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Richard
Farson
Biography
Psychologist and author, Richard Farson,
is president of the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute (WBSI),
an independent, nonprofit organization he helped found in 1958,
devoted to research, education and advanced study in human affairs.
Among his current responsibilities, he heads the WBSI’s pioneering
International Leadership Forum (ILF),
an Internet-based think tank composed entirely of highly influential
leaders from business, government, academia, science, journalism,
literature and the arts, addressing the great policy issues of our
time.
Dr. Farson is the author of several critically-acclaimed
books. "Management of the Absurd: Paradoxes in Leadership,"
is now in twelve languages. His book "Whoever Makes the
Most Mistakes Wins: The Paradox of Innovation" written with
co-author Ralph Keyes, was excerpted in the Harvard Business Review,
winning the McKinsey award for the best article published in 2002,
the one "most likely to have a major influence on managers worldwide."
Reflecting his long interest in design, his newest book is "The
Power of Design: A Force for the Transformation of Everything."
Born in Chicago and raised in Southern California,
Dr. Farson attended the University of Minnesota as a Naval Officer
Trainee, Occidental College, from which he received both a bachelors
and masters degree, UCLA for psychology graduate study, Harvard
Business School as a Ford Foundation Training Fellow on the Human
Relations Faculty, and the University of Chicago, from which he
received a Ph.D. in psychology in 1955.
At Occidental College, in the summer of 1949,
he met famed psychologist Carl Rogers, and began what was to be
a lifelong association. Rogers invited Farson to study with him
at the University of Chicago where he became Rogers’ research assistant
and eventually an intern and counselor at the Counseling Center
and a research associate at the Industrial Relations Center. Farson
and Rogers collaborated over several decades on a number of research,
education, publication and media projects, including their widely-reprinted
article, "Active Listening," which introduced that term into the
lexicon of human relations training, and the Academy Award winning
documentary film, "Journey Into Self."
Following two years of postdoctoral active duty
as a Research Officer (LTJG) studying motivation, morale, leadership
and training at the U.S. Navy Personnel Research and Development
Center in San Diego, Farson entered private practice in La Jolla
as a consulting psychologist. At the same time he teamed with his
former University of Chicago professor, Thomas Gordon, best known
for his books and programs in parent and leadership effectiveness
training, to form Gordon and Farson Associates, a management consulting
firm.
In 1958 Farson, along with physicist Paul E.
Lloyd and social psychologist Wayman Crow, formed the Western Behavioral
Sciences Institute (WBSI), an independent, nonprofit organization
devoted to research, education and advanced study in human affairs.
As president of WBSI during its first decade, Farson led a number
of research projects in education, leadership, communication in
large organizations, self-directed therapeutic groups and the use
of mass media approaches to community mental health. In the latter
effort, he conducted the first televised psychotherapy group in
the series "Human Encounter," aired in 1966.
After a decade as president, Farson elected
to become Chairman of the Board of WBSI and accepted an appointment
as the founding dean of the newly formed School of Design at the
California Institute of the Arts, where the emphasis was on social
and environmental design. Farson’s continuing interest in these
issues is also evidenced by his thirty-year membership on the board
of directors of the International Design Conference in Aspen, the
world’s leading forum for interdisciplinary discussions of the designed
environment. He was twice elected its president, serving from 1976
to1980 and again from 1994 to 1997. In 1999 he was elected the Public
Director (non-architect) to the national Board of Directors of the
American Institute of Architects, and in 2001 named Senior Fellow
on the Design Futures Council.
From 1973-1975 Farson was president of Esalen
Institute, an innovative educational organization located in Big
Sur and San Francisco, California. In 1975 he joined the faculty
of the Saybrook Graduate School and Research Institute in San Francisco,
formed by the Association for Humanistic Psychology, where he supervised
the doctoral research of advanced graduate students.
Returning to the presidency of WBSI in 1979,
Farson guided the institute’s development of educational, scholarly
and therapeutic communities formed through the use of advanced computer
communication technologies. The centerpiece of this effort was the
highly regarded School
of Management and Strategic Studies, a network of senior executives
from twenty-six countries who joined a distinguished faculty to
deliberate together, via computer conferencing, on the new requirements
of leadership. This project, begun in 1981, launched the now burgeoning
field of online distance learning.
A student of social movements, Farson has had
a long-time involvement with civil rights issues, notably his pioneering
efforts on behalf of women’s and children’s rights, marked by his
1969 Look Magazine article, "The Rage of Women," and his
1974 book, "Birthrights: A Bill of Rights for Children,"
each of which was the first to bring to a national audience the
need for legislative and policy reform.
Throughout his professional career Farson has
consulted on management and human relations problems with a wide
variety of organizations including IBM; Westinghouse; General Dynamics;
TRW; Digital Equipment Corporation; Herman Miller Company; Kaypro
Corporation; City of San Diego; U.S. Forest Service; Department
of Mental Hygiene, Los Angeles County; Planned Parenthood; Kresge
College, University of California, Santa Cruz; U.S. Army; and the
World Economic Forum.
In addition to "Management of the Absurd,"
"Birthrights," "Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins,"
and "The Power of
Design," Farson has published two other books, "Science
and Human Affairs," (1967) which he edited, and "The Future
of the Family," (1969) which he co-authored. He is nearing publication
of a book he has edited, "Making the Invisible Visible:
Essays by the Fellows of the International Leadership Forum."
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