There are always possibilities to do more of what you love. Identify opportunities that align with your life priorities, the best of your skills, and an environment where you’ll thrive.
Business is all about the people. We’ll partner with you to enhance team engagement, develop interpersonal communications, and improve individual performance.
Great leaders, whatever their role, can inspire others and change lives. Whether you’re an established leader or a new leader, this is a powerful way to enhance your skills and drive day-to-day results.
Whether for a 30-minute keynote or an all-day workshop, we’re passionate about presenting dynamic and inspiring content. Our underlying message is always about leadership and its power to move individuals, teams, and organizations successfully forward.
"Stephanie is masterful at bringing clarity to things and helps me look at the big picture. She was instrumental in my decision to leave a long time job and open my own firm—the best career of my life."
Angie Galimanis, Owner/President @ Lawrence PR, Portland, OR
"Heather empowered me to look inside and see what it was I truly wanted out of work and life. We set out my priorities, my criteria for my next job, and I learned about the strengths I had as a person, not just a list of software acumen!"
Zöe Flanagan, Research Assistant @ Pacific Research & Evaluation, Portland, OR
"Linda’s Executive Coaching has helped me become a better leader. She coached me to not avoid difficult discussions, but to approach them in a non aggressive way. I feel like much more of a natural leader, and I’m having a lot more fun now."Jeff Fuchs, City Engineer for the City of Tualatin, OR
"Working with Heather changed my life in ways I didn't know were possible. This year I launched a business that has gone from nothing to flourishing in so many ways. I'm so grateful to Heather for her personal, heartfelt, and out-of-the-box style. I'm so grateful for all you do!"
Meghan French, Licensed OR Broker, Scout Realty, Portland, OR
"Working with Stephanie has been the single most transformative experience. Thanks to Stephanie’s advice and support, I entered and completed graduate school, have made it through many professional challenges, and have established my own business."
David Hanna, Couples, Family, and Individual Therapist @ David Hanna Counseling, Portland, OR
"Linda unlocked some doors inside me with some ready understanding of concerns that face me as a leader, a parent, and a partner with some very simple solutions and practices. Linda's been an integral part of my successful leadership role at work and home."Katy Patricelli, Former Sr VP @ Wells Fargo
"Stephanie has been an invaluable sounding board. My coaching sessions with Stephanie have provided me with a case study-like approach to work through current business challenges, a constructive unbiased listening center which provides immediate stress relief, and an actionable and useful “nugget” to put into immediate action from each session."
Kathryn Loescher, MBA, Sr. Director of Compensation, The Standard
"Heather brought order to my chaos and helped me pursue my goals in a more purposeful, fulfilling way. Now I feel less stressed, more in control and able to enjoy taking some big steps that I’ve been working towards for a long time."
Carolyn Cosgriff, Owner/Artist/Designer @ HissBuzzHum, Portland, OR
"I love working with Heather, she's not only my productivity coach, she’s my accountability partner. She helps me stay on track with my goals, my weekly tasks and I’ve been able to accomplish more in the past 3 months than I have all year.”Shannon M. McCaffery, Founder @ SoulfulVisionMarketing.com, Richmond, VA
"In my work, I found myself challenged to engage the physician leaders across the organization. With Carpenter Smith Consulting, we learned strategies that resulted in a dramatic growth in provider satisfaction from the 11th percentile to the 73rd percentile!"Sharon Crowell M.D. @ The Vancouver Clinic, Vancouver, WA
"Linda is a great listener and powerful observer. I rely on her wisdom and pragmatic advice around team dynamics, culture and leadership. Simply put, Linda makes me better."Katherine Durham, VP Individual Disability Insurance and Corporate Marketing & Communications @ The Standard, Portland, OR
"I found my sessions with Heather to be very insightful, practical, and useful, and focused on elements of employee behaviors which we normally don't pay attention to. Our discussions helped me grow in my new role at work as well as out of work."Kunal Dugal, QA Manager @ Logitech, Camas, WA
"Heather helped me see that work isn't just about the money. She took the big picture view of my life and gave me the tools I needed to commit to my pursuits. My stress is gone and both of my businesses are better than ever!Theresa Provitola, Founder/CEO @ Pixels & Ink Media, llc, Vancouver, WA
"I learned more about how to be a leader from Carpenter Smith Consulting than I did from my Master's program at Harvard."
Alfred Seekamp, M.D., Chief Medical Officer @ The Vancouver Clinic, Vancouver, WA
Linda is described as a powerful ally and skilled strategist in helping them develop their personal and professional leadership to move their businesses forward.
Stephanie is known for providing trusted advice and management techniques to people seeking personal and professional success.
Heather is unmatched in her ability to motivate clients, friends, and family members to take charge of their lives and to boldly step into their leadership.
A NOTE FROM LINDA: I’m writing today to share with you a way to understand people that can help you, even under the most trying circumstances, maintain your perspective and choose your responses. It’s an unusual post as it’s based on a way of thinking that helped me navigate my divorce with more wisdom (or at least with less crazy!). When I was going through my divorce, I made a commitment to myself to do it ‘well.’ We had young…
We’re hearing again that people are struggling to get their work done because all of their time is spent in “useless” meetings…or Meeting Madness as we call it! Meetings are supposed to be a means to success. Sadly though, they’ve become a time-suck that actually prevent people from making headway on their list of things to do. But meetings can’t be all bad, can they? When done properly, they’re important and can do a lot to facilitate discussion, share information,…
Recently, an executive we work with was describing that he was struggling to get out of the weeds of the day-to-day. He knew that he needed to be more strategic in his thinking and actions, but instead found himself pulled into doing the work that his team was assigned to do. To succeed in his job, he needed to support others to do the work that needed to be done while he created the vision, strategy, and relationships to…
Last week we talked about how a handful of 2-second hesitations can lead to Failing to Make a Decision. Today, we want to share with you 5 important steps to increasing your ability to make decisions (even when it’s hard). 5 Steps to Decision Making Pause and ask yourself, “Is what I’m about to do in alignment with my goals?” It’s important that you actually know what your goals are. Consider what you are trying to achieve. Explore “What’s the…
Linda was recently reading an article in The New York Times Magazine by Jami Attenberg (February 4, 2018) about healthcare decisions. In it, Attenberg said something that seemed powerfully true not only for our healthcare decisions but for all our decisions! This is what she said: “. . .[every time I needed to make a decision] I hesitated, and a handful of hesitations that take only a second added up to years of failing to make a decision.” This struck us as one…
If you’ve been part of our community for a while, you know that our Work, with a capital W, is helping individuals, teams, and organizations succeed through increasing the leadership of each and every person, regardless of role or title. As coaches and consultants, we work at the intersection of psychology and business and we know, from 30 years of experience, that the ability to lead requires that you: Pause and manage your reactivity so you can respond powerfully…
We were recently in a meeting with two top executives. They were describing an incredibly challenging time when their leadership team was running at full speed. That afternoon, the team asked to skip a leadership team meeting so they could use that time to focus on several “revenue critical” efforts that were underway. These executives needed to make a decision that would move their agenda forward, create success for the organization, and manage their staff’s need for some control over…
We’re currently working with a number of organizations with relatively new leadership teams. As is often the case, the people on these teams have made their way up the organizational ladder because they have succeeded in their department or in a specific area of expertise. While it makes sense that they would move up in leadership as their skills grow, the transition to higher levels of leadership requires a major shift in their approach and mindset. In particular, they need to…
This is the follow-up to the 3 Steps to Delegate Effectively which we re-shared last week; we thought this follow-up should be re-shared as well. We heard from several of you that you were concerned that if you used our 3 Steps to Delegate Effectively, it would be experienced by others as micromanaging. Delegation is about providing Context, Content, and Connection so that the individual who is assigned the activity can organize their thinking and their tactics to accomplish the delegated task. When…
As coaches and consultants, we find that many people regularly struggle with delegation, and they tend to feel uncomfortable admitting it because they believe they should know how to do it. In our experience, delegating is a challenging skill . . . one that few of us are taught. People are frequently told they should, “just delegate that” but when they do, and they don’t get the results they hoped for, they give up and just heap the task onto…
