Dr. Harriette Rasmussen is an assistant clinical professor at Drexel University's School of Education, where she teaches doctoral courses in leadership, writing, and qualitative research and supervises doctoral research. Through her firm HTR Consulting, she has consulted internationally about leadership, learning networks, organizational effectiveness, and community engagement. Her clients have included The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Washington State Board of Education, the American Institutes for Research, and school districts ranging from 800 to 50,000. She was a member of the consultant cohort piloting integration of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, Business School, and the Kennedy School for educational leaders and served as a faculty member for the Coach Learning Program of Harvard’s Change Leadership Group. She has been widely published in trade journals and contributed to Change Leadership: A Practical Guide to Transforming Our Schools.
Dr. Mohammed Raei is an independent scholar, leadership and organization development consultant, executive coach, and dissertation coach. He has consulted on strategic planning, program evaluation, and 360° feedback. Additionally, he facilitated workshops on trust, adaptive leadership, and immunity to change. He also served as the programming chair for the Pacific Northwest Organizational Development Network (PNODN). He is the co-editor of Adaptive Leadership in a Global Economy. He presented for various professional organizations, including Puget Sound Project Management Institute and the ICF (Jordan and Seattle chapters), and several times at the ILA conference. In addition to adaptive leadership, his other scholarly interest area is spirituality and leadership. He resides in Amman, Jordan.
A Quote From This Episode
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
More About Series Co-Host, Dr. Jonathan Reams
About Scott J. Allen
My Approach to Hosting
About The International Leadership Association (ILA)
Dr. Harriette Rasmussen is an assistant clinical professor at Drexel University's School of Education, where she teaches doctoral courses in leadership, writing, and qualitative research and supervises doctoral research. Through her firm HTR Consulting, she has consulted internationally about leadership, learning networks, organizational effectiveness, and community engagement. Her clients have included The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Washington State Board of Education, the American Institutes for Research, and school districts ranging from 800 to 50,000. She was a member of the consultant cohort piloting integration of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, Business School, and the Kennedy School for educational leaders and served as a faculty member for the Coach Learning Program of Harvard’s Change Leadership Group. She has been widely published in trade journals and contributed to Change Leadership: A Practical Guide to Transforming Our Schools.
Dr. Mohammed Raei is an independent scholar, leadership and organization development consultant, executive coach, and dissertation coach. He has consulted on strategic planning, program evaluation, and 360° feedback. Additionally, he facilitated workshops on trust, adaptive leadership, and immunity to change. He also served as the programming chair for the Pacific Northwest Organizational Development Network (PNODN). He is the co-editor of Adaptive Leadership in a Global Economy. He presented for various professional organizations, including Puget Sound Project Management Institute and the ICF (Jordan and Seattle chapters), and several times at the ILA conference. In addition to adaptive leadership, his other scholarly interest area is spirituality and leadership. He resides in Amman, Jordan.
A Quote From This Episode
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
More About Series Co-Host, Dr. Jonathan Reams
About Scott J. Allen
My Approach to Hosting
About The International Leadership Association (ILA)
Note: Voice-to-text transcriptions are about 90% accurate, and conversations-to-text do not always translate perfectly. I include it to provide you with the spirit of the conversation.
Scott Allen 0:01
Okay, everybody, welcome to this week's episode of Phronesis. Hope you are doing well wherever you are in the world. This week we have a co-host, Jonathan Reams, and you have already listened to most likely, if you haven't, you might want to go back and do that. You have already listened to our conversation about a book that he edited, Maturing Leadership: How Adult Development Impacts Leadership. And today, we have two authors with us. And so they wrote a chapter in this book, Jonathan is going to help drive the conversation, but I'm going to introduce our two authors, Harriet Thurber Rasmussen, Ed.D. has spent the last three decades coaching educational leaders and their systems toward greater capacity, her practices and body's cutting edge research around student learning, organizational effectiveness, and the socio-political aspects of executive leadership. A resident of beautiful Seattle, Washington, and a self-described "adult development geek." She also teaches organizational leadership and research to doctoral students at Northeastern and Drexel University. Her most recent published works have focused on online learning, complexity, and change leadership. Harriet, I was in Seattle at SEATAC not just a couple of weeks ago, and Reiner was out. It was so incredibly beautiful. Now, before we get into talking about that, we're gonna go to Dr. Mohammed Rei. He has an independent leadership and organization, development consultant. He has consulted on strategic planning and program evaluation. Additionally, he facilitated workshops on trust, adaptive leadership, and Immunity to Change. Moreover, he's facilitated gatherings meetings, and retreats for a variety of clients. He also served as programming chair for the Pacific Northwest Organizational Development Network, and he completed a Ph.D. dissertation titled, Development and Validation of the Adaptive Leadership with Authority Scale. Okay, we are excited to have the two of you here. You've written the chapter in this wonderful publication that Jonathan edited. And, Jonathan, anything you want to say, sir, before we jump into the deeper conversation, what's it like in Norway today? What is your living in the future right now? I don't know what it's like six hours ahead,
Jonathan Reams 2:26
No, it's a wonderful Indian summer day today. So I think what I'm most excited about here is, for me, the experience of engaging with all the different chapter authors brought so much richness and diversity, because often adult development is thought of in a kind of linear way or simplistic way, and the richness and robustness that each of the authors brought was really insightful and educational for me. So in this case, I can't quite remember how I got to know Mohammed and Harriet, but the idea of doing something in relation to trust really got my attention and stood out for me as something really relevant to talk about. And so I was really pleased with how they brought up the topic. And in that sense, what I'd be really curious to hear from each of you is, why did you want to go into the topic of trust in relation to adult development?
Scott Allen 3:33
Nice, Harriet. What do you think?
Harriet Rasmussen 3:36
Well, I'm trying to think about where I first started connecting it, and to be perfectly honest, it with a job talk. That was looking for an angle. And I thought, why do I really love adult development? And trust, for me, is the driver of everything. So I played around with connecting relational trust, which that's my go-to definition of trust. But I played around with that. And I thought, "Oh, this works." That's where it came from. That intersection came from me; I didn't get the job. But it was a good talk.
Scott Allen 4:11
It set you on a new path. Yeah, I love it. And Mo?
Mo Raei 4:15
So for me, I was introduced to adaptive leadership in my master's program. And I was introduced to adult development in my master's program but didn't pay attention to it at all. Then when I started my Ph.D., I dug really deep into adult development. I did the SOI Training, I did Immunity to Change. And around 2014, I co-facilitated a workshop on trust with a friend using the Thin Book of Trust framework, which is in some ways similar, so that almost goes back eight or nine years now that I've been interested in trust. So when Harriet suggested we write a book chapter together, I was Like, "yes, trust, adaptive leadership, and adult development."
Jonathan Reams 5:06
And one of the things that I noticed that you guys did in the chapter was you had a nice simple thing of, there's the context, the glue, and the driver. Maybe we could just start there. How did you conceptualize that as kind of three markers for how you wanted to approach this?
Harriet Rasmussen 5:25
I am the kind of writer who writes by the seat of my pants. And so I will start writing and things warm as I write, and I was writing, I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna talk about adaptive leadership that seems like," and then all of a sudden, the words came to me so that that was not a pre-determined set of ideas. But in thinking about how these work together, it came that way. I think it works. Because you think about the context, we are talking about leadership, right? You can use trust in any context. But we're talking specifically about leading we trust is the glue that holds everything together. And we're using adult development to accelerate the development of trust. So understanding how people approach the world, their paradigm, their sensemaking, allows you to clue into that if you think about that when you're trying to build trust.
Scott Allen 6:24
Mohammed, do you have anything you want to add?
Mo Raei 6:29
Harriet created the structure, but It dived in really well with, like, how I think about the topic that the context is you have adaptive leadership, you want to create a holding environment, and what do you do to create it using adult development, the adult holding environment needs trust. So that's how things mix together.
Jonathan Reams 6:48
So one of the things that might be helpful because most of the listeners are familiar with adaptive leadership, trust is more generic, but you have a specific model and way that you can approach it. Can you say a little bit about how you conceptualized and worked with trust?
Harriet Rasmussen 7:05
Well, the particular framework that we use for this chapter is called Relational Trust. And we took it from some work of Bryk and Schneider, who did research back in the early 2000s, and late 1990s on urban elementary schools and how trust formed, formed, and they came out with some key elements that really resonated with me and my work with educational leaders over the past 20 years. I use these all the time. So this particular framework of trust starts with interpersonal work the caring, right, people need to know that you care about them if you want them to trust you. The second element that this framework uses is credibility. People need to know that you kind of know what you're talking about; they need to know that you're worthy of following. Respect is the third element, and respect in this context is very specifically about "do you respect me enough to listen to what I have to say?" Do I matter to my opinions matter? And then the fourth is integrity. Do I do what I say I'm going to do if I say this, and then I do something else that kills trust? So the nice thing about this framework is there are only four elements; you remember it. And I had never seen how they work in concert; they're all important. But they make sense. They're logical, they're easy to remember, and they cover a wide range of leadership roles.
Scott Allen 8:41
I've never heard of this. And so I'm really, really intrigued. I think it's it's a wonderful framing of how we build trust with others.
Mo Raei 8:51
I also want to jump in and say that one of the reasons why we wanted to bring in trust is because Heifetz himself and his colleagues bring it up; he talks about using Vertical Trust, the trust with the leaders, and the authority structure to enhance the holding environment. And he also talks about lateral trust and building trust, kind of at the same level with colleagues and others. So it's not like, you know, Heifetz ignored trust, he actually made a central part, and we wanted to expand on that with the framework.
Jonathan Reams 9:26
So that gives me the thought, and the question that I had was, is this like, you need trust as like social capital to be able to spend when you're asking people to endure losses?
Mo Raei 9:40
In the chapter Harriet does, she wrote that part, which linked exactly with the Social Capital Theory. So the more social capital we have, the more you can ask people for sacrifices, and the stronger the holding environment.
Harriet Rasmussen 9:56
I think it also makes sense to understand the context of the holding environment, which is a key element of adaptive leadership. And the holding environment comes from this basic idea that maternal we are being held. That means you're in a safe place. So this is a key aspect of adaptive leadership practices to create a space where people can go through the challenges of change and being and leading. Heifetz and definitely leadership recognize that when you lead, you are going to disappoint people. Change is hard. Loss is challenging, and change and, in Heifetz's terms, equals loss. So you can't ask people to give something up unless they trust that they will be okay. Though the holding environment is the place in which people go through those challenges. And trust is what allows people to be there and to accept the losses.
Scott Allen 10:57
And for listeners who are not familiar with the term holding environment, I believe we're going back to Winnicott. And what we'll do is we will go ahead and place some notes in the show notes, some links in the show notes, so that you can explore that whole concept of holding environments a little bit more. But basically, it's a safe space to learn, to grow to develop. And so I think it's a really core concept, Jonathan.
Jonathan Reams 11:22
So I think this makes a really interesting transition. Because in terms of Robert Kegan's adult development model, which you guys use in the chapter, he talks about kind of the cultures of embeddedness, or the holding environment; what is holding people at different stages or phases of their evolution of meaning-making? And what I found really interesting was how you were able to kind of intersect these and say, Well, what does trust mean to people at different stages of development? So I think this would be a great time to kind of dive into the deep end here of that.
Scott Allen 12:05
So cool. So what does trust mean, depending on my level of mental complexity, what does trust mean?
Mo Raei 12:14
So I'll do a quick recap of the different levels of adult development. According to Kegan, the first one is the instrumental mind; this is kind of black or white, what's in it for me, very concrete. So this is kind of equivalent to somebody who's 13-14 years old,
Scott Allen 12:32
You know, have one of those at home?
Mo Raei 12:34
Yes, yes. But as an adult, as an adult, not as though when you say 45 going on 14. You mean when somebody has an instrumental mind when they are an adult, and they have not yet internalized society's rules. So going back to "what's in it for me." The next one it's called the third order of mind because there's one before the instrumental line, which is for young children; Kegan extended Piaget's work. So the adult stages are 3, 4, and 5. So the third stage is the socialized mind. And it's your kind of internalized society's role. You look for external authority, and your opinion of yourself is, I wouldn't say, nonexistent, but it's easily affected by others. So you lack self-confidence. You don't have the authority to make decisions. You avoid external and internal conflict. For the fourth order of mind, the self-authoring mind, you have your own authority, so you don't care as much about other people's opinions as you take them into consideration. But you're the master; you're the master of your own ship. And you're more comfortable with conflict, slightly more comfortable with ambiguity, unfortunately, are somewhat attached to your own opinions. And finally, in the self-transforming stage, not only do you have an opinion or opinions, you're not attached to them anymore. You have a flexible identity, your post-ideological, your post-modern Kegan borrowed a lot from when he looked at different levels of development. He thought pre-modern, modern, postmodern and thought that postmodern was the top of the developmental pyramid, when you think self-transforming, constantly able to question their own assumptions, triple-loop-learning, that sort of thing.
Scott Allen 14:38
And Harriet talk about now trust at these different levels. That's really fascinating that the two of you have applied this.
Harriet Rasmussen 14:45
This is what we've found so interesting. Is that thinking about unknowing that, that we don't know where other people are dependent? Not really; I mean, we form impressions, but the actual time task of determining someone's developmental level is cumbersome, and it's hard, but make space for people so that you are that wherever they are developmental, they can relate. So you build trust, right? So it isn't that you say this person is instrumental, and therefore you are going to use these pieces but what we found really interesting was to look at...so, for example, with the instrumental person, where they're really unable to see the world outside of their own needs, a driver, we think we argue, would be personal regard would be, as long as I'm gonna let you know that I really care about you. And as long as I am asking questions, I care about your family; I'm making sure we believe that someone in an instrumental mindset might be more likely to follow that using another strategy that's going to matter more, right? Interesting matter to everybody. Right? Yeah. If you're a socialized individual, right, the second order, you're really looking for authority that comes outside of yourself. So for the leader to establish credibility and say, I actually do know what I'm talking about. And I'm that looks, that can take a variety of forms. Sometimes if I'm doing a presentation, I'll do a little bit of name-dropping right in that opening, just so people just know, okay, she does know some people. But establishing credibility with the socialized individual says, okay, you know what you're talking about; I can follow you. To the self-authored individual, then you're looking at someone, wait a minute, I know what I know, and I want to know that you are listening to me, I want to participate. So in that sense, we would say that respect would be the driver. Because as long as you are listening to me, if I know you're listening to me, and you respect me, then I will follow you.
Scott Allen 17:00
Well, I love how you're thinking about this because it reminds me, Jonathan; I don't know if any of you have read Jennifer Garvey Berger's book Changing on the Job. But she talks about when she's designing even workshops and presentations; she will design for different levels of mental complexity. And just and how you just described that Harriet, of, can I design my communications? Can I design my trust building in a way that is going to, you know, if it is that self-authored individual, honoring their perspectives, honoring their experience honoring their outlook, but that might be something that's totally different if it's someone who is at the instrumental mind. Right?
Harriet Rasmussen 17:45
Exactly, exactly. And when you get to the stop transforming individual, we would maintain that integrity with the matter. Changing on the job changed my world; that was not my introduction to AD, but it framed my dissertation it has framed, and you'll see her work spread throughout our chapter.
Jonathan Reams 18:07
So one of the things that I heard you sort of alluding to in that description of how trust is related to the different levels is that it's not that each of these is unique only to that level; I think somebody at any level wants to know that you care about them, or wants to be listened to in a certain way. But there is this kind of transcend and includes an element that, for the instrumental mind, is in the foreground more than the others or maybe more in the background. Is that how you look at it?
Mo Raei 18:45
Well, I can jump in. In the chapter, we did say that these things interconnect, but it was as I was re-reading the chapter, I was thinking this is to some degree like The Five Love Languages; you have your primary one and then your secondary one. So for each level of development, the one we mentioned is the primary probably, but the secondary ones also play a role.
Harriet Rasmussen 19:11
I would I would agree. I try to my most of my work now is working with students, and the first thing I make sure that they know I care about them. So that sets a culture. That being said, that goes only so far if what they really want from me is I want to engage I want intellectual stimulation. I want to know what you think. I want to know that you are listening to me. So I use caring personal regard as my go-to automatic not when I'm presenting for a big group, but certainly on a one-to-one basis, and leading happens with students, that happens in organizations, that happens in communities, that happens in families, it's not just about a formal role.
Jonathan Reams 19:59
So as you describe this, I have this question in the back of my mind in terms of how leaders might apply this lens, that if they recognized that they need to provide a holding environment for a community of stakeholders to do adaptive work, this community would be likely at very diverse developmental levels among them.
Scott Allen 20:27
Great. Yeah.
Jonathan Reams 20:28
How might a leader use a model like this in thinking about that challenge?
Mo Raei 20:35
I think, you know, if you're dealing with a fairly large group, you have to kind of provide something for everybody. So you know, you might not be able to get to individualized with your approach. But if there's a failureto show care to somebody like noticing their, you know, wearing a neck collar, or asking how their day is, or whatever. So there are opportunities in every meeting to do a check-in; for example, check-in shows care shows you're listening. So, for me, I'm almost religious about doing check-in and doing it properly. Because a lot of the time, people don't do it properly. So even in large groups, if you're doing a retreat, you know, there's an open space, for example, the first two hours are spent having people go around the circle. So showing respect. Also, I did a facilitation once, and there was an individual from a different culture, where you don't talk just for half 30 seconds. So I allowed him to go all the way to 10 minutes. So showing respect. So you know, you tried to give everybody you have to guess sometimes, but you try to provide everybody with something.
Harriet Rasmussen 21:52
And I'd like to take that exactly. That's I'd like to take that to a bigger idea, which is validation; I think everything we are talking about here is that we are validating who people are, where they are what they need in order to get something done in order to move work forward. I have the thinking about this today; I have four, four boys for men. And they could not be more different. I have a politician, I have a historian, I have a playwright, and I have a cowboy. And they are all comfortable in their own skin. And so that's diversity. And I was thinking today about how they somehow were validated. So wherever they are, wherever they are, developmentally, wherever people are, is like, "I get you." And that's the first thing. Otherwise, if you don't validate people, defenses go up immediately, and the leader has a much tougher job ahead. Trust can help you get that. It allows you to get into that window and say, Yeah, you matter. I'm gonna listen to you; wherever you're coming from "you matter."
Scott Allen 23:04
Something that comes to mind for me right now is that I've been interacting with a current student that I have that is an older student and actually owns an organization. And the back and forth that we have is a little bit different than maybe that student who is at maybe 23. And I kind of acknowledged it today; I said, "I hope my poking is okay because I love having this conversation, and I expect the same back from you. Tell me about your experiences, tell me about what you've gone through as a leader, and how you're making sense of these things. Because I don't know that either one of us is going to be right, but we can explore together." And this is an individual, probably more at that self-authoring stage, who walks in with some perspectives, walks in with some opinions about certain things. But that doesn't mean we can't explore now; as the authority figure, quote, unquote, I could approach that much different and be insecure about that individual's experiences. And it would be a completely different interchange. I mean, what does that capture in some ways? The spirit? Jonathan, do you have your hand up? What do you think? Why am I co-hosting with him? Is that what you're thinking right now?
Jonathan Reams 24:23
No, the question that came up in my mind is, I think we're talking a lot now about how we're using our understanding of the kind of range of human experience to tap into different components of trust and something you said earlier Mo, I think was reminding me of listening to Obama's initial inaugural address. And I remember in one paragraph; I heard him hit four different developmental levels in terms of the kinds of values he was speaking to. So the importance of being adept at having a large span, being agile, and kind of being sensitive to what is needed in a given moment. So I think that's, it's great the way we've kind of set that up. Now I'm curious about what happens when you need to spend some of that social capital and make an ask against that trust.
Harriet Rasmussen 25:26
Let me jump back to what with that, hold that, and let me jump back to what Scott was talking about. Because I think there's a connection here, what you're describing, Scott, in your communication with your student. First of all, you're describing an adaptive scenario, where there's no right answer here; we're learning; you're describing a leader or a professor or whatever role you're playing, as in the game learning from your be your followers, but your stakeholders. So let's move them to Jonathan's point. You spend capital; when you have a relationship, you get a relationship through trust. So I can start; I can push students harder than the poking you were talking about, Scott. When they know I care when I have listened to them, I have asked students to spend a weekend entirely revising a proposal. How do I do that? How do I spend that capital with somebody who has been working as hard as they know how to do? It's because I was with them? It's because they knew I cared about them. And I listened to their opinions. So you spend social capital when you have earned it, and you earn it through trust?
Scott Allen 26:44
It's really well said, I agree. I've had a similar experience area which if I have spent the time to build the relationship, and there's a trusting relationship there, we can almost move Jon Wergin, and he was taking it from maybe is it Vygotsky? Is that correct? Did I say that correctly? You know, the Zone of Proximal Development? If that's... I don't know what that was exactly. But you can almost move that zone. If there's trust, you can move that zone a little bit further, potentially, if there's that trust?
Jonathan Reams 27:19
Well, I think this gets to the part of what I experienced myself. And I think that you're alluding to here it is. Kegan talks about how do we support the development and adaptive work for any group of stakeholders, often about developmental work. How do we help them evolve their values, their meaning-making, and so on? And that happens through a combination of challenge and support. And so the support comes through building that trust; they feel supported. And then you can challenge them. And I know exactly what you're saying here it...I challenge my students incredibly hard at times. But I have to build them up to the point where I can do that.
Harriet Rasmussen 28:03
So this struggle, the idea of struggle and adaptive work, and social capital and trust and learning. I have a student who she's she's baby, she's young, I don't know, 25, maybe I don't know, why are you in this program, but she's plenty smart. And I'm pushing her to struggle to understand to grapple with things that don't make sense to her yet. She stays in the game because we have spent time together. She is what I would...I don't think she could possibly be self-authored yet. She's probably highly socialized, but the word she struggles a lot. And she uses the word struggle; it struggles, good struggles when you're learning; you can't approach adaptive work without assuming struggle because we're pushing the boundaries of what we know. And leaders have to lead that. And that's where trust comes in.
Scott Allen 28:59
Mohammed, as we kind of, begin to wind down. Are there some other things that you'd like to bring into the conversation?
Mo Raei 29:07
Yes, two things. The first one is when we're trying to show respect or care or any of these things to target the other person's developmental level, we also have to do it in a culturally specific way. For example, in the US, you're asked somebody, oh, how was your weekend? And in Jordan, that's a meaningless question. Most people just visit family, you know, it's all around the family kinda like Latino culture. So you have to be really culturally aware of how you show care in the specific culture that I'm in and respect and all this, so you know, in Japanese culture showing respect might show very sharp very differently than in U.S. culture. So there's a cultural aspect of how you Apply these things. The other one is I have been thinking about the chapter in the chapter we said, basically, and also Jennifer Garvey Berger said the same thing that, you know, it's helpful for managers to understand development. And having thought about that, yes, it's really helpful, but it's also a two-edged sword. And last week, I did an ICF, a workshop for ICF, International Coaching Federation, and the local chapter; I did a workshop around Spiral Dynamics (Don Beck) and adult development and coaching. And basically, I told the coach coaches, okay, don't get too excited and go apply adult development theory coaches; go apply it yourself. Because that's where you need to start, it's really dangerous like I spent for like three years just focused on adult development as far as the study, and they still read all the books and all this, and they got a chapter published. But you know, getting into that mindset, you know, this person is socialized mind, this person is self-authoring. It's a bit more complicated.
Jonathan Reams 31:09
So I think that brings me to one of the main points to that. I think this and many of the other chapters do a good job of going beyond the simplistic descriptions of these models of adult development and getting into the real nitty gritty nuances because they are much more complex models. And we'll be able to cover a number of those kinds of topics in this series.
Harriet Rasmussen 31:37
I've been thinking about what Mo just said and something that I've been investigating lately. Another chapter I'm working on is the idea of humility and leadership. And all of these pieces of trust, building trust, require a leader to adopt a status of humility, and up not knowing can't know, you can't know what other people need until your point out. So there is this a stance or a disposition of...I don't know; it's like that I'm working on humility. I think that falls into place here. I've been one of the projects I've worked working on recently is to be an advisor to a learning module for a complex topic where a lot of professionals will be taking it. We've been thinking about the design of it; how do you talk to somebody who's been in the field for 30 years and help them let go of what they know long enough to learn something? This is the biggest challenge with leaders, especially leaders who are self-authored themselves, right? How do you let go of what you know long enough to engage authentically with people and learn what they need? For I've been going with, with this as we've been talking
Jonathan Reams 33:00
well, and I think that that epitomizes how you build trust, yeah, whatever developmental level of person might be, yeah, there is something about approaching them with that humility and being present with them. That will be a cornerstone of that relationship.
Scott Allen 33:20
As we begin to wind down, what I would love to do is Mo and Harriet from each one of you; what's something that's caught your attention recently that you've read or listened to? Maybe it's something you've been streaming? It could have to do with this topic that we've just discussed. It may have nothing to do with it. And Jonathan, I'm going to ask you this every time. What is a seminal text that people can go to to learn more about adult development, in your opinion? So Moe, what's something that's caught your attention recently?
Mo Raei 33:52
Well, I'm reading Jennifer Garvey Berger's and Carolyn Coughlin's - I don't know if that's the correct way of pronouncing the name - the new book that came out a couple of weeks ago, Unleashing Your Complexity Genius. And it's interesting because it focuses on, I'm not sure, if you're familiar with Integral Life Practice. So how do you breathe? How do you walk Integral Life Practice is basically a practice that deals with every aspect of the person. So mind body, heart, spirit, etc. So I didn't finish the book, but she was talking about walking, physical activity, breathing, we take our breath for granted, noticing, so kind of similar to mindfulness. I'm a long-term meditator, so I was like, oh, ding, ding, ding. And then, she talks about in order for leaders to deal with complexity; they have to shift their nervous system to the parasympathetic system, which is the opposite of the sympathetic nervous system, which is the fight-flight-freeze response. And this jives in with my own doctoral research when I found that one of the top 10 things that were effective for leaders was maintaining a cool head in the face of adaptive change. So, you know, how do you...what do you do to maintain that cool head? What do you do specifically to shift to that parasympathetic nervous system? And she does provide a few practices that are really helpful.
Scott Allen 35:22
Very interesting. Okay, I'll put that in the show notes. For sure. Harriet, how about you?
Harriet Rasmussen 35:27
Do you put that I just read that I just actually assigned reading to my leadership class. It starts in a few weeks. So, great book. It's funny; you ask that mostly right now; I'm reading dissertations.
Scott Allen 35:43
Listeners don't want to read dissertations, I promise.
Harriet Rasmussen 35:47
And I'm listening to your podcasts now, but I am reading The H-Factor. As I said, I'm working on this right now. I'm working on a chapter called Professorial Humility. Okay. I'll be a book on leaderful pedagogy. That's my main area of study right now.
Scott Allen 36:10
Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, the H-Factor for listeners; if you have not listened to the conversation with Matt Sowcik, that might be an interesting episode to check out. I'll put it in the show notes. And you can check out his work as well. That was really an interesting conversation. I had never really gone down that road of a conversation about humility. And so that was a lot of fun. Definitely.
Harriet Rasmussen 36:34
It was beautiful timing. I've been using humble inquiry as my basis from a science book. And then I listened to your podcast, and I went, "Oh, cool!" Really awesome.
Scott Allen 36:47
Awesome. And Jonathan, give us a seminal work, sir.
Jonathan Reams 36:49
To be honest, my bedtime reading right now, I can't believe I never got to this. Or maybe I was never ready for it till now. But I'm just about to finish Kegan's The Evolving Self. And I realized that it really helped me understand the fundamental kind of genius of how Kegan has integrated Piaget with Freud and said, "What is behind both of those? What is something more fundamental?" And this has really helped me understand the later works that he's done in a much more rich way.
Scott Allen 37:31
Well, I will put that in the show notes as well. That's for sure. This a foundational text for anyone who's interested in this topic. Okay, so Mohammed, Harriet, thank you for your good work. Thank you for helping us think about how adaptive leadership, trust, and adult development converge in very, very important ways. I think it's incredible. And to you, Jonathan, thank you for another episode, co-hosting, and this is just a fun series where we can explore a lot of different nooks and crannies of that intersection of adult development and leadership, but also just adult development, leadership, and things like trust, where things like humility, right, fun stuff. So everyone, have a wonderful day. Thank you so much. Thanks to all of you who are checking in from wherever you are in the world. And be well.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai