Professional & Organizational Development

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Dan Oestreich

PHILOSOPHY STATEMENT

My mission is to help clients build their capacities as individual leaders and leadership teams in four areas: to assert and affirm their unique value and direction; to love, give to and serve others; to act with integrity; and to create trust-based, authentic relationships. There is always more to learn in these capacities in order to be versatile and balanced in their application to circumstances. The greater these capacities internally, the better as individuals and teams we can be in leading positive change externally, creating a humanistic and engaging workplace culture. Self-knowledge is first and foremost what differentiates good from great, and is essential to becoming effective instruments of institutional, entrepreneurial and social change.

My work is my Vocation, capital V, and is accomplished through coaching, consulting, training and facilitation.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE/RESULTS

  • Assist people to learn about themselves and how to lead through honest, caring, insightful one-on-one feedback, personal coaching and consulting
  • Facilitate participative team design and implementation of sensitive organizational changes
  • Design and conduct small/large “psychologically safe” group workshops on developing personal leadership and building team trust
  • Facilitate partnership building between team members whose interpersonal conflicts are impairing work results and team relationships
  • Assist staff members who are at challenging choice points regarding their roles, placements or careers
  • Teach directive and non-directive coaching skills to leaders at all levels of organizations

EXPERIENCE / SELECTED PROJECTS

  • As a seasoned consultant, I have trained and coached hundreds of leaders at all organizational levels, through keynotes, conference programs, public and private training programs, through facilitated team sessions, and personal coaching and consulting. All of this work is devoted to the growth of people in leadership roles and the creation of high-trust workplaces.
  • Guided several key managers for a research-oriented health enterprise in a small but critical restructuring of two organizational units; evaluated the leadership and performance requirements of the top position to which these units reported through a structured, participative analysis; provided developmental leadership coaching based on feedback and temperament assessment for a current manager interested in succession to the vacant job.
  • Designed and led a one-day workshop for 100 managers, staff and faculty on driving out fear, reducing defensive behavior, finding one’s developmental path, and applying this knowledge to guiding organizational change for the University of Wisconsin.
  • Designed my own survey model and instrument to assess trust levels in teams. This is a free tool for most managers, available at my second website, teamtrustsurvey.com. The site includes a workbook of trust-building exercises, and other reflections on the nature of trust-building work from a neuro-leadership perspective. I often use the survey in my own work as a place to help teams get started on their own improvement efforts.

CREDENTIALS

  • B.A. History, Yale University (1973); M.A. Guidance & Counseling, University of Colorado (1975)
  • Co-Author: Driving Fear Out of the Workplace (1991 and 1998) and The Courageous Messenger (1995), books about speaking up in organizations and how to overcome “undiscussable” issues.
  • 25 years’ experience as an independent consultant to a wide variety of organizations, including the University of Washington, University of Wisconsin and other institutions of higher learning.
  • Certified in use of the Interact Personal Strengths Profile, a temperament instrument by Eric Allenbaugh, Ph.D.
  • 10 years’ experience in public sector human resource practices

SELECTED CLIENTS

  • University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, Seattle University
  • Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
  • Seattle Cancer Care Alliance
  • National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, EPA
  • Pemco Insurance
  • Berntson Porter & Company Accountants and many small to medium sized private sector companies
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