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Forrest Christian, consultant with The Manasclerk Company, is the author of most of these pages. Unless noted otherwise as written by another author, all of this site's content is Copyright 2002-2010 E. Forrest Christian, Valparaiso, Indiana, USA. All Rights reserved.
Category Archives: Theory
Job Role (Social Role) Defines Your Behaviour: Wilfred Brown & Elliott Jaques
Lord Wilfred Brown, the Managing Director of Glacier Metal Company, was insistent: Behaviour is as much defined and limited by the role that a work inhabits as his personality and the quality of his relationships within the company. You can…
Trust Is Necessary To Society. The Glacier Model Builds Trust
There’s a fascinating paper at the IMF by social capital guru Francis Fukuyama (Social Capital and Civil Society – Prepared for delivery at the IMF Conference on Second Generation Reforms) that covers his reasoning behind social capital being called “capital”…
Posted in Change, Organizations, Theory
Tagged elliott jaques, Francis Fukuyama, Glacier Metal Company, requisite organization, trust, Wilfred Brown
1 Comment
Not All Organizations Should Be Appreciated
A few years ago, I was talking with Naga Kumar, who had been a colleague of David Cooperrider at Case Western when he was developing Appreciative Inquiry. He told me that while he like and used a lot of AI…
7 Decision Making Approaches: IMAGINIST / INTUITIONIST
[I continue my notes on Kinston & Algie's decision systems.]
As we continue with our exploration of the seven approaches to decision making that were originally developed by Jimmy Algie, reformulated by he and Warren Kinston, then extended by Warren…
Posted in Decision-making, Theory, Warren Kinston
Tagged deciding, Decision-making, imaginist, intuitionist, Jimmy Algie, levels of work, Warren Kinston
7 Comments
Using Timespans to Solve Communication Problems
Ever wonder if timespans has any practical usefulness? Here is how I used timespans to clear up a communication problem in…
Posted in Computers/IT, Theory
Tagged Information Technology, IT architecture, timespan, work levels
1 Comment
Jack Fallow's Values at Each Level of Work
Jack Fallow had an excellent article in the recent GO Society book, Organization Design, Levels of Work and Human Capability: Executive Guide (“On Being Heard: Insights from complexity theory
and values as touchstones for effective executive communication
across…
Posted in Managing, Theory
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IQ and Success: What's the Real Interaction?
Malcolm Gladwell reports that “the correlation between I.Q. and occupational success is between 0.2 and 0.3.” That’s more than no correlation at all but much less than something worth paying much attention to. But it seems somewhat counterintuitive. Elliott Jaques…
Posted in Careers, Theory
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Why Rewarding Competitiveness Is Stupid If You Want To Make Money (Repost)
Here’s a repost from 2006 that didn’t make it over. It describes a set of studies that so disturb the basic religion of MBA that it required replication across the world to get published. With minor revisions.
American business rewards…
Posted in Managing, Reviews - Articles, Theory
Tagged competition, cooperation, J. Scott Armstrong, Kesten Green, Myth of Market Share, profit
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John Morgan on using RO in a Megachurch Model
The Rev. Dr. John Morgan is the head pastor of a growing independent Evangelical church in New Mexico that uses the mega-church model. Morgan wrote a chapter in the GO Society book (disclosure: I edited that piece) that does a…
Posted in Governance, Organizations, Reviews - Videos, Theory
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The Rise of the Great Leader in Evangelicalism Threatens American Democracy
It was Wilfred Brown’s understanding of power and authority that made me consider again one of the things that I find…
Posted in Theory
Tagged church leadership, ed young, evangelicalism, Great Man, mark driscoll
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Wilfred Brown on Democratic Society
Wilfred Brown’s structures for a decent work organization led to the speculations that I’m making this week. However, reading him…
Posted in Theory, Wilfred Brown
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Elliot Jaques on Workplace Influencing Democracy's Development
One of the things that impressed me about Elliott Jaques when I first read him was his stated desire to build democratic feeling within workers. It may have been the influence of Wilfred Brown at Glacier, as Brown was always…
Posted in Theory
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"How To Make a Madoff"
Ben Levisohn, “How To Make A Madoff“, Business Week, December 16, 2008.
You don’t have to do anything to get a Madoff. They are always with us, like the poor. The question is whether or not you will create the…
Posted in Organizations, Reviews - Articles, Theory
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When Experience Won't Hack It
At the last GO Society conference in Toronto, Owen Jacobs of the US Army talked about how the MCPA (Modified Career…
Posted in Careers, Overachievers, Theory, Underachievers
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Blagojevich: Why Wilfred Brown's Ideas Still Work
“The combination of arrogance and stupidity that would prompt him to continue in these types of behaviors is just stunning,” Dr. [Kent Redfield, a professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Springfield,] said . “There’s no feedback
…
Posted in Compensation, Managing, Theory, Wilfred Brown
Tagged checks and balances, corporate governance
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Transitions Are Like Being Lost In The Pacific
When you f**k up one of them, it’s like you get unmoored. You can’t go back but you aren’t going forward either. After you’ve f****d up enough of these, it’s like being in a lifeboat in the middle of
…
Posted in Theory
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Jaques's MAH Not Always the Most Effective Organization
Recently, a post from Tom Foster made me want to clarify something: The Management Accountability Hierachies described by Elliott Jaques are not always the most effective form of organization.
Foster answers a question about the employees of a volunteer outreach…
Posted in Governance, Organizations, Theory
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Judgment of Capacity Must Be On Work
You could not judge Gov. Sarah Palin’s current capacity based on her interview with CBS’s Katie Couric because it did not get her talking on issues on which she has concentrated before. Continue reading
Posted in Theory
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Warren Kinston's "A Total Framework for Inquiry"
Kinston’s 1988 article is up. Continue reading
Posted in Careers, Managing, Reviews - Books, Theory, Warren Kinston, elliott jaques
1 Comment
Cosmides on the Dangers of "Anyone Can Be Shaped Into Anything"
A quick look at one of Leda Cosmides’s answers during an interview for El Mecurio (Chile), on the idea of environmental determinism. Continue reading
Posted in Learning, Reviews - Articles, Theory
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