Ep. 056 - Vertical development. A path to meaningful growth
We often talk about growth as some race to the top. A climb of the ladder, an improvement of our skills, but that narrative actually misses a core aspect of our evolution. Developing our ability to hold and make use of our new capacities.
Nele is an organisational psychologist and coach who specialises in vertical development. We dive into what vertical development even is. Why do we need it? And what you can do to make space for it on your journey consciously.
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About Nele:
Nele is an organisational psychologist with a special interest in adult development or vertical development: how adults can grow and evolve through different stages, expanding their meaning-making over time.
Nele started her career as a banking lawyer. A burnout pushed her down a path she didn't initially choose for. She quit her legal career and became a psychologist. Along the way, she discovered vertical development and was able to put the puzzle back together again. Having walked a non-linear path herself, she understands the challenges and transformative power of finding who you aspire to be. Nele helps people become an expert in who they are, in every context, graciously moving through the complexity of our world.
Want to connect with Nele:
linkedin.com/in/neledepeuter
Website:
https://www.koruconnect.com/
EP. 056 Transcription
Nele Done
[00:00:00] Shani: Hi,
my name is Shani, and welcome to the Experience Designers podcast, where we explore the human experience, what it is, and how we might
create better ones for ourselves and for others. We often talk about growth as some kind of race to the top. A climb of the ladder, an improvement of our skills, but that narrative actually misses a core aspect of our evolution. Developing our ability to hold, make use of our new capabilities.
This is what Nele de Peuter and I dive into. Nele is an organizational psychologist and coach who specializes in vertical development. So we
of course, dive into What is vertical development? Why do we need it? And what can you do to make space for it on your journey consciously?
Let's dive in. Hi, Nele. Welcome to the Experienced Designers.
[00:01:04] Nele: Well, hi, Shani. Thank you for the for the invitation. I'm super
[00:01:08] Shani: excited to, to dive into this topic of vertical development with you, because, um, yeah, I think we both share a love for growth in different ways. And as usual, I would love to just start with you.
Your journey into this because you started in law, and then you went on a on a big journey of exploration through psychological safety and different layers of personal development and somehow came into vertical development. So I would love to hear just, yeah, hear more about your journey and for having me.
How do you end it up here?
Well it's been a long journey. When I was 18, I went to law school. That now seems like a hundred years ago. But after law school, I went into law. So I was a couple of years a lawyer. I became a company lawyer. And then I took on various positions in, um, well, actually within export credit finance.
[00:02:16] Nele: And the thing was, I really loved those jobs. I thought it was really, how do you say that? Uh, in my game, I really loved it. However, 2008, um, September 2008 was when Lehman Brothers, um, filed for bankruptcy, and that sort of kicked off the credit crunch, the financial crisis, and the world changed, and also my world changed.
So, when it came to well being, things changed completely. And then after a while, I mean, um, we, we would've, we had sort of the golden years in finance before, but things completely were different afterwards and it had such an impact on the workflow, on, on wellbeing. And then by two thousands, 13, I hit the wall.
And this is this year. It was actually 2 December 2013. So I'm sort of celebrating, the 10 year, 10 year anniversary. And that day I remember that I was so tired and, I went to work and, I was there for 15 minutes and I thought, I just don't feel well. I, I, you know, I need to go home. So I told my boss, I'm going to go home.
And I thought, I'm just gonna sleep. I'm just gonna sleep for a week. But that didn't happen because I, you know, I was home for a week and then actually I completely crashed, which was really, really scary. And I still remember very well actually what happened at the time. It was like this extreme tiredness.
It was I had had two small children by then, so I know what broken, uh, nights are at that time. But it's like being tired really in every sort of cell in your body. And yeah, that was sort of a burnout. And I. I didn't know, like, wow, this is burnout. I couldn't believe it. I thought really something very, you know, it was scary, but something serious was going on and that I didn't, hadn't find it yet.
Um, and it took a while to actually realize. And I remember there was this, doctor from the health insurance. And I saw him like after three months and he said to me, this is burnout. You should believe this is burnout. You really need to do something about this. Look at how you're organizing your life.
What is your career like? You should really think very hard about it. And I remember going home and thinking, I'm really lost. I don't know what I need to do. I don't know how I need to change it. But, Gradually, I did. This is when actually the true healing process started where I could accept that this had happened.
And I looked for a therapist. And another six months later, I was actually back on my feet. And I had been looking into psychology before. But, um, uh, this time I properly went back to school. And It wasn't really my intention to get another degree or to change careers completely. I just knew at the time, I can't go back yet.
I'm not feeling very well yet. I need to do something different. Um, and the biggest aim was like, how can I understand what happens? Why is burnout linked? to work, the work floor. Why is, why are so many people having this now? How can we prevent this? So there was so many questions. And then I went back to school and, I actually loved it so much that I started doing these other courses like in parallel.
And this is really how I sort of landed in a different career. It wasn't like a big setup plan. I'm going to become a psychologist. I'm going to do different things. It was just, you know, ignited by burnout. And, and it was like constantly this, this constant drive for searching for understanding. And it changed also over the years.
So if I look at it now, the questions changed. And in the end, I did get the degree. And I remember thinking, well, I haven't got so many answers yet. So, I mean, I still don't know how we, what we should do with stress because this is why I started the course. I thought, Oh, I'm, you know, let's find a solution for stress, for burnout.
I just need to know how this works and then we'll figure out the solution. There's so many experts in the world. But then I realized. Like the stress response system that we, we have as humans. So it's, it's basically also ancient. It's not really equipped for these, for the times of today. And everyone has this unique, unique system.
Everyone responds differently to different triggers. We, how we manage it. It's all so different how we cope with it. So if there would have been one size. Fit solution, we would've found it. And that's just not the case. Actually, we are doing not that much better if you look at it since the whole, rise in mental health crisis started.
So I kept on searching. And then at one point you mentioned psychological safety. I read this book by Amy Edmondson, she's a professor at Harvard and she did her. dissertation on, psychological safety and I thought, that's it. That's it. I found it. This is what I needed. I mean, this is what I missed. So just, to frame it a bit, psychological safety means that, people have a sense of feeling that.
They can speak up, they can share their concerns, they can share how they feel. They can also share mistakes without actually being punished for it or face any other sort of negative consequences. So I started briefly actually a PhD on it because I wanted to find out. How are we going to create this?
Because this is what's missing from the world of work. And then I started doing this literature reviews and looking into, at the time, the science of it, the studies that were there. And I noticed that so many of these studies were focused on, so if you have psychological safety, then you have X positive Consequences or I or Z like productivity, creativity.
There's lots of things why it's very good. And also if there's no psychological safety, um, what the negative consequences are, but there wasn't that much on actually creating it. And in Edmondson's book, there's a whole section devoted to, creating psychological safety by leaders, like setting the stage.
And it's, it's all sort of common sense. It's, it's, it's very good. It says like, listen to your colleagues, like deep listening. It says things like ask good questions. Try to really understand people, show humility, show vulnerability, admit your mistakes, invite other people to, uh, to talk about their mistakes, um, build structures so people can share their opinions that people are heard.
And having had before a career of 10, 15 years, I mean, I'd been working in a law office. I'd been working for a public institution. I would be working for a bank. I thought, Hmm, well, I can understand that you can tell this to people, but there is a difference like it's not because you tell them and that they understand that they will actually be able to, implement it, that they will actually be able to, to, um, to do this in, in, in their context.
Like listening, deep listening, that's a skill you need to practice. Admitting to your vulnerability. It doesn't really match the leadership model we see in many Western corporations. So I thought, Hmm, that's a bummer. That's not going to work. It's not enough. And then I kept on looking and studying.
And at one point I came across Robert Keegan, and Keegan is a developmental psychologist. He's a Harvard professor, and, he'd been looking into what he calls constructive adult development, and This is basically what he says, like it's not because you tell people that they know We grow in stages like children.
We still grow in changes and in phases and I read the book and I thought, that's it, that's what I didn't see, and this is sort of what makes the picture full. And construct adult development theory is actually just another word for vertical development. I've read many theories on it, and I've read many authors, and there are so many names, but because of translation purposes, I'm also sticking with vertical development, so.
This is how I got to the point where I'm now. So it's sort of, yeah, it's the lens I want to look through when I'm working with people and I just want to say, there are so many lenses, I mean, human beings can't be narrowed down to. just one lens. It's just the one I'm using and I love using it because it builds and broadens, well, various perspectives actually.
[00:12:21] Shani: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. First of all, that's a beautiful journey and it resonates what you say that. we're complex and we're different. And in the end, most of us will choose a slightly different lens from somebody else. Very few of us are going to choose the exact same way to approach something.
So yeah, I hear what you're saying. And I love that a lot. And I would love to dig into that a little bit more because then you did this whole journey of asking me. All these questions, and so many of them, I thought, yep, I've asked, I've asked those, I've gone down different roads, but definitely can relate to, to a lot of these questions.
And then you got to this place where you are now, which is, let's call it this point in your exploration. Can you explain a little bit more what is, vertical development. And yeah, and is it maybe like, is it in contrast to horizontal development or? What is it?
[00:13:24] Nele: Yeah, it's actually often easier to explain what vertical development is when you also explain horizontal development, because it's rather abstract, the whole idea of vertical development.
So horizontal development is really about knowledge. It's about getting more skills. It's about new methods. You're learning. It's basically a lot of what we get at school is what you get a lot of at trainings. And, it's really sort of building your capacity, your, well, your capacity when it comes to, to skills, however, Vertical development is sort of, it's, it's, it's growing and broadening the way you look at things.
It's about expanding your views on your relationships, your view on yourself. It's about, um, look, the ways you look at the world and to make it more concrete, what I often say to people is think of the moment when you just. You just graduated and you were on the verge of starting your very first job. Who were you at the time?
What were you thinking? What were your hopes? What were your fears? What were you wearing? I mean, sort of what were your aspirations for life? And for some people it can be 10 years for a few others, can be five years for others. It's decades. And then I asked them, well, think about who you are now. Um, if you think about the difference about what we were thinking and how you looked at the world, there is a difference.
Well, that's actually your developmental growth in it. So, it's just the fact that you start, you know, sometimes also taking on different opinions because, the way this happens is that you have a certain worldview, a certain way of thinking about stuff. But then at one point, it starts to sort of rub. In a, in a, in a not very good way.
And at one point you just need to let go of it and see it in a different way. So I, like, for instance, the same with kids, like, I have a six year old and, you know, soon there's going to be Santa Claus. It's a really big popular thing in Belgium. He comes on the 6th of December in Belgium. And. you know, she talks about this grown man going down the chimney.
We have a horizontal the roof, but she's six. So at one point she will be realizing, wait a minute, a grown man in the chimney, that's not going to happen. So this is how, you know, sort of her worldview is changing because she will realize This is not going to happen. And the way we grow as adults, like having these mental capacities, these phases we go through, it's the same as with kids in that sense that, Piaget, the world's renowned, Swiss psychologist, he sort of laid it down.
It's, it's in the sixties. He said that children up until the age of 20,22, they are growing in a fixed. set of stages. So if you have a kid, let's say of 10 years old, like most kids, some are a bit slower, some are a bit faster, they have the same kind of mental capacities. And it is automatic because we go through it.
And in the eighties theorists like Robert Keegan, they would say like, wait a minute, it's not because you've reached sort of adulthood, what we would call grown up, that you're literally grown up. I mean, at the time, they also thought that brains didn't change anymore. And then they got new machines and realized.
How brains they do change, there is sort of a plasticity about it, and there were different theories looking at it, and independently, they uncovered the same kind of thing, so as adults, we go through the same kind of.
path, but there's a difference. So kids go automatically through it, but adults do not go automatically through it, even to, it goes a lot more slower. And also to the point actually of sometimes just stagnating and not everyone goes through the same kind of stages. So there is a, a sequence in it.
You can't sort of highly say that, not do one stage. It's just the way it goes. It's about how your life's going. So, it depends, how your life goes and what do you invest in, how much you invest in personal development. So what your growth looks like. So that is what critical development is about.
I
[00:18:09] Shani: love this. I've also been sitting a lot with this thought around growth and how, especially in the work environment, but even overall in life, I think in sports and, you know, all kinds of interests. So much of growth is about this, taking a step up and acquiring that skill and being smarter. And, and we're kind of lacking this dimension that you're talking about quite a lot, which I love that you have a name for it, which is more about it.
Yeah. Our own depth and our own container and our own ability to, to hold all the new things, because as you say, I kind of feel like a lot of times, exactly going back to the analogy that you were using of 10 years ago, when you first set foot in university, and you get all this new knowledge, but you don't have the persona or the capacity to go out in the world and make use of all of it.
You also have this you, this space that needs to have its own stability and its own roots into the ground and its own, um, yeah, just center to be able to apply it all as well. I really like. idea. And, and also, I'm curious, then what is the sequence if we're looking at when we go into adulthood, and our growth is maybe slower and a little bit more, I'm interpreting also as more voluntary or dependent on our desire to make use of our sequence and our cycle, what are the things that happen to us as we go into these cycles of growth?
[00:19:47] Nele: Mm hmm. So, um, Maybe let's first say how, uh, I'll first maybe get into how we grow. So just, you know, life does it to you. It just happens because you get life experience. And what we also see is that these life crises, things like a divorce, losing a loved one, serious illness, burnout, depression, that these things tend to sort of yeah, like make growth faster that there's sort of like a sort of sometimes a huge jump in it.
And, um, you sometimes hear people say that, like when they come out of this, like they, they for a long time, they're in a liminal space where everything's chaos. They don't know, you know, can't go back to where it was. I don't know where it's like, but when they got out of it, they say like, I am a different person or.
I will never do that again, or I can't believe I have a thought. So this is sort of the impact and that is true growth. And there's also a third route. And the third route is like deliberately investing in your own growth. And that would mean like, yeah, actually personal development. And you can do it in many different ways, like, but it's sometimes a hard process because it really means that looking at your own blind spots, looking at Things that are completely different to what you're thinking or what you're experiencing.
Like looking with a lens, like a magnifying glass at your behaviors and thinking, Huh, well, I maybe could have done that differently. And listening to people, asking for feedback. So it's not always an easy process to go through, but it helps you in realizing Oh, this is my perspective on the world. This is the glasses I'm looking through.
And obviously someone else is always looking through a different pair of glasses. So this is how vertical development goes. And looking at the stages, um, thing is there are many theorists and they have different names. They also divide some of the stages differently. So what I want to say is, without actually getting into the depth of each of these different stages, it's also a process.
of, identity, like how am I moving towards the world? And I think maybe Keegan has a sort of more, easier process, like in the sense that, he divided into three stages. And this is where you see that in the beginning you are More or less just looking at yourself, like more in, in some is called like opportunist view, like where you can just see, what you're thinking and it's very difficult to see other people's opinions.
Um, I've heard one, One of the mentors I've been with say life is like the constant selfie And living with two teenagers I sort of grabbed the concept
I love that But gradually, like, there's this process that goes on that they see, oh, um, there are rules here. I mean, there's rules in my house, there's rules at my school, in my society, there's rules. And then sort of your identity is being formed by the rules that are laid upon you. You're trying to you know, be part of it.
So and always looking out for what should I look out for to be okay to fit to fit in? Because biologically, this is what we do. We're always trying to look at how do we fit in? How can I belong? We want to be part of a group. Um And gradually you're moving more to, Hmm, it's not just the world who is sort of governing who I am.
I can also make choices in this. So I can also write my own story. And this is where we get to a more sort of self authoring phase. And at one point, this is what Keegan would call the transforming, stage, self transforming. This would mean that you're understanding like, Okay, so it's not just me who's writing the world, who also is also writing me.
And we are in this together. There's sort of a co creation in this. And I can see more systems. I can see that everything's linked together. And I'm actually going to look for these systems because it's complex. I want to understand complexity. I want to understand how I'm behaving. How can I get more feedback in understanding who I am?
Because And even at the point that people think like, um, see feedback as like, it doesn't matter what you're saying, whether it's a compliment or whether it's what we would call negative feedback. It doesn't matter because everything that's being said has something to do with me and I want to understand.
See, that is like the whole root. people can go through, but as I said, not everyone goes through these stages and that's not necessary either. It's just, what's important that what's expected from you in your context, in, in the way you live, that it sort of matches who you are. Because, like, a lot of people struggle with it.
The world has become so complex that so many people are overwhelmed. I mean, things go so much faster, so many expectations, demands, that people just don't, can't, can't juggle it anymore. That see through, this complexity has become a very hard thing. Like, if you look back a few hundred years ago, I mean, globalization wasn't there.
There was no, like, digital technology. Society was a lot easier. So, this is how I got to vertical development, too, because I saw a pattern for myself, too. Like, I just didn't survive. I got a burnout, let's say it like that, because I couldn't, I couldn't handle the complexity of my life at the time.
[00:26:07] Shani: That's a powerful statement. I think, so many things come up for me as I'm listening to you. One is, Yeah. There's a lot of research also on secular versus less secular countries and how a lot of this mental pressure of handling complexity also increases the more secular we become and the more individualistic we become.
Then we also have less of these collective frameworks to relate to, and perhaps also less of these spiritual thoughts to ground into, because we have to go look for all of them ourselves, none of them are handed to us for, for free within our, within our structures at all. Um, so for example, Sweden, where I'm from, in, in that.
In that lineup, it's an extremist country. It's the furthest out, it's the most secular, the most individualistic, and incidentally also one of the countries that has a a lot of issues with, with mental health. You, you also like nicely came back in the loop to your experience, like, how did these ideas help ground you and, and take a different than approach to, to work life?
Because that's a little bit where you were looking for. Mm hmm. How has it helped?
[00:27:22] Nele: Oh, it's helped in so many ways. It's, it's some, something I sometimes tell in my classes and my courses, like if people do, lifelines. That's part of my lifeline. So how has it helped because I was so much on the lookout for can we actually change?
Can humans change? We've got our youth. We get so many messages and patterns and, what we also call like 90 percent of people have small T trauma. Like we all have these things that we are trying to deal with. And from there on, there are certain patterns that are emerging and they are very helpful when we're young, but maybe less helpful and very much less strategic when we get adults.
And I mean, there's many authors I've met, through the years. And one of them is also like Robert Sapolsky and the book. I can actually see it behind you. Also one of these things where you can actually see people are changing because I mean what it takes, what it means. And this is sort of my journey also in understanding how we change.
And I, when I got into vertical development and that was Right before, covid. It was in late 2018 and then 2019, I was taking these courses with, Robert, yeah, Robert Keegan. And then I did a whole year course, with, Jennifer Garvey Berger, who's also a big name in the field. And this is.
where I started getting a community, um, of people who, who work in this, who think in this. And I started understanding what it means to be in this field of trying to look at these different opinions, understanding, like Jennifer, she would, for instance, say, how can I be wrong? That is a question that's always with me, or how can I look at it differently?
Or even when there's someone in front of you is thinking so, that you're really thinking, Oh my God, are you nuts? Even they're trying to find in that person what, you know, what, what sounds familiar where you can find like communal ground, common ground with. And these sort of things that changed me.
And at one point I met, another community, which is Heart Hill. Heart Hill is a organization that is, works with vertical development. They have their own framework, which also comes from one of the earlier, uh, researches. It's UK based and they have a global community working in it. And that has been so much fun because you get triggered in so many ways.
You get questioned and There's always, always the idea of psychological safety. And so this is how it changed me, finding this community and getting these courses and also trying to bring them in and other organizations, because I do believe, and that's my personal view on it. It's not just about changing organizations.
It's also a bit about changing the world because what would it be like if more people could understand and try to hold multiple opinions in them instead of just their own? Look at the sort of polarization we're seeing in so many countries for whatever topic. And, um, well, organizations are one way of, of getting these ideas spread.
And yeah, um, this is how am I looking at it? I, this is sort of a big dream too, not just organizations, but bringing this idea to a broader public that everyone sort of can benefit from. Yeah, maybe I can have a look at it differently. How would it be like, and that there's just like this common thing in not just understanding that there's different ways of viewing it, but also understanding that it's can be very hard.
And lately, what I've been doing, One of the things that help in trying to invest in this is, this idea comes from Nick Petrie, he says like, you need to get heat experiences and heat experiences sort of disrupting, um, what you're thinking, disrupting in, in, in being, it's about getting out of your comfort zone.
So that's what I've been doing over the last couple of years with ups and downs. I can tell you that. And then, you know, it's looking and reflecting on, on, on these perspectives you're getting and, and how you behave and how everything's linked at the structures you come from family structures. Yeah, I've, I've seen links with so many beautiful theories in psychology.
And, um, for me, it's sort of the, the overarching thing, how vertical development is for everything I've seen in psychology, it's, it just, Yeah. Brings in everything. If that's an answer to your question, because I
[00:32:40] Shani: know I have lots of other questions. Um, no, but, but also it deeply resonates with me what you're saying this, this needs to be able to hold and harbor complexity to a greater extent.
I would say that's, that's also been personally one of my Okay. Big observations in the past few years, especially as public debates have become more and more polar and more and more dividing and, and also even just reflecting back on having had a career in corporate and looking at how we very often set structures up to streamline people, rather than actually hold
their uniqueness and let that come into play for us. So, there's so much to be said for these things, but I guess that kind of leads me to my next, my next question then, because I'm thinking what I hear you're saying is, of course, this, this need to hold complexity and this investing in growth. It's beyond just like incentivizing people to climb also incentivizing them to connect to themselves and look at themselves and, and, and dare to be with all of the discomfort and that it is to do that or to be with others who, as you're saying, you don't necessarily agree with.
Um, and as a sideline, one of my things I've been doing is I follow. People on social media that I don't agree with at all, just to subject myself to different opinions. And even that is triggering sometimes because you look at it and you go, okay, how can, and then I, my next question is, how am I finding the empathetic, curious human perspective to reading this?
And then the more I read, the more I, and the more I encounter and the more I listen, I actually kind of, um, yeah. But improve even if just by a millimeter my capability to hold this perspective, then then it's great. But, but that's the sideline. I wanted to ask you then. Now we talked like very conceptually about these ideas.
And then you also mentioned this, like how that needs to change in the world, but also in the world of work. So what do you think? it then looks like in the space of work to really be investing in our vertical growth, because I think most of us can relate to investing in our horizontal growth of and kind of taking a course and learning a new skill.
And that is very much kind of the, the essence of what a lot of, of development is, is based around. And perhaps it's adding to our stress more than it is helping us reduce it. But then what What does it look like when we get to do the vertical piece?
[00:35:38] Nele: Yeah, it's, it's really about getting this vertical lens into the organization.
I would say that as a first and I know it's, it's, it still sounds very conceptual. The thing is, it's not always that easy because, there's lots of discussion going on about, how do you bring it in? Do you bring in first the theory, then the practice? Do you let people stumble upon the truth?
As some people say, it's stumble upon. What it is like to grow, like just, you know, having sort of experiential training in it. Um, coming to think of it, what I think first would be a good one is look very good. Have a close look at your, at the sort of training you're making available to people. Lots, and I'm saying lots of it also, within leadership development training is just limited to horizontal, horizontal learning, always getting, well, getting best practices, getting everything in.
But as I said before, it's not because people know what to do that actually can do it. So something that's needed a bit more. And I remember when I first started this new career, I, I I would, you know, I would be a mediator and I would also give these mediation classes and I remember that you could teach people like these beautiful sentences to ask to mediate conflict and that they would find it very hard to actually implement it.
And why was that? Because often there was something that was a sort of a bump in the road, like in the way they would handle their own conflict, that they would be scared of conflict. So if you don't have a proper look at that, like what's conflict to me and how do I look at it, which is also part of vertical growth, then you won't be able to implement everything you learned.
in horizontal development. So it's, it's the combination of the both. That is such a strong thing. It's horizontal development. That's giving you the skills to, to, to know, um, what you can do, what you can implement, but it's vertical development that it's giving you sort of the wisdom. to know when to implement it, how to implement it and in a good way.
So it's a, it's a very powerful thing to have a look first at what kind of trainings are we going and giving, and is there also a personal element in it that we, like a vertical growth, part in it. Then next thing, I talked earlier about the heat experiences. It's like, you know, pulling people out of their comfort zones, but not just that, like, you know, um, how do you say that?
Like, exposing them to different opinions, to different things, to new things, but also guide them in that. Have group discussions, maybe peer discussions, um, about how am I looking at this? How am I experiencing this? How am I, you know, how can I, how is this different to me? And why is this bothering that there's sort of an element of reflection in it?
And obviously we also have these training programs, with heart Hill and heart Hill, um, is using their, leadership development framework where you also have these stages and their, they have a psychometric tool, which is called the leadership development profile. And what this thing does is that it, and to be honest, I really love it.
I'm not a big fan of psychometric tools, but I am a big fan of this one. It's a sentence completion tool. And what it does is that you get 32 sentences, which should stand in stems, which you need to complete. And just that in itself is like a growth opportunity. And, um. I love it. I mean, I've, I've looked at many tools, but this one I really love because it's so rich.
Also, the report you get is like, it broadens your perspective in who you are. What it says is it's all about meaning making. So what it does is that it gives you a chance to look at who you are now in this moment, how are you, me making meaning of your life, of your relationships? your context, your work.
And, it's interesting, you know, this is also my work, to work with this, with, with, with a coach and see, oh, okay, this is where I stumble upon. Oh, and this is great because I used to be different and now it's like this. So, and many people often think like, Oh, take me to the next stage or take me to the.
You know, to the latest stage, that's not what it's about. It's really about looking at who you are and seeing the richness of where you are. And also looking at where am I struggling and why am I struggling there? And, um, what are each stage has so many advantages of, has so much richness in it, wherever you are.
And, I love that idea about it. And even when people say like, Oh, that's totally not me. No, no. I thought it would have been completely different. That's fine too. Like we just get on with the conversation and see what does resonate and why it's different and how you look at things. I must say, since I've, you know, since I'm in that field, I sort of, for myself, it is just this.
This sort of path I have in my head to like, oh, okay, yeah, I know this is, this is really hard for me because I'm finding it very hard to take in that opinion and I know why that is. Okay. Just leave it for a bit. And that's the thing you, you move through things too, because sometimes you need to spend some time looking at it and sometimes you need to let go.
And this is also one thing, subject, object. This is what, what Robert Keegan said. He said, you know, there's certain patterns, there's certain behaviors that you can't see and then you're subject to them. But at one point there is going to be this realization, like when I talked about my daughter, suddenly she's going to realize, traditionally, this is what happens to us and this is how growth happens.
Like suddenly you can see it, you can hold it, you can look at it from afar. Not subject to eat anymore. You can see it as an object. However, our brain are They are so complex. It's so ingrained into our brain It's not because that today you can see it that tomorrow you're going to do it completely differently That's not gonna happen.
It's a process growth is always a profit process and it's like yeah This is me and gradually you will change, you will see things in different situations, you will see yourself falling back to and often people say like, Oh, I did it again. Can't believe I lost my temper. And, there's a lot of richness in that too, like it's by falling back that there's also a big element of growth in it and to be Just to make it concrete recently There was a really good book about it by Valerie Livesey who actually researched the whole topic and saw fallback There is so much good in it.
So That's it. I just love that just looking at the whole thing and this is what you can bring into a company as well Like, that people look at and it doesn't, you know, can be any sort of, sentence completion, tool that looks at, um, your developmental journey, but it gives you sort of idea of a map of where you are, where you're struggling.
And as I said before, it's one lens of, of looking at people. It's not necessarily looking at your talents. It's not looking at your, your traits or. This is just one view. And, once be, once you get started with that in a company, like for instance, with leaders, they can also see how it's like, how it's like for them.
And they can maybe, um, some people are very good at it and understanding like Okay, so when I'm leading others, I need to be very aware of the fact that you need to meet people where they are, like sometimes people are not just, just not there yet. I mean, it's about understanding why some people think completely differently than you, that they don't understand you and you don't understand others.
And one of the examples I'm sometimes giving is like feedback. It takes more complexity to see feedback as a good thing for many people. It's very difficult. And why is it very difficult? Because it needs some growth to understand that it's not just negative. Like for instance, when I talked about being governed by the rules of your environment, if someone gives you sort of negative feedback, at work.
This can be perceived as, Oh, I didn't follow the rules. Oh, I'm so ashamed. It's just difficult. And yeah. And, and it, it, once you get that going into a company, things start changing. And what I really love about it is that in the beginning as a consultant or as a coach, you bring it in and in the beginning is lots of work, but what I love doing is giving To the company, making sure that they take it into their own hands, that they are building their own structures and ways of working with vertical development, that they have these peer groups, that they come together as, as, as, how do you call that?
These, bodies too, where you can actually reflect on things. So that's one way of, of getting it into a company and thinking about it and see how it changes. Hmm. One
[00:45:38] Shani: thing that I thought about also, as you were describing this and you were talking about the fallbacks and the fact that, you know, often when we set an intention to grow something or once we start practicing something, we don't perfect it the next day.
We have to go back and keep observing and keep picking up on the nuances. And we get served these lessons quite a lot of times before we turn it into a new habit or a new behavior that is really, incorporated into us. And I, it was a few years ago, I read a good example and I can't say if it's still the case, but I read about, Deloitte Training Academy that they had set up.
And what they did there was they sent people there and they just allowed them to practice. And. What you got was just like a check in the box that you practiced. Not that you perfected, that you practiced something. And for me that was such a, like it really, I really hung onto that thought because I think that's also really true.
So much in how we are also measuring and judging people is about how well you're perfecting something and it's hard to perfect. It's hard for us, but we can see that people are. actively making efforts? And can we in some ways more actively support that? I think that has also been a question that I've been carrying with me a lot rather than rewarding the now you're fantastic at coaching.
You know, we're all going to be really good some days and less good on others. How are you? Are you actively practicing? Are you aware? Are you receptive? Are you reflecting? And maybe more? be an encouragement of those behaviors as well, I think, at least from my point of view, that's always also something that Gives a little bit more space to to be there without feeling like it's a risk for me, especially at work But it's okay.
It's okay to not be perfect.
[00:47:41] Nele: It is, isn't it? And it reminds me of I spoke about an everyone culture earlier and there's three organizations Like cases on the book, and one of them is Bridgewater and Bridgewater is a, one of the largest hedge funds in the world. And it's led by Ray Dalio. And he, for instance has, if I remember correctly, The way people get bonuses.
There is 50 percent based upon their actual work and 50 50 percent is based upon how much they invested in their personal development that year. And I thought, Oh, wow, that is such a beautiful thing. And that is what I mean by by creating these structures. It's not just about, it's not just about, you know, the figures about, the productivity about, the output.
It's really also about who are we, who are we as a company and how do we want to grow? Because that's the idea of the book too. When you, um, invest in the growth of, of every individual in an organization, you are investing in the. growth of the organization itself. It's not a separate thing. Hmm.
[00:48:59] Shani: Yeah. I mean, I completely agree.
And that's also a book that has marked me a lot on how you think about and Robert Keegan also talks about the second job, the job of hiding our insufficiencies and how we can eliminate that also from our daily lives of, of just being very frank and open with. with what we what we can and cannot do and where our limitations are.
And then on the other hand, I sometimes think, I'm also curious as to, we often talk about growth as a with with a slightly negative bias, like growth having to come from a place of enforcing things that We are uncomfortable with or not good at. And then sometimes I also think growth and, and especially for me, that in the deeper sense is also sometimes about the stillness and present with what I already am really good at.
And how do I get that to take up more space in my life? Uh, at the same time as I'm staying really humble to all the things I am yet to learn and that I am yet to be wrong about. And I think. That for me is still that's the question that I have similar to you, I also go after different questions, that every time I get close to something, there's a new one.
That one is still for me, I think, I don't know if you have you've you've come across anything, but I'm certainly curious of how do we you've make space for people to also really get close to their essence and what they're good at a little bit more as well through this growth
[00:50:40] Nele: discussion? Mm hmm. To be honest, I'm not sure because, We live in a context.
We are, we are also the product of the society we live in of, and I'm just thinking if more people are, would get the same idea or would sort of be convinced of, of, of the benefits of it, then there would be more, more room for doing it. Imagine things like, well, when we come back to stress, if, if you look at 20 years ago, It was like, Oh, burnout, this new disease, it's, it's not a new disease.
It just existed for such a long time. It's just, there's so many more people having it. And suddenly today I was actually in an organization yesterday. They were organizing yoga classes. So I'm just looking at it from the perspective of sort of, you know, I think it's a marketing thing that you need a critical mass.
And once you get that, things will get smoother, get easier. You'll find more structures of doing this and getting to your point too, where you say there's a negative aspect about it. And I think you're very right. That's true. It is hard. It is hard to look at yourself. It is sometimes really like going through the mud and At the same time, it's so incredibly rewarding.
Uh, a colleague of mine, he refers to it as, as fitness. So when you start fitness and when you start muscle training, it really hurts. You're stiff. It takes an effort. It takes time to get into routine. And they say it takes 60 days to actually build a routine, but it's rewarding because at one point you see yourself getting stronger.
And that's literally, um, And you see that you can pick up things better. , you see the difference because you invested in it. And this is sometimes just what you need that you can see, um, that you start doing it, you're, and it's a hurdle. I'm actually in this process too. And I like getting more muscles and it takes time.
It's really dragging my. weights and but I know there will be a time that this gets easier that it's easier to do and that at one point you will start seeing the difference and then this will become a thing you get drawn to and I feel that for me it was sort of the same thing that happened with vertical development.
I suddenly saw this thing and I'm not saying it's easier before, but what I do find is that I'm experiencing the benefits. I am having less stress. It's not because I learned some stress relief techniques that suddenly I'm not having stress anymore. I'm looking at it from a more preventive perspective as well that actually I'm not getting stress anymore from certain triggers because I can look differently at it.
There is an ease of moving through life to like, because I can handle, relationships better. Also, getting into new situations, seeing complexity in it is getting. a bit easier. It's not that it's always easier, but there's so many benefits related to going through this growth process. And it's just the awareness of things, staying close to yourself, as you said before, at one point, it just becomes sort of habits and a way of looking at yourself.
And you, you know, you start experimenting in these Safe with safe to fail experiments, like trying it out in comfortable situations, low risk. But at one point your body and your brain starts to remember it and you can actually apply it in more high risk situations. So I do believe that once we get the word out, there's a critical mass of more people doing this, that we get supported in this.
So yeah. And what's also, yeah, sorry, go ahead. No, I just,
[00:54:46] Shani: uh, my thought was, it also sounded a little bit like letting go of the idea that it has to be easy. Yeah. I think we also go around thinking that, oh, when I do it enough, it's going to be easy. And what's easy? I sometimes think, yeah, it's easier because I stopped expecting it to be.
I just, I just assume it's going to be something else and I accept it. And then, yeah, it does kind of become easier in its own way.
[00:55:14] Nele: Yeah, you know what they say, uh, it's in the acceptance that the change lies.
[00:55:21] Shani: Yeah, well, there's probably no other road to it. We've had a, we've had an exploration and a journey, but I always, Especially with these like big topics, I always want to end on actions because that's also what we've talked about a little.
How do we, how do we make it from conceptual understanding to practice and behavior? And so I would love to hear from you what are kind of your top actions that you think a person can take who wants to really dig into their vertical development.
[00:55:57] Nele: Top actions.
[00:55:58] Shani: Just like I know there's probably so much to do and say, but where do you start?
[00:56:05] Nele: My thing, my first thing to say, whether you are in a company or not and being in an organization makes it sometimes easier is, um, taking the, the vertical development profile. I really love that or any other profile, just getting into understanding what it is. , what it is for you, what your journey is and what it, what it looks like just, you know, getting acquainted with it because of a developmental coach will also explain to you, what the stages are, what it means.
I, that for me was, it was a big, big eye opener. But, you know, not everyone has the chance, but, then there's little practices you can always do. Like, as I said before, starting to ask yourself the question, how can I be wrong here? How, how can I see this differently? Then there's practices like, any kind of meditative practice, any kind of, yoga practice, anything that brings, that learns you how to focus, how to be aware of things and practicing that awareness to real life.
Like for instance, I learned, to meditate, for instance, with my eyes open, because when you have your eyes open and you're learning how to focus, you're actually learning your body to do the same thing in other situations where you don't have the, the ability to close your eyes. And I thought, Oh, that's a wonderful thing.
So practice focus training. That is something in any way you like. That is something that, helps growth. And well, this is a point that comes a lot later in my list, but it's definitely not the lesser one. Engage in things that I get you out of your, comfort zone, things that are disruptive to who you are in, in, in your behaviors.
Like for instance, if you would have told me 10 years ago, you will practice yoga every day. I would have told you were crazy. I mean, I am sort of still the stiffest person in the world, but at one point. A friend I met in a course, she invited me to this app and I still, I'm still using it. And I said, huh, yeah, it was in COVID.
So it was the best, perfect time to actually get myself into it. And there's lots of things I've been doing. Like I've been doing, going into a lot of community work, meeting people I probably would have never met or worked with in, in, in other ways. So, and I love that. Meeting and talking and working with people who, who, who have a different background, background to me who think differently.
So that is also, I would really recommend to get as many different things in your life as possible, even if it is, especially if it is uncomfortable.
[00:59:03] Shani: I love those. Those are great. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for, yeah, just sharing your journey and what you've understood throughout it. And I could have gone on, but, I'm just very grateful that you are here.
so much.
[00:59:19] Nele: for the invitation. I love to have this conversation. Thank you for the wonderful questions. Thank you.
[00:59:26] Shani: Thank you for listening as we dove into the verticals of growth. I hope this episode brought you some new angles to explore for your evolution. And if it did, please share with us. We would love to know what came up for you.
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