What is Adult Development theory?

Adult development, created by Dr. Robert Kegan, the William and Miriam Meehan Professor of Adult Learning and Professional Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, supports leaders to see more nuance and deal with paradox and ambiguity - and expand their capacity to be agile and responsive. Constructive - developmental theories like the theory created by Kegan are centered on the particular meaning-making of each individual rather than on age or phase of life. They are constructive because they are concerned with the way each person creates her world by living it. They are developmental because they are concerned with the way that construction changes over time to become more complex and multifaceted. This means that adult leaders can continue to grow and develop, and fundamentally expand their capacity as leaders over time. If you think of adult development as operating systems of our sense-making, our work in this coaching engagement includes a better understanding of and interplay among  own operating system, the operating systems of others, as well as the nested operating systems within the organization.

What is the Growth Edge Interview (based on Adult Development theory)?

The Growth Edge Interview was developed by Dr. Jennifer Garvey Berger, founder of Cultivating Leadership. The Growth Edge Interview is a way to come to understand more about yourself, and how your own deeply held beliefs about the world shape how you respond to or think about difficult situations. Together, the interviewers and interviewee explore sensemaking, using the adult development framework developed by Kegan. In this coaching engagement, we have conducted a Growth Edge Interview with Vernice Jones and Patrice Laslett, both core faculty of adult development and the Growth Edge Interview process at Cultivating Leadership. The purpose of the interview is to provide with a better understanding of her form of mind, the form of mind of her context and how to better navigate the interplay of those systems as difficult moments arise.