Build inclusive, equitable, and anti-racist organizations through practical action

My Workshops

I offer participatory education and training experience for teams of all sizes—through an equity and inclusion lens. Get in touch to find the right offering for your organization.

  • Decision Making Practices

  • Internal Communication & Transparency

  • Psychological Safety

  • Strategic Planning & Prioritization

  • Operationalizing Values & Culture

  • Inclusive & Efficient Meeting Design

  • Equitable Hiring

  • Practicing Allyship

  • The Joy of Feedback

  • White Dominant Culture & Its Antidotes

  • Agile Ways of Working

  • Managing Distributed or Hybrid Teams

  • Launching Inclusive & Effective New Teams

Core Themes of My Work

 

  • Organizations are complex living systems that must constantly evolve. When we change structures and processes regularly, we must efficiently leverage the wisdom of our employees. I design and lead participatory processes that transform a team’s sense of engagement and commitment to change.

  • Racism flows through our traditional management practices and organizational structures. To combat this, I help organizations adopt everyday practices, train leaders and managers, and redesign systems and processes. My aim is to create equitable opportunity and value diverse perspectives across the organization.

  • It’s critical for leaders to learn the fundamental ways that racism, sexism, and other social systems impact our organizations. As a trainer I offer care, respect, and humor when leading these learning experiences and providing everyday new practices to advance inclusion.

  • When decision-making authority is centralized among a few at the top, organizations fail. Instead, those that thrive decentralize authority through clear and structured mechanisms. I help organizations reorganize power so that decisions are made efficiently by those with the best information.

 

References

 

“Michael is an emotionally-intelligent, thoughtful and creative leader who cares deeply about making a difference. In supporting our business process redesign, pilot, and implementation, he took the time to understand our organization and was able to balance meeting our people where they were, with challenging, pushing and stretching them to try new behaviors and build new capabilities.”

—Diana, Senior Director of Business Effectiveness & Organizational Tranformation at Clif Bar & Co.


“Michael served as lead consultant on a structure redesign project for Sierra Club. He brought a rich set of tools and skills to the work, combined with a high level of professionalism and good humor. Throughout the project, Michael was always well-prepared, focused and flexible to meet the needs of the team.”

—Scott, Director for Volunteer & Leader Engagement at Sierra Club

 

“Michael is an excellent facilitator and structured a day that really opened our eyes to how we might make adjustments in our ways of working. The lessons and tools we took away from the workshop were practical and easily implemented by various team members.”

—James, Associate Vice President of Corporate Innovation at Pacific Life

Select Clients

 

Social Benefit

  • Sierra Club

  • Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

  • Sundance Institute

  • Planned Parenthood Federation of America

  • California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF)

  • Robert Bosch Stiftung Foundation

  • New America

  • MIT Center for Civic Media

  • Oakland Unified School District

  • Allied Media Projects

Corporate

  • Clif Bar & Company

  • Genentech

  • Intel

  • VMware

  • Pacific Life Insurance

  • Dropbox

  • Arup

  • Samsung

  • Madison Wells Media

  • Eero

  • Twelve

  • Hanna Andersson