Karstica is about measuring betterment.

Human betterment is one of the best studied phenomena in the modern sciences of mind. No need for jargon, ‘secret methods’, or ‘cutting edge’ mystique. If you want to be a better leader, improve the culture of your team, or just learn how people work, then we’ll help you make transparent, measurable change in your dealings with others. Move beyond betterment by buzzword, with Karstica.

Make measurable change

Learn what works and what doesn’t

Dorian Minors Director

Leadership development, executive coaching, and culture transformation programs are full of jargon and mystique. Gurus with secret formulas that can help you or your team reach their full potential. But science doesn’t have much in the way of secrets, and leadership and interpersonal dynamics are some of the best studied. Let me show you.

This is a very simple pitch. I want you to do a favour for me. I want you to go to whatever program on leadership, coaching, interpersonal dynamics, or culture change you’re eyeing, and ask the question “how do you measure impact?” If they have something more substantial to say than “measuring impact is hard”, a bustle of optimistic phraseology, and a logo cloud, then you probably don’t need to be here. If you, however, have not come away with a clear idea of how they measure impact, then even if you decide Karstica is not for you, you’ll benefit by reading on.

If this hasn’t already occurred to you, I hope you’ll take it from me: a Cambridge-educated brain scientist with ten years of clinical experience, a six year military career culminating as an Infantry platoon commander, several years consulting for some of the largest firms in the world, and a lecturing position at one of the most prestigious military academies in the world, most of these problems have already been solved.

Modern sciences of mind are over 100-years old. Problems of personal development, leadership, and the dynamics of collectives are a core concern of this branch of science. Junk programs know this. This is why you’ll often see them deploy quotes like those you’re seeing slide across the website now. The military is arguably the oldest professional trade, and a main priority is the development of it’s leaders. There’s no need to re-invent the wheel. That’s just just true of content, but outcome too.

Hence Karstica. From karst, gorgeous natural landscapes characterised by sinkholes, caves, and underground rivers, the idea here is to help you watch where you walking. If you want to:

  • Make measurable progress: With a deep background in the behavioural sciences, and the sciences of mind, I and my collaborators can help you find the tools to measure your existing program, or, at a push, design a measurable program for you.
  • Audit the 'science': We would take great delight in evaluating the legitimacy of existing programs' theories and methodologies. There's nothing more satisfying for a group of scientists than falsifying a hypothesis.
  • Just collect a bunch of free tools: A core value of science is the democratisation of knowledge. If you don't have the means, or the appetite to pay for a consultation, we offer a collection of free tools and content that should work with or without our specialised guidance so long as you have the time to implement them.

No reason not to see what we can do for you, right?

Our Tools

Our time is far from free. But frankly we don’t do this full-time. We don’t even want to. We only do this when the projects are interesting enough to tear us away from our academic pursuits. So, we’re motivated to provide tools that solve common problems without our intervention. If all Karstica does is improve the landscape of leadership transformation and culture change, then that’ll do. All we ask is that, if the free tools we provide below fix your problems, send us a kind word of thanks.

The tools need a bit of tweaking. Get notified about new tools as they re-appear.

No drip campaigns. No vaguely relevant blog posts. You can find those below, or subscribe to thebtrmt. newsletter for that. This form is just for the tools.


Other content

Content on leadership, culture, and human systems change.

article

Bias vs Noise pt. II: Stress

Bias is just you using your expectations and assumptions to <em>ignore</em> the noise, and see the picture more clearly. The trade-off is that, sometimes, the noise is useful or your expectations are off. The human stress response is perhaps the most fundamental example of this in behaviour, and a very valuable tool.

article

Bias vs Noise pt. I: Bias vs Bias

The perils of cognitive bias is a subject that’s dominated a substantial slice of social psychology, and appears in any leadership or personal development course as something to be avoided at all costs. It’s interesting, but it’s not actually that useful. You can’t sift through 200+ biases to work out what you might do wrong. The brain treats bias differently. Bias is a <em>strategy</em> to solve certain kinds of problems. Let me show you how.

article

Language is a barrier to communication

To make the leap from someone else’s idea to your own understanding of it is often troubled by something I call ‘the language problem’. Most of the time this is because of a difference in experience. Knowledge is sometimes a <em>barrier</em> to learning, and this is almost always related to the language problem. Let me show you what I mean.

Let’s talk about your project

Tell us a bit about what you want to measure, achieve, or audit, and we'll see if we think we can help.

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