the Wakefield Doctrine

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

Monday morning.

This Day in Doctrine posts!

…ok. I’m back… a lot of digging through old files. It took almost three years of Doctrine posts to find one written on May 3rd! But…but! what a find!

Given how, were we to continue to search for ‘This Day in Doctrine posts’ we’d totally have a bunch of them. Well, not precisely. Seeing how there remains only eight more May 3rds possible… but that’s not important now.*

What is important is that our find, our reprint today is the post that provided a new level of understanding of one of ‘the other two’ predominant worldviews.

Specifically, the rogerian worldview.

Note to New Readers: the Wakefield Doctrine is, among other things, a map of a nearly unreachable world(s). We, all of us, grow up and develop in one of three realities: that of the Outsider(clarks), the Predator(scotts) and the Herd Member(rogers). The Doctrine describes each so that we might infer how one relates themselfs to the world around them.

(And when you learn these descriptions sufficiently, life becomes much simpler…. you go to a friend’s garage workshop and you see the shadow-relief outlines of tools on a pegboard over the workbench… like victims of the Hiroshima atrocity and you suddenly realize that you friend is a roger or, standing in line at the supermarket, one person is heard above the fairly subdued background conversation and you watch as they cut ahead of the line. This is not. however, what has you smiling at the thought of ‘that weird personality theory blog’ that your odd friend insisted you read the night before. What has you smiling is the person cutting in line, he’s telling jokes, people are laughing, hell, they’re stepping out of line in the hopes that he’d stop in their section of the line. What a scott!)

Where were we…. maps! Right! The descriptions of the three worldviews are like a map. You will recognize the streets when you walk down them. You will not see inside the houses and buildings…unless, someone from the area invites you in and that is what happened to this post written on May 3rd 2012. The result of this post (the discovery is detailed in subsequent posts.**

The take-away. What this post lead to was the discovery of the principle of ‘referential authority’. It is a major dynamic in the worldview of the Herd Members. What it wasn’t was ‘visible’ from the basic descriptions of the predominant worldview of rogers.

We discovered this ‘artifact’ as most discoveries of un-seeable objects are made: by inference. When we went to the rogers in our readership at the time and asked, ‘Well what did you think of the three possible responses to the scenaria?’ And they, the rogers, were, to a woman, “My god!! They can’t do that!! It’s an insult to the owner. That job applicant should be arrested!!”

Needless to say, the ferocity of the objection by rogers for the clarklike choice in the first scenario was a total “Hey!! Look here…closer!! There’s something going on here that is specific to the rogerian worldview.

Cool, non?

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

Today we present the second in our series of Posts that  look at the process of interviewing for a job, through the lens of the Wakefield Doctrine. In each of these Posts, we will set up a  job interview scenario, each in a different business sector and  look at it from the perspective of the Wakefield Doctrine. The underlying question throughout will be,  “what insight does the Wakefield Doctrine provide that will allow us to improve the chances of success in being hired in each of these situations?”

In our First Post, “Won’t you have a seat, Mr Andrews will see you in a moment“,   we examined the strategies available to a person seeking a position in what is often referred to as ‘the corporate world’.  In that first Post, we focused on the ‘pre-Interview’ phase of the employment process. With today’s Post we will stay with this convention, as it seems that, if the first episode is any indication, most Readers find the Applicant’s efforts to deal with the appointment process entertaining and instructive. Subsequent Posts in this Series, will include  interviewing for positions in the Manufacturing Sector, Service Industries and Small Businesses.

 

Small Business Environment:

….a small restaurant, in a small coastal town which is also home to the State University. With only 10 tables and an open kitchen layout  the Owner, (who is also the cook), is able to greet and interact with all the patrons. It is quite clear that he enjoys what he does, is reasonably skilled and, as a result, the business has grown rapidly. The increase in business has been surprisingly rapid and the Owner is finding that the part-time help from family and relatives is insufficient,  and so the Help Wanted: Waitress ad in the local newspaper.

…The Interviewee:

The wife of a faculty member at the University,  after a Sabbatical from Field Work, you have been unable to find employment in your area of expertise, Paleo-sociology  (and) Urdic Languages. Rather than spend another summer in the overly large home that you and your husband share with two cats, you decide that being a Waitress wouldn’t be the worst thing you could do, at least until the market for Sociologists (fluent in farsi) improves. So you call the number in the newspaper and get an appointment to meet the Owner. Wearing your best Interview suit (a subdued brown pinstripe) and carrying your trusted iPad, you set off to the restaurant, confident that you will be able to recall your undergraduate days of work-study working in the school cafeteria.
(…. oh!  do we need to mention that you are so a roger?)

(First Interaction)

The Restaurant is quite busy for 10:30 on a weekday morning. All but 2 tables are occupied, the Owner can be seen at the grill cooking, stopping to look up and wave as you enter the restaurant. He waves a spatula in the direction of the empty table near the door and goes back to cooking. There is a woman standing at the cash register, ringing out a customer.  She looks up, frowns then smiles and says, “You must be Emily! To be honest with you, I’m really kind of busy right now, but I left an application on that table over there, if you want to get started I’ll try to get over to you in a minute. We’re really kinda swamped right now”.
Looking over to the table, you see a single sheet of paper marked Application for Employment

Do you:

• Sit at the table (not before taking out a tissue and wiping off the table top) and begin to read the Application for Employment
• Decide that the Owner should have paused at least for a moment, and come over to properly introduce himself and even though the woman at the cash register seems nice,  they are both being rude, so you turn around and walk out of the restaurant
• Pick up the dishes from a recently empty table and take them to what appears to be the kitchen…

The Question: if you are a roger what is likely to be your first reaction, which is the most effective strategy for getting this job. Which of the three personality types ( clark or scott or roger) is the woman ringing out the Customers? Please submit your answer (along with the reason for your picking the personality type) in the Comments section at the bottom of this Post

(Second Interaction)

…you have been sitting at the table 15 minutes (30 minutes later than the scheduled interview). The ‘breakfast rush’ has finally quieted down and the woman at the cash register brings you coffee, asks (again!) if you would like something to eat and tells you that the Owner will be over in a minute.

Do you:

• ask the woman questions about the restaurant, how long has it been in business, what background the Owner has in the restaurant business
• Look annoyed and ask her if it is always this busy
• smile, hand her the Application for Employment that you have completed (and somehow stapled your curriculum vita to the slightly grease-spotted form) and say, “Thank you so much! I am sure that I will enjoy working here!”

The Question: if you are a roger, which of the above is likely to be your initial reaction and which, (of the three actions above), should be your reaction, in order to increase your chances of being successful in this Interview?

Well that should be enough to get us started! As with the first Interview, consider not only which of the three personality types the people in our scenario are, but tell us why you think they are (clarks or scotts or rogers )… and while it is helpful to know the correct way to get this particular type of job, add what you can about what the Wakefield Doctrine gives our Interviewee, in terms of tools or aids that will allow her to get whatever the hell it is that she wants…. (yes, Molly and Claire  that is a totally leading question!)

 

* the whole ‘reprint thing’ is, of course, about jump-starting the wordage lobe in our brain. Today? Job done.

** what can we say, they’re all there… guess you’re gonna have to rummage through all 2300 posts