ABOUT THE WORK
My work brings leaders, teams, and communities together to build bridges of trust, connection, and belonging.
People are struggling.
Differences in who we are, what we believe, and how we engage with fellow humans bring richness and opportunity. They also create friction. Add technology, tools, and trends that dial up digital distractions and social distance. Then throw in the myth of self-sufficiency.
It’s no wonder that people everywhere— at work, home, school, and beyond— report feeling stressed, distressed, suspicious, divided, anxious, sad, disconnected, disengaged.
Even the most well-meaning leaders and teams often brush aside people dynamics, focusing on more pressing concerns such as project deadlines, launch dates, and Getting Stuff Done.
When (if...) people dynamics are addressed, it’s often with Band Aid fixes.
Clock’s ticking! Good enough! Let’s go!
This dismissive approach comes at a high cost. People feel frustrated. They disengage. Leave jobs, relationships, even entire communities.
Yet we tolerate these failures, derailing highly skilled, well-intentioned teams and communities in the process.
Band Aids don't fix things.
There's a better solution.
Leaders, learners, teams, and communities need welcoming, dignifying spaces to thrive.
With a few elemental skills and practices, we can build pathways toward stronger leaders, more cohesive teams, and better relationships.
The best solutions are simple. But simple isn’t always synonymous with obvious.
Think about it. Most of our daily exchanges with people around us are highly transactional. Technology makes our ability to connect quicker, easier— even continuous. But the quality of those exchanges suffers.
Through quick interactive games, reflective prompts, and personal story sharing opportunities, I design ways for people to experience meaningful human connections and practice relational skills that are rarely taught yet profound in their impact.
Introducing microdoses of human connection.
My Approach
So much of the quality of our daily lives hinges on our experience of the people around us. At the same time, we live in a culture that calls on us to show up big, move full throttle forward, often without the ability to be attentive to ourselves or the people around us.
Living, learning, and working better together requires more thoughtfulness.
I bring a unique approach to professional development, team building, and relational dynamics.
Heart-Centered
We hear a lot about mindfulness, which brings us to more awareness of who and what’s present.
But what about the heart?
In our work together, we will also incorporate a concept that I call heartfulness which recognizes that we are feeling as much as we are thinking beings.
Together, these two orientations enable a loving awareness that’s critical for building connections in a deeply divided world.
Personal & Interpersonal
To build better one-to-one relationships, teams, or communities, loving awareness of oneself gives us a strong start.
Loving awareness of people we live, work, and play with, comes next.
These two spheres — the personal and the interpersonal — are the focus of my work with clients.
Indeed, larger forces like policies, procedures, organizations, and systems also impact the quality of our experiences. But, these spheres aren’t always within everyone’s control.
By focusing on the smallest, innermost spheres of control such as our selves and how we can engage with people around us, everyone who engages in this work —regardless of rank or power— can feel a sense of agency and control over the outcome.
Who. What. How.
With heart-centered orientation and an openness to both personal and interpersonal learning, we can begin to examine who we are (Being), what we value (Believing), and how to engage with one another (Building skills) for greater impact in one-one or group interactions.
WHAT YOU VALUE: BELIEVING workshops guide participants toward uncovering, defining, and living with a set of personal values, organizational values, or at the intersection of both.
workshops examine the multiplicity of identity that informs who we are as individuals and how these multitudes impact how we see and engage with one another.
WHO YOU ARE: BEING
HOW YOU ENGAGE: BUILDING workshops develop essential — yet rarely taught or practiced — interpersonal skills
Stronger leaders, teams, and communities
For individual leaders, my workshops are designed to develop skills to facilitate trust, connection, and belonging in diverse work environments.
For groups, teams, and communities, workshops are designed to deliver the same benefits as above. In addition, workshops can also deliver collective benefits of deepening cohesion among members in one or more of three ways: Bonding, Bridging, and/or Belonging.
