BOOK REVIEWS 2006-2007

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Short Description

Designed to comprise three volumes, the book’s first volume introduces the reader to a developmentally based model of professional consultation. Building on the work of Michael Basseches, Elliott Jaques, Robert Kegan, Edgar Schein, and Ken Wilber, the author concentrates on what for many years Edgar Schein has addressed as Process Consultation (PC), a mode of helping that is distinguished from both the ‘expert’ and the ‘doctor-patient’ models of helping.

In PC, it is the task of the professional to consult to the client’s mental process, rather than delivering solutions or diagnoses per se. Taking these three models of consultation into account and analyzing them developmentally, Laske introduces a fourth model, developmentally grounded process consultation (or DPC). DPC addresses helping processes as delivered by consultants, HR and OD professionals, social workers, mediators, coaches, lawyers, and clinical and social psychologists. In most general terms, then, Laske’s book is a developmentally based theory of professional helping. It makes full use of adult-developmental research since about 1970.

The book’s three volumes are all equally based on assessments conceived as interventions, not ‘tests.’ The volumes are anchored in the structure of Laske’s Program One instruction at the Interdevelopmental Institute. As in the IDM certification program of this title, the book unfolds three distinct perspectives on clients which are brought together and synthesized in the fourth step (volume), namely:

1. social-emotional assessment (volume 1)
2. cognitive assessment (volume 2)
3. behavioral assessment; synthesis of the three perspectives in IDM case studies (volume 3)

All three volumes are designed as workbooks for students who are in the process of acquiring the skills of developmental thinking. In volume 4, a number of in-depth case studies by Laske himself and his students are presented.

Of the three volumes, only the first is presently ready for publication. (The subsequent volumes are expected to appear during 2007&150;2008 at IDM Press). The first volume’s Table of Contents is as follows:

While the book chapters of volume 1 present details of the social-emotional assessment framework, the Appendix is entirely devoted to applications of the book’s Constructive Developmental Framework (CDF). Equal attention is given to the art of listening and the science of scoring developmental interviews. Throughout, the book highlights the task of developmentally based consultants, to master the hidden dimensions of natural language as a medium of developmental self-revelation. The Appendix comprises exercises (A), three coaching case studies (B), the developmental study of a team (C), and a short introduction to assessing human capital company-wide, or Capability Management. The first three chapters introduce to adult-developmental stage theory based on R. Kegan’s work, with equal attention paid to listening and text analysis. Chapter 4 is an analysis of ‘active listening’ and is the basis of chapter 7, on developmental interviewing. In chapters 5 and 6, the framework of four ‘main’ stages is further differentiated through an introduction of ‘intermediate’ stages, thereby enabling the consultant to refine developmental diagnoses within a framework of 16 different stages. The book’s teachings up to chapter 7 are put to the test in chapter 8 which presents a complete analysis of a three-page interview fragment, in order to exemplify the scoring of interviews in terms of developmental stage structure. Chapter 9, finally, is a theory of coaching and its limits, based on the distinction between different coaching levels.

The Appendix completes the topic of social-emotionally based process consultation. Apart of the exercises (A) – some with, some without answers – section B presents three case studies of coaching clients, including recommended coaching strategy. Section C introduces a developmental typology of teams meant to predict the team’s dynamic. Finally, Section D of the Appendix provides an elementary introduction to the use of Capability Metrics for use in HR and OD human resources management.

In its entirety, Laske’s book exemplifies his teaching, that of a developmentally based theory of process consultation equally focused on life and work, but emphasizing the world of work.

Integral Leadership Review

Volume VII, No. 2 - March 2007

Kalman's Kosmos - Matthew Kalman

Otto Laske. Measuring Hidden Dimensions - The Art and Science of Fully Engaging Adults. Medford, MA: Interdevelomental Institute Press, 2006.

This feels like a book of considerable power, focus, honesty and splendour - and it’s also not for the faint-hearted. It’s tempting to say, simply, that you will want to buy this book if you have any wish to learn to administer and interpret the ‘Subject-Object Interview’ (SOI) developed by Integral Institute founder member Prof. Robert Kegan and his colleagues. The SOI can discern which of 5 levels of consciousness (meaning-making) is one’s centre of gravity. Laske focuses on stage 2, or S-2, (instrumental) and upwards to S-3 (other-dependent), S-4 (self-authoring) and S-5 (self-aware).

This Kegan-based levels assessment handbook is at the heart of this volume—but it offers rather more than that alone in its attempt to “demystify adult development” and link it “directly to your professional and private life”. In other words, it’s far beyond merely a derivative of Lahey, Kegan et al’s 1988 A Guide to the Subject-Object Interview: its administration and interpretation. What you also get with Measuring Hidden Dimensions is a discussion of the need for evidence-based coaching, as it is “a field that presently has no theoretical foundations”— plus a call to calculate “Coaching ROI” based on developmental change. Laske warns that coaching a client at a higher developmental level may be unethical. Also discussed are different ‘theories of helping’ and the likely problems between clients and practitioners depending on their relative levels (“level of self development of the helper is the singularly most important key to success in assisting others”).

Laske is quick to point out the prevalence of ‘espousal’—using language from a higher level that one does not truly inhabit. “[W]hen somebody lets you know about what a great leader s(he) is, you know you are listening to an espousal of S-5, not the real thing!” he warns. While providing one example of his work with a client, Laske is particularly keen on “cutting down on espousals of spirituality”.

Other developmental researchers who make appearances through the book include Wilber, Graves, Loevinger, Cook-Greuter and Jaques (along with Harvard Business School management guru Chris Argyris). Laske previews the three further volumes set to accompany this one: volume 2 (due in August) deals with the cognitive perspective, volume 3 the behavioural perspective (via the Henry Murray/Morris Aderman Need/Press Analysis questionnaire) and volume 4 is a synthesis of the three perspectives in the form of case studies. (Laske certainly has his work cut out!)

The heart of the book, then, is the Subject-Objective Interview—an hour-long conversation with a client around a number of prompts, for example “Success”, “Changed”, “Control”, “Taking Risks”, and “Strong Stand/Conviction”. The interviewer will be listening for signs of the likely possible stages of the client and using questions (“probes”) to gradually narrow down their centre of gravity (though an overall profile may span across three, even sometimes five, levels). In other words, it is a form of hypothesis-testing, of experimenting— “provoking people to reveal their Center of Gravity is the core of what is called developmental interviewing.”

Interviews are recorded, transcribed and the sections that show evidence of the person’s stage structure (rather than just mere content) are used on a coding sheet as evidence to determine centre of gravity. This hand scoring is “the royal road of understanding and giving feedback to adult clients”, though internet-based scoring is “a project that is in the works”. Laske points out that “the art of developmental listening, interviewing and scoring” needs more than a book; it needs learning in a group from an instructor (he mentions his own Interdevelopmental Institute’s courses). Indeed this book is in something of a course handbook style, with chapter reflections/exercises at the end of each chapter. As recently came up on the London Integral Circle discussion list—won’t any late/complex stage individual have the capacity within them anyway to discern the stage of a client from merely everyday conversation? Laske believes not: “In everyday, ‘open’ conversation it is very difficult, if not impossible, to carry out developmental hypothesis testing”.

In depicting the results of an SOI assessment, Laske suggests creating a Risk-Clarity-Potential Index, which depicts an individual’s likely centre of gravity—along with the next stage they may reach (“Potential”) and the stage they may fall back to (“Risk”).

Overall, Laske aims to offer us a theory of professional helping in the sense of a “process consultation”, a “consultation to the client’s mental process” (drawing from Edgar Schein’s work)—though in fact it is a “developmentally deepened” application of this.

Throughout the book, the author describes the ins and outs of working with clients at different levels, or of working as practitioners (coaches, consultants etc) at particular levels. When the professional help offered comes from the other-dependent Stage 3 “the practitioner is at constant risk of collusion with the goals and ideology of the client, under the guise of being helpful.” This S-3 practitioner assumes shared values and disregards “the developmental uniqueness of the client”. This pracitioner defines him or herself by physical and internalised Others.

The shift from other-dependent Stage 3 to self-authoring Stage 4 is difficult—“No wonder, then, that the individuals at S-4 quite naturally become wholly identified with their own cherished set of values and principles that have sustained them through the difficult and lonely journey that lies behind them.” Self-authoring individuals have a hard time viewing the self critically, as they are dependent on their self-generated value system for the integrity of their self—they are “unable to stand away from that integrity” —and thus find it difficult to move beyond single-loop learning. Elaborating his depiction of self-authoring practitioners, Laske writes: “as a change agent I act according to norms excluding multiple perspectives, intent on shaping my group and organisation in harmony with my own principles”. He or she will seek to change an organisation “in directions approximating their own personal ‘institution’, rather than one more universally self-sustaining”. In the shift from self-authoring to self-aware, “The issue at stake really is how far I am prepared to experience a loss of self that will occur if I give up my splendour and splendid isolation….This entails exposure of my limitations to others, especially intimates”.

Laske offers a lot of rich material relating the Kegan levels to coaching, which will carry over to many other forms of helping. Some higher level coaches may have to work below their usual stage, he warns, and must avoid the temptation to impose a level of meaning-making the client is not capable of. This may overextend the client—as the coach could have forgotten about the painfulness of the loss of internal others at stage 3 and of self beyond stage 4. Laske offers a (developmentally-informed) typology of coach-client relationships, showing, for instance, which of them are likely to be developmentally counter-productive. He believes that “developmental assessment needs to become mandatory in the process of coaching certification” because of the harm that can be done to clients with a higher centre of gravity. “[C]oaches have an ethical responsibility to know their developmental stage”, he concludes. “Coaching a client residing at a higher developmental level (than the consultant) may be unethical, since it may developmentally constrain and retard the client”. It’s great to hear some candid reflections from Laske’s own work as a coach: “I know I prefer clients who have made it beyond S-4, simply because that is the point where they have themselves begun to ‘deconstruct’ their splendid success story”. He also discusses whether Socrates was the first developmental coach!

The appendices briefly show the use of the other two tools that Laske recommends to be used to give the full, actionable picture of a client, i.e. cognitive and behavioural views (even though the behavioural are very much secondary, he believes). A chapter on “Developmental issues of team dynamics” describes the differences between unified teams, “upwardly divided” teams and “downwardly divided” teams.

Some minor queries I have about Laske’s approach include his depiction of subtle oscillations between those stages where people lean towards wanting to be independent and those where they want to be included. This helix-like pattern running up between stages in adult development was included in Kegan’s first book, The Evolving Self (and is also seen in Spiral Dynamics)—but Kegan discusses why he dropped the helix image in his later book In Over Our Heads. He now believes he was confused when he used it in the earlier book. Each level of consciousness can in fact favour either of the two fundamental longings (as Ken Wilber would himself later state in his solution to this agency/communion and levels conundrum (‘Sidebar C: Orange and Green: Levels or Cousins?’), with its description of John Wayne, the “agentic Blue” value-meme cowboy. Though Laske states, “Stage 5 is the limit social science research has so far reached”, he does also mention that “there is ongoing research that leads beyond it (e.g., Cook-Greuter, 1999)”—but “in this book, we will stay with Kegan’s theory”. I notice a number of instances where Laske begins to use the language from Cook-Greuter’s Construct/Ego-aware and Unitive stages. The whole issue of how Kegan’s SOI relates to its close-ish cousin, Jane Loevinger’s and Susanne Cook-Greuter’s sentence completion test is not broached (nor is Elliot Jaques’ complexity of mental processing interview). Kegan and Lahey themselves write that their SOI is “far more cumbersome than the efficient SCT” [pg 41, Personality Development].

The SOI is “expensive and time-consuming” concluded one paper on leadership development in the US military. “Unless and until more efficient assessment strategies are devised, research studies on the Kegan developmental framework are likely to be few and include a small number of subjects”. The paper briefly discusses self-report tools, such as the “Defining Issues Test” (for moral development) as possible examples of ways to solve this problem. Certainly the various post-Maslowian levels assessment tools created by Dr. Brian Hall, Richard Barrett http://integralleadershipreview.com/archives/2006_10/2006_10_kalman.html or Pat Dade can be far quicker than either SCT or SOI but of course will have their own strengths and weaknesses. Interestingly, OECD research on key competencies for the 21st century drew strongly on a contribution from Prof. Kegan, where he stressed the gap between existing current capacity and the self-authoring (stage 4) requirements of 21st century competencies. As part of this project the Director of Social and Institutional Statistics, Statistics Canada, T. Scott Murray talked about the need for future assessments in the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey to include reliable measures of level of mental complexity for use in a household survey context (I don’t know if progress has been made on this).

Kegan’s conclusions to this OECD project I find pretty memorable: “More than half of even advantaged adults may not yet possess the level of mental complexity that would equip them to enact successfully the competencies we suggest are necessary for adults in the 21st century.” The gap I suggest -- between the mental demands implicit in our suggested competencies and the mental capacities of the "student" -- actually provides a heretofore missing intellectual foundation for the purposes of adult or lifelong education that is as strong as the foundation which exists for the education of the young – namely, education not merely for the acquisition of skills or an increase in one's fund of knowledge, but education for development, education for transformation. Some people feel that the SOI offers far more depth, nuance and richness than the SCT (once you take into account the 5 gradations between each level, for instance). I’ve heard it suggested that SCT scores perhaps come out higher, one person even thought artificially high for certain stages (and there is surely an issue of espousal in the integral milieu, which complicates matters). Fitzgerald and Berger’s Executive Coaching: Practices & Perspectives includes a number of contributors successfully using Kegan in their coaching (including a co-author of the 1988 SOI manual).

One nit-picking point to add is that Laske’s term “Social-Emotional Development” might not really be inclusive enough to describe Kegan’s model of increasing complexity of mind/meaning-making (and Kegan’s model does itself include a cognitive line of development; these particular distinctions will likely be clarified by Laske’s upcoming volumes).

A (favourable) review of this book by Prof David Clutterbuck (in International Journal of Coaching and Mentoring) notes that it is “the densest, most difficult book on coaching I have ever worked through”—which isn’t surprising as it’s drawing particularly on a 433-page SOI interview guide and Kegan’s dense but rewarding books. Let that be a second warning that you’re going to have to really pay attention, if you read this book.

I’m also personally intrigued by the implications of Laske’s comment that “less than 10 per cent become self-aware (level 5) and can lead”. If only it were just the self-aware who became our leaders—but what happens in organisations when the leadership positions are filled by individuals with centres of gravity below self-aware level 5?

References

Bartone, P., Forsythe, G., Snook, S., Bullis, R. and Lewis, P.(2001), “Leader development at the US Military Academy, West Point: New directions in programs, theory and research,” Leader Development in Military Officers: International Perspectives on Policy, Practice and Research. Baltimore, MA: Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society, October.

Cook-Greuter, S. (1999). Postautonomous Ego Development: A Study of its Nature and Measurement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

Fitzgerald, C and Berger, J. (2002). Executive Coaching - Practices & Perspectives. Palo Alto, CA: Davies-Black Publishing. Kegan, R ,(2001). Competencies as Working Epistemologies: Ways We Want Adults to Know in D. Rychen & L. Salganik (eds.), Defining and Selecting Key Competencies Gottingen, Germany: Hogrefe & Huber, pp.192-204.

Kegan, R, Lahey, L, and Souvaine, E, ‘From Taxonomy to Ontogeny: Thoughts on Loevinger’s Theory in Relation to Subject-Object Psychology’ in Westernberg, P., Blasi, A., and Cohn, L. (1988). Personality Development - Theoretical, Empirical, and Clinical Investigations of Loevinger’s Conception of Ego Development. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Lahey, L, Souvaine, E, Kegan, R, Goodman, R and Felix, S, (1988). A Guide to the Subject-Object Interview: Its Administration and Interpretation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Westernberg, P., Blasi, A., and Cohn, L. (1988). Personality Development - Theoretical, Empirical, and Clinical Investigations of Loevinger’s Conception of Ego Development. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Matthew Kalman MA (matthewkalman@yahoo.com) is a founder member of the Integral Institute (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Londonintegralcircle/), and launched the London Integral Circle in 2000. The group has hosted Integral Institute founder members including Susanne Cook-Greuter, Don Beck, John Rowan, and Rabbi Michael Lerner at events attracting up to 300 people.

He has worked with Henley Management College to develop the first model of Integral Knowledge Management. Matthew works as a media professional and lives with his family in London, England.

Review, International Journal of Coaching and Mentoring, UK.

By Prof. David Clutterbuck

Measuring Hidden Dimensions: The Art and Science of Fully Engaging Adults
Otto Laske, Medford, MA, Interdevelopmental Institute Press, 2006

It’s not often that I read a book on coaching twice in rapid succession. Indeed, there are a lot of books on coaching that I give up on before I’ve even read them once, because they are trite, uninformative or unhelpful. Otto Laske’s Measuring Hidden Dimensions is without doubt the densest, most difficult book on coaching I have ever worked through. It is almost impossible to read in other than short, repeated chunks. Its compelling, well-structured arguments and practical examples place the book well into my top ten for relevance, depth and usefulness.

Laske’s basic argument is that both coaches and their clients are adults, who have achieved a level of maturity in both their cognitive and socio-emotional development. The higher the level of maturity the coach has reached, the wider the range of their potential to help – as long as they are able to recognise and work with the client’s own level of maturity. An unrecognised mismatch of maturity level is likely to place severe restraints on the coach’s ability to help and the opportunities for the client to use the learning relationship to make significant progress in their thinking and behaviour.

The core of the book (the first in a planned series aimed at helping coaches build their competence in assessing and working with their own and their clients’ developmental levels) is a detailed analysis of how to assess how a client constructs his or her view of the world. Building on the work of Robert Kegan (1982) and Ed Schein (1999), Laske deconstructs the five known levels of human development, with particular emphasis on the three highest levels, which relate to adulthood. These levels differ in how people view others, how much self-insight they have, the nature of the values they hold, the predominant needs they feel, their need to control their environment, and how they perceive their roles in organisations.

The role of the coach, in this analysis, involves helping the client move from one level to another, so that they can tackle their issues with greater maturity and perspicacity. Moving between levels involves subsets of thinking patterns, in which they may be partly resident in one level and partly in the next highest. The spread of the client’s maturity provides clues as to which sub-level they are currently grounded in.

Laske examines these transitions through discussion of the theory, followed by detailed conversations, in which the reader is invited to work out for himself or herself what levels are represented by the client’s statements. In effect, he provides a template for effective listening, with the purpose of identifying significant language and assessing what each significant statement indicates about the maturity of the client’s thinking. He presents a pragmatic system of ordering these assessments, which helps the coach establish the client’s “centre of gravity” (the level of maturity they are currently grounded in), the risk (where they may slip back into less mature thinking) and the potential (what sub-level they could move up to as their next centre of gravity).

As an introduction to the subject, Measuring Hidden Dimensions does not give all the answers in the sense of teaching coaches how to structure their conversations with clients, who are at a particular developmental level. Nor does it provide much guidance to the coach, who wants to raise his or her own developmental level. It also skirts around the ethical issues. For example, is it possible and appropriate to be an effective supervisor of coaches, without being at least one level above them, except when both are at the highest level of development? Should the accreditation of coaches depend in part on an impartial assessment of their developmental level, to ensure that they operate within the bounds of that level?

Typographical errors and a rather limited index are minor irritants, but they do not detract from the intensity and value of the book as a whole.

In short, Laske’s stimulating book opens up a can of worms for the coaching profession as a whole. There will be many practising coaches, who will wish this topic had never been raised and – I hope – many others, who will embrace the concepts enthusiastically.

(Prof.) David Clutterbuck

References

Kegan, R (1982) The evolving self, Cambridge, MA, Harvard

Schein, E (1999) Process consultation revisited, Reading, MA, Addison-Wesley

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What's Hot About This Work?

By Lorraine St. Marie, St. Paul University, Ottawa, Canada

Otto Laske is a developmental and organizational psychologist as well as a prolific writer, particularly in mentoring and developmental coaching. In this book, Laske addresses two concerns for the field of coaching; first, the predominant influence by behavorists, and secondly, the absence of a clear theory base and coherent vocabulary. This is an e-book, the first of four volumes which together form one complete book. Its main purpose is to present both the theory and practice of developmental process consultation as a form of professional helping. In this volume, Laske examines the social-emotional perspective of mental growth and offers a research-based methodology for developmental interviewing and assessment. In subsequent volumes, Laske focuses on the cognitive and behavioral domains of adult development. All four volumes are necessary to fully grasp Laske's methodology and investigation into human consciousness.

Laske uses psychological constructive-development as the basis for a measurement tool for assessing and communicating clients' meaning making as the source of their behaviours and attitudes. This tool reveals and measures the hidden dimensions-the unconscious meaning making systems-which are the source of clients' issues and counter-productive behaviors. As the title of the book suggests, fully engaging adults is both an art and a science; art as learnable skills interviewing and developmental feedback, and science as qualitative research with specific research questions and methodology.

Primarily addressed to experienced consultants and coaches, this book builds on a number of concepts and theories of adult development, psychology, social science, leadership and organizational development. Practitioners, who are well versed in these fields, will find themselves at home in the works of Edward Schein, Chris Argyris, Robert Kegan, Lisa Laskow Lahey, E. Jaques and Ken Wilbur. Although Laske gives clear explanations of how he uses theory, some previous background in Kegan's orders of consciousness and Lahey's research in object-relations interviews will enable the reader to more readily grasp the intricacy of Laske's method for listening and assessment. His familiarity with these theorists and practitioners is evident. I appreciate Laske's skillfulness in integrating their insights into his own practice and theory; however, I found myself on occasion looking for more specific references to some of the remarks he attributed to them.

Designed as a textbook, it is much more than a textbook for process developmental coaches and consultants. Anyone who accompanies adults in making meaning of their life and work will find this volume extremely helpful for expanding their knowledge of mental growth, assessing their own developmental growth and improving their practice. This volume is comprised of nine chapters; each of which presents theory and concepts along with examples for application, and concludes with questions to increase the reader's understanding of the content. The four appendices offer exercises for reviewing the chapter details and practicing new skills, case studies, as well as methods for using this same developmental tool in teams and larger groups. The tables and figures provide good illustrations for clarifying the theory and concepts. The glossary is provided as a common conceptual framework and vocabulary for the coaching profession. The bibliography is a very helpful resource for those who wish to access his primary sources and do additional research in this field.

This book review would be incomplete without referring to Laske's own disclaimer. While comprehensive in its theoretical basis and practical exercises, this book is not enough for becoming a qualified professional developmental coach. Capable use of this tool surpasses the acquisition of technique and skill. Just as there is no shortcut for achieving mental growth, there is no shortcut for coaches to develop capability and competency. Because the coach is actually the instrument for assessment and communication, coaches have an ethical responsibility to know their own developmental stage in order to listen effectively and determine if and how they should accompany clients in their mental growth. For a neophyte, this measurement tool can be complex and potentially harmful when used inappropriately. Laske cautions readers that they should work closely with a certified trainer in developmental coaching in order to use this tool both capably and competently. I have no doubt this is true. (Review by Peer Resources Network member L.Ste-Marie).

A Tale of Two Books

Review article of ‘Hidden Dimensions’, volume 1 (IDM Press, 2006)
By Joseph O’Connor

I would like start this review article of ‘Hidden Dimensions’ by saying how I came to the book and the impact it had on me. Books affect the reader in many ways, depending on why they are reading it and the point the book comes into their life. I read ‘Hidden Dimensions’ at exactly the right time and it had a big impact. I will give a little of the history and also explain why this review article has the title it has.

About a year ago I and my wife, Andrea, were commissioned to write a book that we rather ambitiously titled ‘How Coaching Works’. The idea was simple, the book would model some of the most influential coaching methodologies at the moment, (we selected the GROW model, Ontological coaching, NLP coaching, Behavioral Coaching, Co-active coaching, Integral coaching and Positive Psychology), to see what they had in common. Rather than trying to see their differences, which everyone else was highlighting, we wanted to see what they shared, and we framed our book as a quest for the heart of coaching. The book would also contain short history of coaching and the context in which it grew because again, you need history as well as introspection to understand something fully. If coaching was a methodology for change, then what methodology and what change?

After much research, thinking and writing, it became clear to us that there was a black hole in the middle of coaching as it was being practiced. All the methodologies stressed coaching skills and the importance of the coaching relationship but there was nothing about the level of the coach vis-à-vis the level of the client. Coach and client existed in an ahistorical vacuum. It was tacitly assumed that they were speaking the same language from the same vantage point. However, after reading many authors and researchers, particularly Ken Wilber, Susanne Cook-Greuter and Robert Kegan, the level of development of coach and client was crucial, perhaps the most important in determining the results and success of the coaching. We knew that the coach needed to be a model for the sorts of changes they were asking of the client, but suppose they could not?

We do a lot of air travel so we had a ready metaphor for the situation. When you sit in an airplane waiting for take off, you always have to listen to the safety announcements: ‘In the unlikely event of a fall in cabin pressure, oxygen masks will fall from above your seats. Please put on your own mask before attempting to help others -- unless you are wearing your own mask, you risk passing out and being no help to others or to yourself. What was the coach’s equivalent of the metaphorical oxygen mask? We thought a lot about this issue, and that was when I came to read ‘Hidden Dimensions.’

Many of my questions were answered very elegantly. ‘Hidden Dimensions’ does many things. First it is one of the clearest expositions of Robert Kegan’s social emotional levels available, giving clear examples of levels two (instrumental), level three (other dependent) through four (self authoring) to five (self aware) with explanations and summaries. The whole book is well written and puts complex concepts in a simple, clear way that makes them easy to understand. In the introduction the writer says that one of his goals is to demystify adult development and he succeeds very well.

Secondly the book explains developmental listening. This is a step beyond normal listening in that it listens for structure and not content, so what the client talks about is not important; instead the listener focuses on how the client talks about it. Developmental listening is very much like listening to music. Content is the tune, you may or may not like it. The music may be original, derivative, Classical or Hiphop. Structure is how it is organized, sonata form, rondo, fugue, verse and refrain.

The client constructs the meaning of the experience they describe from a sort of internal template that is strongly influenced by their developmental level. In turn, how the coach understands what they hear will be the coach’s construction based to a great extent on their own developmental level. The developmental level moulds the interaction in each direction. As someone who is interested in Neuro Linguistic Programming, which is the study of the structure of subjective experience, I also wondered if people give information about how they construct their world internally with body language or voice inflections, and whether information about how they think could also be helpful.

Active listening is defined as listening with a conscious hypothesis, and evidence is a confirmed hypothesis. So the research is qualitative, the coach uses him or her self as the measuring instrument. That means that coaches have the great responsibility to make sure they are the most effective and accurate measuring instrument, they need to be always calibrating finer. So the focus is not on developing more tools for the coach to help the client, but developing the coach as a fine measuring instrument so they can build a client model that does justice to the client.

However it seems that most coach training sees developmental level as a skills problem. Skills have a meaning and a use depending on the social emotional level. Many tools of coaching presume a level of understanding of at least level four; they presume an understanding for the tools to work that is implicit and not stated in the literature. Learning skills is not going to move you up a level. Standards, ethics and core competencies also look different depending on the level they are viewed from. One point made strongly is for the coach to know their own level. To follow an ethical imperative and do no harm, the coach needs to know their own level. This is the oxygen mask the coach needs. In fact it applies to all process consultants, and especially therapists it seems, as their clients will normally be in distress, and more emotionally and cognitively vulnerable.

It is probably true that clients will gravitate towards the level of coach that they find helpful for them. Many executives are likely to be at level four and it seems unlikely that they would tolerate a level three coach. A level four client with a level three coach will probably give up and so would a level five client, although level five clients do not usually want traditional coaching anyway. A level four coach for a level three client is probably ideal, however even if the coach and client level is a little mismatched, there can still be some useful ‘horizontal’ development, learning and behavioral change for the client. ‘Hidden Dimensions’ also poses some interesting questions about coaching at level five. A person at or around level five could still coach, but they would have to take responsibility for acting at a lower level than they would naturally act. They will not be engaging with the other person as a transparent equal. If they were, they would not be coaching, but they might want to professionally engage a client as a coach anyway.

The author develops some hypotheses at the end of the book on page 245. One hypothesis is that most coaches are working from social emotional level three. I think this is probably correct and also that the percentage depends on the country. I suspect that there is a higher percentage of coaches at level three in South America for example than North America, for many reasons. It seems to me that culture and language affect the difficulty or otherwise of moving from level three to four. In other words some cultures have a centre of gravity nearer three than four; if culture is a series of shared expectations, then these expectations may pressure people to act more like three than four. North American culture with its strong ethic of individualism and self help seems friendlier to a move from level three to level four. It seems to me too, that some languages are constructed in such a way that the level of systemic thinking necessary is more difficult, but these are my hypotheses.

On page 250 is the statement, ‘The crux of coaching and mentoring, in my view lies in the ability of the practitioners to formulate a model of the client that is free from what Kegan calls ‘identification with the cultural (and social) surround.’ (Italics as in the book). I think that the cultural surround is at a higher level than the social surround and still at level four (and perhaps five) it is hard to extricate oneself from it. Culture is taken as the way, rather than one way to see the world, and as long as this is true, the coach’s model of the client will be culturally conditioned if the coach has not broken free of their own cultural expectations. However in practice, this may not matter if coach and client share the same culture. In cross cultural coaching however, this is an extra element to add to the already heady mixture.

The book also puts forward the proposal that coach education should move coaches from level three to level four, and this is important. I do not think many coaching trainings are focused on this. Another proposal is that you cannot be a true professional unless you are at, or close to, level four. This is true from a level four and above viewpoint, but not necessarily from a level three viewpoint.

Finally, I think that double loop learning can happen at any level. Double loop learning happens when the client’s own thought process is seen to be part of the problem; double loop coaching not only solves the problem but solves the thinking that gave rise to the problem in the first place. The assumptions and habitual ideas that are accessed in double loop learning will be of a different order at each stage. Coaches need to engage in their own double loop learning if they are to help the client do so, the loops will be different, but the process is the same.

This book is one of the most important written about coaching, although it does not position itself as a coaching book. My only reservations are structural. This is an important book, and it seems to be addressed to coaches, but there is nothing in the title that gives a clue. It is not clear who is the intended reader, and this makes the book less accessible than it deserves. Adult development is a huge subject that can be tackled from many angles, it would be good to know what the book is about and its focus. It feels in many ways like a text book, following a course of study, and again this makes it more difficult to read, understand and appreciate as a book in itself. I don’t think the last two appendices on team dynamics and capability management were necessary, more information does not always make things more clear, but risks detracting from the message.

‘Hidden Dimensions’ helped our thinking in our own book. We saw that one thing all these coaching models had in common was a lack of a developmental awareness. Integral coaching has some developmental models, but they are not used in the coaching itself. Add the developmental model and coaching gets another dimension – which was hidden up until then.

Ken Wilber sums up gathering knowledge as consisting of three strands. First there is an injunction, in the form, ‘If you want to know this, do this, or as the cyberneticists put it, ‘If you want to understand, act.’ This then leads to an experience that gives knowledge about the subject of the experiment. Finally there is a communal confirmation or rejection by others who have completed these first two strands. Developmental listening is the first step. It is qualitative research, the coach being his/her own research tool. It illuminates the subject.

I would strongly recommend reading this book as a first action step before considering where next to go with your coaching, therapy of consulting practice. The hidden dimensions need to come into the open.

References

Kegan, Robert (1994) In over our Heads Harvard University Press

Wilber, Ken (1995) Sex Ecology Spirituality Shambhala

Cook- Greuter, Susanne (1999) Post Autonomous Ego Development Harvard University Thesis

Wilber, Ken (2006) Integral Spirituality Integral Books

Joseph O’Connor is a writer of several books on coaching and Neuro-Linguistic Programming. He is an executive coach and consultant and works internationally. He is co founder of the International Coaching Community (ICC). joseph@lambentdobrasil.com

Book Review: "Measuring Hidden Dimensions"

By Christine M. Wahl, MCC, Director, Leadership Coaching Certificate Program, Georgetown University,Washington, DC

If you are a coach who relies on your training and your powerful intuition to get a sense of what your client is about, this book is for you, even though you may not welcome the discipline it takes to not only read this book, but to put into practice its wise and well-researched concepts.

This book is neither for the faint-hearted, nor for those addicted to a quick read. The concepts are difficult, and the developmental approach the book embraces is simultaneously rigorous, compelling, and daunting.

And, it’s worth reading.

The concepts in this book greatly expand your thinking about what truly helps a client and cause you to wonder how you’ve coached so long without knowing deeply the theories of human development beyond adolescence. The book poses many challenges to conventional thinking within the helping professions. One of the notions it challenges is that being a present, excellent listener with profoundly accurate intuition is enough to truly help a client develop into his or her potential. As the book makes clear in minute detail, this notion is one-sided, and dangerously so. Personality itself may get in the way.

What’s needed is an understanding of developmental theory, stages, and then a lot of practice with bringing these concepts into your work, including addressing your own developmental issues.

The book takes the reader through the theory of adult development, to developmental listening, interviewing, to provocative views on the limitations of current coach training, and ending with the power of bringing this sort of approach to organizations and teams. Laske explores many distinctions about coaching, and takes deep cuts at conventional “wisdom” about what makes coaching valuable.

Laske covers a tremendous amount of territory in this book, based largely on his own thinking, research, and study with the great developmental thinkers of our time. You can expect to learn about developmental assessments, a client’s center of gravity, the developmental stages of adulthood, consciousness, meaning-making, as well as what to look for in various domains of life to be able to begin to assess a person’s stage of development in order to eventually help clients to their next stage of development.

Laske uses case studies and commentary to help the reader learn not only the stages, but also how to interview and listen to be able to determine the stage a particular client might be living in. His cases actually showcase a lot of what not to do, which is one way people can learn what TO do. His writing on developmental listening and developmental interviewing is quite excellent in showing what it really takes to apprehend a client’s structure of reality.

Each chapter ends with questions for reflection, and the appendices are full of questions and activities for coaches to explore.

Laske contends that coaches need to be at least at developmental level “4” in order to do any sort of good coaching at all. As well, Laske makes the point that a coach who is a level below his or her client, i.e. a coach at level “3” who is coaching a client at level “4,” will actually do harm. Coaches, it’s time to take a look at your own level, know thyself intimately in this way, and do your own internal work to move toward higher levels of development.

Word of caution. Reading this book alone is insufficient to setting coaches and others in the helping professions free to begin doing developmental assessments. And, it does not claim that any reader is ready to set up shop as a developmental coach after reading the book. In fact the opposite is true. Rather, readers are made aware of all they need to learn. No doubt, to learn to be a developmental coach, one needs the guidance and mentoring of a master developmental coach. Unfortunately, and Laske makes this point, few ICF MCCs fit this profile. If his hypothesis that coaches are spread across developmental levels in the same statistical percentages as the general population is true, this book is a call to 55% of the coaches out there to get into purposeful education to stretch, broaden, and developmentally enhance the who that they are as coaches.

If this were to take place, Laske’s contribution to the world of the helping professions, and particularly coaching, will impact our society in ways that can only help people live in integrity, with more people acting for the greater good.

Chris Wahl is a Master Certified Coach who created and directs the Leadership Coaching Certificate Program at Georgetown University. She has studied developmental coaching with IDM over the past year. She can be reached at startlightcreek@cox.net.

Book Review: "Measuring Hidden Dimensions"

By Jon Ebersole, Director, Dialogue Services GmbH, Affoltern, Switzerland

This is not a book for the faint of heart, nor for the dim of wit. Just as it purports to show how to “fully engage adults,” volume 1 will fully engage the reader.

Maturity can be measured. As astounding as it is somewhat outrageous, Otto Laske takes us down a revealing and somewhat scary path to uncover our capacities, and our limitations. Encountering such exact measurement of human capacity and limitation could lead some to feel overwhelmed. For others it will uncover a new horizon full of potential, clarity and hope. You can run, but you cannot hide from the analyses in this book.

This first of four volumes presents the latest advance in the school of developmental psychology initiated in Geneva by Jean Piaget in the early 20^th century, but focused not on cognitive but rather social-emotional development. Building primarily on the work of Robert Kegan and his collaborators, Laske makes three substantial contributions to the literature.

First, this volume presents a more exacting methodology of analyzing adult developmental levels. Where Kegan built on Piaget’s and Kohlberg’s work in describing the socio-emotional stages of adult development in subject-object theory, and with his collaborators also created the initial analytical methodology for identifying developmental stages through semi-structured interviews, Laske refines this theory and method by introducing additional precision in measuring developmental risk, potential, and embeddedness.

Second, whereas to date this knowledge has been used in the context of pedagogy and education policy and much less so in clinical psychology and leadership education, Laske makes this knowledge accessible, relevant and usable for a wider professional audience. While demonstrating the art of developmental interviewing and listening, he relates the scientific scoring of interviews to the world of work, thus challenging the fields of human resources management, organizational development and particularly coaching, to lay the groundwork for perceiving and quantifying human capacity at a new depth.

Finally, in applying the results to a consulting environment, Laske adds a fourth stage to the stages of consultation developed by Edgar Schein. Where Schein shows the stages of “helping” to advance in complexity and influence from (1) the delivery of expertise and (2) the doctor-patient model, to (3) a more engaged process consultation model, Laske adds (4) the developmental aspect to deepen and extend the effectiveness of consultative engagements, calling this “developmental process consultation.”

When the current volume and the three volumes to come are digested by the helping professions, OD professionals in particular who have since 1990 been working to introduce “learning” into organizations (see Peter Senge “The Fifth Discipline”), may find themselves working to create models of engagement that challenge organizations to take yet another evolutionary step to become truly developing organizations.

Given the looming and increasingly critical global challenges we face, this guide on how to add depth and dimension to personal and organizational change processes is timely, and should attract a wide reading public.

Jon Ebersole is a coach and consultant living and working in Switzerland. His professional background includes working for the United Nations, OECD and several nongovernmental organizations. He can be reached at jon@dialogueservices.com.

Book Review: "Measuring Hidden Dimensions"

By Nancy Moynihan, coach and clinician, Atlanta GA

This review is essentially about my reading of volume 1 of Laske’s book rather than the book as something outside of me. I want to make clear the impact the book is having on me as a reader grounded in coaching and clinical work. In my experience, this is a text book whose degree of difficulty and potential to transform the reader are of nearly equal significance. Despite the authors’ fluid writing style, careful crafting of concepts, accessible language and logical construction, the degree of difficulty may be too high for some readers who may even be inclined to give up the effort along the way. For those who find themselves challenged by the apparent complexity, I recommend diligence and perseverance because only in a full reading does one discover the transformative potential of what the book conveys.

As a practicing clinician thoroughly schooled in the language and mechanics of behavior I have long thought that the forces driving behavior derive their breadth and power from the mind. A thorough reading of Laske’s text reveals that the true source of under-standing behavior derives from language, specifically the meaning making that all humans are ceaselessly engaged in. Until now my study of things not behavioral has been focused on various spiritual schools. Many individuals in distress lack the mental space required to consider the spiritual aspects of their distress, or so I thought. With my reading of this book I now understand that what was lacking was my vocabulary.

This after all is a book about vocabulary. A vocabulary that opens the window on adult development in a way I have never been exposed to despite years of reading, learning and seeking. It describes both a vocabulary of meaning making as well as a vocabulary for assessing and intervening within the mental space of the person making meaning. The result has been to transform my undying allegiance to behavior into a budding but devoted allegiance to engagement with the client’s mental process through a thorough understanding of how my client uses language. For it is people’s use of language, not language per se, that presents developmental cues for intervention.

As a practicing coach I have usually felt comfortable about generating hypotheses regarding my client’s difficulty, obstacle or problem. Little did I know until reading this book how inadequate those hypotheses can actually be when made up largely of behavioral components and when lacking sufficient information about the client’s mental space. Studying this text has informed my ability and willingness to develop a truly masterful listening skill. I am confident that this will transform my ability to generate relevant, precise and potentially transformative hypotheses leading to relevant, potentially transformative interventions.

As an individual committed to self development, both personal and professional, I have found this volume to be as invaluable as it is distressing, even painful. I have begun to question much of what I thought was settled territory such as my own meaning making and my subtle tendency to project that meaning onto the world around me. I have begun to question my path as both a clinician and a coach, seeing in the history of my development places where I unknowingly may have left a trail of damage due to my unwitting inadequacy. I am now constantly looking at the issue of stage dissonance between myself and my clients which in the end can only improve my ability to help others. Painful as it may be, I am now engaged in studying and contemplating the Practice Reflections at the end of each chapter of volume 1. In this effort I hope to discover and eventually manifest the true transformative power of this book’s first volume.

Nancy Moynihan is a Licensed Professional Counselor and professional coach currently in private practice providing both coaching and counseling services to a full range of adults. Nancy can be reached at nancyam@mindspring.com.

Book Review: "Measuring Hidden Dimensions"

By Frank Ball, PCC, Co-director, Leadership Coaching Certificate Program, Georgetown University, Washington, DC

The underlying premise of Otto Laske’s new book, Measuring Hidden Dimensions: The Art and Science of Fully Engaging Adults, is that most coaches don’t know enough about their clients in a developmental sense, and our clients can’t tell us directly what we’re missing. Regardless of our skillfulness in listening for content, content alone won’t reveal the missing information.

The two missing elements, in Laske’s view, are 1) a well grounded knowledge of the research into how adult humans develop, learn, and grow over a lifetime and 2) skillfulness in listening beyond the content of our client’s conversation to its structure. Listening for structure, beyond content, is the only way to discern the client’s developmental level. These topics are not part of the training and education most coaches receive.

In this book he seeks to remedy that situation, and he does so in a rigorous and comprehensive way. He outlines developmental theories refined over decades of research and describes how coaches can acquire skillfulness in listening for the structure of our clients’ conversations using those theories and models.

In addition to making the case for the “why” of developmental listening, this book has a lot of the “how” and a number of examples, exercises, and case studies through which the reader can strengthen his or her mastery of the concepts. Though this book does an excellent job of introducing and explaining these concepts, mastery of their application is another story. This reviewer’s learning journey to acquire those skills has shown that a significant amount of supervised practice is required to master those skills. Reading any book alone about human development and developmental listening will not suffice.

So what is this different kind of listening called developmental listening? At its simplest, it is the difference between listening for content and listening for structure. Content, as Laske uses the term, describes behavior and often includes the client’s explanation of it. Structure explains behavior in a developmental sense rather than the client’s narrative of the “why” he or she is conscious of. This is what Laske calls the hidden dimension. The client is unaware of it, and unless the coach is trained in developmental listening, he or she will remain unaware, too.

A simple, familiar example may illustrate this distinction. When offered the choice of a nickel or a dime, children below a certain age (and developmental level) will consistently select the nickel. Children beyond that age (and developmental level) will select the dime when offered the same choice.

The structure beneath the first child’s choice is an unstated belief that larger items are worth more than smaller ones. The structure beneath the second child’s choice is an awareness that size and value can vary other than directly. In fact, in the case of nickels and dimes, they vary inversely, thereby accounting for the smaller dime being worth more than the larger nickel. No two or three year old will describe the reasoning behind their differing decisions in quite that way. It is our knowledge of the different thought processes and ways of determining value that children develop at different ages that explains each child’s choice and points to the shift that has to occur beneath the surface for the child to become capable of making the new choice of dime over nickel.

The stages of child development are much more evident than those of adults, which are more subtle and reveal themselves through the structure of conversations more than they do through observable actions. Hence the need for coaches to develop an ability to listen for and discern the underlying structure that the client cannot see themselves and consequently can’t describe. That’s what this book is all about. A coach who is able to listen for structure in the client’s story has a much more expanded capability to help clients develop in more strategic, even principled, ways, with the principles being integrity, self authoring, and service orientation vs. ego orientation. To do any less is to shortchange the client and miss the full possibilities of coaching for development.

The approach to coaching Dr. Laske advocates in this book focuses on increasing the coach’s understanding of the clients developmental capabilities in a very rigorous, scientifically based way. For those who want to take their coaching to a higher level of insight and impact, this book is an excellent primer.

Frank Ball is an independent organizational consultant and Co-director, Leadership Coaching Certificate Program, Georgetown University, Washington, DC. He can be reached at Frankball3@aol.com.

Book Review: "Measuring Hidden Dimensions - Volume 1"

By Jenny Edwards, Ph.D.
Fielding Graduate University

Dr. Laske says that he will focus on “Demystification” and “Measurement” (p. 8), and he does just that! He has written a book that will be invaluable to the university professor! In this book, Laske outlines the different developmental stages through which people can potentially pass in their lifetime. Based on Kegan’s (1982) work on developmental stages, as well as Schein’s (1999) work on process consultation, Laske discusses how people in the helping professions can identify the developmental level of people with whom they work and facilitate their growth to higher levels. He refines the developmental progression presented by Kegan and makes it applicable for those who work with people.

This book is for anyone who works with others who would like to increase in effectiveness and grow personally. Laske uses a conversational tone to help the reader to internalize the stages, develop interviewing strategies, and refine strategies for working with others. While Laske writes with a focus on coaches, all people who are working with others in a professional capacity can benefit from reading this book.

University professors can benefit from reading this book by applying the concepts in their interactions with their students and colleagues in order to grow in flexibility, efficacy, and consciousness. An additional benefit of reading this book is developing an inkling of the level at which one may presently be functioning (although to actually assess the level correctly requires a developmental expert). As faculty members focus on understanding the various stages through which people pass on the road to maturity, they will develop even more empathy and understanding of others.

Laske hypothesizes that as the helper works with others, both the helper and the people being helped have the opportunity to grow and move to higher stages of adult development. (Teaching and coaching are interdevelopmental, as he puts it.) Who the helper IS is more important than the particular set of skills that the helper brings to the relationship. Laske provides the tools for helpers to formulate conscious hypotheses about people instead of formulating unconscious hypotheses.

According to Laske, helpers should work with people differently, depending on the developmental level at which the people being helped are functioning. In addition, Laske suggests that a person functioning at lower levels will have difficulty in helping people who are functioning at higher levels. Thus, it is essential for helpers to know at what levels they are functioning in order not to get into an ethical muddle.

Laske shares numerous case studies and stories about people who are functioning at the various levels in order to help the reader internalize the stages and sub-stages that people go through in the process of developing throughout their adult lives. He presents four sub-stages between each of the major stages, and he discusses what the helper can listen for in order to determine and define each stage.

Laske presents stories about the different developmental levels more than one time. Each time he presents a story, he elaborates on it, providing the reader with even more understanding and insight into the developmental level of the person. This helps the reader become familiar with the text in the process of progressing through the book. In this way, the book enables the reader to develop a memory for how a person at a particular stage actually “sounds,” and thereby internalize the stages.

Laske shares strategies for helping people to feel “understood” rather than just “heard” (p. 155). He shows helpers how to make interventions while listening in order to assist people in growing to higher levels. According to Laske, “It is ultimately not knowledge and skills, but the consultant’s understanding of meaning making processes in adults that determines effectiveness in engaging with others over the long term” (p. 159). Laske likens listening in his model with listening to music in order to understand its structure. The listener focuses on structure and underlying meaning, rather than on the acoustic content of the music.

Laske discusses how helpers can focus the attention of people by asking questions to guide them to think, as well as by asking probing questions to help them to go deeper and understand the meaning behind what they are saying. Then, helpers interpret what the people said and formulate hypotheses about the stage or sub-stage at which they might be functioning. In this way, entire interviews can be evaluated for structure rather than content, and “scores” can be assigned to them. Ultimately, this leads to determining a person’s present developmental profile based on a “risk-clarity-potential index” (RCP) that encapsulates the person’s present “center of gravity.” This index, in turn, is very helpful for formulating coaching plans and strategies since it shows the person’s present developmental potential and risks.

As a result of showing the reader how to interview clients in order to determine their developmental stage, Laske discusses the “mental space” (p. 183) that people operating at different stages might occupy. He includes a lengthy interview fragment and discusses the effective and ineffective questions that the interviewer asked. He also analyzes the words of the interviewee to determine the stage at which the person in functioning, as well as questions that helpers at different stages might ask. In addition, he demonstrates the use of a “coding sheet” (p. 215) in which results of interview evaluation are not only identified, but also theoretically justified by the interviewer. The coding sheet can also be used to determine interrater reliability.

Basically, Laske presents strategies for working with people “at a level of precision not otherwise attainable” (p. 215). His goal is to help individuals working with others to increase the capability of individuals and groups. (The concept of capability puts the emphasis on developmental potential, not performance.) He makes working with people a science that uses qualitative measurements expressed in quantitative terms (e.g., 4(5) for a stage just beyond stage 4).

Laske also provides an extensive list of questions for each chapter to enable readers to reflect on their lives and apply new learnings. Laske includes answers to some of the questions at the end of the book, as well as three case studies. He also includes strategies for working with people who are functioning at different developmental levels and information about applying the information in the book in team settings. A section on managing capability of large groups by using representative samples is included at the end of the book, along with a glossary.

After reading Measuring Hidden Dimensions: The Art and Science of Fully Engaging Adults, I wonder how I ever got along without having read it! The concepts that Laske presents can enable professors and other helping professionals to take their helping to entirely new dimensions for the betterment of the people being helped, and, ultimately, for the betterment of society! I highly recommend this book and am looking forward to reading the other books in the series!

Note: It becomes clear from reading the book that while one can get a first good impression of developmental stages, interviewing for the sake of eliciting correct developmental information remains out of reach if one does not engage in classes at the Interdevelopmental Institute. This is so because interviewing is based on hypothesis formulation and testing, and these have to be modeled by an expert teacher, and no amount of reading will replace such modeling. The same holds for evaluating interviews in an expert fashion. While one can, by reading, become accustomed to “thinking developmentally” about a text, actually “scoring” an entire interview has to be learned in small groups, as is done at the Interdevelopmental Institute.

References

Kegan, R. (1982). The evolving self. Cambridge, MA: Harvard.

Schein, E. (1999). Process consultation revisited. Reading, MA: Addision-Wesley.

"What Relevance Does Adult Development Theory Have For Coaching?"

By Dr. John Derry
As published in The Bulletin of the Association for Coaching, Autumn 2006, Issue 9 (http://associationforcoaching.com)

Read the article (5-page PDF).

Details and Ordering for Measuring Hidden Dimensions Volume 1