Here’s a brief timeline below of my CV from my the point at which my interest begain to peak regarding transformational performance and personal development. I took it from an email I wrote to a colleague to update him about where my current focus of attention is today, and how it got here through a lens of where my fascination began, and how it developed, morphed and became refined over time.
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Abbreviated CV Timeline
Late 1980s – Introduction to Transformational Personal Development via Landmark Forum, [NOTE: Pre-NLP]
I attended a Landmark Education “Forum” program in the mid-1980s and was entranced, both with the technology and with the idea. I decided then that I would do “training” as my focus – without even thinking through what that meant, except that the “training” would be something transformational.
1987 – Begin NLP Training, Decide to Get Certified As An NLP Trainer
Then I attended an NLP Practitioner training program with John LaValle and his partner back then, and I was hooked … especially after I saw and met Richard Bandler when he did an evening with the group. I decided that was “IT” … I’d become an NLP Trainer and teach people NLP. So I was off to learn the skillset and get myself certified.
1988 – Meet Roye Fraser, Study Generative Imprint™ Model and Hypnosis/Hypnotic Protocol With Him, Begin Doing Private Work With Clients
Then I began with Roye in the late 1980s and I wanted to learn the NLP & hypnosis material so that I might begin doing training and that led to a though about building a “therapeutic” practice of sorts, i.e.: working with clients around issues … I’m not really sure what I was thinking back then, but I know that I wanted to have some kind of private practice like I imagined and saw Roye doing.
1990 – Begin Running NLP Training Programs, Start Applied Behavioral Technologies, Provide Sales Training to Local Businesses
Very quickly there after I also become clear that there was immediate opportunity in doing what I now call “corporate” training, simply meaning training for businesses and business type. So I began soliciting local businesses, car dealers, realtors … to develop a small scale sales training business. Simultaneously I was running NLP training programs (Practitioner/Master Practitioner) in the early 1990s.
1994 – Develop Reputation As An NLP And Hypnosis Trainer, Design MythoSelf Training, Build International Clientele, Begin Expanding Theoretical Basis of My Work
By the mid-1990s I was becoming well-known, presenting at NLP gatherings and conventions, and got an opportunity to develop some international training clients. I was off and running at full-steam by then … a very solid seven-figure business model. I loved it … then I hated it … then I became settled with what it was … and I began a major re-thinking and shifting to an new consideration.
1997 – Begin Training Others In The MythoSelf Model As Facilitators, Began Shifting Focus From Exclusively Building Corporate Clientele To Working More With Private Individuals
Around 1997 I shifted my focus to developing the MythoSelf material in earnest, not as a platform for transformational learning (it was already that) but in terms of training others to do it. That became my intense focus for the next five years, while I continued to do and develop the corporate work. Things were good for us in those years, but I was shifting about internally.
2001 – Enter Ph.D. Program, Design And Begin Research Project Studying Transpersonal Decision-Making With Senior Leaders And Professionals Operating Within Human Systems Where There Is Limited Data Available
In 2001 I entered a Ph.D. program, originally aiming at a Ph.D. or Ed.D. in adult learning, but the work I was doing forced me to move into a track leading to a Ph.D. in Business Administration, as my research was with leaders, individual and organizational, on what I termed, “transpersonal decision-making” … a euphemism of sorts for decision-making without a rational basis that incorporated information beyond the purely empirical, often including data beyond the scope of the individual making the decision, i.e.: decision-making in complex, chaotic environments where even the outcome is not clear to the decision-maker. NOTE: This was a MAJOR refocusing of my attention at the time.
2001-2005 – Work On Doctoral Studies, Complete Course Requirements, Write Dissertation, Get Awarded The Ph.D. Degree In Business Administration With A Concentration In Strategy and Leadership, Reformulate Fundamental Ideas About Transformation and Elite PerformanceRe: Personal Mythology/Life Story
Between 2001 and 2005, while I was doing the doctoral studies I engaged in, and the research for my dissertation, I was reformulating my ideas about decision-making in relation to a) transformation and b) performance as well. I had already decided that the major issue in transformation was the world-view that a person held (their personal mythology) upon which they based their perceptions, sense and decision making that led to their actions (or their inability to act) … but now I was reformulating that meant in terms of the application.
2005 – Shift Focus Almost Entirely Away From Corporate Work To Working With Individuals On Transformational Performance, Develop Multiple New Training Models, Explore Alternative Decision-Making Models, Begin Researching Non-Ordinary Cognition And Defining Aesthetic Decision-Making
By 2005 it had become clear to me that the key was going to be identifying how to assist people in becoming able to have a fluid and dynamic decision-making model that will allow them maximum adaptability in real-world environments, which demand constant updating and adjustment to sync up for maximum performance. The answer for me was in defining what I’ve come to think of and call ‘aesthetic decision-making’.
2005 – 2013 – Continue To Refine The Aesthetic Decision-Making Model, Develop Applications For Decision-Making In Crisis, Explore Pattern Recognition And Sense-Making With Elite Performance Clients In Unpredictable, High Stress, Critical Contexts
The deep challenge is that this model is fully dynamic and demands a lack of precedent in the user, but not a lack of awareness of previous learning, in face the deeper the expertise the more potential there is to maximize performance … BUT (and it’s a huge but …) the deeper the expertise the more challenging it is to relax the belief structure that surrounds the expertise to create an open system within which perception and sense-making can begin before decision-making kicks in and takes over. This is just as true for ‘casual expertise’ as well, e.g.: how you function in your most intimate relationships, believing that you know the person you’re interacting with well enough to ignore the obvious issues regarding what’s happening in the moment and relying on past (most often incorrect) data.
2013 – Enter Ashridge Business School Professional Doctorate Program in Organizational Change, Begin Studying Action Research And Designing a Generative Consulting Research Methodology In The Service Of Developing A Thesis On “The Ontology Of Change And The Exertion Of Power”
From 2005 to 2013 as I was working more and more closely with business owners, entrepreneurs, executives, professionals and other consultants, coaches and trainers I began to see how specific kinds of pre-existing beliefs became deeply intertwined and embedded in the knowledge, experience and expertise of my clients. This made the default reflex to do what was most familiar and comfortable in their perception, decision making and behavioral responses almost impossible to escape … even when that well-honed reflex no longer served them. As I continued to notice this pattern it became evident that it was not limited to a specific individual or profession, but ranged widely across individuals in many countries with extremely varied cultural backgrounds and levels of experience regardless of the specific area of their expertise. I noticed the same pattern in business professionals, athletes, artists, entertainers, consultants, coaches, trainers, students and my private personal clients as well.
What began to stand out were the way the concepts of “trust” and “power” were also intertwined and entangled. This showed up in the way my clients responded to power in the presence of others and the way they were able or unable to exert their own personal power regardless of their position or the situation. This that were more able to separate themselves from pre-existing beliefs and the pattern of responding in a default way were more able to notice what was currently present and emerging and adapt. These clients were able to create more of the results and outcomes they intended, both on their own and with others, quickly and with less effort. This became the focus of my initial doctoral research and studies, and subsequent client work … helping my clients become more strategic and flexible in their ability to respond to uncertainty and chaos in their lives and work, especially in regard to their ability to connect and collaborate effectively with others. What I’m finding is that the key to success is cybernetic control, i.e.: communication performance mastery.
2015 (Present Focus) – Training Clients To Use An Emergent Decision-Making Model To Access High/Elite Performance States And Responses That Are Both Context And Expertise Independent, Strong Orientation Toward Building Deep Practical Resiliency And Resoucefulness
What I’m building to is a fully emergent model of strategic decision-making controlled through three levels of integrated and iterative communication performance mastery, personal, interpersonal and social … what I call cybernetic communication. Communicating in this way demands being self-aware, situationally aware and socially aware. The aim is to replace the unpredictable beyond the limits of absolute predictability with a sense of the unprecedented, i.e.: replacing cause and effect thinking and the action that follows it with creativity and strategically innovative responses. IMO this is the basis for all elite performance, i.e.: basing all your decision-making in an awareness that the unprecedented may in fact be what you are facing and “THIS” isn’t what you think it is, because by the time you get there it will already be something else and you need to be able to update instantaneously and deal with what is both present and emergent.
Addendum 2015 – Current Research Orientation: Non-Ordinary Cognition And The Role Of Non-Cortical Processing In Decision-Making And Performance, e.g.: Implicit Learning, Cerebellar Processing and Somatic Performance Interventions
One small additional piece of data. FWIW I think that the basis of this form of decision-making (i.e.: emergent aesthetic decision-making) is updating and retraining the cerebellum to restore the positive open learning conditions that are in place by default for children of a certain age, i.e.: that our ability to notice, use and track our movements as they relate to our cognitive processing is the key, along with the question of the mythology/narrative life story you hold that shapes what you are able to perceive and make sense of beyond the physical limitations of perception itself.
2017 – Exit Ashridge Business School Professional Doctorate Program in Organizational Change, ABD, Writing A Dissertation Paper On “The Ontology Of Arrogance” As The Evolution Of The Work Completed On The Thesis, “The Ontology Of Change And The Exertion Of Power”
In 2017 I left the Ashridge doctoral program prior to completing and submitting my completed dissertation due to conflicts with my supervisor and the complications associated with the change in ownership/management to the Hult School of Business based in Boston, MA in the United States. At that time my final dissertation paper was entitled, “The Ontology of Arrogance.” My focus shifted to an autoenthonographical approach based on my experience in the Ashridge program as well as my 25+ years of professional experience in training, consulting, and coaching executive and professional clients internationally. The primary intention of my writing at this time was on developing a deep and personal, phenomenology regarding of the role of the change artist and how their personal life experience, shaped and influenced their perceptions and understanding of themselves and reality as they experienced in, including their interpersonal experience, and therefore how they showed up in their professional expression and interaction, and the effect that produced in their work with others. Specifically, I began to question “the shadow of the Change Artist” in terms of what remains hidden from themselves, that dramatically influences their work with others, and the subsequent effect of that work on others and the organizations they comprise.
PERSONAL NOTE: I believe that the conflict I experienced at the end of my tenure at Ashridge School of Business was in part due to the questions I was raising about academia and “the Academy” (a term I frequently encountered at Ashridge in the process of my studies there). Looking back there were issues that were present in my original submission that might have been easily addressed and corrected with some additional writing and editing leading to a rewrite of the paper.
What I encountered in a mock viva prior to the submission of the final dissertation was a review that included the recommendation to start the writing of the paper over from the start. This response startled me and I balked at it, and from that point forward I got the cold shoulder. For example when I made a request in March inquiring about what remained for me to produce to satisfy the requirements for the doctorate to be granted and how to best complete those requirements, I didn’t get any response from the school until July, at which time I was told I had two weeks to submit my 60,000 word dissertation with no input or review with my supervisor for over two years.
The response at, and after, by mock viva with the two senior reviewers responsible for the feedback I received lead me to thinking I may have come too close to challenging the cherished beliefs of “the Academy at Ashridge. This included challenging my reviewers identity, and proposition of their impositions on the thinking about what it means to be academic, including the power they hold and wield over students in their charge, i.e.: “The Ontology of Arrogance.” However this was the direct intention of my research and writing as it evolved. I was personally subject to the influence of power, both interpersonally and institutionally. This was at the core of my work on how the interpersonal expression and experiences of the change artist becomes the fulcrum of their work.
2017-2020 – Continue To Refine My Research And Develop A Neurocognitively Informed Model On The Nature Of Ontological Change, Decision-Making, And The Phenomenological Experience Of Power And Its Exertion, Specifically As A Function Of Communication And Control In Relation To Elite Levels Of Performance In Cybernetic Systems
In the years after I left Ashridge the focus of my studies, research, and work because much more neurocognitively grounded than it had been, even taking into account the previous work I had done on incorporating the integration of cerebellar and cortical processing on decision-making in uncertain, complex, and chaotic contexts, and the effect of (psychological) “state” on decision-making and performance. In this time I devoted significant time to revisiting and reviewing the work of the developmentalists, including Clare W. Graves, Jane Loevenger, and Susan Cook-Grueter, after the inclusion of their work, as well as that of William (Bill) Torbert, Robert Kegan, and the David Rook, in my studies at Ashridge. I became certified by David Rook and Harthill Consulting, Ltd. as an LDF (Leadership Development Framework) Authorized Facilitator, Coach and Consultant, based on their Action Logics model of vertical development.
I continued to use the LDF model in the work I am doing, and have built upon it using my own research and learning to create ways of advising clients regarding their own vertical development, Specifically, considering how they experience and define reality sensorially as well as conceptually, and how that directly impacts their perception and behavior, leading their ways of performing. An update based on the neurocognitive modeling I’ve done has been to consider more fully the role of the enteric brain, vagus nerve and vagal response, and the ANS (autonomic nervous system) in relation to state and performance. Specifically, I’ve updated my models to consider the relationship between pre-cortical and cortical processing, especially regarding intuition and intuitive processing (as per both Gary Klein’s work on intuition and Naturalistic Decision-Making, and Daniel Kahneman’s brilliant work in behavioral economics on fast (analytical/cortical/representational) and slow (intuitive/pre-cortical/pre-representational) thinking.
2020-2024 – Defining New Models, Publishing, And Updated Client Work re.: Neurocognitively Informed Transformation And Cybernetic Communication In Human Systems
Between 2020 and 2024 I’ve continued refining and developing my neurocognitive models of working with clients, training and intervention, e.g.: coaching and advisement. In 2023 I published the paper Sensory Systems Control Theory, and began working on my Fractal Navigator Framework, incorporating Nassim Tabeb’s work on becoming Antifragile, into my work with clients individually and organizationally. My current focus includes researching, writing, and working with clients on issues of personal performance using the principles of the MythoSelf Process, SomaSemantics, and the Fractal Navigator Framework. In the process of developing and facilitating the new Fractal Navigator approach to decision-making and peforming in VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) context with clients I’ve incorporated some advanced neurocognitive concepts, including fractal thinking, cybernetic communication, and chaos theory, as well as Nassim Taleb’s Antifragile concepts and my own work on the Scope of Decision model, which I’ve updated based on this new approach.
The result of this new work has been the development of a practical, applied model of client work leading to the development of an antifragile mindset, access to elite performance, and significantly improved interpersonal communication skills. The integration of these aspects of the Fractal Navigator Framework updates the neurological processing and responses of the clients experiencing it, leading to an outcome I refer to as “Decision Mastery,” which refers to the ability to A) link intention and action, as well as B) engaging, enrolling, and empowering others, in the creation of extraordinary outcomes via taking action in fractal, iterative patterns. The additional benefit of this new neurocognitive modeling process, i.e.: the Fractal Navigator Framework, is the natural and automatic emergence of feedback loops that create a self-referencing, self-organizing autopoetic system of continual refinement and improvement.
