Yes
of

  • We develop roadmaps for breaking free of chained in the cave thinking and performing.

  • We collaborate on action learning and authentic change that looks, feels, and breathes differently, every single time.

  • We challenge mokita and put an end to avoiding the truths we all know but agree not to talk about.

  • We are careful to promise only what we can deliver.

  • We strive for vested relationships over contract negotiations.

  • We treasure individuals and interactions over the wizardry and magic potions of process and tools, data and technique.

  • We don't target symptoms. We target authentic issues and conscious-preconscious root problems resistant to authentic change.

  • Our authenticity is being true to our personality, spirit and character, and showing you ways to find and be true to yours.

  • Our collaborations are about trust—in the process, in the relationship, in the person, and in the cure.

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We value storytelling because leaders and their stakeholders really do have the answers within themselves. They have the way forward and we help them find it.

No
of

  • We don’t do failure of nerve or learned helplessness well, and neither should you.

  • We’re not brilliant fact collectors who fit neatly and comfortably within political correctness.

  • We don't believe in trading labor for money. Both must co-exist for your company to survive.

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We are not innovatively deluding our clients into innovatively doing the same thing over and over again, innovatively normalizing the abnormal (it’s still abnormal!), while assuring our clients different innovative results or end states.

Leadership

Dr. Mark Rogers, Psy.D.

Founder / CEO

IWB was started by Dr. Rogers and others, who as Truth Tellers, Mind Shifters and Idea Ambassadors: are rebooting mindshare and performance through organizational therapy. IWB partners and collaborates on transforming C-suites and senior leadership, their organizations and stakeholders’ narratives, business process management, and their climate and culture, from “merely interesting” to “truly-world-changing.”

With deep practical experience, IWB professionals are developing helping relationships—they enable their global clients to discover and apply the very best of themselves. Brilliance lies within all their stakeholders. IWB provides offerings in client-centered performance improvement, organizational change, and talent development for enabling agility and adaptability to flourish in this, Our Global Village.

Dr. Rogers is a true Learning & Development change agent with a mix of expertise in clinical, forensic, behavioral, & human performance psychology. As an executive coach and thought-provoking collaborator, he has transformed global organizations (corporate, academic, and military) by ‘rebooting the mind through mental athletics.’

His progressive perspective has rightsized L&D departments and transformed the workforce through capacity development, real-life scenarios, and by reframing entrenched mindsets. He has pivoted leaders’ insights and approach to organizational effectiveness and human performance improvement; and as a team leader, he has synergizing efforts across functional areas through performance improvement, including during post-acquisition phase.

Dr. Rogers moves beyond traditional MBA approaches in diagnosing unique business challenges, uncovering strategic blind spots, then implementing solutions that harness collective talent through action learning. He is able to read individuals beyond traditional L&D leaders and dives deeper in driving change and transformation from the organizational DNA Level in alignment with business goals. This is evident in how he is revered and solicited for his expertise by an intellectual and industry trend setting global network who value his leadership, strategies, and reforms in equal measure. He is considered a true critical thinker, progressive, action-oriented business partner who delivers results through vision and pragmatic execution backed by research and evidence-based strategic roadmaps. Dr. Rogers’ cultural perspective is expansive having travelled extensively across the globe.

Those who know Dr. Rogers regard him as an emotionally intelligent and transparent communicator who can ‘cut through the haze,’ helping leaders capitalize on immediate and long-term complex business opportunities with greater responsiveness and confidence in their workforce, emerging stronger from change and / or crisis.

Core Leadership
Carri Rotar-Rogers

my IWB role, and what the role does

I am President of IWB. I preside over two strategic areas: Market innovator; Philanthropic liaison. I lead IWB and IWBI in alliances and partnerships, through the lens of my diverse work in television syndication, cable network advertising, ad agency experience, philanthropic, and public relations sectors.

what I bring to IWB to do it with

I bring a lifetime of media, advertising, and marketing experience to IWB. I have worked with media companies, agencies, and advertisers large and small, particularly providing customized planning and execution on digital, cable and outdoor advertising.

what engaged parties get from that

As a Market Innovator, I guide carve outs (identify opportunities or prospects) in markets for innovative, socially responsible services and products that disrupt the status quo while fulfilling unmet needs. As a Philanthropic liaison, I direct IWB and IWBI’s goals to build alliances, collaboration, and partnerships with enterprises targeting gaps in existing and emerging markets focusing on the needs of marginalized populations.

Background

Before joining IWB, I held positions as a Director and VP of Operations for GTV.

I have also held positions as a Sr. Account Executive in advertising at Comcast, AT&T, Viamedia, Clear Channel, and Titan all located in Chicago. I created and sold customized cable advertising plans to utilize commercial spots on major Cable Networks like ESPN, CNN, HGTV, TNT, Discovery, MSNBC, Bravo, Lifetime, and Food Network.

While at Comcast and Clear Channel, I ranked among the top Sales performers, maintaining and managing million plus account lists annually.

At Titan, a national transit, advertising company I represented and sold advertising signage on the CTA—Chicago Transit Authority and Metra utilizing their digital screens, platforms, trains, and buses.

While at Viamedia, in addition to selling cable network advertising, I also represented and sold digital advertising campaigns for Google Ad Words and their SEM locally.

I hold a BS in Communications and Media from Missouri State University.

Jeff Honeycutt

my IWB role, and what the role does

Jeff is the Chief Operating Officer of IWB. He is a vanguard for the development of IWB’s culture, processes, and organization. He is responsible for the development and oversight of domestic and global company operations.

what I bring to IWB to do it with

A results-driven Learning and Development professional with a background in building and implementing strategic training solutions aligned with organizational values, curriculum, and program development; including on-site to e-learning training facilitation on a global, national, and local scale.

Demonstrated success as a mentor and trainer with expertise in coaching associates, and managers in client engagement practices, sales, quality control, and performance measurement.

what engaged parties get from that

An early believer in bringing authenticity to the workplace, Jeff is an articulate professional with superior interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills. An effective team leader pragmatically focused on inspiring confidence in others and motivating high-performance teams. As a collaborative negotiator, he establishes rapport and cultivates relationships with individuals at all levels of the organization.

Background

Jeff holds BS from University of Phoenix in Business Administration, is a Certified Curriculum Developer, and a Certified Technical Trainer. He is a speaker for Learning & Development at conferences | in thought communities and communities of practice professional events.

Dick Osgood

my IWB role, and what the role does

Dick is Chief of Staff. His work focuses on fulfilling the current needs of the CEO and IWB while keeping an eye towards building high-performance teams who can own and manage IWBs priority areas and projects over time.

what I bring to IWB to do it with

He has held leadership positions in academic computing at Yale University and has developed and marketed technology solutions for IBM. For Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) he has led course development teams that transformed classroom professional development into live engagement simulations. He has served in a similar role at UNext, an online university. He has served as Chief Scientist to Intellishare, an educational technology company.

what engaged parties get from that

Dick has devoted much of his career to working with distressed clients to find ways forward that work for them in their setting. He believes that all organizations have strengths that are hidden from their view and that once unmasked can serve as a new basis for success. Today, he continues to provide strategic consulting and technology development services to his education and business clients.

Background

Dick holds BS and MA degrees from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Northwestern University, specializing in Artificial Intelligence. He has published in academic and business journals, served as an intellectual property expert witness and holds a US Patent for electronic course development. He is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Association for Talent Development (ATD).

Larry Silvey

my IWB role, and what the role does

Larry is a senior advisor. He provides expertise, collaboration and guidance to ensure IWB remains agile and opportunistic in its approach to innovation | adaptation | disruption.

what I bring to IWB to do it with

Larry brings a broad range of experience in human resource development | adult learning | organizational design | performance improvement.

what engaged parties get from that

Larry has been a leader in computer | web based education with products winning national and international awards.

Background

While a partner with Andersen Worldwide, Larry served as Managing Director for Andersen Consulting (Accenture) professional education. He also consulted with international clients in Europe and Asia. Post Andersen, Larry was named Vice President and General Manager for development at UNEXT, the parent company for Cardean University. There he led the development of over 200 on line MBA level courses co-branded with top tier universities including Stanford; Columbia; Chicago and the London School of Economics.

Larry holds Bachelors of Journalism and Masters in Educational Media from the University of Missouri. He also attended the Center for Creative Leadership’s course at the University of Maryland | summer program at Oxford focused on International Business Strategy.

Larry served his country as an Army officer. He attended the Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg with a focus on psychological operations. Subsequently, he was deployed as a Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) advisor to the Montagnard Scouts in Vietnam.

Todd DuBose

my IWB role, and what the role does

Todd serves as the Director of Global | Institutional | Interprofessional Practices of Therapeutic Care at the Insights Without Borders Institute (IWBI), where he focuses on expanding the firm’s collaborative therapeutic assessment | consultation services | participatory action research | educational workshops for interprofessional, multidisciplinary institutions and practitioners of care in local | national | international venues. Todd also serves as an integral advisor to the senior management team in IWB | senior consultant on high performance teams.

what I bring to IWB to do it with

Todd brings to IWB | IWBI broad experience in human science approaches to leadership | team building | planning | crisis management | decision-making | execution of proposed plans. He has provided successful opportunities and outcomes for organizational | cultural transformation. Todd has extensive interdisciplinary | interprofessional | global experience critiquing ideologies and lived values embedded in practices of care within transdisciplinary | multi-cultural | diverse life circumstances. He has over 30 years of experience as a chaplain | therapist | teacher | assessor | supervisor | consultant.

what engaged parties get from that

Todd specializes in "difficult dialogues" regarding "the experience of the impossible" or encounters with unresolvable | irreversible "fated" situations. He oversees | leads client engagements in the health care services | other sectors of care, with a particular focus on the critical analysis of institutional ideologies of care | their impact on concrete practices of care in specific situations. His central concern is to discern who gets left out when we posit practices of care | how might we be unwittingly promoting "cultures of harm" in the name of "cultures of care" — particularly through inattending to "lived meaning" regarding significance and power in particular circumstances. Todd collaborates with client executives on leadership | strategy | organizational communication | human capital growth and development on a global scale. He partners with | advises interprofessional practitioners of care toward more meaningful, albeit difficult, dialogues with each other by freeing dynamic possibilities from ossified | stonewalled circumstances. What is most important to him is simply the continuing journey of becoming a human/e being in a diverse concert with others.

Background

Todd holds degrees in philosophy (B.A., Georgia State University), religion (M.Div., Union Theological Seminary) and clinical psychology (Ph.D. Duquesne University). He is also a Distinguished Full Professor at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, where he teaches a variety of subjects on human science approaches to the psychological arts, particularly from an existential-hermeneutical-phenomenological perspective.  He is the recipient of the American Psychological Association's Division 32: Society for Humanistic Psychology's Carmi Harari Early Career Award for Inquiry and Application; The Chicago School of Professional Psychology's Distinguished Award for Excellence in Classroom Teaching; The Chicago School of Professional Psychology’s Award for Distinguished International Research and Scholarship.

He has presented his work at various national | international venues and is known as a world-renowned public scholar | engaged practitioner through his work in the Czech Republic; Great Britain; Canada; Hungary; Belgium; Greece; Mexico; Malaysia; China. Todd is a consulting faculty member with the Circulo de Estudios en Psicoterapia Existential, in Mexico City, Mexico; HELP University, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; The Humanities Institute of the American University of Prague, Czech Republic; International Institute of Existential-Humanistic Psychology in Beijing, China.

 
Sarah Taylor

my IWB Role, and what the role does

Sarah is an Associate at Insights Without Borders (IWB), where she oversees | leads client engagements in a diverse mix of organizations across the private | public | social sectors. She helps IWB’s engagement teams to discover the actionable innovative thinking technologies | business changing recommendations on how management teams need to be structured for maximal effectiveness.

what I bring to IWB to do it with

Sarah brings to IWB broad experience utilizing collaborative therapeutic assessment, translating | applying this knowledge to process consultancy with organizations | leadership structures within social-political cultures of how business | leadership | policies | teams work or operate.

Sarah also serves as an Associate in the Insights Without Borders Institute (IWBI), where she focuses on expanding the firm’s collaborative therapeutic assessment | consultation services | educational workshops for interprofessional practitioners of care | therapeutic research | partnerships with institutions of care. Her clinical | collaborative therapeutic assessment interests focus on individuals | organizations | LGBQ | Transgender concerns | eating disorders. Further, her interests in clinical care include severe mental illness | community mental health, with a particular interest in the relationship between love and violence.

what engaged parties get from that

Sarah serves as an integral advisor to IWB’s high-performance teams evaluating | coaching | mentoring client management teams to determine which specific executives | managers possess the psychological resources | personality strengths necessary to successfully lead their organization. In rapidly growing companies, she collaborates with IWB’s engagement teams on identifying existing client managers who have outgrown their roles | whether it would be better served to look outside for executives to reach the next level. During mergers and acquisitions, she helps to determine which managers should be retained | how they should best be developed | for which roles they are best suited.

Background

Sarah was a top requested teaching assistant in biological bases of behavior | assessment | human science approaches to therapeutic care. She trained at and received the highest of recognitions from The University of Chicago | The University of California at Los Angeles. She is an international traveler who spent a part of her education living and studying in London.  She adds a vital aesthetic to her work as a scientist-scholar-practitioner, as she is also an artist. She holds both a Psy.D. and M.A. from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology | B.A. from American University in Washington, D.C.

Linda Beitz

my IWB Role, and what the role does

Linda is a trusted and experienced change agent specializing in relational approaches to individual, team, and organizational systems change. Her role is to deepen and expand IWB’s executive and team coaching practices and serve as a champion for leaders committed to effectively working with and through others to create thriving workplace cultures and breakthrough results.

what I bring to IWB to do it with

Linda brings a unique skillset and thirty years of experience of working with individuals and organizations spanning education, business, non-profit, and community sectors. She has trained and successfully worked as a conflict specialist & mediator, transformative leadership coach, dialogue facilitator, systems change consultant, and organizational leader. Common throughout her career has been a relentless pursuit to bring out the best in people and tap their potential to be more connected, capable, and human together at work and in life. Her clients and colleagues know her to be direct, honest, optimistic, caring, and good humored. She is owner | founder of Solutions Through Dialogue, LLC.

what engaged parties get from that

The courage and confidence to develop a powerful relationship with current reality; support in inventing a future that is based on aspirations (vs. fixing the past); and learning and development that stretches the mind and interpersonal capabilities essential to thriving in a complex world.

  • Training in Appreciative Inquiry theory, practices, and forms of engagement
  • Coaching for talented leaders whose abrasive behaviors are limiting their ability to fulfill effectively on personal and organizational aspirations
  • Training for Leaders and HR professionals for managing abrasive behavior at work
  • Leadership development coaching rooted in adult developmental theory and using tools/practices for x-raying and acting on immunity to change
  • Conflict competence training | coaching, including facility in the use of conversational models to assist in productive conflict engagement | agreement development
  • Team development | coaching designed to increase collective effectiveness

Background

Linda holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership and Certificates in: Mediation and Applied Conflict Studies; Appreciative Inquiry – A Relational Model for Business and Social Change; Science and Practice of Managing Abrasive Behaviors; Being a Leader and the Effective Practice of Leadership – An Ontological and Phenomenological model; Leadership Circle Profile and the Leadership Culture Survey 360 Assessments; and the Conflict Dynamics Profile Individual and 360 Assessments.

She is member of the International Coach Federation (ICF); Boss Whispering Institute; Association for Conflict Resolution; and is an affiliate member of the Institute of Coaching (IOC), a Harvard Affiliate. In 2015 Linda co-authored A Positive Manifesto – How Appreciative Organizing Can Transform Public Education (Burrello, Beitz, & Mann).

Angel Helgeson

my IWB Role, and what the role does

I am a trusted and experienced change agent, learning and talent development professional collaborating and partnering with transformational leadership focusing on human-centered design in growing wealth of talent in human-centric organizations.

My role is to deepen and expand IWBs executive and team approaches to cultural transformations, business process improvements, growing a wealth of talent who create authentic workplace cultures and champion breakthrough results.

what I bring to IWB to do it with

I bring a unique skill set and experience of working with individuals and organizations both externally and internally in Health Care, Finance, Hospitality, and Gaming.

I collaborate and partner on solving complex problems through change initiatives, approaches, and methodologies that focus on human change processes, mindshare and mindsets, business processes, and culture transformation.

I help clients in transforming and designing their selection processes, talent development and talent management, communication and learning strategies.

I work with teams of change champions to create vision and mission, developing competency and performance-based models of performance improvement, leadership development, facilitating building high-performance teams, and emotional intelligence workshops.

what engaged parties get from that

Identifying key ideas, communications, and pathways that connect their organization’s competencies for bringing people, culture, and ideas together for growing wealth of talent in authentic human-centric organizations.

Background

My work and commitments have focused on improving retention rates, and likewise, transforming selection processes and developing training strategies. I also have broad practical experiences where I led business processes improvements during Mergers and Acquisitions including changes associated with the Dodd-Frank Act.

I am currently pursuing a Ph.D. with a practitioner-scholar model focusing on Human Capital Development at the University of Southern Mississippi. I hold an M.S. Human Capital Development from the University of Southern Mississippi, and B.A. Psychology from the University of South Alabama.

Services

IWB’s center of gravity attracts clients who are in a state of readiness for change.

Our integrated global virtual work environments of vetted consultants, experts and professionals have deep practical expertise who bring unique perspectives. They have applied understanding of group dynamics and managing high-performance teams, and putting engagements in motion and seeing them through to completion. And of course, they have deep insights without borders.

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“mindshare”

  • When we’re all on the same page, we have mindshare. Then we can have authentic shared experiences, collaborative innovation, collective intelligence, even creation of collective consciousness.

  • Getting mindshare is what makes it possible for an organization to move forward with dispatch. Getting it opens new ecosystems and environments of innovation, intellectual and emotional capital, and thought equity, a place for the commerce of both the heart and mind. Without it, we get infighting, backstabbing, and all manner of dysfunction. Working with our clients, we seek to achieve mindshare through creative and transformative shared experience.

  • Nikos Acuna—http://mindsharebook.com; IWB Manifesto; IWB Going Primal; IWB TT&MS

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“organizational therapy”

  • Organizations like people need a little psychological help from time to time. That’s organizational therapy. In these engagements, we focus on what an organization does, how it does it, and why, not just at the rational level but also emotionally.

  • We introduce this notion because we want an approach that goes beyond traditional, conventional “rational” methods. Organizational therapy pays close attention to the different conscious and preconscious forces and their associated dynamics operating in organizations. It goes deep to discover “authentic realities” like what lies behind the insights in change or be changed. It uncovers all the many differences that exist amongst us all and identifies creative ways to bridge them.

    Our goal in working with clients is supporting them in charting new and more positive directions and transforming business narratives from “merely interesting” to “truly world-changing.”

  • IWB Manifesto; IWB Going Primal; IWB TT&MS; Schein, 2009, 2000; Kets de Vries and Miller, 1984; Plamen L. Dimitrov, 2008; Zaleznik, 1966; Levinson, 1972, 2002; DeBoard, 1978; Czander, 1993; Gabriel, 1999

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“action learning”

  • Many think that learning is a matter of study. Nothing could be further from the truth. You can’t know anything authentically unless you use that knowledge for something real. You can’t read about golf and say you know it, never having played the game. In business, action learning happens when a small group working on real problems, takes action, and learns as individuals, as a team, and as an organization. It helps organizations develop creative, flexible and successful strategies to pressing problems.

  • We have chosen to employ action learning in our work because our clients expect proven, real, and lasting results. Action learning addresses real life problems, in real time with reliably excellent results. Typically, a team works with a facilitator to establish an action plan to address a real issue. The team takes the first steps in the action plan, reflects on individual and team performance at getting results and adjusts the plan for another go-round. Because the problems and effects are real, the reflection work hones both individual and team skills. It also improves leadership skills and enhances organizational communications and development. Action learning operates in a wide range of situations: mergers and acquisitions, organizational change programs, client relationship management activities and professional services sales and marketing.

  • IWB Going Primal, IWB Primal Code, IWB Manifesto, and Study Guides and Strategies Website

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“center of gravity”

  • Organizations can undoubtedly lose focus and dissipate resources in the process. Creating a center of gravity (CoG) in any initiative is necessary for its success. It is the source of power that creates and focuses critical capabilities (CCs) to achieve results.

  • We have included this concept because it is central to achieving success in any organization’s initiatives. Critical Capabilities (CCs), the primary abilities required by the initiative, form the center of gravity (CoG). We guide our clients through a process of identifying these capabilities as well as how to source and support them.

    We do this by working with clients to develop Critical Requirements (CRs). These are essential conditions, resources and means for CCs to be fully operative. Without CRs, a CoG can’t function successfully, because the CCs will not be in place. The operative word here is “critical.” Although an organization or a system(s) might require many things, few requirements are critical. The task at hand is to identify those that are. Also critical vulnerabilities (CVs) are CRs that specify vulnerabilities that could damage the functioning of CCs. Either way, a functioning CoG provides the pull to success that organizations need in all their initiatives. We can help our clients build a CoG for their initiatives.

  • http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub363.pdf; http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/carl/download/csipubs/COG.pdf; IWB Manifesto; IWB Going Primal; IWB TT&MS

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“trading labor for money”

  • Short-term thinking infects many enterprises. They trade long-term investments in labor and communities in exchange for higher profits and a few fleeting “attaboys” from Wall Street. We advocate investing for the long term in people and not in gaining a temporary financial advantage because ultimately the energy and commitment of a workforce all bringing their creativity, and innovation to bear — all pulling in the same direction — is the key to success. You and your people together have the answers you need.

  • We have introduced this phrase to counter the propensity of organizations to do the opposite. Wealth accumulating top executives are often insulated from the lives of ordinary people. They live in illusive worlds, draining their organizations and their customers of their resources and are so isolated from reality that they know not what they do, nor how else to live. They are groomed to ignore each time a major enterprise announces a cut back of thousands of jobs. These top executives get richer and the incomes of thousands of workers whose jobs have been eliminated decline. They participate in an ongoing process of shifting wealth and economic power from those who are engaged in the production of real value to those who only accumulate wealth. They believe it is their right to see their wealth grow without limit, regardless of their needs or productive contributions. This view comes from a belief in scarcity and which in turn comes from a narrow view of what’s possible.

    There is another way to do business, one that delivers real value to all stakeholders where nobody wins at the expense of anybody else. This view comes from the belief in abundance, and that the access to wealth is the opening of our minds to one invisible resource. It’s our people, our workforce. We assist our clients in opening that possibility in their organizations.

  • http://www.pauldryden.co/tag/profitability-bias/; Friedman, T., 2000; Korten, 1995; Issak, 2005; http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/ecology/threat1.htm#rules; http://www.tor.com/2011/02/24/star-trek-re-watch-the-cloud-minders/; IWB Manifesto; IWB Going Primal; IWB TT&MS

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“vested relationships”

  • Commitment is missing in many business dealings that causes follow through and results to be lacking. We speak of vesting in relationships among all stakeholders as a vehicle to carry commitment. We believe in creating highly collaborative business relationships that enable true win-win results in which both parties are equally committed to each other’s success.

  • We have introduced this concept to develop resilience when encountering change in the business landscape. This focus empowers our clients and their business partners to work towards mutually shared goals, rather than pitting one against the other. It makes explicit the rules that organizations can use to craft agreements that reflect their stakeholder’s mutual commitment to improved service, much higher levels of performance, and reduced costs, creating value for all concerned that didn’t exist before.

  • http://www.vestedway.com/what-is-vested/; http://www.vestedway.com/step-3-establishing-the-six-essential-relationship-principles/; http://www.vestedway.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/agreement.pdf; IWB Manifesto; IWB Going Primal; IWB TT&MS

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“cave thinking”

  • Cave thinking is the thinking of trapped organizations. When groups function within cloistered walls of a cave with half-seen images on walls that are taken as real in the shadows, they adopt false beliefs and make bad decisions. These shadows are the illusory forms of obscured realities; at best the symptoms instead of the causes.

  • We use the image of cave thinking to illustrate a fundamental point in all our work. Initially stated problems are often not the real problems. Blind spots and preconscious problems repressed by shadowy symptoms complicate organizational functioning and polarize climate and culture leading to a cover your ass (CYA) or Trust your Neighbor Brand your Stock mentality. Treating the shadowy illusions as reality erroneously normalizes the abnormal. This kind of thinking is a sure way for executives to break trust with those that depend on them and lead to the certain economic decline on their watch, or bestowing it on to those to follow.

  • IWB Manifesto; IWB Going Primal; IWB TT&MS

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“authentic change”

  • We have a very special social way of looking at authentic change. It’s the willingness to be who we are; tell the truth in caring ways, and supporting the integrity of other’s concerns. The more we self-disclose, become authentic, accept vulnerability, and are truth tellers, the safer others will feel doing the same.

  • We have chosen to use this term to emphasize our commitment to shared experience and breaking down barriers as the key to organizational health and success. Whether it’s work-life balance, organizational alignment, high-performance teams, or quality management, the secret is authenticity across all these boundaries. When people work across functions with authenticity as their core value, they produce change that works for everyone. Done this way it looks, feels, breathes, and sounds different every single time. Brilliance lies within each of us. We don’t get the benefit of that brilliance unless trust is high and the barriers are down, so all freely contribute authentically to the work.

    This level of trust does not occur in unsafe settings. We work closely with our clients to create that safety.

  • Kets de Vries, 2001; IWB Manifesto; IWB Going Primal; IWB TT&MS

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“mokita”

  • In English translation, mokita is “the truth we all know but agree not to talk about.” It is a word taken from a language called Kivila and spoken in Papua New Guinea. Several concepts in the English language related to mokita are the “elephant in the room” and the “polite fiction” where everyone is aware of the truth but pretends to believe some alternative version to avoid shame, embarrassment, or conflict.

  • We introduce this term because we must challenge mokita. It is the only way to put an end to the truths we all know but agree not to talk about. It can do a great deal of damage to individuals, climates and cultures in organizations because we do not address the actual problems or work on the needed solution. Instead, we end up working on things that will make no difference, wasting time and resources. We believe that working with our clients, we can overcome mokita.

  • http://www.joshuakennon.com/mokita-the-truth-we-know-but-agree-not-to-talk-about/; IWB Manifesto; IWB Going Primal; IWB TT&MS

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“learned helplessness”

  • Sometimes our “stuckness” is within. We believe we are powerless when we are not. Learned helplessness is a behavioral or mental state in which we experience dehumanizing provocations and are unable or unwilling to avoid subsequent encounters because we have come to believe that we can’t control the situation. This inaction leads us to overlook opportunities for relief or change. We believe that the impacts of such unfortunate events persist and that it is our own fault.

  • We have introduced this idea because learned helplessness is organizational poison. It often becomes a narrative of cultural disempowerment. C-suites and stakeholders build concentric circles of excuses that absolve them of accountability for needing to change or deliver improvement. Instead of discovering creative ways to deal with aversive situations and events, they accept the status quo and blame external conditions for the problems that exist.

    This spreading infection is passed on by C-suites and stakeholders from group to group and level to level. The standard response eventually is some variation of “We’d love to do that, but we really can’t.” These blind spots break trust and lead organizations to endure economic decline. In our work, we offer an antidote to help our clients rediscover their power and set them on a course of unlearning their helplessness.

  • https://hbr.org/2012/06/learned-helplessness-in-organi; https://web.stanford.edu/~ngoodman/papers/LiederGoodmanHuys2013.pdf; IWB Manifesto; IWB Going Primal; IWB TT&MS