Tamsen Webster explains Robert Kegan's theory that we can't change what we can't see. By making implicit assumptions explicit through tools like the Red Thread, we examine and shift the beliefs blocking us from solving adaptive problems.
So far in this Doctoral Studies in Seconds series, we've talked about the difference between problems that have a known solution, we just need more expertise or information or authority, and adaptive problems for which we need to change how we're thinking about something in order to find new solutions or decide what kind of expertise we need to develop. Then I talked about how do we start to think about new things? And that's where the work of Micheline Chi and conceptual belief change and categorical shifts came into play. Because sometimes by thinking of something as a different category, we can actually find that solution that we may not have found before. That leads to the question of how do we figure that out? And that's where the work of Robert Kegan comes in. Kegan came up with something called the Constructive Developmental Theory. Key to that theory is this understanding of what he calls the subject-object relationship. I know that's a pretty opaque term, so let me see if I can explain it in a nice clear way. Remember how she was talking about conceptual categories that we may not even be aware that we're using? That's at the heart of what Kegan observed. And those things that we're not aware of, things that we are subject to, is part of what Keegan says is really key to us being able to grow, to develop, and to solve increasingly complex adaptive problems. Hey, look, it all fits together. With his subject-object split, there are things that we are subject to, assumptions that we don't even know we're operating under, which can include things like cultural norms, things that we consider just to be the way things are. But Keegan observes that when we can step back from that, we suddenly turn them into an object we can examine. And this is key to being able to identify issues with those assumptions, being able to switch in different assumptions that may be more useful, and fundamentally to being able to think differently about any change that we might be trying to implement. One of the things that I noticed about Kegan's Constructive Developmental Theory and these big assumptions that he says create an immunity to change, cognitive behavioral therapy also wants to bring forward so that we can look at and make sense of them. This connection, I think, is really powerful because the ability to externalize something, The ability to take something that's within us and take it outside of us, to make the implicit explicit, means that we now have the opportunity to examine it, interpret it, reinterpret it, or change it. And when it's one of those assumptions that's causing downstream problems or keeping us from figuring out how to solve a problem, then it's really key if we're trying to figure out how are we gonna create, share, and communicate strategies that are out there to solve those increasingly complex problems that we face in the world today. There's lots of ways to make these things explicit. And one of the things I realized through this work and learning about this theory is that both my Red Thread and my core case are doing that. They are externalizing our internal implicit big assumptions that are in play behind what we're doing or what we're recommending we do about a particular situation or problem. But really any process, including, by the way, Keegan's own Immunity to Change framework, can help you pull out those things that you think are going on so that you have a chance to look at them and even to help someone change their view of something. Tamsen Webster.
