I’ve split this off into it’s own comment, to talk a little more about how I’ve found Kegan-related things useful, for myself.
I’m skeptical that global stages are actually real, and I still think there is still plenty of use to be had from the thinking and theory behind it. I treat it as a lossy model and I still find it helpful.
An example of something suggested by Kegan’s theories that has helped me: communicating across sizeable developmental gaps or subject/object divides is really difficult, and if you can spot that in advance you can route around some trouble.
One of Kegan’s students—Jennifer Garvey Berger—wrote a book about applying this stuff in a corporate context called “Changing on the Job” which I like. In it, she mentions that it is really common that people who are operating at around Kegan’s 4th level in a corporate context often ask people who report to them to “show more initiative”. If those direct reports are operating at around Kegan’s 3rd level, they’re just not going to properly understand what is being pointed to by the word “initiative”. More words don’t seem to help. Everyone gets frustrated. There are things you can do in the meantime, but they definitely weren’t obvious to me.
I’ve also been using Kegan’s levels to orient myself around the discussions of Frame Control.
Assuming I’m understanding what is being pointed at with Frame Control:
I would guess that someone around the 3rd level would be particularly vulnerable to Frame Control.
They’re largely picking up their framing from those around them in a way that isn’t legible to them.
They also wouldn’t be able to properly understand the concept of Frame Control—even if they could repeat and talk about the definition. It would be like the conceptual equivalent of word salad.
I would guess that someone around the 4th level would find it really threatening.
They’ve just gained the ability to spot frames and intentionally frame things for themselves, and they’ve become aware of how many frames were being placed for them by their surrounding culture in ways that were previously invisible to them.
One of Kegan’s findings was that when people reached particular developmental milestones and could then see what they were missing earlier in time, they had really strong averse feelings to the idea of regressing.
I would guess that people past the 4th level would have really mixed views on the benefits and risks of attempting such a thing, and that you’d have to be in this group to able to consistently and skillfully attempt to control the frames of those around you.
This would also imply that it would be fairly rare to come across people who can skillfully control framing, unless you were hanging out in contexts that were biased towards including a higher proportion of people operating at this level.
I’ve enjoyed diving into the Kegan related resources just because they’re so mind-bending and “other” from what I’d previously come across. I initially spread the word in my local circles, just to share the enjoyment of how “other” they were. It was a bit later on that I started finding them useful.
These days I get more use from the developmental model from Basseches and Mascolo’s “Psychotherapy as a developmental process”—who are skeptical of global stages—but I still find myself using Kegan’s ideas fairly often as well, and I don’t think I would have properly appreciated Basseches and Mascolo without spending a bunch of time with Kegan first.
I don’t think everyone needs to know about these things though. I ran into rationality and Kegan just before I became a manager for the first time and geeked out about everything I could reach, and it took lots of time and energy to get to the point where I was getting mileage out of it. My context made that time and energy worthwhile. Other people may not be in contexts where it pays off.
I mostly wanted to paint a bit of a word-picture of how I think I’ve had Kegan pay rent for me.
I’ve split this off into it’s own comment, to talk a little more about how I’ve found Kegan-related things useful, for myself.
I’m skeptical that global stages are actually real, and I still think there is still plenty of use to be had from the thinking and theory behind it. I treat it as a lossy model and I still find it helpful.
An example of something suggested by Kegan’s theories that has helped me: communicating across sizeable developmental gaps or subject/object divides is really difficult, and if you can spot that in advance you can route around some trouble.
One of Kegan’s students—Jennifer Garvey Berger—wrote a book about applying this stuff in a corporate context called “Changing on the Job” which I like. In it, she mentions that it is really common that people who are operating at around Kegan’s 4th level in a corporate context often ask people who report to them to “show more initiative”. If those direct reports are operating at around Kegan’s 3rd level, they’re just not going to properly understand what is being pointed to by the word “initiative”. More words don’t seem to help. Everyone gets frustrated. There are things you can do in the meantime, but they definitely weren’t obvious to me.
I’ve also been using Kegan’s levels to orient myself around the discussions of Frame Control.
Assuming I’m understanding what is being pointed at with Frame Control:
I would guess that someone around the 3rd level would be particularly vulnerable to Frame Control.
They’re largely picking up their framing from those around them in a way that isn’t legible to them.
They also wouldn’t be able to properly understand the concept of Frame Control—even if they could repeat and talk about the definition. It would be like the conceptual equivalent of word salad.
I would guess that someone around the 4th level would find it really threatening.
They’ve just gained the ability to spot frames and intentionally frame things for themselves, and they’ve become aware of how many frames were being placed for them by their surrounding culture in ways that were previously invisible to them.
One of Kegan’s findings was that when people reached particular developmental milestones and could then see what they were missing earlier in time, they had really strong averse feelings to the idea of regressing.
I would guess that people past the 4th level would have really mixed views on the benefits and risks of attempting such a thing, and that you’d have to be in this group to able to consistently and skillfully attempt to control the frames of those around you.
This would also imply that it would be fairly rare to come across people who can skillfully control framing, unless you were hanging out in contexts that were biased towards including a higher proportion of people operating at this level.
I’ve enjoyed diving into the Kegan related resources just because they’re so mind-bending and “other” from what I’d previously come across. I initially spread the word in my local circles, just to share the enjoyment of how “other” they were. It was a bit later on that I started finding them useful.
These days I get more use from the developmental model from Basseches and Mascolo’s “Psychotherapy as a developmental process”—who are skeptical of global stages—but I still find myself using Kegan’s ideas fairly often as well, and I don’t think I would have properly appreciated Basseches and Mascolo without spending a bunch of time with Kegan first.
I don’t think everyone needs to know about these things though. I ran into rationality and Kegan just before I became a manager for the first time and geeked out about everything I could reach, and it took lots of time and energy to get to the point where I was getting mileage out of it. My context made that time and energy worthwhile. Other people may not be in contexts where it pays off.
I mostly wanted to paint a bit of a word-picture of how I think I’ve had Kegan pay rent for me.