Review of "Reconstructing Your World View" by Bart Madden

CSGnet Archive CSG2014
1

[From Alice McElhone (2014.10.19.6:47]

Sigh. Rick has an
opinion. Bart has a book. Alice has a headache.

I wiped out
all the names in this post because I’m controlling for not sharing without
permission.

Given Bart Madden’s readership, I think he has a
blockbuster, and guess what? Allie is right: PCT has a free ride into a
market we’ve never come close to cracking, much less understanding, and
here is a book written in terms most business people will understand, and
might even get interested enough to learn more about the technical side of
PCT.

We’ll know soon if Bart knows his market. I bought three
copies and sent one to my youngest son who is an executive at a big
corporation in NYC, and (contrary to popular myth that all corporate
executives are crooks) Scott is above all, a truth teller.

···

NEW TOPIC: I’m probably the last one in the group
to find this: a reference to a journal article on the MIT open source
website, with the intriguing title, “PCT and EYES.” (Subtitle:
the Eye Pupil Adjusts to Imaginary Light.) Isn’t that just the
best?

I wasted a few hours trying to figure out how to get to
it, winding up at Sage, and buying a subscription to Scientific Psychology
(or whatever the name is). The authors are Bruno Laeng and Unni Suluvedt,
both at the University of Oslo. The treastise was first published on line
in 2013, and was formally published on 1.10.2014. (with my luck,
when I get my copy, it will probably be all about Pretty Cold
Temperatures.)

PS I also bought Rick’s book and it is
really, really great! You should all go buy it.

[BTW, in 2009, Bart bought the first three copies off the press of
…(drum-roll)]

Living Control Systems III: The Fact of
Control. hmmmm.

Back to work!

Alice

2

“I found this focus on
solving business problems only from the employers perspective to be
almost obscene…”

Right on.

Allie

(Too bad - we were hoping for some good PCT
publicity.)
[From Dag Forssell (2014 10.19 12:00)]

Allie, have you read the book?

Best, Dag

···

At 03:23 PM 10/18/2014, you wrote:

3

[From Fred Nickols (2014.10.22.0935 EDT)]

FWIW, I agree with Rick’s assessment. I bought and read the book when Dag first announced it. I think Chapter 5 is a decent presentation of PCT but I’m not clear how it fits with the rest of the book except as one of the items Bart addresses as part of reconstructing your worldview.

Also, FWIW, I write a monthly column for ISPI’s PerformanceXpress about knowledge work and knowledge workers. I just wrote one I plan on posting in December that relates to how PCT applies in a practical way. The title is PCT and Performance and a copy is attached. If it doesn’t come through let me know and I’ll send you a copy.

If you have any comments feel free to share.

I, for one, happen to think that PCT does apply in very practical ways and that has always been my focus and my reason for being on this list.

Regards,

Fred Nickols, CPT

Managing Partner

Distance Consulting LLC

The Knowledge Workers’ Tool Room

“Be sure you measure what you want.”

“Be sure you want what you measure.”

PCT and Performance.docx (20.5 KB)

···

From: apmce@benchpress.com [mailto:apmce@benchpress.com]
Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2014 6:40 PM
To: csgnet
Subject: Re: Review of “Reconstructing Your World View” by Bart Madden

[From Alice McElhone (2014.10.19.6:47]

Sigh. Rick has an opinion. Bart has a book. Alice has a headache.

I wiped out all the names in this post because I’m controlling for not sharing without permission.

Given Bart Madden’s readership, I think he has a blockbuster, and guess what? Allie is right: PCT has a free ride into a market we’ve never come close to cracking, much less understanding, and here is a book written in terms most business people will understand, and might even get interested enough to learn more about the technical side of PCT.

We’ll know soon if Bart knows his market. I bought three copies and sent one to my youngest son who is an executive at a big corporation in NYC, and (contrary to popular myth that all corporate executives are crooks) Scott is above all, a truth teller.

NEW TOPIC: I’m probably the last one in the group to find this: a reference to a journal article on the MIT open source website, with the intriguing title, “PCT and EYES.” (Subtitle: the Eye Pupil Adjusts to Imaginary Light.) Isn’t that just the best?

I wasted a few hours trying to figure out how to get to it, winding up at Sage, and buying a subscription to Scientific Psychology (or whatever the name is). The authors are Bruno Laeng and Unni Suluvedt, both at the University of Oslo. The treastise was first published on line in 2013, and was formally published on 1.10.2014. (with my luck, when I get my copy, it will probably be all about Pretty Cold Temperatures.)

PS I also bought Rick’s book and it is really, really great! You should all go buy it.

[BTW, in 2009, Bart bought the first three copies off the press of …(drum-roll)]

Living Control Systems III: The Fact of Control. hmmmm.

Back to work!

Alice

4

[From Fred Nickols (2014.10.22.1500 EDT)]

Thanks, Rick. I'm glad you think highly of it. As it happens I do plan on exploring additional aspects of PCT as applied to managing and improving performance in upcoming articles. I will keep your points in mind.

Regards,

Fred Nickols, CPT
Managing Partner
Distance Consulting LLC
The Knowledge Workers’ Tool Room
“Be sure you measure what you want.�?
“Be sure you want what you measure.�?

···

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Marken [mailto:rsmarken@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2014 2:14 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Cc: APMCE@benchpress.com
Subject: Re: Review of "Reconstructing Your World View" by Bart Madden

[From Rick Marken (2014.10.22.1110)]

> Fred Nickols (2014.10.22.0935 EDT)--
>
> FN: FWIW, I agree with Rick’s assessment.

RM: Thanks Fred. I knew you had good taste;-)

>FN: Also, FWIW, I write a monthly column for ISPI’s PerformanceXpress
>about knowledge work and knowledge workers. I just wrote one I plan
>on posting in December that relates to how PCT applies in a practical
>way. The title is PCT and Performance and a copy is attached. If it
>doesn’t come through let me know and I’ll send you a copy.

RM: It came through just fine and it's a beautiful piece of writing and a nice,
clear description of the PCT view of performance. And I say that not just
because you agree with my assessment of the "Reconstructing Your World
View".

But I do have some things I think you might consider adding in future articles
that are very much related to some practical implications of PCT regarding
performance, some of which are alluded to in this paper.
I'll just list some points I think you might consider expanding on in the future:

1. The references we select matter. It's easier (and probably only
feasible) to successfully control for a constant level of profit rather than a
constantly increasing level of profit, for example.

2. Control requires varying the means used to produce outcomes to
compensate for changing circumstances. Inability to produce intended
outcomes (failure to control) because of of lack of ability to vary the means
of achieving those outcomes is a sign of conflict. Time to visit an MOL
therapist, MOL being the way to change worldviews; and you really only
need to work on changing your worldview -- going up a level - - when you are
unable to control due to conflict (rather than due to lack of skill or
insuperable disturbance). Conflict in business can result from wanting to
achieve the goals of the different stakeholders in the business; for example,
wanting to constantly increase profits to please shareholders versus
investing profits in capital improvement to maintain the long term viability of
the company for the sake of the employees.

3. Teaching people how to perform a task involves teaching them what
variables (perceptions) to control, the appropriate reference levels for those
actions that can be taken to achieve those results while protecting them
from disturbance (this is based on my PCT based approach to task analysis
called PERCOLATe, which is describe in a paper by the same in in "More Mind
Readings").

So, again, great paper. Really nicely done. And I think you are definitely right
that there are practical applications of PCT; I would just recommend being
more explicit about what they are. They are not the kind of applications that
would come to mind to people who are oriented toward making the
performance others be the way they would like it to be -- that is, people who
are oriented toward controlling the behavior of others. PCT applications are
oriented toward helping people control better -- for their own sake! I think
that is the point you are trying to make in all your writings and I applaud you
for it.

Best regards

Rick
--
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

5

[From Rick Marken (2014.10.20.1830)]

Alice McElhone (2014.10.19.6:47)

AM: Sigh. Rick has an opinion. Bart has a book. Alice has a headache.

RM: I hope your headache is better. I think you may have had it
because you are excited about the possibility of bringing PCT to a
large audience via Bart's book and I am saying that Bart's book is a
very poor medium for doing that. I'm sorry I said it but I didn't say
it because the book privileges the problems of employers over those of
employees; Indeed, I probably shouldn't have even mentioned that. I
said it because reading the book was a huge disturbance to my PCT
accuracy control systems.

RM: It was hard for me to see how any of ideas presented in the book
-- other than the idea of PCT itself, which was presented fairly well
in Chapter 5 -- had anything to do with PCT. For example, the first
chapter claims that our "hidden assumptions" influence the way we
perceive things and therefore "automatic reliance" on these
assumptions can lead to "bad decisions". This all makes no sense at
all to me from a PCT perspective. There is nothing in PCT about
"hidden assumptions" influencing the way we perceive things or about
"automatic reliance" on assumptions affecting our decisions. Indeed,
PCT says that people don't make decisions; they control. People appear
to be "deciding" when they are in conflict. Indeed, it's rather
amazing that a book that is ostensibly based on PCT never talks about
the fact that business problems are control problems and that business
people (like everyone else) are control systems trying to control
various aspects of their business.

RM: I see so many problems with the book from a PCT perspective that
it would take a long article to deal with them all and I'm not
planning to write that article (unless someone asks...well, begs). I'm
pretty sure the audience for this book is not my audience; the
audience does not consist of scientific researchers who want to
understand human nature. So even if the book gets people interested in
PCT they will not be in a position to do anything other than draw
bumper sticker conclusions from it that are probably incorrect anyway.
I imagine this book will go the way of Glasser's book on PCT, Stations
of the Mind, which actually got PCT a little better than this book
does, perhaps because it was written in consultation with Bill.

AM: Given Bart Madden's readership, I think he has a blockbuster,

RM: I think it's very likely that he does, indeed. He's already
received sterling reviews at Amazon. I think there are a lot of people
who will love this stuff.

AM: We'll know soon if Bart knows his market. I bought three copies and sent one to my
youngest son who is an executive at a big corporation in NYC, and (contrary to
popular myth that all corporate executives are crooks) Scott is above all, a truth teller.

RM: I didn't mean to give the impression that I thought executives are
crooks. I just meant that a person who is making $6,000,000 a year has
got to have a far ewer problems than one of his/her employees who is
making $20,000 a year.

AM: NEW TOPIC: I'm probably the last one in the group to find this: a reference to a journal article on the MIT open source website, with the intriguing title, "PCT and EYES." (Subtitle: the Eye Pupil Adjusts to Imaginary Light.) Isn't that just the best?

RM: I looked up this paper and found it (I can only get to the
abstract; I'm no longer a member of APS I guess) but there was no "PCT
and EYES" in the title. But the paper is very much relevant to PCT; it
shows that a control system will produce outputs to control an
imagined perception; cool!

AM: PS I also bought Rick's book and it is really, really great! You should all go buy it.

RM: So far, no reviews at Amazon. I think it's a little tougher going
than Bart's book so I don't imagine I'll get the sterling reviews
that his book is getting. But my sister-in-law likes it;-)

Best regards

Rick

···

[BTW, in 2009, Bart bought the first three copies off the press of ...(drum-roll)]

Living Control Systems III: The Fact of Control. hmmmm.

Back to work!

Alice

--
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

6

[From Rick Marken (2014.10.22.1110)]

Fred Nickols (2014.10.22.0935 EDT)--

FN: FWIW, I agree with Rick’s assessment.

RM: Thanks Fred. I knew you had good taste;-)

FN: Also, FWIW, I write a monthly column for ISPI’s PerformanceXpress about
knowledge work and knowledge workers. I just wrote one I plan on posting in
December that relates to how PCT applies in a practical way. The title is
PCT and Performance and a copy is attached. If it doesn’t come through let
me know and I’ll send you a copy.

RM: It came through just fine and it's a beautiful piece of writing
and a nice, clear description of the PCT view of performance. And I
say that not just because you agree with my assessment of the
"Reconstructing Your World View".

But I do have some things I think you might consider adding in future
articles that are very much related to some practical implications of
PCT regarding performance, some of which are alluded to in this paper.
I'll just list some points I think you might consider expanding on in
the future:

1. The references we select matter. It's easier (and probably only
feasible) to successfully control for a constant level of profit
rather than a constantly increasing level of profit, for example.

2. Control requires varying the means used to produce outcomes to
compensate for changing circumstances. Inability to produce intended
outcomes (failure to control) because of of lack of ability to vary
the means of achieving those outcomes is a sign of conflict. Time to
visit an MOL therapist, MOL being the way to change worldviews; and
you really only need to work on changing your worldview -- going up a
level - - when you are unable to control due to conflict (rather than
due to lack of skill or insuperable disturbance). Conflict in business
can result from wanting to achieve the goals of the different
stakeholders in the business; for example, wanting to constantly
increase profits to please shareholders versus investing profits in
capital improvement to maintain the long term viability of the company
for the sake of the employees.

3. Teaching people how to perform a task involves teaching them what
variables (perceptions) to control, the appropriate reference levels
for those actions that can be taken to achieve those results while
protecting them from disturbance (this is based on my PCT based
approach to task analysis called PERCOLATe, which is describe in a
paper by the same in in "More Mind Readings").

So, again, great paper. Really nicely done. And I think you are
definitely right that there are practical applications of PCT; I would
just recommend being more explicit about what they are. They are not
the kind of applications that would come to mind to people who are
oriented toward making the performance others be the way they would
like it to be -- that is, people who are oriented toward controlling
the behavior of others. PCT applications are oriented toward helping
people control better -- for their own sake! I think that is the point
you are trying to make in all your writings and I applaud you for it.

Best regards

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of Doing Research on Purpose.
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble