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Robert Kinsel Smith ’73 secured a patent for software that analyzes thinking patterns, then advises how individuals with different patterns could work and interact with each other. The software is part of a computer-based “team directory” that managers may use to pair co-workers for maximum effectiveness.
“All counselors and managers have biases that cloud their ability to effectively and objectively work with others, lead others, or give advice to others,” says Smith, a religion graduate. “This technology heightens the importance of each individual by removing the biases that people bring to their roles as managers and counselors.”
Smith is the founder of Dallas-based Clear Directions, which supplies professional development products to law firms, corporations, and family-owned businesses.
According to Smith, the use of technology also makes relationship counseling cost-effective for the first time.
The analysis bases distinctions among individuals on the process each uses to evaluate, make judgments, and make decisions. Smith has been using this science for business and communications solutions since 1987 and was elected to the Board of the R.S. Hartman Institute for the Advancement of Formal Axiology in 2002.
In retrospect, Smith says he now understands why he worked so effectively with his Lafayette classmates.
“We faced the challenges our professors posed and, like a team bonding together to win a tournament, we were stretched and grew together from those challenges and from our successes,” he said.