Information to Action

In Jerry Weinberg's 2nd workshop, which he originally developed with Virginia Satir, he talked about how information is transformed into actions, and how different people focus on different steps in that process.

This may explain in part how different people have different Salient Network "skill levels".

Jeff Winchell recalls Jerry suggesting the following.

The four steps from information to action:

1. perceive the detailed information 2. realize what the details mean (abstraction) 3. realize the significance of that meaning 4. take action

In Kiersey/Myers-Briggs terms, the people with SJ in their Myers-Briggs type focus most on step 1 so later they still remember lots of details, but that focus takes resources away from the next 3 steps so they don't act all that much.

The people with NT in their Myers-Briggs type, will very quickly jump to step 2 to focus on the meaning of the data. They will forget some details.

The people with NF in their Myers-Briggs type, will very quickly jump to step 3 to focus on the significance of the data. (This is my type). We forget many details and are closer to acting, and very often do.

The people with SP in their Myers-Briggs type, will very quickly jump to step 4 and just act. They often have no idea what the details were that got them there. Trump is like that.

So people who are more focused on step 3 are more likely to recognize the salience of some stimuli and act. (Presumably those focused on step 4's aren't even always sure what the saliency was, but act anyway).

In Weinberg's first workshop, he had a similar Myers-Briggs analogy to how people solve problems. He called MOI (Motivation, Organization, Information) and 4th thing he called jiggling. People tend to focus on solving problems using just one of those 4 methods and they align with those 4 personality types. So the SJ's look to improve organization to solve a problem, the NT's look to increase information, the NF's try to motivate people to solve a problem, and the SP's just start doing things to see what might unstick the problem (or just because they're antsy).

Anyway, as people get more experiences, supposedly they develop their less dominant tendencies. This may be analogous to the whole brain approach. And of course, if you can mix together different types of people harmoniously enough, they can contribute their different strengths and some (like Ward and Kent) may likely be inspired by other approaches and add on to them even though that is not their focus.

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A few edits. The 4 step model is the Satir Communication Model. The 2nd workshop refers to Congruent Leadership Change Workshop. It was the 2nd workshop in a series of 3 that Weinberg had in 2001-2002, but I have no idea if it's the 2nd workshop Jerry ever created.