About WiseGrowth

We are in a polycrisis (a polite way of saying “we’re screwed”)

Our world is kind of self-destructing in a few different ways, all at the same time. Our challenges include (but are not limited to) escalating dangers from the climate crisis, political crises (wars and increasing conflict), economic instability, social injustice, disparities in wealth …

There’s a word for this screwed up situation: polycrisis.

In this polycrisis, leaders have a choice. We can keep doing what we’ve always done, and gives us the same results. Or we can transform how we do things – we can try something different.

On our current path, the people who are winning will continue to win even more because they know how to win the ‘game’ we are currently in. You too can learn to win the current game. However, this will end badly, even for people on well-stocked private islands and the in the most luxurious bunkers.

The type of leadership that does not work:

  • work independently (but don’t work with different stakeholders);
  • recognize problems (but don’t understand them); and,
  • buy ‘best practices’ the solve the ‘recognized problem’ (but don’t adapt the solutions to make them actually work).

An alternative to the path we are on requires more people, in their own way, to figure out how to navigate complexity and even chaos, while creating the future the want. It will be messy. There will be lots of false starts. But eventually more promising possibilities will emerge.

Leaders must develop the right type of leadership to create desired transformation and change.

Our polycrisis means we need new leadership (not the kind of leadership that got us here)

The continuous change, complexity, and even chaos, creates emergence: as things change, other things change – either because they are forced to or because they see an opportunity.

In emergence there are no existing answers or solutions. We must continuously experiment with the resources we have to figure out what is possible to create the future we want.

The type of leadership that does work:

To figure out how to create the change you want requires a new type of leadership – WiseGrowth leadership:

  • We: you, me, and any other people that have perspectives and expertise needed for the situation;
  • Learn: understanding our environment and ourselves better so that we can develop the approaches and competencies necessary to create what is possible;
  • Create: recognizing this is a journey of continuously experimenting how and why things are changing so that we can continuously figure out what might work to create the future we want.

Are you ready to become a WiseGrowth leader who creates real change?

You want to be one of the people making change. But you don’t know where to start.

WiseGrowth leadership is quite different than the leadership being taught in schools and rewarded at work. Developing WiseGrowth leadership is hard because it requires thinking and acting differently.

But as you refine your purpose, understand the power you have and how you can increase it, you will also feel profound joy as you connect with aligned people and make change.

Who am I?

My official bio:

  • I have lived and worked in 6 countries on 3 continents.
  • I worked in the financial environment (capital markets and high-tech startup/entrepreneurial environment) and I have been teaching business at the Masters and College level.
  • I have led several projects, including building one of the original high-tech accelerator programs in Toronto, where the results I (and my teams) generated were significantly better than competitors, and often better than we thought was possible (Several university professors around the world reviewed my work.)

My unofficial bio:

  • On paper, my family is professional, worldly, and successful. In reality, there is extensive intergenerational trauma that was passed on to my generation. I started learning about trauma since I was a teenager and continued through to developing a behaviour change model. The understanding I developed of how people actually ‘work’ has helped people improve their performance significantly because they could change patterns they had felt locked-in to for most of their lives.
  • I was always the ‘dumbest’ person in the room of exceptionally smart, international, successful people. It took me a long time to realize that I wasn’t actually dumb – I was usually the youngest person. To be able to figure out what was going on, I became incredibly curious. To be able to stay in those rooms, I found ways of making myself useful. Eventually, I earned the right to tell some very successful people what to do. My ability to understand complex things quickly is a process I have used with clients and students to help them achieve results they hadn’t been able to before.
  • During my MBA, I started realizing how differently I approach business, strategy, leadership, transformation and change. It was when I finally really understood how outdated current approaches to economics, business, and leadership are.

Once I understood the value of my understanding of human transformation and process change, I developed the WiseGrowth approach.

My motivation to teach you WiseGrowth

If we want to address the polycrisis, we must think and act in very different ways so we can change the status quo that needs changing. However, we must also be wise in how we challenge power because people with power have no intention of losing it.

I consistently help people improve their performance dramatically when they are stuck. But it took me a long time to understand that I was challenging the status quo by generating those results. I was unintentionally embarrassing people in power and challenging their sense of power.

If you are serious about creating change, you too will be embarrassing and challenging people in power – you can’t avoid resistance to change. The goal is to do it in a much smarter way while still creating change.

Fortunately, with so many people looking to address different aspects of the polycrisis, we are getting close to critical mass. Critical mass shifts the balance of power. This means there will be opportunities to make real, sustainable, effective change.

I would like to save you a lot of pain while creating what is possible sooner.

Are you ready to lead real change by developing WiseGrowth Leadership?

Based on the painful and joyful learning I’ve done over my career, I have a unique – and valuable – way to create some of the changes we need.

I would be pleased to explore how I can help you become a real change leader in your career, business, or your community.

Cat vM