Sounds simple. And it’s the core motivator of the great leaders I work with.
But ... people are gonna people.
And that means that you can quickly find yourself pulled away from that ideal and bogged down in the complexities that necessarily come along with doing work with other people.
And if you’re not careful, conflict, toxic culture, and straight up crap behavior will end up draining the energy right out of you.
Unless, of course, you have somebody in your corner who can help you and your organization get back to doing the great work you always wanted to do.
That’s what I do.
I help leaders and teachers (same thing, by the way) develop the skills and structures they need to facilitate great work.
Using a combination of experiential education and my 20+ years of background in conflict management, restorative justice, mental health first aid, and technical wilderness travel and safety skills, I walk into situations where people and teams are struggling, and I make things better. Usually pretty fast :)
You can think of it like me helping fix that 5 - 15% of your job that you hate, so you can do so much more of the great stuff you love.
A whole lot. Every person and every organization is different. But I spend a lot of my time working with people as they:
Navigate conflict.
Never fun. Never gonna go away. You have to learn how to navigate conflict your way to be an effective leader and create that oh-so-valuable culture of psychological safety.
Enhance their cognitive empathy.
Cognitive empathy is a fancy term people use when they mean “you’re able to really get the people around you”. (The other one people use is emotional intelligence, but that’s been so diluted it barely means anything at all any more!) I help leaders develop this crucial skill that makes all the difference in the class and the boardroom.
Deal with complicated power dynamics.
Policies, structures, and complex relationships all have the same foundational factors at play. I can help you build the dynamics you want and navigate the dynamics you’ve got.
Articulate their integrity.
You probably already have a strong sense of your values. Articulating them though? That’s another story. I help leaders name their true values (hint: it’s not “honesty”) so you can call on them for easy, aligned decision-making.
Repair “toxic” work cultures.
Hate to break it to you friend: that call is coming from inside the house. Toxic cultures come about because of leadership decisions. This is actually great news though, because it means you can fix it!
Develop curricula and next-level teaching skills.
Leading is teaching is leading is teaching –– and there are a couple of skill differences that come up depending on the context. I work with course creators to develop experientially-informed, dynamic curricula and polish their teaching skills for great trainings + workshops.
Long story short? I help you deal with the trickiest, most complex, and absolutely essential element of great work: people.
Find out how we can work together here!
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