Chauncey Bell

Chauncey Frederick Bell III (born September 29, 1944) is a U.S.-based business management consultant, designer, author, and inventor. Bell has been a leader in the invention and application of a new theoretical framework for improving organizational performance and designing the way services are delivered in many economic sectors, based on language action perspective; speech act theory and the work of J. L. Austin and John Searle; cognitive science, especially the work of Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana; and continental philosophy, particularly the work of Martin Heidegger. The framework and practices that he and his colleagues developed are best known commercially for their contribution to the development of Cemex from a regional Mexican cement company to one of the most admired companies in the world.^[1] In the course of a long collaboration with Fernando Flores, Bell led the development of several well-known commercial innovations. He currently works out of his own firm, Chauncey Bell & Associates, in Seattle, Washington.

Biography

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Bell grew up in Los Angeles, California, and received a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from Harvard College. He worked as a management consultant at Arthur D. Little, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts for five years, beginning while an undergraduate. In 1969, he briefly led Strategic Planning for the Computer Division of RCA Corporation. From 1969 to 1972, he designed and led projects to improve the administration of criminal justice in some of the country's largest cities, for the Mayor of the City of Boston, the United States Conference of Mayors, and the National League of Cities. From 1972 to 1981 Bell consulted for public and private institutions throughout the United States. He staffed the public sector management committee of the National Center for Productivity and Quality of Working Life for nearly three years, and he helped the Werner Erhard organization frame several projects directed at questions of management in organizations. In 1981 Bell began a 20-year collaboration with Fernando Flores. They founded several companies and Bell served in various executive roles in them. From 1983 to 89, Bell led the development of one of the first collaborative software systems, The Coordinator, and a message-handling system acquired by Novell, named "Netware MHS." These were the first computer tools to explicitly embody the “language action perspective” and “speech act theory” as coordination structures in software (managing workflow), as envisioned in Flores’ PhD Thesis. The key members of the initial development team were Flores, Juan Ludlow Saldivar, Terry Winograd, James Gosling, and Bell. From 1989 to 2000, through the consulting firm Business Design Associates, Inc., Bell designed and led projects to improve service delivery on three continents. Bell formed his own consulting firm in 2000, and served as Director and Chief Business Architect for Vision Consulting, a Dublin, Ireland-based consulting firm until 2003.

Projects

Notable implementations of designs for improving service delivery quality in which Bell was a key figure include: • An alternative service delivery infrastructure for financial services (retail banking, Intelligent Finance, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2000.) • Processes for reducing cycle times for scheduled maintenance of large power plants (TransAlta Utilities, Calgary, Alberta, 1990s). • Processes for reducing the time it takes to build power plants in places like India and China (Asea Brown Boveri, Mannheim, Germany, 1990s). • Practices and systems that accelerate the process of integrating new employees into companies (GM Powertrain, Detroit, Michigan, 1990s). • Processes for accelerating complex mergers and acquisitions (AT&T, New Jersey, and Cemex, Monterrey, Mexico, 1990s). • Processes and systems for delivering concrete on time in Mexico City and other congested major cities (Cemex, Monterrey, Mexico, 1990s). • Processes and systems for managing global capital investments (Cemex, Monterrey, Mexico, 1990s). • Processes for making radical reductions in logistics cycle times for a copper mining company (Codelco, Santiago, Chile, 1990s). • Processes for radical reduction in cycle times for implementing engineering change orders in electronic card assembly plants (IBM, Austin, Texas, 1980s). • A system to catch, route, and manage completion of citizens’ requests for service arriving at “Little City Halls” for the Mayor of the City of Boston, Massachusetts (1970s). • A system to route, track, and manage outcomes of the Secretary’s correspondence with Members of Congress and constituents, for the Secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, D.C. (1970s).

Theoretical Contributions

Bell is the author of a method and notational language (including a stylized ellipse used to represent the “Conversation for Action” originally cited in Fernando Flores’ PhD Thesis^[2]) that are used by process designers in the design of commitment structures in enterprises.

He and his colleagues were awarded several US Patents for inventions advancing the management of human communication in digital networks.

He is the author of a new language-centered interpretation of waste in enterprises that is particularly relevant for managing the delivery of services.^[3]

Publications and speeches

"My Problem with Design." Ubiquity, a Web-based publication of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Volume 9, Issue 34 (September 16–22, 2008). An abbreviated version of this paper appeared in the Practice Management Digest of The American Institute of Architects AIA). Fall 2007.

Chapter in Courtney, Haynes, and Paradice. "Wise Organizations?" Inquiring Organizations: Moving from Knowledge Management to Wisdom. Hershey: Idea Group Publishing, 2005. pp. 229–271.

"Extending Scenario Planning into Transvaluations" (with Charles Spinosa and Maria Flores Letelier). Futures Research Quarterly, Spring 2005, Vol. 21 #1. Published by World Future Society, Bethesda, Maryland.

"Listening and Virtuous Anxiety and Listening and Action: How it happens when it does, and when it doesn’t" (with Shirah Bell). Addresses at the 2003 and 2004 Annual Meetings of the International Listening Association.

"Re-membering the Future. Organizational Change: What is it, and what does it mean for records professionals?" Keynote address^[4] to the Annual Meeting of the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators, Sacramento, California, July 17, 1997.

"New Strategies in Risk Management: The risks are shifting," (with Gerald Adams). The Business Forum, November 2001.

References

1. ^ "In Search of the New World (of Work)" FastCompany.com. Issue 23, March 1999: 214. [1]. The work at Cemex was featured in the Wall Street Journal, Wired Magazine, and various books.
2. ^ Flores, Fernando. Management and Communication in the Office of the Future. PhD Dissertation, University of California Berkeley, 1981. See also Flores, Fernando and Winograd, Terry. Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design. Boston: Addison-Wesley Professional, 1987.
3. ^ “Inventing Waste” in Courtney, James, Haynes, John, and Paradice, David. Inquiring Organizations: Moving from Knowledge Management to Wisdom, Hershey: Idea Group Publishing, 2005. p 255.
4. ^ This address spawned several contributions to archival texts and curricula, including a keynote address to the annual meeting of the Society of California Archivists, a refereed article in Archival Issues: Journal of the Midwest Archives Conference, and abridged versions published internationally.

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Name	Bell, Chauncey
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Date of birth	September 29, 1944
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