Designing Development: Entering the Laboratory
Jonathan Reams
The “Big Idea” Summary
Before we dive into the mechanics of the Learning Loop, we must establish the “laboratory conditions” required for growth: a client-centered, experience-based approach that uses emotional cues as fuel and iteration as the engine of mastery.
In the first three essays of this series, we explored the territory Adeptify is exploring to support learning and development. We looked at why the old industrial maps—the “conduit” models of training—are failing us. We examined how the “weather” of our internal condition shapes the environment for those we lead. And we touched on the neuroscience of predictive processing to understand why our brains are wired to resist the very changes we say we want to make.
With that lite overview of some of the foundations, now it’s time to outline the structure of the laboratory we are building. Before we start adjusting dials and mixing ingredients—before we dive into the specific steps of Learning Loops—I want to pause and provide some orientation. I want to share the principles that guide how we are experimenting with this work at Adeptify.
First is to acknowledge that as bricoleurs, we are indebted to those we have learned from. We stand on the shoulders of giants like Theo Dawson (whose Virtuous Cycles of Learning inspired much of this) and Kurt Fischer (whose Dynamic Skill Theory provides the bedrock), as well as Michael Mascolo whose conversations have inspired much of our experimentation. Conversations with colleagues, clients and students too numerous to mention have helped build out a more robust network of critical little threads of connection between concepts and practice.
So, put on your lab coat. Here are some considerations I think are worth sharing about how we design the experiments.
Assessment as Discernment
I like to think of assessments as snapshots. They reveal something about us through a specific lens. They are an opening for conversations of discernment.
Recognizing that we are always already in the middle of things, an assessment can be a starting point for a new turn, a step back to get our bearings, or even the start of a new journey.
In the corporate world, this often looks like taking a 360-degree assessment or a personality profile. Those of us in the adult development field might use tools like a sentence completion test to get a sense of a personal ‘action logic’ or underlying structure of sensemaking. My own experience is informed by using Lectica’s LDMA (Leadership Decision Making Assessment) to support this process. While these tools can give us rich data, data alone is not development.
I like to think of assessment less as a judgment and more as a starting point for discernment. It is a sort of compass pointing out a direction worth taking.
This is where the art and science of a developmental conversation meet. The science gives us a form of technical precision—research-backed frameworks informing assessments, providing a lens to help us identify a specific behavior or competency (skill) relevant for the person in focus. But the art lies in the process of exploring the territory together. It lies in finding the language that resonates with your lived experience.
When I debrief an assessment with a client, I’m acting like a tuning fork. I’m listening to their language, their tone, body language and energy for resonance. I am listening for the moment when the data on the surface stops being about a score or the judgment we make about it and starts being a story about their life, where they are and where they might want to go.
I’m looking for salience. A learning goal only works if it has contextual relevance that brings emotional resonance. It must matter to you, help you solve something important, not just now, but in future situations as well. If the learning goal you are assigned is just something HR thinks you should fix, your brain’s prediction engine will likely treat it as noise. But if the learning goal connects to a deep frustration, a burning ambition, or a genuine curiosity, it becomes fuel for the entire loop.
The Emotional Engine
This brings us to the heart of the matter. In previous essays, we talked about vulnerability factors—the stressors that shut down our capacity to be present, curious and engaged. But emotion isn’t just a barrier; it is also the engine of motivation.
We cannot learn without feeling. The brain stamps “IMPORTANT” on memories that are emotionally charged.
In our laboratory, we take care to attend to the emotional tone. Our aim is to help relax the reflex of defense to enable a natural curiosity. When we encounter a gap in our skills—a moment where we stumble—our instinct is often to “armor up.” We defend our ego. We blame the context.
But what if we could lean in? What if we could cultivate a genuine curiosity about why the gap exists? When we shift from judging ourselves to studying ourselves, the friction of the prediction error becomes the traction for growth.
A Working Definition of Skill
I realize I have been using the term ‘skill’ a lot without elaborating on the specific meaning it has in the context of dynamic skill theory (DST). As with many broadly used terms, skill accumulates a lot of associations.
In everyday usage, we often treat skill like a ‘thing,’ a tool we pick up or we download on our computer to solve a specific problem. If you have the ‘coding skill’ or a skill for ‘public speaking,’ you simply ‘use’ it.
We also say someone is skilled at something, indicating they can perform a task adequately in a range of contexts. They are past the phase of learning the skill through trial and error.
Skills are sometimes seen as innate. Leadership is often seen as something one is either born with or not (that’s a topic for another time). This can be related to Carol Dweck’s distinction between a fixed or growth mindset and how we view a particular skill in this regard can have a lot of impact on learning and development.
In the Adeptify lab, we use a definition from DST that shifts the meaning of skill from a static tool, integrates several of these commonly held ideas and further refines the concept; “… a skill refers to the capacity to control elements of acting, thinking and feeling within particular contexts and psychological domains” (Mascolo, 2020, p. 91).
This shift in meaning is subtle but massive. It means a skill isn’t just a behavior you perform; it is an active coordination. It’s the way you weave together your thoughts, your racing heartbeat, and your actions in real-time. It’s not just what you do; it’s how you organize yourself to do it.
This takes us back to our ‘inner balcony,’ or what is called ‘metacognition.’ The “capacity to control elements” comes from beyond those elements themselves. From this inner balcony we can observe, and at times intervene to regulate our internal environment and how it translates into the external world of action.
This ‘inner balcony’ is where a leader can stop being driven by their own weather and start observing it. When you can observe your own ‘elements of feeling,’ you gain the agency to change the climate. This creates clearer weather that supports others in bringing more of their resources to a given situation.
The Guiding Lights: Four Principles
But now back to how all this applies to the specific steps of a Learning Loop. In the coming essays, I will dive deeper into each step of how we approach Learning Loops. As we go through them, keep these guiding principles in mind. Think of them as the walls that hold up the roof of our laboratory.
1. Client-Centered (Your Context Matters)
There are no one-size-fits-all templates here. Your development must be tailored to your unique context. The challenges you face, the people you lead, the culture you work in—these are not distractions; they are the raw material for your growth. A Learning Loop designed for a CEO in a crisis might look very different from one designed for a new manager building a team. We design with you, not for you.
This does not mean there aren’t Learning Loops that are common. While Adeptify is developing programs with a common set of learning goals that can enable scaling, how each person contextualizes and applies the learning goal will vary according to many factors. The instructions here are designed to help this personalization process.
2. Experience-Based (Transformation Through Action)
You cannot learn to swim by reading a book about fluid dynamics. You have to get wet. The Learning Loop is grounded in the understanding that true transformation happens through direct experience combined with reflection. We don’t just want to fill your “bucket” with information; we want you to grapple with real-world challenges. We want you to run experiments in the wild and see what happens.
3. Iterative (The Cycle of Virtuosity)
Development is not a straight line; it is a spiral weaving back and forth, up and down, even taking tangential sideroads to make important discoveries. We design loops, not lists. We observe, we act, we reflect, we adjust, and we act again. We don’t aim for perfection in the first attempt; we aim for a continuous cycle of experimentation and ongoing refinement. We encourage you to view every attempt as a data point, not a verdict on your potential.
4. Distinctions & Connections (Tuning the Instrument)
This is the subtle magic of the process. We help you notice the fine-grained details of your experience that you usually ignore. We help you make distinctions—e.g., noticing the difference between “listening to fix” and “listening to learn.”. And we help you make connections—e.g., seeing how your anxiety about a deadline is connected to your micromanagement of a peer. By tuning your attention to these nuances, you gain the leverage to change them.
A Typology of Loops
Finally, it is important to know that these loops come in all shapes and sizes.
Sometimes, we design micro-skill loops—tiny, “in-the-moment” practices, like pausing for one breath before responding to a snarky email. These are “skill snacks,” quick and easy to digest. At the same time, because they are so small, quick and automatic, they can be hard to notice!
Other times we might focus on mini-skill loops. These might be done in minutes or even daily. They are a common size, easier to identify and focus on. They might be about learning to re-framing a “why” question into a “what” question, or practicing reducing the impact of cognitive biases in a conflict.
Other times, we might embark on skill adventures—broader, exercise-based loops that might involve shifting a team’s culture from “blame” to “learning” over several weeks during a product launch.
Whatever the scale, the mechanism is the same: Identify the learning goal, make relevant distinctions, experiment with them, reflect and revise to do it over and over.
Setting the Compass
I hope this overview has set the stage with a bit more context for understanding how we approach learning loops. In the next essay, we will pick up the first tool: The compass of discernment. We will look at Step 1: The learning goal, and explore how to move from a vague sense of “needing to do better at …” to a clear, actionable, and emotionally resonant target.
Until then, keep your lab coat handy.
The Reflection Loop
Check Your Resonance: Think about a developmental goal you currently have. Does it feel like a “should” (external pressure) or a “must” (internal desire)? On a scale of 1-10, how much emotional salience does it really have for you?
Notice the Context: Look at your calendar for tomorrow. Which meeting or interaction offers the best “laboratory” for you to practice a leadership skill? Why that one?
The Curiosity Check: Recall a recent mistake. Did you “armor up” (defend/justify) or did you “lean in” (get curious)? What would it look like to treat that mistake purely as data?