A developmental lens on development and growth.
Much personal development, personal or leadership, focuses on changing behaviors, strengthening skills, or shifting mindsets.
The Subject–Object Interview starts from a different place. It explores how a person currently makes meaning of their experience—of themselves, others, authority, and complexity.
What is the Subject-Object Interview
The Subject–Object Interview (SOI) is a structured, in-depth conversation designed to explore how a person interprets their experience.
Rather than focusing on what someone thinks or believes, the interview attends to how those beliefs and interpretations are formed—what a person is embedded in, and what they are able to step back from and reflect on.
This distinction offers a window into a person’s current developmental orientation.
A developmental lens on leadership and growth
We often operate in environments marked by uncertainty, competing demands, and increasing complexity.
In these conditions, effectiveness is shaped not only by skills or behaviours, but by how people and leaders make sense of ambiguity, authority, responsibility, and change.
The Subject–Object Interview helps illuminate these meaning-making patterns, offering insight into what currently supports—and constrains—someone’s capacity to respond.
Beyond beliefs and mindsets
Many development approaches focus on surfacing beliefs, values, or mindsets. This can be valuable work.
The Subject–Object Interview takes a further step by exploring how these beliefs are constructed in the first place—how a person organizes their experience and arrives at a particular view of the world.
This shift—from examining content to examining structure—often reveals where genuine developmental movement is possible.
The Subject–Object Interview can offer:
A deeper understanding of how you currently make sense of experience
Insight into recurring patterns in leadership, relationships, or decision-making
Greater awareness of what you are embedded in—and what you can begin to hold and reflect on
A developmental perspective on growth that goes beyond performance or behaviour change