The British Museum Reading Room. A panorama of 2x5 segments. By Diliff. CC BY SA 3.0.

How You Talk About Deciding Affects Who Thinks You’re an Idiot

Forrest ChristianCareers, Decision-making, Warren Kinston 2 Comments

How you talk about work affects who will hire you or work with you. I was reminded of this recently. I have been talking with some senior executives at work about how to build the structure for writing complex text responses for some of our forms. They reached out because I’m an expert in the responses’ topic and I’ve worked …

"Driving over the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge", (c) 2012 Roman Bansen-CC BY SA 2.0). Via Wikimedia.

Warren Kinston on Movements and Their Leadership

Forrest ChristianChange, Networks, Warren Kinston Leave a Comment

Some thoughts on Movements as described by Warren Kinston. I can’t imagine that they are interesting to anyone else, just here as notes for the future. Kinston, Warren. Working with Values: Software for the Mind. SIGMA Centre: London. From Chapter 10 : “G-35 Ideals” : “Social Processes”. Ideals have the power to awaken people permanently to possibilities of social life …

Linda King finds working as a roof bolter's helper at the Bullitt Mine in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, more challenging and better paying than her previous job in a garment factory (NARA)

Accomplishment Does Not Equal Success

Forrest ChristianCareers, Change, Coaching, Warren Kinston Leave a Comment

One of the mistakes I made early on in my career was to believe that if I had some great accomplishments that I would gain success, including things like money and community respect. This is clearly false, and I’ve recently had a series of communications with an organizational thinker that confirms it. But first let’s look at some of the …

7 Decision Making Approaches: IMAGINIST / INTUITIONIST

Forrest ChristianDecision-making, Theory, Warren Kinston 8 Comments

[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 [refs follow below], keep in mind that they can also be seen in two other ways. Languages of Achievement: The …

7 Decision Making Approaches: EMPIRICIST

Forrest ChristianDecision-making, Reviews - Articles, Warren Kinston 4 Comments

Empiricists love data. Lots of data. Warren Kinston and Jimmy Algie posited that there are seven, and only seven, unique mindsets or approaches humans use when making decisions about action. This is conscious decision, not simply unconscious reaction based on stimula-response. I’ve got the full article available, although the quality is wanting. (See [2]) Warren Kinston and Jimmy Algie weren’t …

Adam names the animals

Name It to Change It, Because You Can’t Change What You Can’t Talk About

Forrest ChristianManaging, Warren Kinston 1 Comment

If you want to succeed at a creative project — and all change projects are — you will need to be particular about naming. As Dr. Warren Kinston has shown in his (please oh please soon) to be published framework on Creative Team Endeavors, naming is key. Wilfred Brown and Elliott Jaques emphasized in their works about Glacier Metal Company. Management is full of bad, fuzzy terms. Real science knows that you have to get particular in order to get something controlled.

It was a ironical email from Warren that got me thinking about this again. He was looking for some copyediting of some of his documents. One of the replies was fascinating:

Kinston & Rowbottom's "A New Model of Managing Based On Levels of Work"

Forrest ChristianManaging, Theory, Warren Kinston Leave a Comment

Here’s the second in the set, from 1990. Warren probably hasn’t really looked at these for some time, and I know that he has taken things farther in documents coming out of his SIGMA Centre. Warren Kinston and Ralph Rowbottom. 1990. “A New Model of Managing Based On Levels of Work”. Journal of Applied Systems Analysis, 17: 89-113. [PDF, 9.3MB] …