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

Anticipation beats reward

A lot of people reckon the brain treats rewards quite differently from the <em>anticipation</em> of rewards. And, in fact, the <em>anticipation</em> of reward seems like the bigger driver of our behaviour. And this little tidbit is one of the few places where human behaviour is actually explained well by exploring the brain. So let’s explore it.

article

When groups go bad

There’s this cluster of classic social psychology experiments from the 50’s through the 70’s that you’ll be presented with in documentaries and whatnot whenever groups of people are behaving crazily. You’ve probably heard of some of them. Milgram’s ‘shock’ experiments, or Zimbardo’s prison experiment, or Asch’s conformity tests, and so on. These things gloss over just how hard it is to get people to do atrocities on a large-scale. Luckily, you have me to tell you how they really happen.

article

Useful groups are biased groups

There’s this cluster of classic social psychology experiments from the 50’s through the 70’s that you’ll be presented with in documentaries and whatnot whenever groups of people are behaving crazily. You’ve probably heard of some of them. Milgram’s ‘shock’ experiments, or Zimbardo’s prison experiment, or Asch’s conformity tests, and so on. This is the second in a third on group dynamics. Here we’ll talk about what makes our attraction to groups stronger, as well as what makes people participate in groups, and how all our group biases make sense in the context.

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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