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

Once again, we have Friends of the Doctrine to thank for an interesting Post topic. Our friend Cynthia wrote, in a Comment, the other day,

“And…and…clarks. I need to do some learnin’ about bringing out the “leadership” quality in a clark. You know: making those 60-second decisions, not backing down, managing a lot of people. That sort of thing. Not a very clark-thing to do at all. :P“

“:P” indeed!

(I was just thinking, ‘My reply to Cynthia, the other day was pretty comprehensive and, well, lets just say, ‘the post is almost complete with a couple of copy/paste(s)’, go ahead! who’s gonna object?’)

I’ll compromise and put the Reply, (my response to our friend’s Comment), somewhere else. Actually this will be quite useful in allowing me to experiment with an idea for using un-categorized Posts as secret hiding places. So, if you would like to read my response to Cynthia’s excellent Post-topic-to-be, click here.

To the topic on hand! One that I started writing about this August 19th and am only just now publishing it, which is not, as it turns out a bad thing. The reason is that in the intervening time, discussion ensued, specifically, what might we suggest to Cynthia as (possible) paths to explore as she continues on with the remarkable tale of profession and personal development?

(New Readers? note here. the Wakefield Doctrine, besides being a lot of fun is also a tool for understanding the people in our lives, which includes ourselves… as people in our lives. Now the thing about the Doctrine is that we do not claim to have ‘the Answer’, hell, we don’t even insist that our way (of looking at the world) is ‘the Better Way’. All we say is that the Wakefield Doctrine provides an additional perspective on life and the world and dealing with that pain-in-the-ass guy at the deli counter at the Stop ‘n Shop (and) the girl that we would really like to believe we have a shot with and (even) the new boss who seems to be going out of his way to be a first class dick, our emphasis here being, of course, on ‘additional’. We sincerely believe that the more we understand the people in our lives, the better our lives can be. So, the next time you find yourself saying, “I really thought I knew them better than that! How could they be so mean?”  stop. remember the three worldviews, see if you can infer how that person is ‘relating themselves to the world around them’, (as an Outsider (clark) or a Predator (scott) or a Herd Member (roger). and then…. then do your best to see the world as they are experiencing it. If you do that, you will know them better. Maybe just a little better, maybe a lot better, but you will have a better understanding/appreciation of them.)

My! that certainly was a jumbo parenthetical aside! Back to our ‘discussion’.  how do clarks become more effective leaders and managers? You’ll recognize, in these two, the worldview of scotts and rogers, respectively.  It is fundamental to the Wakefield Doctrine that, while we all have only one predominant worldview (our personal reality), we retain the potential and capacity of ‘the other two’. We refer to these as our secondary and tertiary aspects.* At first blush, the ‘answer’ to Cynthia’s query might be thought to be ‘well, develop your secondary and tertiary aspects!’ And, in fact, that is the answer. However, the question remains, ‘how the heck does one do that?’

Hey!  here’s what I’ve got:  enthusiasm.

Yep! there it is. the answer.** Enthusiasm… or, as we presciently wrote in our Post Title…passion. That is the keystone, the touchstone, the abracadabra of accessing her secondary and tertiary aspects. Now, I alluded to discussion over the course of the weekend that contributed to a better understanding of this mechanism (in clarks). Remind me later in the week to tell you about it.  Mention:  spinner and hydraulics for cars and I’ll totally get what you mean.

Got to go to work.

* e.g. I am a clark with a strong secondary scottian and weak tertiary rogerian aspect(s) as a result I am a creative Outsider, but have at times found myself driven to act aggressively on the world at large, this blog being the best example of that effect.

** this is the answer specific to Cynthia’s Comment-question. It is applicable to clarks. If we were dealing with a roger or a scott, even with the same question, the answer would be different. Why? well because they have different set of rules, the worldview, the personal reality of (a) scott or (a) roger is different. It only makes sense, doesn’t it?