Challenge Day #29

William T. Powers

Bill was like a second father to me.  He thought much like my father, held the same degrees as my father and went to college on the GI Bill like my father. Both were humble geniuses whom I miss every day.

I first met Bill Powers in the late 80s when he was giving a speech to a group of individuals in Chapel Hill NC.  I had studied William Glasser’s work for the three years prior to this and I was excited to meet Powers from whom Glasser had learned Control Theory.  Being a bit of a nerd I wanted to understand the research and science behind the theory. Little did I know that day I would form a deep friendship with a brilliant man that would last until he transitioned in May of 2013.

During this first meeting Bill was sharing the basic diagram that represents the process of feedback control and is the essence of Perceptual Control Theory (PCT), the scientific theory of human behavior. He was describing the diagram and came to the “input function.”  I raised my hand and asked “Do you mean a function like a mathematical function?”  He said, “Yes!” I then followed with “So, there are formulas behind each of the functions and I can get them?” Grinning he answered. “Yes.” Thus our journey began. From that day forward, with Bill as my teacher I dug deeply into trying to understand PCT.

Unlike many researchers Bill never studied PCT as part of his job.  He wasn’t a professor and did not hold a doctorate degree and hated being called a guru.  Like I said a humble man. He was a hands-on engineer creating physical control systems for everything from the medical field to moon flights. Having spent his career trying to build mechanical control systems it dawned on him that what he was really doing was learning how living systems maintain specified reference levels.  So in the 1950s, about the time I was born, he began to develop his theory and spent the rest of his life testing, refining and writing about PCT to satisfy his own curiosity. 

In 1973 Behavior: The Control of Perception was published and for the first time the world had a theory of human behavior that was being tested using modelling a stringent scientific process.  For me this was part of its appeal – rigorous science.  PCT posits, and has been said to demonstrate, that living things do not control their behavior (actions) but rather their behavioral outputs are the variable means by which they control their sensory inputs (perception). The basic idea is that we operate much like Goldie Locks – this is too hot, that is too cold, ahh this is just right.  I have written about and integrated his work in my work with adults, cooperate businesses, the inmates at the jail, schools, parenting, individuals, instructional coaching, and change facilitation- basically everything in my life.  From that day forward I truly understood that behavior is not our action. Behavior is a process by which we attempt to maintain a specific reference perception and negate any disturbances in the environment that are affecting the variable we are trying to control. Thus, you cannot tell what someone is doing by looking at what they are doing, because you are only seeing the actions they are taking. 

From Bill I not only learned a theory that underpins everything I create, I learned a lot about teaching.  He was a marvelous teacher being able to take each learner their next step through questioning and providing experiences using computer models, rubber bands, and coins. He was gifted in answering questions in the field most familiar to the student.  He would stick with you until you felt you really understood what he was talking about. When I wrote A People Primer: The Nature of Living Systems we talked several times a week and we emailed back and forth.  He read my draft manuscript and helped me smooth out and grasp many concepts more deeply.

Studying with Bill was an honor.  One of my fondest memories of Bill was on our trip to China, where we did a three day conference with professors, engineers, students and other researchers from all over the world.  As part of the event Powers was awarded an honorary degree from the University.  He spent months learning a simple thank you speech in Chinese to honor the attendees. The room was filled with emotion as he delivered his speech.  

If you knew Bill well you also knew he was known in some circles as a science fiction author and in others as the inventor of the game Tripples. He was jazz pianist, a husband and father who wired a control system to the TV long before remotes were invented.  I hope he knows how humbled I am to have been considered one of his students and friends.