Robert Kegan

Main ideas

• Development goes on in adulthood too — it is not only what we think that changes, but how we think: from the socialized mind (I am my relationships and my roles), through the self-authoring mind (I have an inner compass of my own), to the self-transforming mind (I can hold that compass at a distance).
• The key mechanism is subject–object: what we are run by (the subject) becomes, through development, what we are able to look at (the object).
• Most adults spend their lives in the passage between the socialized mind and the self-authoring mind.

What we take

A single move: make an object of your own motivations. Self-reflection in the test is exactly that — to look at what usually holds a person, instead of being held by it. We do not translate his stages into the layers: choosing the sentence "this would not be me" does not show whether a person can hold their own identity at a distance. It only shows what they named, in that moment, as the reason.

What we do differently

Kegan describes the long development of a personality. We measure a snapshot of motivations across areas of life — the profile can change as a person develops, but we do not assign people a "developmental level".

Recommended books

• The Evolving Self (1982)
• Immunity to Change (2009, with Lisa Lahey)

Sources

• Kegan, R. (1982). The Evolving Self. Harvard University Press — the subject–object relation.
• Kegan, R. (1994). In Over Our Heads. Harvard University Press — the socialized, self-authoring, and self-transforming mind; an estimate of where most adults are.