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Bio for Barry Borgerson

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Barry

Dr. Barry Borgerson is the pioneer in developing a comprehensive theory to understand and manage our many hidden mental mechanisms including those that create involuntary habits (auto-behaviors) and automatic thought patterns (auto-contexts) that control “soft” success factors in business. He is a long-time expert transformation coach who uses root-cause, mental-level transformation processes based on the first and so far only theory that models the many aspects of automatic human activities that determine the ability to achieve repeated business successes over long time horizons.

 

Barry graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a Ph.D. in computer science (and one of his minors in the management of human resources). At the university, Barry co-led the multi-year DARPA-funded research project into fault-tolerant (self-repairing) computing – the Prime project. After leaving the university, he enjoyed an additional distinguished technical, technical management, and general management career in the computer field before turning his attention to developing and deploying 2Selfs Theory.

 

The technical phase of Barry’s career included inventing (while at the Sperry Corporate Research Center) the paradigm-breaking micro-architecture of a mainframe computer (Sperry Univac 1100/60), which was the first mainframe computer to employ large-scale integrated circuits – in the form of microprocessor slices. That computer generated several billion dollars in revenue, garnered six patents for Dr. Borgerson, and led to his promotion into senior technical management at Sperry Univac just two years out of the university. Dr. Borgerson published many technical articles, presented papers at US and international symposia (winning the best-paper award at a conference in England), chaired two international computer conferences, and was the elected chair of the US association of computer architects. He also was an invited member of the first delegation of computer experts from the US to tour China in 1978, before tourist visits were possible for Americans

 

Barry enjoyed increasing leadership responsibilities during the technical management phase of his career that included managing all product and technology research for Sperry Univac and serving as an elected officer of a publicly traded company (Manufacturing Data Systems, Inc.) in charge of all technical and operations activities. He also led the successful effort (at Unisys) to develop innovative first-to-market high-speed image processing systems to replace electromechanical check processing equipment.

 

The general management phase of Barry’s career provided many leadership-development opportunities for himself and those he led. Barry’s exceptional successes in technical management at Unisys led to his promotion to VP and GM of a business unit that included the technical activities he previously led. After achieving outstanding results as a business-unit general manager, Unisys promoted Barry to Group VP and GM of a diversified, multinational business group that included his old business unit. A search firm recruited Barry away from Unisys to become CEO of Cimage Corporation, a multinational software and services document-imaging company. Notable accomplishments during the general management phase of his career included turning around a plant that was about to be closed by leading a major culture change, transforming a hostile union into a cooperative partner, and turning unprofitable, stagnant businesses into profitability and growth.

 

Dr. Borgerson has served on the board of directors of several for-profit businesses and nonprofit organizations. Since 2011, he has been a pro bono mentor for Venture Mentoring Service (VMS) of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development in Durham, North Carolina where he also plays a leadership role by interviewing mentor applicants, selecting new mentors, and training new mentors and lead mentors.

 

As Barry studied the barriers to achieving star execution, instilling disruptive innovations, and creating culture change in the businesses he led, he resurrected an old interest in the automatic mode of human activities. As he began developing the outlines of 2Selfs Theory, his old interest became an object of intense study. As he successfully applied the theory-based techniques he developed to create discontinuous improvements in businesses he led, the intense study became a passion. Eventually, he became convinced that he had unique insights into how to maximize the effectiveness of our automatic activities, so he decided to retire early from a lucrative executive career to pursue creating 2Selfs Theory. Barry was able to test and refine the effectiveness of the 2Selfs Theory improvement processes he developed through coaching business leaders to transform their dysfunctional auto-behaviors and guiding businesses to reconstruct their obsolete cultures through auto-context reconstructions.

 

As Barry continued developing the details of 2Selfs Theory, he noticed that in addition to problems in business, many other aspects of society were also increasingly suffering from the inability to solve a growing suite of problems that were caused by automatic human activities. The breakthroughs Dr. Borgerson achieved in penetrating the many mechanisms of auto-contexts empowered him to gain new insights into solving a wide range of social-system and individual-responsibility problems. This includes politics, economics, and creation and maintenance of shared positive values. Conquering the auto-self also creates new opportunities to construct a mental phobia to recreational drugs, an empowering resistance to technology-enabled propaganda manipulations, and the mental foundation for positive social behaviors. However, Barry’s main focus remains transforming business leaders to keep them on a path of repeated career and business successes through aligning their behavior habits, cultures, and leadership capabilities with rapidly changing needs. Barry published the award-winning book The Auto-Self: The Key to Creating Star Performance and to Becoming a Star Yourself. That book focuses on business success and particularly on transforming undesirable auto-behaviors. 

 

Barry offers coaching clients a unique combination of his extensive, successful executive leadership experience, his deep understanding of the underlying mental mechanisms that control automatic human activities, and his root-cause, theory-anchored techniques that guide leaders to transform their auto-behaviors to execute at previously unachievable and unexpected levels. Additionally, Barry long ago trained himself to withstand the vigorous and sometimes even aggressive push-back from clients who are struggling through the often uncomfortable auto-self transformation process. He also applies these assets to coach businesses to reconstruct their culture (shared auto-contexts) to inculcate discontinuous innovations commensurate with their availability, to lead workshops to empower participants to overcome their own discomforts when transforming others, and to train transformation coaches using a round-robin process where each new coach both receives coaching and coaches a different participant.

 

You can contact Barry at Barry@2Selfs.com

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