The launch of our People & Culture services is the culmination of a lifetime of thought, soul-searching, being and becoming.
Beyond it being something we do, it is baked into our DNA. It is in many ways our calling.
Ever since I was small, my mom used to tell me that I had “wounded bird syndrome.” I always wanted to help my friends who were hurting, make people happy, and put a smile on their faces.

Ironically, this was equally true when, as a 10-year-old, I wanted to save her from a home riddled with alcoholism and verbal abuse.
As I grew older, this desire to “save” people crept into my personal relationships, as I repeatedly picked partners who, like me, were broken in some way and I was convinced I could help them along their journey.

I soon realized that I could not do this work for them. In retrospect, it may even have verged on saviourism. Regardless, the intent and desire to help and heal were there.

Then I remember stumbling up a set of cassette tapes, (yes, I’m old) of Tony Robbins. Those cassettes, followed by a year of therapy, started me on a now nearly 25 year road of personal improvement.
Wow did I realize that the helping and healing had to start with me if ever I wanted to be able to help others. The change I wanted to see in my life had to start from within.

Looking back on my 18-year career in broadcasting, I realize that while fun for the most part, it wasn’t actually the work I loved, it was the people. As a manager, it was the one-on-one conversations that energized me. The opportunity to help colleagues navigate the ambiguous and nuanced of life; professional or personal, it didn’t matter.

They/we/I are starved for someone to simply be there with us, hear us, not judge us, love us. And I relished the opportunity to serve.
No matter how much we crave simple and packaged up answers to things, that is a troublesome myth. There is no black and white, only gray, and lots of it I might add. And in that shared world of uncomfortable gray, I found comfort.

In my late 30’s, while on retreat with my Jesuit uncle, it became clear to me that my reason for being is to help myself and others have to courage to be ourselves in this lifetime and share our gifts and our genius with the world. To let go of the constant bombardment of chatter and noise of what we “should” be, and step wholeheartedly and unabashedly into who we know ourselves to be.

No small task, I get it. This is the work of a lifetime.

As a result, whenever I meet with people, I am infinitely more curious about who they are and what makes them tick than I am about what they do. My heartfelt curiosity about where they are and where they are headed cannot be masked. (Poker player I am not!)

I’m not fully sure why, but I even take it as a badge of honour when I repeatedly hear “you sound like my therapist”. 

So, how do I/we bring this reason for being into the world? First, it starts with me. The question I continue to ask myself is Who do I have to become for karmadharma to become what is destined to become? 

Secondly, this awareness has to expand to our team. We must start from within to bring this energy and mindset to our client work.
In our strategic planning work, we are often brought in to help organizations set course for the next 3 to 5 years of their existence. They are at point A today and would like to figure out what Point B looks like and then draw a map of how to get there.
Yet, in so many cases, the plan never comes to fruition. It either gets shelved because it is too much work, or too much change or people simply go back to what they were doing before the plan.
In earnest, drawing up Point B and the plan to get there is relatively easy.

So why do so many plans fail? We have observed that one question is glaringly missing from so many of these sessions, and it is the same one I ask myself: “Who do you have to become as leaders, as individuals, as a group, for this plan to succeed?” What paradigms have to shift? What beliefs do you have to let go of? How do you need to be showing up differently for yourself and your team?

Let’s be honest, we are all at Point A because of who we are today and who we have been up until now.
It seems obvious, but it is often omitted: If we want a different outcome, our inputs and actions have to change. For those to change, our mindset and perspectives have to shift.
This means the people making the decisions have to gain a deeper knowledge of themselves. As individuals, our level of awareness of how we are showing up in the world and for their team has to evolve.

From this premise, there cannot be organizational change without individual change first.
While messy, full of gray, and far from linear, this is the work that gets us most excited. This is where the magic happens. It is the spark of transformational growth.
This is what fuels our deep desire and passion to help individuals and teams grow so they can then channel that growth into the impact their organization is trying to make.

It’s not easy, for sure, but nothing worth doing ever is.
From the depths of my soul, I believe that our mission in life is to try and become the best version of ourselves in service to the world.
And now, we are ready to share this life view and, as a result, our life’s work with the world.