Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: Executives, managers, directors, family firms, HR specialists, coaches, MBA Candidates.

Q: What book is about?
A: This book explores what happens when patterns originally created to cope with family conflicts are unleashed in the workplace. When stress and anxiety hit the hot button at work we all revert to behaviors we used as children for survival and security.

The common patterns of pleaser, rebel, avoider, martyr, and the like are familiar in every business setting and get in the way of real work being done. This book shows how to transform these out-dated behavior patterns to ones that make working together successful and profitable.

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: I am the owner of a retreat center and a consulting company. I am also a “drama queen” who had to learn where that academy award winning, albeit bothersome, behavior came from before my employees were ready for a mutiny.  I have a PhD in psychology with a focus on family therapy.

When I realized that we do bring the behavior patterns from our original organization, the family into our present organization, the workplace I knew I had stumbled onto something important. I have dedicated myself to helping leaders and their direct reports become aware of the tired, old behaviors that worked at three or ten years of age yet get in the way of present day grown-up interactions. I have developed the OUT Technique (Observe, Understand Transform) as an effective and efficient process to make the work environment productive and collaborative.

Q: How is this book different than other books on this topic?
A: This is the first book to identify the 13 most common patterns that correspond to characters familiar to anyone who has ever worked in an office. You know the type – maybe he’s the office clown, or the woman who always looks busy yet is the avoider, or the guy who has a rain cloud above his victim head. These behaviors are painfully annoying and stir up conflict in any office. The book is filled with a wealth of real-life anecdotes and practical workbook-style exercises that, when followed, empower people to make profound differences both at work and in their personal lives.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: It is being used as the text for a leadership program in Ghana as well as several other graduate courses in the states. There are several groups that have begun to use this book as a home study course and it is the basis of the successful Total Leadership Connections Program.