"Assistance at A Distance"

 

Fred Nickols

 

My Work My work centers on performance of one kind or another.   Generally speaking, I am concerned with three broad categories of performance: organizational, operational (i.e., process) and individual.  For the most part, solutions to problems in these areas are "engineered," that is, brought about as the result of skillful, artful contrivance, not as the result of employing by-the-book approaches. I was employed as an Executive Director at Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey from July of 1990 until mid-December of 2001.  I left so as to be able to devote more time to reading, writing and consulting.  Before joining ETS, I was Senior Vice President for Systems & Operations at a financial services firm in New York City.  Before that, I was an independent consultant as well as a member of three small consulting firms.  For nitti-gritti details, see my resume. My main intellectual interests include performance, productivity, systems, work and working, management, organizations and, above all else, learning and problem solving.  I've spent more years than I care to count developing and refining a problem-solving approach called "Solution Engineering."  One problem with which I've been wrestling for more than 30 years now is the shift to knowledge work and its implications for management, productivity and performance.  This problem relates directly to  knowledge management and communities of practice.  Most recently, I've developed an interest in "employee engagement."  I think there's a pony in there somewhere.  My favorite kind of paid work is giving illustrated talks on a wide variety of subjects related to work and workplace-related issues.

About Me I was born in Fort Madison, Iowa in 1937. My childhood years were spent mostly in Fort Madison and up river in Burlington, Iowa. I graduated from Fort Madison High School in 1955 and, three days later, joined the United States Navy. I spent 19 years and three months in the Navy, retiring in 1974 with the rank of Chief Petty Officer (E-7).  My rating or occupational specialty was that of FT or fire control technician (gun fire, that is).  I was responsible for operating, maintaining and repairing complex, shipboard weapons systems.   Early in my Navy career, I was trained in electronics, servomechanisms, optics, hydraulics, gyroscopes, radar, electro-mechanical analog computers and ballistics.  Later, in advanced technical training, I learned about mathematics, ranging from simple arithmetic through algebra, plane geometry, trigonometry and calculus (differential and integral).  Still later, I learned about missiles and digital computers.   Most important, I learned about the fire control problem - which is essentially a problem in changing rates of change, all having to do with how to hit a moving target (a handy skill, even in the civilian world).  Beyond these technical skills, I was also trained as a classroom instructor, a programmed instruction writer, an instructional systems developer and an internal organization development (OD) consultant.  In the early 1970s, I ran the programmed instruction writer's course at the Navy's Instructor Training School in San Diego and, while there, I developed the Navy's first instructional systems development training course.  Since retiring from the Navy in 1974, I've worked roughly 20 years as an independent management consultant and another 15 years as an employed executive.  I like reading, writing, talking, solving problems, driving around the country, looking through old book stores and antiquing.  I also like shooting pool and playing poker.  Right now, my wife and I spend about half our year in a motor home (mostly in the Tucson area) and half in our home in Ohio.  All told, it has been and still is a pretty good life.

This page was last updated on March 22, 2009