About
My career has revolved around building and managing successful, innovative organizations.
My most recent work has focused on the changing workforce, demographic trends and at how corporations can most effectively “engage” these employees – capture hearts and minds. That work lead to several years of research into generational differences, and the important clues they provide to understanding what we each want from work. Together with colleagues at The Concours Group and, now, nGenera, I’ve conducted millions of dollars of research on this topic.
I’ve always loved technology and how it changes the way we work and live. Today, the interplay between what new technologies allow and what individuals prefer is dramatically re-shaping our organizations. As the economy continues to evolve toward more knowledge-based work, the challenge of creating truly intelligent organizations continues to grow.
Early in my career, I was fascinated by the challenge of developing strategy when R&D success determined a firm’s strategic options. This lead to my first co-authored book on linking R&D investments to strategy and to many years of helping organizations become more innovative, including a deep dive into systems thinking and organizational learning. Recently I partnered with a team at London Business School to conduct what I’m told is one of the largest and most rigorous studies of collaborative team behavior within organizations and how it supports innovation. With this, my work comes full circle, back to exploring the forces capturing people’s passions, allowing organizations to become more collaborative and innovative.
As President of the nGenera Innovation Network, an organization that provides leading-edge approaches to help companies operate successfully as Next Generation Enterprises, I continue to lead research programs exploring cutting-edge issues and help translate those findings into educational programs for senior leaders.
My goal today is to help organizations and individuals develop a compelling view of the future, to discern and describe interesting trends, and provide actionable counsel. My work is based on extensive research, well-grounded and academically rigorous, and fundamentally optimistic.
I do much of my research and writing from a “play farm” in Massachusetts, where my husband Tom and I live with horses, dogs, cats, sheep, chickens and a pot bellied pig. Our two children, both Gen Y’s, are off and about collecting life experiences and, I hope, more interesting stories about the changing world of work.
