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 on January 9, 1943, is a Chilean expert in many fields. He is an engineer, a thinker (philosopher), a business creator (entrepreneur), and a politician. He used to be a top advisor (cabinet minister) for President Salvador Allende. Later, he served as a senator for the Arica and Parinacota and Tarapacá regions from 2001 to 2009. In 2010, he was chosen to lead Chile's National Innovation Council for Competitiveness.
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Life and Early Career
Fernando Flores was born in Talca, Chile. He became the finance minister in President Salvador Allende's government. After a military takeover by General Augusto Pinochet on September 11, 1973, Flores was held as a political prisoner for three years.
After his release, thanks to help from Amnesty International, he and his family moved to California. There, he worked as a researcher at Stanford University. While in prison, he read many philosophy books. This led him to study "phenomenology," which is about how we experience and understand the world.
Education and New Ideas
At Stanford, Flores met Terry Winograd, and they started working together. Flores then earned his PhD at UC Berkeley. His studies focused on how people manage and communicate in future workplaces.
Flores's ideas helped Winograd see that some early research in artificial intelligence (AI) might have been based on wrong ideas about how people think. Their discussions led them to write a book together called Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation For Design. This book explored new ways to think about computers and how humans understand things.
Businesses and Projects
Fernando Flores has started several companies. These include "Hermenet" and "Logonet," which focused on design and logistics. He also founded "Business Design Associates," a company that helps other businesses improve.
Another important company he started was Action Technologies. Here, he worked with Terry Winograd to develop new ways to analyze how work flows in a company. He also created an internet-based group called Atina Chile. His most recent project is Pluralistic Networks, which helps people learn skills to work better together.
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 at La Moneda Palace.
After the takeover, he was imprisoned and later forced to leave the country by the military government. Before becoming Finance Minister, Flores helped launch Project Cybersyn. This was a very ambitious project that used computers to help manage Chile's economy.
In 2001, Flores was elected as a senator for the Tarapacá Region. He was part of the center-left Party for Democracy (PPD). In 2010, President Piñera appointed him as the head of Chile's National Innovation Council for Competitiveness. He held this position until September 2013. In this role, he wrote a report called Surfing into the Future.
Impact on Coaching
Fernando Flores greatly influenced the modern coaching industry. In the 1970s, he gave workshops to staff at Werner Erhard's company. Later, through his own companies, he offered a workshop called "Communication for Action."
This workshop was based on the idea of "Speech Acts" by J.L. Austin and John Searle. These thinkers believed that when we speak, we are not just sharing information, but also performing actions. Flores took this idea and turned it into practical ways for people to improve how they communicate and work together.
He believed that understanding how our words create commitments could help people act more effectively. His work helped people realize that their conversations shape their relationships and actions. This made them more creative and flexible.
Dr. Vikki Brock, who studies professional coaching, notes that the work between Werner Erhard and Fernando Flores was a key moment for coaching. Flores continued to develop his unique ideas about coaching and consulting. His 1997 book, Disclosing New Worlds, shares some of his later thoughts on this approach.
See also
In Spanish: Fernando Flores Labra para niños
- Language/action perspective
- Project Cybersyn
