Fernando Flores facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Fernando Flores
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| General Secretary of the Government of Chile | |
| In office 9 August 1973 – 11 September 1973 |
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| President | Salvador Allende |
| Preceded by | Aníbal Palma |
| Succeeded by | Pedro Ewing |
| Minister of Finance | |
| In office 29 December 1972 – 9 August 1973 |
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| President | Salvador Allende |
| Preceded by | Orlando Millas |
| Succeeded by | Raúl Montero Cornejo |
| Personal details | |
| Born | January 9, 1943 Talca, Chile |
| Education | University of California, Berkeley |
| Website | Personal blog |
Carlos Fernando Flores Labra (born January 9, 1943) is a Chilean engineer, thinker, business leader, and politician. He served as a government minister for President Salvador Allende. Later, he was a senator for the Arica and Parinacota and Tarapacá areas from 2001 to 2009. In 2010, he became the President of Chile's National Innovation Council for Competitiveness.
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Fernando Flores Labra's Life Story
Flores was born in Talca, Chile. He became the finance minister in President Salvador Allende's government. After a military coup in 1973, he was held as a political prisoner for three years. This was from September 11, 1973, until 1976.
After talks by Amnesty International, he was forced to leave Chile. He moved with his family to Palo Alto, California. There, he worked as a researcher at Stanford University in the Computer Science department.
While in prison, Flores read many philosophy books. This made him very interested in "phenomenology." This is a way of studying how people experience things and what they are aware of. At Stanford, Flores met Terry Winograd, and they started working together. Later, Flores earned his PhD at UC Berkeley.
At Berkeley, he focused on philosophy, coaching, and workflow technology. His ideas were shaped by thinkers like Martin Heidegger and Humberto Maturana. Flores's main project was about how management and communication would work in future offices.
Winograd said that meeting Flores changed his life. Their talks helped Winograd see that the computer research of that time was based on wrong ideas about how people think. Their discussions led to their book, Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation For Design.
Businesses and Projects Fernando Flores Founded
Flores has started several companies. One was "Hermenet," which he co-founded with Werner Erhard. Another was "Logonet," a company focused on design and how things are made and moved. He also founded "Business Design Associates," a company that helps other businesses.
He also started Action Technologies, a software company. Here, he created new ways to look at workflow and how groups work together. He also started an internet group called Atina Chile. His newest project is Pluralistic Networks. This company helps people learn skills to work better with others.
Fernando Flores Labra's Political Career
In the early 1970s, Flores was the Finance Minister for President Salvador Allende. Later, he became the Secretary General of the Government. During the military takeover, he was with the President in La Moneda Palace. After the coup, he was put in prison. He was later forced to leave Chile by the military government of Augusto Pinochet.
Before becoming Finance Minister, Flores helped start and manage Project Cybersyn. This was a very big project that used computers to help manage the country's economy.
In 2001, Flores was elected as a senator for the Tarapacá Region. He was a member of the Party for Democracy (PPD). This party was part of the government at the time.
On March 31, 2010, President Piñera named him President of Chile's National Innovation Council for Competitiveness. He held this job until September 2013. In this role, he wrote a report called Surfing into the Future.
How Fernando Flores Influenced Coaching
Flores greatly influenced the modern coaching industry. He worked with or inspired many people who became important leaders in coaching. In the mid-1970s, Werner Erhard hired Flores to teach workshops to his staff. Soon after, Flores began offering a workshop called "Communication for Action."
This workshop was based on his ideas about "Speech Acts" theory. This theory, from thinkers like J.L. Austin and John Searle, looks at how language is used to do things, not just to share information. Flores turned this theory into practical ways for people to improve how they communicate. This helped them keep their promises and build better relationships through conversation.
Flores explained this in his book with Terry Winograd. He said there is a way to learn how to communicate better. This helps people understand how their words lead to actions. This training helps people see how their language connects to a network of human promises.
Hubert Dreyfus, another thinker, said Flores's work helped people realize they were not just sharing facts. Instead, they were creating how they would be with others. This helped business people become more creative and flexible.
Dr. Vikki Brock, who studies professional coaching, says that the work between Werner Erhard and Fernando Flores was a key moment. It helped create a specific type of coaching. Flores continued to develop his own ideas about coaching and consulting. His 1997 book, Disclosing New Worlds, shares some of his later ideas.
See also
- Language/action perspective
- Project Cybersyn
