Space Shuttle Atlantis is seen as it launches from pad 39A on Friday, July 8, 2011, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Growth Trajectories of Underachievers (or “Hidden High Potentials”)

Forrest ChristianCoaching, Underachievers 1 Comment

Hidden High Potentials (2HiPo’s) and other “underachievers” can learn a great deal from work done on extremely high IQ children. Although Elliott Jaques & Katherine Cason describe these things in a more systematical way in Human Capability, these Gifted Children researchers provide a much needed human face. Stephanie S. Tolan, an “advocate for extremely bright children”, talks about the growth …

Why the Big Baboon Doesn’t Always Win

Forrest ChristianCareers, Managing, Organizations 2 Comments

Neurologist Robert Sapolsky is an interesting character. The Edge has an interesting piece by him, which seems to be fairly stream of consciousness. Sapolsky, of couse, has done some fascinating field research on baboons and lab research into the inner workings of the brain, and a little of both all the time. In the Edge pice, Sapolsky writes about what …

Spiral Dynamics profile

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As part of the GO Society Conference in Toronto, we attendees were asked to complete a survey by Online PeopleScan. I have no idea what the results mean, but thought that some of you might find it interesting to see. It’s a PDF because I wasn’t thinking. IT professional and all. Culture Scan results

Le Guin, high moders and systems thinking

Forrest ChristianCoaching, Reviews - Books, Theory Leave a Comment

I don’t think that Elliott Jaques was right about high moders’ distribution in society. They certainly seem much more prevalent than his published numbers. If I know a handful of mode 7s and 8s, then they can’t be all that rare: I don’t get around that much. I think the issue comes in where they work. High moders are prevalent in IT because the field is so poorly managed. High capacity people can continue to work as technical experts, even though they don’t get paid well. It’s odd how many times I’ve seen a Str4 or 5 person working for a Str2 manager.

High-Moders and Hierachies

Forrest ChristianCareers, Coaching, Organizations, Theory 2 Comments

Although I’ve been called away these past few weeks with a family emergency, I’ve been thinking about the points that Christine Baker of Requisite Development raises in her recent comments on “Writing a Level-3 CV” on the careers of high-moders. She points out that options today are greater for them than in the past: There is another point to make …

Traffic signal at Tamil Nadu. (c) 2011 Thamizhpparithi Maari (CC BY SA 3.0)

Signaling, Legitimacy and Reputation: Another Problem High-Potentials Must Overcome

Forrest ChristianCareers, Underachievers 1 Comment

Everything that you do, say and show signals information about you to others. This idea of Signaling comes from zoology / biology. It’s about how a fit male peacock (for example) lets potential mates know that he has the goods, moreso than others. The signal is his extensive plumage. The trick to signaling is that it has to cost you …

Traffic signal at Tamil Nadu. (c) 2011 Thamizhpparithi Maari (CC BY SA 3.0)

Integrity Will Get You Promoted, But Limited Vision Will Get You Fired

Forrest ChristianCareers, Managing, Reviews - Articles Leave a Comment

Elliott Jaques talks about time span of discretion — the time from a decision to when that work decision comes due — as a way to measure how “big” a role is. This is related to your personal time horizon, how far you can think into the future to handle uncertainty and complexity. Lots of people disagree with it. What’s …

Rose hip on trellis

Change your motivation? Change your interpretation!

Forrest ChristianCareers, Coaching, Motivation 4 Comments

Amazon’s self-help categories are filled with books by so-called experts who tell you that what you really need to correct this or that deficiency is to change. You need to become motivated by these things, they tell you. Before you spend years trying to follow this wretched advice, here’s a hard learned lesson and I’m giving it to you for …

(c) 2010 Ardfern (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Why Your PhD Advisor Hates You: Stratum in Teaching Environments

Forrest ChristianCareers, Learning 2 Comments

Susan commented on my earlier post about why business schools stink. The post focused on MBAs but Susan linked to her earlier post on Customer Experience Crossroads (“What’s Wrong With Business Schools: Warren Bennis was Right“) that talks about entry into business PhD programs. I wanted to chime in with a couple of points. Following my wife around her PhD …