Who We Serve

Empowering multicultural talent for effectiveness.

We help women, people of color, LBGT executives, their companies, and their allies become more effective professionally in diverse workplaces, and feel more empowered personally.

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While multicultural entrepreneurs, leaders, managers and employees have made considerable contributions to their organizations, we have learned through our years of executive development programs that African Americans, Latinos, women and Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgendered managers often find they reach a glass ceiling, feel isolated, and/or experience frustration in reaching their professional and personal goals. 

Does any of this sound familiar?

Individuals:

• Hard work.  No recognition? Slow promotion?
  You work hard every day, bring in the results, and discover that your colleague is getting more money, more benefits, better performance reviews and faster promotions than you.  You suspect it might be politics or their network but you do not know quite how to assess what is really going on, nor what you can do to make things fair?
• Authority questioned?
  You find you get greater resistance whenever you ask for or negotiate work schedules, project deadlines, or anything -- even from subordinates who seem to be always questioning your authority?
• Coming out anxiety?
  You feel that knot in your stomach and upsurge of defiance whenever some new colleague or client asks you about your personal life – knowing they may not be comfortable when you come out to them?  You know the relationship will change so you struggle with how to be strategically authentic?
• Lonely only isolation, with a bicultural burden?
  You are the only one like you at your level in your organization.  Every thing you do (positive and negative) is under a spotlight.  You feel like you represent your group - a heavy burden.  And on top of it, you are often the only one in your family or community who is dealing with these corporate-political dynamics so your family-community cannot effectively support you.  They do not understand your drive, ambition, long hours, or commitment.  On the other side, the people in your company do not understand how often you are dealing with outside work issues in your family-community that are so different from their personal lives - so they cannot support you effectively either. They do not understand that sometimes you are the only one in the family circle who can help struggling members with money, information, or support because you know how to deal with the system.
• Successful and unhappy?
  You have been the poster child for success.  You have got all the trappings, and maybe you are the first in your family or community to achieve the dream but you still feel discontent – like everyone is expecting too much from you and not noticing what really drives you and makes your life meaningful?
• No time for yourself?
  You want and need to have time for professional and personal development or work-life balance but cannot seem to disconnect for any substantial period of time from the constant, chaotic stress at work?  Even when you schedule development time, your boss agrees and verbally supports you, your company pays for it, and you let everyone know you will not be available -- the daily calls-emails keep coming to interrupt you so that it feels as though no one respects or values your commitment?  Worse yet, you fear that life will be worse for you when you return to work if you do not respond constantly while you are away from the office?

 

Organizations:

• Multicultural Talent Revolving Door?
  You hire women and people of color but seem to have a revolving door.  As fast as they come in, they leave.  You spend a lot of time and money hiring and training high quality minority talent and would love to figure out how to retain them longer and reap the benefits of your investment?
• Diversity Discounting?
  You have received anecdotal or employee satisfaction survey results that indicate there is a perception that women, people of color, or LBGT managers are not getting treated fairly at your company when it comes to performance reviews, promotion, mentoring, or compensation.  You want to do something to fix things but are not sure what to do?
• Dysfunctional Diverse Team Dynamics?
  The people in your organization have to work in teams – diverse teams – and yet they find themselves mired in conflicts and unproductive behavior.  You would really like to get high performance out of your diverse teams.  But how?

 

Our Clients

Ideal Individual Clients

• Quest for Effectiveness and Empowerment
  Our clients want both to BE EFFECTIVE and to FEEL EMPOWERED.  Effective means they produce results, they enjoy their work, and they stay mentally sharp – learning and enhancing their skills so they can succeed in their chosen field.  Empowered means they make good work-life choices, they assess their skills and competencies so that they make contributions that are valued, and they establish-maintain relationships of reciprocal trust at work and at home.  We help our clients articulate who they are and what they want.  Our experience demonstrates that with that clarity, our clients are willing to work, ask, and negotiate for what they want from a place of personal and identity integrity.
• High Achievers Despite Barriers
  Our clients are high achievers, often in spite of the barriers placed in their way.  They have a set of successful strategies for surviving, but are now looking to thrive, to lead, to make a positive difference in the world, to leave a legacy, to be acknowledged for their accomplishments, to feel free (financially and energetically). We work with accomplished multicultural-diverse managers / executives (and aspiring executives) who want to go further, be happier, be more effective, and have more respect from their co-workers, family, significant others, clients, bosses, and community. 
• Aspiring Leaders
  These actual and aspiring leaders are people who want to make a difference, and leave a values-centered legacy that makes the world a better place because they have been in it.  They intend to be masters of their time, knowing that they will never achieve their professional and organizational goals without prioritizing their commitments and following through.  They know when and how to negotiate to keep their productivity and enjoyment of their work high, and to keep learning so that they stay mentally sharp.
• Willing to Change, Learn and Grow
  Our clients are people who are ready, willing, and able to change their thoughts, their habits, and their lives to be more in tune with their deepest sense of their purpose – they are leaders and entrepreneurs (in spirit and/or in fact).  They know that the relationships only work if they do their work.  So they commit to and complete their agreements and assignments.
• Contributors from a wide range of industries
  Our clients include Knowledge specialists, consultants, Counselors, therapists, psychologists, actual and aspiring coaches, college professors, school teachers, university administrators, Head Start directors, clergy, faith-based people of spirit, physicians, nurse managers, artists, creatives, cable TV producers-managers, entertainers, travel agents, educated-world traveling-mature cruisers, and women-multicultural entrepreneurs.

 

Our Ideal Corporate Clients

• Caring Companies that Seek to Learn from Diversity
  Our clients include organizations who care about people - all kinds of people.  These organizations are committed to valuing and retaining all of the talent that is doing a good job.  They know that talent and creativity come in all kinds of packages – all races and colors, speaking different first-languages, both genders, with a range of sexual orientations, and with lots of cultural perspectives.  In fact, our clients seek and value diverse perspectives knowing that perspective diversity and collaborative teamwork are the keys to creative problem solving in our fast-paced multicultural world.
• Invest in Multiculturalism
  Our corporate clients are willing to invest in programs that will enhance the overall effectiveness of their diverse teams and multicultural leaders and managers. 
• Diversity-Inclusion is Strategic Change for Competitive Advantage
  They know that leveraging diversity is part of a long-term strategic change effort and are willing to support that effort for competitive advantage.

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Now that you know the kind of clients we work with, the issues we helped them resolve and what our clients need to do to ensure their success, click on this link to learn more about how we work.