Thoughts
Ideas that transform people, businesses, and industries
Deeply rooted in our organizational ethos is the celebration of authentic and unapologetic “thought.” We believe each member of our team brings with them a unique view of themselves, our clients, and of the world we live in. We make a point to not only articulate our individual experiences, senses, emotions, and actions internally, but to share them with you here.
Why Does Change Management Keep Getting Put in Time Out?
Buzzword Soup, Anyone? If I use words like “Transformation” or “Change Management” in a meeting, everyone nods like they get it. But in reality, there are usually as many understandings of those terms as there are people around the table. In today’s soup of ambiguous...
Moving Forward From the Home Office
It’s been almost 20 years since I’ve gone into an office five days a week. In that time, I’ve progressed in my consulting career from a Senior Manager, to a Principal, to a VP, to a Managing Partner, to a CEO. I barely remember what it’s like to “go to work” and to...
The Truth About Career Planning — Your Plan Is Going to Change
I want to help you design your career, that’s why I’m writing this article. But, before you read any further, you should know that my professional path has actually been a series of unplanned twists and turns. I originally envisioned myself as a stay-at-home mom with...
The Leadership Dog Years
As a business leader, I feel like I’ve been living in dog years — so much has happened that this year feels more like seven. In the spring, our company — like many others — had to throw out our annual plans and quickly pivot to new ones. In the summer, we increased...
Energetic Self Perception and Choosing Your Own Reality: A Book Review
It’s that time of the year where we’re all frantically looking for gifts and trying to make plans for the new year. One good gift option, or something you can plan to read next year, is a book I read recently as part of the iPEC coaching program — “Energy Leadership”...
Shifting Perspectives: 3 Learnings From a 3-Day Training
About a week ago, I completed the second live (virtual) training in the process of becoming a Certified Professional Coach through iPEC. Once again, my mind was blown! It reinforced for me that virtual workshops can, and do, work, and, in a lot of ways, I prefer them...
Finding My Work-Life Balance
In my previous post, I told the story of how I got back into consulting after becoming a mom. All of the diverse experiences I had during that journey have helped me to find my work-life balance by… Defining Boundaries “Go home,” my first boss said 12 years back —...
How I Got Back to Work After Being a Full-Time Mom
I Landed My Dream Job Throwback to 2014, I had completed my MBA, landed my dream job as a consultant, and was hoping that my new consulting career would exponentially ramp up my career growth for the next 5 years. This would position me to take on critical decision...
Self-Awareness is Key to Belonging
In August of this year, as part of our annual company meeting, our team at Thought Ensemble participated in the foundational session of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training led by Dr. Nika White, IOM, CDE (she/her/hers). One of the most meaningful moments...
Finding Your Organization’s Magic Pixie Dust
It is often said that organizational culture is like a fog — it is all around us; it impacts our ability to see, to move quickly, and to deliver; but we cannot quite put our finger on it. Indeed, some organizations see their culture as a byproduct of operations,...
We’ve Refreshed Our Brand!
Why have we refreshed our brand, you ask? Well, as we have grown and matured as an organization, we felt that our previous brand elements no longer represented us as well as they could. You see, we founded Thought Ensemble back in 2008 to help companies better compete...
Thought Ensemble’s Purpose — Inspired in 2020
I recently wrote about how company purpose is being tested and inspired by all the events of 2020. This topic is very real for us at Thought Ensemble. We’ve been thinking a lot about what really matters as we’ve navigated the challenges of this year. While we’ve had...
How 2020 Is Testing and Inspiring Corporate Purpose
In August 2019, the Business Roundtable rewrote their statement of corporate purpose. I followed this with significant interest being that I have never forgotten the debates about corporate purpose in business school almost two decades ago. We were taught that the...
Why Purpose-Driven Organizations May Struggle With Change
I love working with companies who really want to make a difference, beyond just making money for their shareholders. I mean, making money is fun and all, but it is even more rewarding to join in on a just cause. Plus, as this HBR article explains, companies who have...
Awareness of Self and Belonging
I found myself completely floored during one of my peer coaching sessions this week. A colleague said, “coaching is about increasing the client’s self-awareness. You can make better choices when you have self-awareness.” She said this casually and continued on with...
Is a Good Career Accidental or Intentional?
I accepted a Zoom call with a college senior recently. He wanted to understand how I had navigated my career to reach the position I’m in today. He had looked at my LinkedIn profile and assumed I had made a series of calculated career moves to get to my current...
Are You Mentoring, Consulting, Coaching, or Being a Friend? Hot Takes From a New Coach
A lot of us consider ourselves coaches. Calling yourself a coach is an increasingly popular way to frame people-management and leadership styles. Ask someone what their definition of a coach is, and you’ll get a variety of answers. In my life, I’ve had many friends,...
Culture Eats Breakfast for Strategy
You’ve probably heard the phrase “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”; in other words, even the best ideas and logical plans are destined to fail if the people involved are not bought in. A 2013 survey of over 2,200 global businesspeople conducted by the Katzenbach...
Why Change Managers Are Failing in Agile Environments – Part 3
Part 3 of 3: Don’t Let Agile Steal Your Future Like Santa Stole Mine To this day, I can tell you the one toy that Santa never brought me despite my pleas – the Fisher-Price 3-In-1 Tournament Table. That baby wasn’t just a tiny billiards table; it was also a ping-pong...
Why Change Managers Are Failing in Agile Environments – Part 2
Part 2 of 3: Being Flexible When Navigating Agile Changes Recently, while thinking about multi-year rapid release plans, and all the many considerations that go into them, I was reminded of being a kid and the week-long, summer road trips I would take with my family....
Why Change Managers Are Failing in Agile Environments – Part 1
Part 1 of 3: Who needs Change Management when you can be Agile? We all know why large projects fail. It usually isn’t because the teams aren’t talented enough, or because there isn’t enough money dedicated to the project, or even because the wrong solution is chosen...