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

2 reasons for today’s Post:

1. new Readers
2. tomorrow is Guest Thursday’s Guest Post… (‘…key-lark day’)
3. rogers and expectations

Second Reason:

GPTGP: nothing novel concept, invite people to write a Guest Post. Ask representatives of each of the three ‘personality types’ to write on a given Thursday, still not ground-breaking, at least introduces a certain degree of expectations (on the part of Readers). My instructing all Guests: “write anything you like. Have fun, no topics suggested, no minimum nor maximum lengths. pretend that you have a new blog, it’s not only already set up, but it has a readership and they do not know anything about your regular blog. write and have fun. email it to and I will post it”  I will say without reservation, the result has been more than I had anticipated. Not ‘more’ in the sense of ‘more exciting’ or ‘generating more visits to the Doctrine’ not even, ‘produce more questions about this little personality theory of ours.  Rather, it has provided a weekly illustration of the three worldviews of the Wakefield Doctrine.

• clarklike GuestWriters  that have us (commenting), “wow!  who would have thought… what a creative approach… how cool is that?”
• Guest Posts written by our scottian friends,  I can hear the laughter and appreciation of Readers, “I couldn’t stop laughing…. I can’t believe she wrote that…. god, what fun these Posts are”  (and)
• our rogerian friend’s Posts… there is something very special going on there. They (the Posts) are so….engaging, personable…. interesting in a way that is at once comfortable and yet presenting a viewpoint that challenge(s) the Reader.

So each Writer, with or without intending to, has allowed us, to see the world (from a certain Doctrine perspective), as they experience it.

(content deleted…even though I spent a good hour last night writing a ‘brief intro to the Wakefield Doctrine’… gotta stay under 1000 words)

So this Doctrine is about helping us understand the behavior of the people in our lives, right? Ok then, you want an example?

clarks and rogers.
as a pair, this combination has the advantage of stability (at a price) and, at the same time,  allows each to relax a little within their respective worldviews. Not the most high-energy combination (certainly not to the dynamic levels of a clark-scott or a scott-scott(!), but also not the quiet-symnetry of a clark-clark or the ‘who-can-build-a-structure-of-expectations-of-life-first’ of a roger-roger), but not bad. That being said, one area of conflicts between clarks and rogers is found in the area of expectations.*

Now, as the Rule of ‘Everyone Does Everything A One Time or Another’ asserts, there is nothing that is the exclusive domain of one of the three worldviews. The ‘worldviews’ are not bubbles of reality, distinct in the quantity and quality of the things that make up one’s world. Even something as  ….subjective as ‘expectations’ is manifested in each of the three worldviews, differently in each. Today we’ll focus on the expectations (as manifested) in the reality of the Herd Member, rogers.  A little true-life anecdote should serve our purpose.

Years and years ago, the Progenitor roger and I were talking about buying a business. Knowing what I did about rogers (both the individual and the personality type), I suggested that he consider something in the food service industry, you know, like a restaurant or cafe or such. Somewhat surprisingly, roger enthusiastically agreed! He went on at length how he had been thinking along those very same lines and was, in fact, researching the restaurant business. (A little backstory here: this is mid-eighties and in our area barbecue wings ‘burst on the scene’ in cafes and restaurants, sports bars… like that.)
In any event, I made the statement that ‘the restaurant business is incredibly competitive, how tricky it must be to succeed in the business’. To which roger responded:“I’ve spent a lot of time on this, looking for the difference between success and failure in a restaurant that serves wings and the key to it all is ….stainless serving dishes.” 

‘stainless steel serving dishes.’

This phrase has become a fun ‘shorthand’ for the particularly rogerian focus on a single element (of an otherwise complex subject). And no, this is not making fun of rogers (ok, a little  but not in a mean way), rather this phrase serves as a reminder of how very real the personal realities of people can be. So much of what we experience in our day-to-day lives is subjected to a personal shorthand… incredibly intricate, involved and complex ideas…reduced to four words. We (clarks, scotts and rogers) all do it.

the problem that arises, (and the prompting for this post),  when two people are engaged in a mutual effort, no…let me call it ‘a process shared’. It might be working on a project with a co-worker or maybe a science project in school or even something simple, like a home improvement project. Two people with, not only two images of the outcome, but two different ideas of ‘the best way’ to: get from start to finish/the surest way to get ‘an A’/ this is how you handle the sub-contractors to get that addition built just the way you wanted it.

‘stainless steel serving dishes’

it’s not that I was more realistic or that roger was more practical… it was not even that he was right and I was wrong… however, if I did not translate ‘stainless steel serving dishes‘ into my own, personal equivalent of  ‘this is what I feel is the critical piece of an otherwise large and complex effort’  if I do not do the translation, then I cannot expect to understand.

Many systems of insight, personality theories are designed to enhance our understanding of the people (and their behavior) in our lives. In this, the Wakefield Doctrine is not different. Where the Wakefield Doctrine is different, is that we don’t  suggest that, in our example today, that roger did not have a realistic understanding the restaurant business, we are not even suggesting that you accept that ‘maybe he just doesn’t get it’…. what the Wakefield Doctrine is saying is that, ‘living in a different worldview as he does, roger may very well be experiencing something that does not exist for a clark or a scott.‘