Winter night, looking down to Chateau D'Oex. (c) 2008 E. Forrest Christian. All rights reserved.

Why Psychotherapy Can Be Worse Than Not When You’re A Hidden High Potential

Forrest ChristianCoaching, Underachievers Leave a Comment

I recently had an exchange in another site with “Marcy”, who talked about some judgments that she had about some of her previous therapists who didn’t fit with her. (One of her old therapists, with whom she did good work, wrote a book with Warren Rule. I think this says a lot about her.) She was trying to find a …

The April 12 launch at Pad 39A of STS-1, just seconds past 7 a.m., carries astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen into an Earth orbital mission (STS-1. 1981). NASA

Best Secret For Succeeding When You’re “Smart”

Forrest ChristianCareers, Coaching, Overachievers, Underachievers 2 Comments

t being August, I thought it a good time reiterate the most useful piece of coaching I can give you: do you what you’re good at doing.

It seems so simple that feels almost insulting to receive as advice: Do what you’re good at. It seems like such a truism.

Except that so many high potentials just don’t see it.

Smedberg: Illustration from "Boy who was never afraid"

Reduce Career Risk By Moving Closer To Danger

Forrest ChristianCareers, Coaching, Overachievers, Underachievers Leave a Comment

There’s a reason why I talk about so many different ways of looking at your career, things like Levels of Work, the 7 Languages of Achievement, domains of work, and even personality differences. It’s all about helping you stop making career decisions that have almost no chance of working. For you. Because, you see, what’s risky for most people is …

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] …

ADLER typewriter Model n°7 (Frankfurt / Germany). Unknown model date (probably ~1930/40). By Dake

Extending Levels of Work With New Management Applications

Forrest Christianrequisite organization, Warren Kinston 6 Comments

After Glenn Mehltretter’s comments about Kinston and Rowbottom’s article from 1990, I went and got copies, OCRed them, and got Warren’s permission to post them here. This is the first, from 1989. They are useful articles and should be in someone’s database but this journal has never been electronically archived anywhere that I could find. Warren has developed these articles …

Alice Barber Stephens (1910). Illustration to "Way to Peace" by Deland, Harpers-09

"Management" Isn’t a Curse Word

Forrest ChristianCareers, Managing 6 Comments

I’ve been extolling the wonders of Warren Kinston’s Strengthening the Management Culture (SMC) for the past few months. It’s not the equal of his meatier Working With Values: The Software of the Mind but has the virtue of being one fifth that tome’s length. (It’s really thick: there’s just so much in it.) One of the complaints I’ve been hearing …

ADLER typewriter Model n°7 (Frankfurt / Germany). Unknown model date (probably ~1930/40). By Dake

Pragmatist Meets Structuralist: A Web Example

Forrest ChristianTheory, Warren Kinston 2 Comments

Here’s a good example of what someone who is a structuralist sounds like when talking to a pragmatist, for those who’ve been following my discussions of Warren Kinston’s and Jimmy Algie’s Seven Languages of Achievement (aka the Seven Decision Languages). The manager, like most managers, is a pragmatist working in a pragmatist company. “Get ‘er done” is the motto. The …

Vance, a Trapper Boy, 15 years old. Has trapped for several years in a West Va. Coal mine. $.75 a day for 10 hours work. All he does is to open and shut this door: most of the time he sits here idle, waiting for the cars to come. On account of the intense darkness in the mine, the hieroglyphics on the door were not visible until plate was developed. Location: West Virginia. Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine, 1908 September.

What Work Used To Be Like

Forrest ChristianCareers Leave a Comment

I advocate everyone having work that fits. I know that it is the best way to get the most out of someone, and that many of the problems that spiteful people believe are caused by personal failings are actually a result of being too big or small for the roles that society has foisted upon folks. So many of us …