Month: January 2013 | the Wakefield Doctrine

the Wakefield Doctrine, the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers: what it can do for you today

January 12, 2013 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

With such an evocative Title, the educated and discriminating Reader would expect this Post to contain: a) at least one (set) of bullet points, b) 3 descriptive ‘3rd party stories’¹, c) a guarantee of success for all who try to use this ‘Wakefield Doctrine’ in their lives, and 4) at least one clever shifting of the perspective from which the topic is being presented.

…we’ll try.
It’s just that there is not a lot of time. This morning. Hell, there is not a lot of time right now, …this afternoon, ….this weekend 0r later in the month, (…after you get free of the holidays).
No time.
A friend told me that a friend had a stroke recently. The ‘stroke victim’ ( ‘strokee’) was seemingly alright, back to work. But he is saying that he finds himself dropping the ‘F Bomb’ with disturbing regularity. My immediate response was, “god, there is no time to waste, is there?”
Stop right here!

First helpful item: ….your response to the preceding vignette will aid you in establishing your personality type, did you think:

nothing…it took a second to get the implications of the phrase ‘no time to waste’ but then you totally got it
nothing…you were already picturing someone else as the victim of a stroke…so it was an interesting story, reminded you of something that happened last fall that was really quite similar
felt good, you had some kind of feeling that you were communicating… gone now, but you know it was real

a clark, a scott and a roger are in an airplane at 35,000 feet. One of the two engines bursts into flames and falls off the wing! the scott laughs grabs the controls of the plane and gets it flying on a level, if not descending path… the roger shouts ‘hey, you don’t know how to fly this plane!’ and the clark laughs to himself.
…3 minutes later the other engine simply drops off the wings, duct tape and rusty bolts trailing it as it drops towards the earth below!
the clark suggests: “hey if we decrease the weight one of us might succeed in gliding this plane to the ground.. but who here is expendable?”
the scott says, “sorry folks, I’m at the controls here, so clearly I must be indispensable”
the roger looks offended and says, “yeah but who voted you to be pilot?”
the clark (finding one parachute under a seat), opens the door and says, “I’ll let the two of you come to an agreement” and jumps from the plane!

If you understand the underlying principle of the Wakefield Doctrine and (allow yourself) to perceive the actions and behavior of the people in your life today through the ‘lens’ of the three personality types, you will totally gain a new appreciation of your relationship with these people, your spouse…your friend…your boss and your employee…even that really rude person in front of you in the line at the Supermarket. Just remember, ‘the Wakefield Doctrine is for you, not for them’.

“….hey!! that was frickin awesome!!! when that clark guy jumped out of the plane I couldn’t frickin believe it!!” scott
“well, I find your theory interesting and with a little work you might have something there”, the roger
” huh!” clark

1) in sales, to provide a prospect with a testimonial from a buyer or client, ostensibly neutral party is called a ‘third party story’ very effective!

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: Personal, personality types, psychology of personality, relationships, self-development, self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine

of time, Thursdays and keeping up… the Wakefield Doctrine announcing the First Annual ‘shortest Post Contest!’

January 10, 2013 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Hey! Lets have a Contest! A ‘shortest Post’ Contest!

The idea came to me from a Comment that I wrote over at Janine’s…or maybe it was Melanie’s blog or perhaps it was Emily’s (I’m pretty sure it was not Molly or Cyndi’s site and 100% certain it was not Terrye’s blog). In any event, I was Commentioning on a point and felt the need to make a reference to an old schoolyard game called, ‘See who can hit the lightest’.
( Doctrine Note: This game can be seen as one of the earliest indicators of a scottian personality type, as it was, invariably a scott who would start the game. (Astute Readers of the Wakefield Doctrine will smile knowingly at this last statement, thinking to themselves, ‘yeah, with a clark at their side telling them about the game’ ) (lol).

In any event, if you are not familiar with the game, it goes something like this:

(larger, more aggressive child): “Hey, wanna see who can hit the lightest?
(smaller, simply-wanted-to-get-through-recess-without-being-spotted child): “er… sure…(I guess)
(larger, more vocal child): “Hey everyone!! clark challenged me to a ‘hit the lightest’ contest!!!”
(multiple, where-the-hell-did-they-come-from? children): “Yeah… lets get in a circle!! no, lets form the circle way …over here!”
(smaller, sinking-feeling-in-stomache child): “sure…I guess”
(larger, shirt-sleeve-rolling-up-child): “ awwright! You go first”
(smaller, I-will-show-such-control-they-will-probably-debate-if-it-counts-as-a-Hit child): “All right, here it comes”
(multiple, watching-the-exaggeratedly-slow-motion-hit-beginning-to-snicker-cause-they-are-in-on-the-joke children): “Whoa!! look at that!!!”
(smaller, feeling-proud-of-finally-having-the-approval-of-those-kids child): “Let’s see you match that.. match that”
(larger, this-kid-is-in-grade-school?-what-do-they-serve-for-lunch-here-chicken-ala-steroids? child): ” YOU WIN….!!!!!”
(smaller, holy-shit-does-that-hurt child): “ha? ha?
(multiple, eyes-on-the-victim-standing-behind-agrresive children): “ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha …ha, did you see the look on….ha”
(smaller, happy-to-be-able-to-laugh-instead-of-cry child): “ha, ha man that’s really amazing how you managed to do that”
(larger, more-agressive-child): “Hey! I really love that joke!!
(smaller, now-sensing-something-new-in-the-schoolyard child): “yeah, this joke last week that got me sent to the Principle’s Office”
(larger, more agressive-now-curious-and-a-bit-intrigued child): “man I heard about that…that was you?

So the Rules of the Shortest Post Contest:

it must make sense and contain a coherent thought
it must be understandable/intelligible/something-ible
entries should be presented in block quotes so it is clear what exactly the Post is
it does not need to be about the Wakefield Doctrine
participation is voluntary, but will contribute significantly to your Final Score

Any entries received by Saturday Morning will be Posted and any Readers wishing to vote will be tabulateded and Winner announced Sunday Morning!! Prize is a Wakefield Doctrine DocTee!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7DFsBcVMDA

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: Personal, personality types, predicting human behavior, psychology of personality, self-development, self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine

Tuesday at the Wakefield Doctrine (“alright, move along folks nothing to see here…that’s right just move along”)

January 8, 2013 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks… lol, the undeniable reality of scotts and the annoying certainty of rogers)

Anyone seen a box of words? I am pretty sure I had some put away, under the bed or in the back of the closet, just in case. What’s the deal with the writing style of clarks and the non-use of contractions? We certainly don’t think like that! See? I used ‘don’t’ (as opposed to do not!). Well, the fact remains, I am missing a bunch of words and I really could stand to find them right about now.

Long time Readers know what’s coming next. But… we will let the new Readers enjoy the w…t…..f??! moment that comes with each and every one of these special Posts. Today’s Post is the blog equivalent of what, in the world of jokes and comedy, is referred to as a ‘shaggy dog’ story.¹ An example of such a story is provided in the footnote area. Better go down there right now, if you do not find yourself laughing (at very least chuckling) then you will not be amused when you have dragged yourself to the end of this rambling morass of a Tuesday Post. Serially. Better go there…now!

Still with us? Fine. Actually, the process of finding the shaggy dog reference in wikipedia and jamming it into this Post has gone a long way to get me out of the ‘what the hell! there are no words left in my (fill in favorite body-part here). But since you are still reading, it is only fair to give you something to take away, as a reward for your:

loyalty: which is a clarklike trait. notice we did not say it was an admirable quality …we did not!
stubbornness: scotts are stubborn, not for any reason that would produce a benefit, in fact, they should not be thought of as being stubborn for any reason, they just are
close-minded: rogers are the example of how being close-minded can be thought of as a good thing!

Now, rather than do the obvious and leave the above characterizations hanging out there, (like those still photos of scenes from X-rated movies that are used to illustrate the evils of ‘pornography’ btw: the people who use those kinds of photos are either scotts or rogers. And the reason we know this, is that there is a secret pruriency in the use of these photos that is beyond the capability of a clark. Seriously. Someone is standing in front of ‘an audience’, holding forth on the evils of the people who make such obscene movies and to better make their point, they hold up censored photos. Of course, even though the black-bars cover the offending body parts, a normal human being must, in their minds, provide an image of what is missing…otherwise the photo is totally non-meaningfull! And where do theses (mental) images come from? Exactly!)

Loyalty: this is a personal quality very frequently found in clarks, (about which) most people will say, “hey! that’s a really admirable quality!” …except that if you listen very, very closely you might hear them think, “...yeah, what else are they gonna do?” ( hold your Comments until the end, clarks!)

Stubborness: all of us fortunate enough to have dogs, have played the tug of war game. Yep! your mind is now providing you with the image we are going for: ‘human hand holding pull-toy in the air, doggie suspended from the lower end of said toy…tail wagging the entire time’ scotts!

Close-minded (ness): Quick!! what’s 2 + 2? Right! Hey! what is 2 +2?? Still right!!! the best thing about rogers is their constancy …the worst thing about (HEY! 2+2…what’s the answer?!?) is their consistency! It is often said in these pages, the reason we have civilization is rogers…. and the reason we had the (Spanish Inquistion, the Crusades, the Salem Witch Trials, the ban in the 1960s on girls wearing slacks in high school, the existance of Ann Landers, the Electoral College, Prohibtion, the War of the Roses and the discovery of radium)?… rogers!

Feel free to ask us Questions! Better yet, mark tomorrow Wednesday 4:00 blogtalkradio the Wakefield Doctrine 30 Minute Radio Hour!

1) In its original sense, a shaggy dog story is an extremely long-winded tale featuring extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents, usually resulting in a pointless or absurd punchline based on a play on words in cliché form. These stories are a special case of yarns, coming from the long tradition of campfire yarns. Shaggy dog stories play upon the audience’s preconceptions of the art of joke telling. The audience listens to the story with certain expectations, which are either simply not met or met in some entirely unexpected manner. A lengthy shaggy dog story derives its humour from the fact that the joke-teller held the attention of the listeners for a long time (such jokes can take five minutes or more to tell) for no reason at all, as the story ends with a meaningless anticlimax. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_dog_story )

What some sources choose to believe is the archetypical shaggy dog story:

“A boy owned a dog that was uncommonly shaggy. Many people remarked upon its considerable shagginess. When the boy learned that there are contests for shaggy dogs, he entered his dog. The dog won first prize for shagginess in both the local and the regional competitions. The boy entered the dog in ever-larger contests, until finally he entered it in the world championship for shaggy dogs. When the judges had inspected all of the competing dogs, they remarked about the boy’s dog: “He’s not that shaggy.”

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: Personal, personality types, the Wakefield Doctrine

Allegory Monday at the Wakefield Doctrine …yes, they are all clarks, scotts and/or rogers!

January 7, 2013 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Lets return to the Samba Room (at the fabulous Calypso Club) and see how Jimmie’s Birthday Party is going! When last we looked in on the celebration, Sam was indulging in trying to help Jen (or Jennie) not feel bad, Violet had managed to escape the interminable attention of Mel (from Accounting) and Meg, being the good friend that she was, found herself staring at a 6 foot …hollow…birthday cake, and despite the fact that she was wearing a smile (and very little else), she was starting to get annoyed. The kitchen staff of the Club had no idea how not good an idea it was to get Meg pissed-off. Alex Delgiudice and the guest of honor, Jimmie, made a totally proper entrance and immediately (and instinctively), stayed in separate parts of the large banquette room. ( Our Special thanks to Cyndi Calhoun for the Spanish translation.)

…Sam was beginning to regret his impulse to see if he couldn’t make this very clearly unhappy person feel better. ‘Why the hell do I do this to myself?’ Sam smiled as he ‘aimed his face’ in the direction of this Jen (or Jennie) person who had not stopped talking from the moment he had asked what was wrong. Apparently, if you believed what she was saying, everything was wrong. Jen (or Jennie) was in the midst of telling Sam how much she worked and how the people she tried to help refused to appreciate it! They didn’t know how difficult it was to make sure that the office supplies were used in the way that the Company had intended them to be used,

“…and then this girl had the gall to suggest that I should give her a new packet of Post-its, even though I knew for a fact that she had not used up the pad that she had in her desk! And when I pointed this out to her, she actually seemed to get upset with me!! I told her that I worked for hours at home on my list of supplies and the CEO of the Company himself once said that I was incredible!” Jen (or Jennie) pointed her finger at Sam, perhaps to emphasize how upsetting it was to be so under-appreciated. Sam noted, with a growing sense of un-reality, that throughout her tirade, this woman did not stop her arranging of the cutlery on the buffet table.

“What is all that noise?” Jen (or Jennie) managed to interrupt herself. Being careful not to allow his face betray his growing sense incredulity, Sam thought, ‘in a case of interrupting yourself, what is the proper etiquette of apologizing?’ Jen (or Jennie) was now standing at his side, a little too close for comfort, a little too couple-like. There was something going on at the bandstand on the other side of the room, Sam could see the movement of the crowd, a new center of attention forming and there were now clumps of people gathering, like white blood cells attaching an infection. Sam looked around the room, a bit desperately, for a person that he could graft onto this couple that Jen (or Jennie) seemed to be trying to nurture, like a mushroom in the dark corner of a basement. He saw a young girl standing on the edge of a group of 5 people, who appeared to be part of the group, but no one seemed aware of her standing there. Sam looked over towards the girl, hoping for some eye contact that he could use to excuse himself away from this Jen (or Jennie). Sam was really getting uncomfortable with how she would to stare at his mouth when he was speaking to her, ‘she’s eating my words!’ came into his mind just as the band started playing… ‘Hey, Once I was a funky singer, playing in a rock and roll band’ (‘Wild Cherry’ Sam noted approvingly).
“Oh no not a 70s band!“, Jen (or Jennie) sounded hurt, as if the band’s choice of music was a personal affront, “that music is so old”

At that moment, one of the kitchen staff stepped out from the curtains behind the buffet line, the door swinging closed slowly enough for Sam to see into the food prep area. What Sam saw was an attractive, animated girl in a very skimpy outfit standing next to a step-ladder that was setup next to a multi-tiered birthday cake. Because of the cacophony of the kitchen environment, all Sam could hear was the girl’s half of conversation, “…this frickin icing better not stick to my goddamn outfit! I had to put more down for the cleaning deposit than the rental was!” “…very funny!!” …”no, I don’t think that they expect anything on this when I return it” “I don’t give a shit whose party it is or who’s relative he is… I’m getting paid to jump out of this cake and yell Happy Birthday… that’s it!” “…yeah, well then I guess your Birthday boy’s gonna be disappointed… he’s the one who ordered from the Junior Executive Services Menu, he shoulda asked for the CEO Special” (lol) “…now somebody get over here and hold this frickin ladder”

The waiter was rapidly clearing the buffet table of empty serving trays to make room for the full trays of canapés that he set on the edge of the table where Sam and Jen (or Jennie) were standing. Sam saw his opportunity. Stepping towards the swinging doors, he nudged the loaded trays, just a little, as he passed. The resulting crash of dishes and surprised laughter had everyone, including Jen (or Jennie), turning to discover the cause of the noise.
Sam stepped through the doors, walked towards the girl standing next to the Birthday cake and extended his hand, “May I be of assistance?”
(As the swing doors shut behind him), Sam could hear Jen (or Jennie’s), with a very ‘take charge’ tone to her voice, say
“You had better get this mess cleaned up! We paid good money to come to this party and are not going to stand for second rate service. Do you even speak English! I think this is an insult! How could you do this”

Violet looked over towards the buffet table at the sound of the trays crashing to floor. She saw the Office Administrator (“was it Jen? no maybe it was Jennie…nah, no way she’s a Jennie” Violet thought.) standing over a waiter who was frantically picking up food and serving trays from the floor next to the buffet table. The Office Admin was beginning to yell. The waiter looked like he was about to cry, until he heard the words, ‘even speak English‘, then he looked scared. Violet decided that even if nothing else came out of this Party, she would be able help this poor man. She stepped to the right side of the table, crouched down and began to gather up little Ritz type crackers that were in small piles on the carpet. “Gracias“, she heard, the waiter was half under the buffet table recovering the last of the serving dishes.

“No problema. Parecía que necesitaba ayuda” Violet was careful to keep her voice low enough to escape the notice of Jen (or Jennie), who for some reason had her Blackberry out and was texting some sort of message.

“Esa mujer. ¿Por qué es tan antipática?“, the Waiter spoke softly and immediately got up, and without waiting for an answer to his question, took the trays through the curtains and into the kitchen.

Violet stood up, brushed a bit of food from her dress, and looked around the room.

“Where did he go?!” a voice, at once demanding and self-pitying, made Violet wish that she had helped carry the trays into the kitchen. Jen (or Jennie) turned to face Violet, raising the Blackberry in front of her, much as a missionary might hold a crucifix up before the soon-to-be-converted pagans, confident that the power of the symbol would dispel any thought of questioning her authority.
“I’ve sent a scathing email to the owner of this place, with a cc to the Health Department. I think there might be un-documented employees here!” her voice was increasing in volume and people began turn in their direction. Violet looked desperately for some diversion or distraction from the crowd of people.
‘Screw this, Violet thought, ‘I am not going to spend this evening being this person’s …hostage. I don’t care if everyone thinks I’m an awful person.”

Violet turned to Jen (or Jennie) said, “Hey, would really love to stay and chat, but I need to talk to Ms. Delgiudice about getting a transfer into her Department. You’ll be fine here and tell you what, if I see Mel, I’ll be sure to tell him you need to talk to him”.
With that Violet walked away, toward the center of the room where Alex was dancing with some fairly old-looking guy that she did not recognize,
“Go ahead, Violet, you want excitement? Just walk over there and tell the old guy that you’re cutting in” Violet laughed at her own thought, and continued to walk towards the dance floor.

Meg started to tell this new guy that she didn’t frickin need any help but stopped, something in his look of ‘amused concern’ …maybe there was someone in this zoo that might make the evening worthwhile…

(…to be continued)

For the full story (so far) in one place, go here.

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, psychology of personality, relationships, self-development, self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine

Saturday Morning, the Wakefield Doctrine, read fast! there’s a whole day waiting out there!

January 5, 2013 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Today we present a video, previously scheduled for yesterday (Video Friday) pre-empted by the seriously fun, amusing and challenging, ‘Finish the Sentence Friday’ ‘blog hop’ put on by Janine and Kate

It was our practice a few years ago to always provide a new and interesting insight into the Wakefield Doctrine with each and every Post.

So for today, a brief re-introduction to everyone’s favorite, non: -proslytizing, -pamphlet-handing-out-in-airports, -bake-saleing, -hit-yourself-on-the-back-with-branches, -required-to-listen-to-guys-with-briarwood-pipes-in-their-hands, -risk-your-soul, -do-I-really-have-to-read-the-whole-thing personality theory!

the Wakefield Doctrine maintains that we all live in the world, ‘slightly apart’ and we all relate ourselves to the world in one of three characteristic ways: as an Outsider (clarks), as predators (scotts) and as members of a herd (rogers). When we correctly infer the worldview of another person, (or ourselves), we are in a position to understand much, much more about them, (or ourselves) than we might otherwise.
Even better, the Wakefield Doctrine says that everyone, all of us, are born with the innate potential to relate to the world in each of these three ways. And even though we all ‘settle into’ one of the three (becoming our predominant worldview), we always retain the ability to experience the world as do the other two!
Think of the possibilities when it comes to: breaking bad habits, learning a new social skill, asking that girl at work out, explaining to your husband how you like to be touched, seeing that your second child is not so odd, knowing that the job you really want is not so out-of-reach, becoming comfortable with the parts of yourself that have always seemed to cause you pain.
Yep! it’s all right here! So come and read and learn and imagine and have fun.