Insights, Ideas, and Inspiration from the minds of The Clearing’s passionate experts.
Need to Make A Decision? Step 1: Check Your Biases
By Lindsey Ryan
As leaders of our organizations and teams, we are faced with the need to make critical decisions every day: Which candidate do I trust to hire? What new markets should I be looking to invest in? Do the current processes in place still support the needs and the work of my business? On their face, […]
How to Embrace an Agile Culture at Your Organization
By Alex Perrin and Darby O'Connor
With the uncertainty of changing customer needs, an increasingly diverse workforce, and a barrage of new technology, organizations must constantly adapt to meet evolving market demands. Successful organizations will recognize and address the need to maximize constrained resources while increasing value and impact to their customers. This has led modern organizations to jump on the […]
Learning to Improvise and Other Lessons in Leadership from Music
By Alex Perrin
When I was five years old, I received my first electronic keyboard. I would pretend to play along to the cheesy, pre-programmed elevator-esque music, letting the machine do the heavy lifting. Soon thereafter, recognizing my increasingly-apparent love of music, my parents gave me a piano and signed me up for lessons. Unlike my beloved keyboard, […]
Understanding Diverse Perspectives and Other Lessons from Work Better Day
By Kelly Barlow
I’m always on the hunt for opportunities to engage in conversations that broaden my perspective and challenge my assumptions. Most recently, I found just such an opportunity in DC at the Work Better Day conference, “an experience-driven event, bringing together curious minds, visionary thinkers, innovators, and change-makers.” The Work Better Day experience centered on three […]
Back to School: Four Questions to Consider when Establishing or Updating Your Organization’s Learning and Development Program
By Liz Glodek, EdD
As August closes and September begins, summer holidays wrap up and, if you’re lucky, you have one last vacation ahead before returning to regularly scheduled programming. For some, the 2018-2019 school year means sending a child off to kindergarten or college. Others are embarking on their own educational path, returning to school to finish a […]
IT Mod Trailblazers Chapter 1: Just Get Started, featuring Rob Klopp
By Yasmeen Burns
As we mentioned in our inaugural IT Modernization blog, IT Mod is a large organizational, financial, and cultural commitment. It can feel like an insurmountable task to steer your company in this new direction. Leaders we work with on IT Mod efforts often ask, “Where do I begin?” The simple answer? Just get started—and figure […]
Fostering Diversity and Inclusion at The Clearing
By Sama Goldstein and Hans Manzke
A diverse and inclusive workplace is an empowering and impact-driven workplace where individuals can strive toward becoming the best version of themselves. At The Clearing, we believe that our teams can and should reflect a wide range of demographics, and must, at minimum, reflect the diverse demographic and cultural fabric of the community of clients […]
How to Maximize Your Organization’s Strategic Planning Process
By Regina Perkins
Strategic planning is a fundamental necessity for sustained growth in both public and private institutions. But historically, it was a cyclical process. All too often, the process of strategic planning entailed a group of managers locking themselves in a room to draft a detailed and overly ambitious document that outlined a 5-10-year plan, which was […]