About
Leading Workplace Change is led by Terri Kruzan with periodic support from her colleague John Hutcheson. We have worked together for going on 20 years doing change management, diversity and organizational culture assessment work within organizations. We come from different backgrounds as you can see in our bios, but what binds us together is our experience in looking at life through the lens of organizational culture and our desire to share that knowledge with others.
We realize that living and working in the myriad of interconnected work, community and national worlds that is required for 21st century life is not easy for us or for anyone. The purpose of this blog is to share our understanding of organizational and national cultures in practical ways and to provide simple and ongoing stories about how people and organizations adapt to change. We hope these stories will help people move to action when confronted with change in their lives.
We invite others to share their stories with us and to let us know if our stories help you in your work and personal lives.
Bio – Terri Kruzan – older, but wiser white lady
I call myself the “older, but wiser white lady,” because it helps me come to terms with who I am and where I come from. I gained expertise in managing and assessing organizational cultures over the last 20 years through my management of a think tank – The American Institute for Managing Diversity in Atlanta and subsequently in consulting work with change management firms. I am also a late-in-life mother where I get hands on experience in molding behaviors based on values. My first professional career was as a member of an improvisational dance/theatre company, ContactWorks in Minneapolis where I had a great time and honed my skills in telling stories and thinking things up as I go along. For more about my current professional world of getting people to act the way you want them to in a natural and self-sustaining way, go to cultureconsult.com
Bio – John Hutcheson – XEverything
My first job was hanging off the back of an ice cream truck selling popsicles. I then worked a couple of summers on the inland waterway off of Florida moving pipes feeding sand dredged out of cannels to form waterfront real estate. Then, there was loading and unloading railroad cars, working in a warehouse, installing insulation, driving a delivery truck, putting in acoustic ceilings…I began to understand the importance of education. Then, I couldn’t stop – BA, MA and Ph.D. – bureaucrat, teacher, professor and research director. So, XEverything seems to be the best way I can describe my current status, which, of course, makes me a consultant. I’m an empiricist…I’ve learned from observation of the worlds I’ve lived in. I like numbers because they help summarize and systemize those observations – but interpretation of numbers relies upon both systemic and informal synthesis of multiple experiences. If you want to learn more about my consulting work, go to researchgroup.org
