

New series of interdevelopmental learning workshops

Pro Action offers a fresh series of interdevelopmental learning opportunities! The Otto Laske Gateway Seminar starts on 4 February, 2008, in Brussels. More information here.

Integrative Thinking

Discover how adult thinking develops and how you can help your own cognitive development at this unique workshop in Brussels with Otto Laske in June of 2008. More information here.

The next dates of the Pro Action Café in Brussels

Please write a mail to proactioncafe@gmail.com and ask to receive the invitations!

IDMA US Gateway Course

Taught by Sunil Ahuja

This Winter and Spring, Sunil Ahuja continues teaching Gateway through Integral Transformation Systems. A short biography and picture of Sunil is found at IDM Associates.

For further information about content and dates, contact Sunil at sunil@integral-transformation.com. Phone: (480) 314-1983.

IDM 2008 Winter/Spring Courses

Courses Taught by Otto Laske

All classes are recorded for subsequent listening.

Course Descriptions

For IDM Certification Program overview and course descriptions see
http://interdevelopmentals.org/certification-overview.php

To register see http://interdevelopmentals.org/registration.php

For personal questions regarding study at IDM, write to info@interdevelopmentals.org
or call Dr. Otto Laske at 781.391.2361.

For keeping up to date on courses, subscribe to the IDM newsletter on the home page or go to IDM Ezine

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