Keep one shared stage word from carrying two meanings
When two people use the same stage name, ask which model each one means before you agree or disagree.
Why it works
Some names recur across these maps. Starr and Torbert’s seven action logics include Expert, Achiever and Strategist, and STAGES also uses Expert at 3.0, Achiever at 3.5 and Strategist at 4.5. On this page’s reading, a conversation can turn on a shared word while the two speakers are pointing at different instruments. Naming the instrument first turns a dispute about who is right into a question about what each person measured.
How to do it
- Notice the moment someone uses a stage name and you are about to agree or correct them.
- Ask which model they are using, and whether the level comes from a scale of 8, 9 or 12.
- Restate what they said with the model named, and check that they agree with your restatement.
- Only then decide whether you actually disagree.
Evidence
The shared names are documented in Table 1 of Starr and Torbert (2005) and in O’Fallon’s (2020) level names, which Murray and O’Fallon (2020) also use. This practice applies that overlap to conversation. It has not been tested as a communication method. (mechanistic)
Two people can use the same name on the same model and still disagree about a person’s level. Naming the model settles the vocabulary, not the scoring.
Sources
- Starr, A., & Torbert, B. (2005). Timely and Transforming Leadership Inquiry and Action: Toward Triple-loop Awareness. Integral Review, 1, 85–97.
- O’Fallon, T. (2020). States and STAGES: Waking up Developmentally. Integral Review, 16(1).
Common mistake
Correcting someone’s stage name as if there were one correct version of the scale. The label may be right on their model and different on yours.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for How the Adult Development Stage Models Compare
- Write the model’s name beside every stage you record
Each time you record a stage, write the model and its level count next to it, because the same label can sit at a different place on each scale.
- Pick the map whose resolution matches your question
Choose the model that draws the distinction your question depends on, instead of defaulting to whichever chart you saw first.
- Read a published crosswalk one level at a time
Take one level from one model, find its row in the published table, and read the spread of matches instead of a single agreed rung.
- Ask whether anyone has tested a claimed match
Before you accept that one model’s stage equals another’s, look for a published study that measured the two together.
- Describe one situation in two maps and mark the gap
Write one real situation, read it through two developmental maps, and note exactly where the two readings disagree.
- Trace a stage chart to the paper behind it
Before you quote a level chart, find the model’s own paper and check where each level name and count comes from.
Related concepts
- Terri O’Fallon’s STAGES Model, Made Practical
Twelve stages built from three repeating questions, and how to work with the one you are in
- Torbert’s Seven Action Logics of Leadership
Seven ways leaders make sense of pressure, how common each is, and how to work with your own
- Ego Development Theory: What It Is and How It Is Measured
The frame you make meaning through, how researchers measure it, and how to work with it without ranking anyone
- Kegan’s Subject-Object Theory, Made Practical
Moving from being run by your assumptions to being able to examine them
- The Self-Transforming Mind: Kegan’s Fifth Order, Made Practical
When your own way of seeing becomes something you can look at, question, and let be changed
- Kegan’s Socialized Mind: What It Gives You and How to Grow Beyond It
When what others think is part of who you are — honoring the stage, and loosening its grip
- The Construct-Aware and Unitive Stages of Adult Development
Seeing the self and its stories as constructions — what it looks like, how rare it is, and what it does not promise
- First, Second, Third and Fourth Person Perspectives
How the number of viewpoints you can hold grows, what the research does and does not show, and how to practice it in a real disagreement
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