Leaders across all sectors are beyond exhausted, burned-out, and sacrificing health for success. Burn-out has a bottom-line business impact. Did you know:

• 3/4ths of professionals worldwide experience burnout, according to the World Health Organization
• 63% more likely to take a sick day (Gallup)
• 2.6x more likely to be job hunting (Gallup)
• $300 billion cost to US businesses per year (American Institute of Stress)
• 70% of C-suite executives reported they considered leaving (Deloitte)
• annual cost of burnout related disengagement is $20,683 per executive

For decades I’ve been recommending to my executive clients this book about building rituals of recovery into everyday work practices, and it still holds true: The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal 

Now there’s a new TEDx talk about how you can break the cycle.  In his moving and brilliant TED talk, Chazz Scott weaves together burnout, neuroscience, epigenetics, healing ancestral trauma, and survival-related work ethic to show us why REST is a right, not a reward, especially in our current culture.  Recovery rituals are not just something you earn someday, but a mission-critical must for each day.

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Suzi Pomerantz, MT., MCC, CEO of Innovative Leadership International LLC, has been recognized as one of America’s Top Executive Coaches for 2025 by Top Coach Awards.  According to their website, “Top Coach Awards celebrates the most impactful and influential coaches in America, recognizing those who have demonstrated exceptional client results, industry leadership, and a commitment to professional excellence.” 

“I don’t even know how to lead you guys right now” one of my clients recently told her team. Her government agency has been decimated by recent executive orders.

“How do we plan for the future, when each day is whiplash and quicksand?” another client contemplated how to create a roadmap and a structure when the world is in chaos.

These are unprecedented times, and leaders in public and private sector are struggling with new leadership challenges multiple times a day. The metaphor my executive leader clients are finding useful right now is that of the snow globe.

Aside…did you know the stuff that floats around inside a snow globe is called “flitter”?  I just learned this here.

We are in a double snow globe situation. Internally, our central nervous system and stress responses are one snow globe. The environment we are leading and living through is a macro-level snow globe. One we have no control over, the other we can learn to handle.

Externally, we have no control over the environment and circumstances in which we have been thrust. The macro-snowglobe is being shaken, dropped, tossed down the stairs, and repeatedly flipped and flopped so often, we have no chance of seeing through the flitter or getting that flitter to settle long enough to see the scene in front of us, let alone see through the snow globe to the other side in order to make a plan for the future. Too much is uncertain at the moment, too much is in flux. We are all just waiting for the giant snow globe of our environment to stop spinning and flipping and shaking.  If that weren’t  enough, this mega-snowglobe is on a roller coaster and we can’t do anything but hold on until the ride is over.

Internally, however, even though our inner snow globe gets disrupted every time the external one flips or flops, we actually have some control over what we do internally with our response to the upset. The list of things you used to do to calm yourself down in the past may not be enough now, or even the right things. Your job now as a leader is to manage your internal snow globe, and help those you lead to manage theirs. What can you do to settle your flitter? Make a list of activities and thoughts that you can turn to when you observe that your flitter is aflutter.  Consciously, intentionally build a few of those activities into your work day every day, so that you can create pockets of space within which to settle your flitter. Try it out and see if you are less exhausted at the end of each day.

As you know, not all coaches are created equal.  As an Executive Leadership Coach, my work is exclusively with leaders and senior executives in organizations and the customized focus of our work is typically in the domain of leadership and strategy. This is so very different from Life Coaching that it may as well be an entirely different field. However, whatever type of coach you are seeking to hire, it is important that you do your due diligence and make sure they are properly trained, certified, and credentialed. In other words, you want a professional coach, not an influencer or marketer (or huckster or shyster) masquerading as a coach for their own gain.  Rather than give you the red flags to watch out for, below are the top five green flags that let you know you’ve got a winner.

Here’s how you can tell if a coach is a professional coach.  Your coach will have all five of these green flags.

1.  Coach Specific Training Certification:  Your coach should have completed hundreds of hours of coach-specific training from an accredited coach training program. As one of the top 4% coaches in the world, my original coach training was a year long, over 200 hours of coaching education, and I earned my coaching certificate in April 1994.
2. Professional Supervision:  Your coach should always have a coach, a mentor, or a supervisor.  In many of the top training programs, supervision is baked in, and in the credentialing requirements, mentoring is included, but it’s also a point of integrity in my book.  In order to be the best at what I do, I have a mentor coach,  a mastermind group that serves as my personal board of directors, two peer coaches, and my own coach.
3. Continuing Education:  Your coach should always be learning and ideally will have hundreds of hours of continuing education to stay abreast of the latest technologies, methodologies, and trends in the field and profession of coaching. I’ve taken over 400 continuing education credits just in the course of continuing to renew my credential over the years.
4. International Ethical Standards:  The International Coach Federation (ICF) has established the ethical standards and code of conduct for our profession and professional coaches who have earned an ICF credential have demonstrated that they uphold and adhere to those ethical standards. I include a link to these standards in my agreement so my clients can see it.
5. International Credential: The ICF has three credentials coaches can earn –  the ACC is for associate level coaches, the PCC for professional level coaches, and the MCC for mastery level coaches.  As an MCC, I proved over 200 hours of coaching education, over 2500 hours of coaching experience, over 10 hours of mentor coaching, and my application was rigorously vetted by the credentialing committee.  I was granted an MCC in the first group of our profession, back in 1998 – I was the 35th one. As of the end of 2023, there were  only 2,204 MCC credential-holders in the world.

We all know folks who got laid off or are between gigs or who retired and then decided they’d “just be a coach”. We also know folks who figured they’d get rich quick by hanging out their shingle. Buyer beware.  Coaches who are not professional coaches can cause extensive and often  toxic damage to you, your team, your organization, and your community. Just because anybody can say they are a coach, doesn’t mean everybody should!

As an extra word of caution, please check out this video my colleagues Ann Betz and Ursula Pottinga made on the subject:

It was such an honor to be presented with the Lee Salmon Sustainable Leadership Award by my coaching colleagues. You can watch the video of the event and see photos of those who attended over at the Library of Professional Coaching.

More than 20 of the roughly 40 participants who dropped in and out during the ceremony from around the world spoke up regarding their connection to, and experience of Suzi. Below are written comments that were submitted by those who could not attend the celebration as well as the transcribed comments from those in attendance. Comments are from colleagues, clients, friends and family.  To watch the video of the zoom celebration, please visit the link above.

“A word about the Lee Salmon Sustainable leadership award: Suzi and many others here today remember Lee for helping us build the International Consortium for Coaching in Organizations (ICCO), as an unwavering board member, who truly believed in the transformative power of coaching. He passed away ten years ago. The award in his name was created to recognize the lifetime achievement of coaches like Suzi Pomerantz. People who guarantee the sustained continuity of our profession. People like Suzi, with her solid spiritual foundation (in other words, she has “done the work”), with profound caring for others’ success, and a contagious, collaborative generosity towards her colleagues of different generations and abilities. Lee would be very proud of the way we all came together today – as friends – in appreciation for the tireless and inspiring Suzi Pomerantz.” Agnes Mura

To see other awards Suzi has received, visit the Awards page of this site.

The comments celebrating Suzi Pomerantz’s receipt of the prestigious Gordon Lee Salmon Sustainable Leadership Award provide rich insights into her transformative impact as a leader. This award, presented by the Library of Professional Coaching, recognizes Suzi’s pioneering work in sustainable leadership development.

Colleagues’ Comments

Suzi – my fellow coach, cherished friend, and a source of constant inspiration to me and so many others. While I am sorry I cannot be part of today’s celebration, I am thrilled that you are being recognized for your leadership in the coaching profession over 3 plus decades. Your commitment to constantly elevating our profession, protecting its integrity, and promoting its power to transform leaders and the world has made you a more than worthy recipient of this honor.  With heartfelt admiration and deep gratitude, Margie Warrell

I remember very clearly when I met Suzi for the first time. it was maybe 20 years ago and I was a member of the Renaissance Executive Forums run by Lee Self. And Suzi came in as our subject matter expert and she did an exercise with the group. There were maybe 12 of us in the room, and she passed out a green cardboard sheet of paper and asked us to write our name at the top and then pass it to our right. And that person needed to write something they admired about that person and they passed it again and again and again and again. And when that card got back to me it had 11 or so comments from my colleagues and I’ll never forget how that made me feel. I didn’t realize what all these people thought about me as a friend and a contributor and a member of the group. and I feel probably Suzi you feel the same way today to hear all these wonderful things that people think about you. but I have to say I looked at myself in a different way after that meeting and I have that card to this day. it was the most impactful guest speaker in the five years I was a member. maybe I saw 50 or 60 subject matter experts and Suzi was by far the most impactful to me and so we’ve since continued being friends. I love Suzi and your family and I think your greatest gift is that you have a way to get people to see themselves for what they can be and not who they think of themselves as and that gap is in many cases very significant. I’ll never forget and I just want to thank you for having you help me see myself for what I could be, so thank you, Suzi. Mike Schmidtmann

Greetings and salutations, this is Dr. Willie Jolley, and I am honored to be a friend of Suzi Pomerantz, host of the Willie Jolley Show on SiriusXM and a few other things. We’ve been friends for over 20 years, and I’ve always been impressed with her depth of ethos, her depth of caring, and her wisdom for listening to somebody’s issue and situation and giving a solution to a problem that makes sense. So we’ve heard so many, so many people have said so many things. I want to make sure that I give a great shout-out to uh the kids. Y’all are blessed to have this Mom, and she loves you, and you love her, and y’all have grown up in our sight, and we’re so proud of you, as she is. So I will just give you this one thought: in the 1700s, there was a person who went from street lamp to street lamp, lighting the wicks of the candlesticks so there would be light along the path for the people who followed behind or came that way that evening. That person might not have been a celebrity, a household name, but you knew they had been that way by the light that they left. Suzi Pomerantz is a modern-day lamp lighter. We celebrate you, Suzi, we appreciate you, Suzi, and I know your Best Is Yet To Come. You’re just getting started, and we will probably come around some other time to have even greater acknowledgments about your great work. Bravo to you, bravo to you, bravo to you. Dr. Willie Jolley

Suzi Pomerantz is indeed a very special person and a true pioneer and leader. I am so delighted you are celebrating Suzi’s contributions and accomplishments, and we are lucky to have her in the coaching community! Warmest wishes.  Karlin Sloan

“Suzi was the first coach to welcome me to DC and she’s never stopped welcoming me.  Suzi is endlessly supportive of individual coaches, like me, of the coaching community, and of the coaching profession as a whole.  With her love, kindness, and support, Suzi embodies what it means to be a coach. Congratulations Suzi.  I love you” – Alison Whitmire  

“Suzi stands out in our coaching community as a leader and supporter for us all trying to make a difference in our world. Her consistent commitment to enlightening and developing the worldwide coaching community is awe-inspiring. She is always there to help. Her wisdom is deep. I am proud to be a colleague of Suzi Pomerantz.”  Marcia Reynolds, PsyD, MCC

We’ve moved Heaven and Earth, literally, to be here because we had an earthquake on my side of the world yesterday. I think it’s appropriate the heavens and the Earth is moving for Suzi today. Suzi, we are so honored. I mean everyone is saying it. You have the huge heart. You’re a caring and over-and-above friend. Just so present and such a warm safe space to land. Agnes, you said collaborative generosity. I think that that explains Suzi so well. And Suzi, I don’t remember when we met, and it’s actually a good thing, because a lot of times I meet people and it’s jarring – like something jarring occurred, but that means we infiltrated each other’s world in a smooth way and it grew – I’m sure we met at some ICF conference, but it grew through Conversation Among Masters conferences and then we had a little spicy few years as the Superpower Sisterhood that included a handful of women and some of them on this call and that was just such a blessing to me to get so much more time with you and the women that we hung out with. I was walking through the mall in the last month with another friend and out from the shelf yelled to me this journal that was purple with a dragon on it and I know purple and Dragons to be two of Suzi ‘s favorite things. So I looked up the significance of the color purple: royalty, nobility, luxury, and power. And Dragon’s known as supernatural power, wisdom, strength, and hidden knowledge. So, I find it just no mistake that those are two things that you’re attracted to on the planet at this time that just so embody so many of your qualities. And I just hope life is kind to you and we can all continue to be in each other’s company. Thank you for all you’ve done to make coaching have an imprint on this world and you certainly have one and we love you to pieces. Love you. Laura Berman Fortgang

I reiterate so much of what’s been said, it’s just been such a joy to sit and listen to all the beautiful things that you all have said about Suzi. And Suzi, I concur with every single one of those, so I’m going to talk about a couple of different things. One, I love that you’re getting the Lee Salmon award, and I went back and remembered the first time that we gave that award out, and it was in the backyard of Susanna (Zsuzsi) Isaacson’s house, and another great, you know, coach, who has left us. And I just got this image of you standing on the shoulders of both Lee and Susana, Suzi, you know, one foot on each of their shoulders, and you know, you are creating that kind of legacy that both of them did, and so many similar characteristics of generosity and deep love and care and competence. So I have a couple of quick stories, and I don’t think this has been mentioned very much, but Suzi, you are such an excellent presenter and facilitator and trainer, and I remember when I was in a short workshop you gave at ICF with a partner on marketing for coaches, and to this very day I used the model you shared with us with all my clients, and I recommend your book, ‘Seal the Deal’, often to them, and you just floated through that room like the goddess that you are and cast such a spell, and you know, had us all in the palm of your hands, and that is a moment in time that I will never forget, and I am sure you have replicated many, many times. The second thing is, you gave me the model of you can schedule your own professional life, and I am forever grateful for that, because I was locked into the Monday through Friday 9 to 5 thing, and you were the first person I ever knew who said, I don’t do that, I take Mondays and Fridays off, and that you had created a full-time coaching schedule on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays, so I have done the same thing and, it has meant so much to me through the years. And then finally, I just want to say that the coaching Mastermind group that you and I have been a part of for so many years, four of us met monthly, we called ourselves the Muses, has been such a joy in true collegiality through laughter and tears and diving deeply and sharing resources in ourselves and our struggles and triumphs with each other, it’s just been such a blessing in my life, and I love you just like everybody else on this call. Thank you for including me today.  Lynnette Yount 

Suzi, yeah I could talk for way too long, but I wanna say I agree with Bill that this should happen for everyone, and I am so… when I got the invitation I started to cry. It’s like, oh yes! This is exactly what’s wanted and needed at this particular juncture in life. So, there two things I want to talk to. When I first met Suzi it was like I wouldn’t say she wasn’t sure of herself, in fact there is this steel rod of confidence inside her, but from time to time she loses it and at that point you know she really needed a lot of people to say “no, you can do this. And it was so clear this is what she wanted to do. So, one of my favorite things in life has been watching her bloom and grow and become this major contributor on the planet. And you’ve all talked about that. There are two things I want to talk about though, and her mom mentioned it, but I want to mention it because I’ve watched her. I’ve been there for all the big – you know her marriage, the pregnancies, I was at your bris, Bryan (I’m sorry) holding you. And meeting her brothers a long, long time ago at various events and bar mitzvahs. The thing I most love about Suzi though, is her ability to be a peacock. Somebody told me once, I don’t know if it’s true, that peacocks eat poison and just get more be beautiful. She has a particular relationship with trials in life that I know she thinks she’s not going to get through, but on the other end of it she is more amazing. She’s used every piece of it to give away to other people. And I think that’s the center of her ability to coach so profoundly. She’s got this generosity and it’s just so much ingrained in her. If she gets anything she gives it away. If there’s any piece of knowledge or a client or a gift she can give somebody to boost them on their way, it’s just such a natural act for her. I have loved watching her be a mom and because that is the most precious joy to her. And she’s a very conscious mom, and even when things have been like “I don’t want to go through this” – there have been times, kids – she again has kind of grabbed onto it and used it to become a better person and better mom, a better giver. It really Suzi, it is a joy in my life to kind of go on this journey with you and to be an observer and a friend and a confidante and vice versa, so I really appreciate and have great gratitude for our relationship. Love you. Jackie Eiting

All right, Suzi, I’m gonna try my hardest not to break out into tears here. So before I speak to you, I want to speak to Bryan and Sammi. You know I speak to your mom almost weekly. Every call – like someone said – is always filled with tales of the two of you. and it really makes my heart happy today that you get to see how many people love your mom, and that you get a big moment to be proud of her, because she is so proud of the two of you. So it’s really wonderful to see you here. Suzi, I am so happy that I was able to be here for you today because you deserve all this love and it couldn’t come at a better time I think for you right now. With the common thing I’m really hearing from everybody besides you being their coach or your colleague or an advisor is that you’re everybody’s friend and that just comes from your great big heart and how much you care about people. and it shows up in almost everything you say and you do – that it’s always about other people and then it gets to be about you and I’m so excited that you’re going to enter a period of your life where it gets to be all about you — and your kids of course. and that really brings me joy. Although it’s a tough time you know during the process to get there. like what people said you’re generous, you’re a brilliant coach, you’re kind. Your intuition is amazing, and you care about the world in such a big way. I’ve been able to witness that and what I really have loved is over the years, what I hear consistently from you is that the way you want to make an impact is to help others make their impact in the world. and you’ve done that. I hear that from you and I’ve seen that from you and I appreciate that. and I appreciate your friendship. I appreciate your coaching when we do coaching together. And I just appreciate the human being you are. You are a model for all of us, I think, and you are an inspiration. So thank you so much for being in my life. Love you.  Renee Freedman

Suzi, so lovely to be invited into this room of people. Anywhere you are is “the room where it happens”. A few words, as I have had to leave. We met at ATCO conference in 2006 in Colorado. You were the star of the event as the trailblazer you are. Whatever you choose to do shows what a Trailblazer you are. This tribute to you is long deserved. Suzi, you are the real deal, as every person here can attest. I see you as the transformational person that you are. You transform the negative into positive because you are a Transformer, and you carry us all off to new perspectives because you are the Mystical Dragon. Great to see your kids as part of today, great to see the crowd of people, great to witness this today. Grateful to you, much love, Dorothy. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get a chance to say something today at your very beautiful celebration of you getting the Lee Salmon Award. You so deserve it. But I wanted to say Suzi, in a world of hype, you’re the real thing. In a world of loneliness, you’re a friend to people. Today is obvious. In a world of kind of pretense posturing, you’re the authentic, deep resource. In a world where people just say whatever, you speak the truth. You’re a truth-teller. And I think actually there’s so much about your goodness, but I want to say, you know, when I reflect on you, one of the things that you do is you do really transform darkness into light. You’re a darkness transformer, and that’s how you alchemically remove the poisons around you and lighten the burden for others. So I revere you. I admire you. I’m sorry I didn’t speak for you today. My Zoom things were not working. No signals were working. I don’t know why, but I have so much love and respect and admiration and can’t even tell you, and you deserve every piece of goodness. Mazel Tov, you are the mensch of not only the moment- of all moments, and you deserve today. And I hope you are sitting and absorbing and letting all of your telomeres kvell from the goodness you received. And your kids, they should just always be protected and reflect their love to you because they were so proud for you today. Appropriately so. Lots of love. Many thanks for somehow including me. It was an honor.”  Dorothy Siminovitch

“I just want to say a few words about my friend Suzi Pomerantz. Suzi was actually a student of mine at one point when I was at the University of Virginia at the Northern Virginia Center. I was teaching some classes there and she took several of them and we got to know each other after class, she would come and talk and we got to know a lot about each other and when I was getting ready to retire from that job and move on to my next career I mentioned it to Suzi and she said, “well, let’s get coffee and talk about it” so we met over at Tyson’s 2 – I’ll never forget it at the Starbucks over there, and she said to me “well, you know, what do you want to do, where are you now, what do you want to do?” kind of thing and she and she had said at the outset “you might want to think about becoming a coach because it plays to some of your strengths” and I kind of well you know what is that all about? She said, “well, let me coach you for a little bit, we’ll see, I’ll show you what it’s about rather than just tell you about it” and she did that. Asked me you know where I was, what I wanted to do, what were my values, and really coached me for about 20 minutes and she said, “what do you think?” and I said, “Gee, that was that was really good” and I decided at that moment to really look into the coaching, which I did and later became a coach and for18 years have been a coach and pretty successful at it – largely because of Suzi. Because that first two years I would call her up with all kinds of questions like, what do you do when a guy says this or somebody says that or what should I – how should I pursue this or that? She was always there, very generous with her time, because I think Suzi at her heart even though she’s technically a coach, she’s really I think, below the surface under-girding that is a teacher and I think that’s where she comes from – and a very generous one at that, so it’s my pleasure that she’s getting the Lee Salmon award. I’ve known – I knew Lee for some years, in fact he and I had offices in the same building, so I know his values and I know Suzi and it’s so appropriate that she’s getting this award now. I wish you nothing but the best, Suzi.” Steve Gladis, PhD.

I was thinking a bit about Suzi before the call and thinking what would I say. I’ve known this woman – I was trying to figure out when we met and it was at where I met a lot of you actually, which was at the Executive coaching Summit I think back in 2001, so 23 years ago. I’m like blown away because I am not that old. I remember meeting and the one thing I remember, the story I remember was we got to be almost instant friends and I remember walking out a door and looking at Suzi and saying, “I saw a picture of you on your website or something and it does not look like you and so I need to take a picture that looks like you” and I remember pulling out I don’t know if that time I had a phone or a digital camera but I took a photo and I remember you used that photo for a little while and I said this looks like you, you need to use this photo. So that’s my little personal story, but I just want to appreciate Suzi. We have been in touch I don’t know monthly for I can’t even remember how long yeah years and years and years as buddies and I just want to appreciate a few things. One is her incredible wisdom. She’s always been like one of the youngest coaches and but so far advanced for her age, number one. Always her intuition about people just the way she gets insights about things I’ve always appreciated her entrepreneurial spirit is like beyond just go go go go go all the time and finally and I’m so glad her kids are on the call I see her as an incredible so dedicated mother and caring for her family in such deep and wonderful way so those are things that stand out to me I wanted to go first one so I could just relax and listen to the rest of you not wonder about what I was going to say but also I didn’t want to have to think oh everybody already said those things what am I going to say so there you have it. Suzi I love you and I’m so glad to be here.  Ken Kesslin 

I can’t even remember when we met, I mean it’s been almost 20 years. Like we’ve, you know, kind of grown up together professionally. You’ve become one of my dearest friends and closest confidantes. It takes a long time to grow a deep relationship and that is something that we have had the time and the space to do and both personally and professionally not only through our Mastermind group that we are with Mike Schmidtmann’s on the call and we’re representing with Bill Cates and Willie Jolley and Zemira Jones we have a just an incredible Mastermind that has become such an important part I think of both of our lives, but beyond that Suzi you and I have had this opportunity to cultivate such a deep, deep connection and you know the way I go through life and in the world through my work has always been the commitment to wanting to create a safe space for others where people can come up for air Ram Dass is one of my all-time favorite teachers and that’s something that I embody a lot in my work but Suzi you are one of the most sacred spaces for me to come up for air right you’re who I go to so that I can come up for air you are the mirror that I need you’re that voice of wisdom you’re that voice of compassion and love. I know that you want nothing more than the best for me as I want for you, and so for me to come to you not only when things are wonderful in my life but when I’m in those really dark places you have been a Lifeline for me and you’ve been a voice of compassionate truth when I need to see the truth when I can’t see that and so you are just such a blessing in my life and I wouldn’t have missed this for the world and I’m so grateful that you are being honored this way because the world needs your light it needs your love it needs your light and it’s just been such an honor to be able to be alongside of you on the journey so far and I know that for both of us The Best Is Yet To Come and we will continue to be each other’s greatest cheerleaders you know as we move through this world so I just want you to know how much I love you and cherish you and honor you and appreciate you and how grateful I am that you are alongside of me on my journey.  Marissa Levin 

Thank you for inviting me. Thanks for having me here. This is going to be tough to top. I’m glad that I was third in line. Suzi and I are neighbors and I feel bad that even though we’ve known each other since 2005 or 2006 I think it was, we haven’t seen each other more than we have, but we kind of like evolve in different circles and more importantly I came way after you. You were already a coach for 20, 25 years when I came on the scene in 2005 and I met you at an ICF DC chapter conference and this was my first. I had just got you know trained maybe certified I don’t remember where I was in my path, I was really at the very beginning and I volunteered to do some exercise on stage and at some point I said that I was a young mom and a beginner coach and I was looking for other young moms coaches that would like to start a group together and lo and behold Suzi who’d been a coach for 25 years and probably by then already an MCC you know came and talked to me afterwards and said she’d love to be part of that group and so we created the Montgomery County Mom coaches so it was MC squared was the name of the group and we were all four five or six of us we were beginner coaches or you know at the very beginning of our path and Suzi was the only seasoned coach in the group and so what I want to tell you Suzi is that you I was blown away that you’d want to spend time with us like what did we have to contribute to you what did we why would you and you gave us so much wisdom and you shared with such generosity and you never looked down on us and you never treated us like you were Superior and we were inferior we were newbies and you weren’t experienced and it gave us such a gift to learn from you to learn from somebody who was so far ahead of us on the path both because you had so much to share and so much to teach us but also because you weren’t arrogant about it and it wasn’t like you were looking down at us in in our path and so this in and of itself was a lesson in coaching you know this equality and this non-superiority that you extended to us and this generosity that you extended to us and then I want to say you know we haven’t met on a super regular basis over the years again because I’m a life coach and I we don’t do exactly the same things but when we do we meet for our little coffees we have what I feel is a pretty intimate relationship and you help me with my okay I’m gonna say my shit and I think sometimes I’ve been there to help you with yours and I’ve listened to you and I’ve just always been just incredibly grateful that we have this thing and I know you have this I’ve always been a little jealous because you know you have this with you know 250 other people not just me but it made me feel special nonetheless to have to be blessed to have you in my life in my work life to have you to call every time you know and you’ve been again over the years just so generous introducing me to CAM and to other places and just always, always answering when I have any sort of question without any hesitation and any fear that that I’m going to steal from you or anything like this so I want to second also what Ken said which is like I cannot believe your the amount of work that you produce and what you give the world – the world of coaching you just never stop you never slow down you are an incredibly creative person you go everywhere you do everything for everyone so yes we’re all very the world of coaching the World At Large everybody on this call and myself we’re incredibly, incredibly lucky to have you, so glad to be here thank you.  Pascale Brady 

Oh my Suzi. So I’m trying to remember when we first met. It’s got to be at least 20 years ago at least and everywhere I went I was either invited by Suzi and or Suzi was a part of it: CAM, ICCO, the Library of Professional Coaching, she’s been on our editorial board forever, she’s my personal Guru for the business and she’s my personal – you are – I’m gonna just talk to you, Suzi. You’re there for me all the time. Like some others have said, I have no idea how you do it, but you have time for all of us when we have our highs when we have our lows you are there and we’ve shared a few of our own and one of my favorite stories though, and I have to say this is – she has this kind of thing for Disney, okay. So I still remember you, me and Wendy taking that monorail to go for dinner in Disney because we were not leaving Florida until Suzi went to Disney. The other absolutely beautiful thing (and this is for you two kids, I’m so glad to meet you) your mother talks about you all the time, how she’s so proud of who you’ve become, what you’re doing, how independent, smart – seriously I talk to your mom at least once every two weeks and there’s always something about the two of you. Suzi thank you for sharing and for everything, everything you’ve done for me for the coaching industry and for all of the people here who love you. Thank you.  Garry Schleifer 

Wow. Suzi! Look at this! This is amazing I’m really jealous too, Pascal is your neighbor? So you ought to be really happy that I’m not your neighbor because I’d be over your house every day. I’d be the neighbor looking through the windows trying to figure out if you hiding from me or not with that cup of coffee or something. But I only met Suzi a couple of years ago and I you know there just so many words that come to mind – intentional you know? She’s such a credible individual, she reaches out, she shares willingly, she’s so incredibly lovable, and it’s just like she’s just my girlfriend and — I’m actually her favorite – I hate to tell you all this it’s just gonna put it out there, just a little below the kids, because like everyone that said she loves you all there’s no way we’re not gonna love you both so we’re not gonna I’m not gonna try to usurp that that role but she’s really engaging. I love the time that we get to share where we say we’re going to have a cup of coffee and it turns to lunch and then you know we’re closing down the restaurant before they have to get ready for dinner. She creates these incredible – someone said Sacred Space. I thought that was such a good way to describe who she is. I love the fact that the way that she is someone also said like being family-focused, and she is like a big huge hug. She’s like a giant hug. When I see her I can just exhale all over her. She brings you in and makes you feel human and normal and that it’s okay to not have all your crap together, right? You know – I know in front of the whole world we try to make everyone feel like we have it all together and we’re you know we’re killing it on the scene, but behind the scenes we don’t have anyone to — no shoulder to cry on and no one to you know help pull us together and I just love being able to come to Suzi with my Humanity and she receives it without judgment. She is truly someone who is a mile wide and a mile deep and I am so grateful to have you in in my life and I look forward to our future coffee conversations to hear more of your wisdom. So just congratulations on this, it is so, so deserved. I’m so proud of you.  Pam Green

By the way, part of the reason for convening this today and the ones we’ve done is what a tragedy it is that all this comes at our funerals, and most of us ain’t around to hear what’s being said. I think, and what a blessing it is to hear of this love now, not later. One of the things that’s interesting is that the award has usually been given out with a sort of display that’s been often underplayed, you know, just kind of glass that you see through. And especially with Jeannine, it became clear that Suzi needed something that was just reaching out, that was filled with color, filled with the vibrance and excitement. Suzi, I’m not going to say words here that everyone else has said, but just there is that vibrance that Jeannine captured. There is that silliness, by the way. I mean, you can be downright silly, and I just love what Jeannine put together in that box. That box is just outrageous. And my dear, loving friend, you are outrageous and wonderful and very, very special in my life. And I, as a Scandinavian, I’m sitting here tearing up, which is supposed to be impossible for us. So, thank you, my dear. I’m wondering if this is a good time to bid farewell. What more, and what better, can be said than by our dear, dear, beloved Suzi Pomerantz? Suzi, you have done it, my dear friend, and I hear people saying that you’re going to do it even more in the future., I’m glad you all came, and we will be honoring other people in this profession in the future. And on behalf of Lee Salmon, it’s an important field, this thing called professional coaching, and I think the backbone of it has something to do with appreciation and love and respect. And this event today, and the other Lee Salmon award ceremonies we’ve had, I hope are aligned with that spirit that comes with the Lee Salmon award.  Dr. Bill Bergquist

Clients’ Comments

“My gratitude for Suzi: Suzi is a force. I would not be where I am today as a leader without her coaching and care. We met during an accelerator at a point where I was struggling. Then COVID hit. Through the ups and downs of rising to meet the needs of COVID, navigating organizational growth, and reckoning with the type of leader I wanted/want to be, Suzi was a source of insight, perspective, and compassion. She was a partner in looking at sticky situations, providing tools that helped me unstick myself and thus the organization. I am forever grateful for Suzi and am thrilled that her work is being acknowledged with this award. I only wish I could be there in person to give her a huge hug – something that despite working together for years, we’ve never done! Suzi, thank you from the bottom of my heart for being you and being in my life.” Jaime-Alexis Fowler

For the past 13 years, Suzi has not just been my Executive Coach, she’s been my voice of reason, my shoulder, my lens of clarity, and my friend.  She’s helped me through dark times, helped me see myself in a new and more forgiving way, and she’s helped shape the way I think, interact, support, and lead.  I’m grateful for her wisdom and knowledge, but mostly for her support and kindness.  Suzi is incredibly deserving of this award, and I’m so thankful that she made her way into my life, as she changed it for the better, and helped drive it down a better path.  Congratulations to Suzi!  Jen Levithan

It is not surprising to me in any way that Suzi Pomerantz is being given this award, which I guess says something in and of itself. Her work with me helped me to find a path to thriving during a time in which, although it looked to the outside world that I was thriving, I was really only barely surviving. She was my coach, my cheerleader, and my friend equally. The reverberations of her sessions with me still vibrate in the threads of my life. Congratulations, Suzi! — Kellee Santiago

“Suzi’s unique blend of empathy, expertise, and intuitive understanding of human and organizational dynamics does more than just make her a great coach: it makes her a trusted confidant, a collaborator, and with a healthy dose of her mischievousness, a humorous co-conspirator. She can reframe any discussion within the grand arc of the human experience, and then laugh together at the absurdity of our ambitions. It’s disarming. She penetrates conceits, and helps us build on a foundation of our true selves. It has been a sincere privilege to have been a fellow traveler, and I offer her my admiration and gratitude.”   Chris Lunt

“Beyond a brilliant coach, Suzi is a cheerleader – as in this game of life you need both. Suzi is one of the most generous and kind people I know, and her heart shines through in every interaction. I admire (and adore) her uncanny ability to wrap her advice in amazing visual metaphors that stay with you long after the conversation has ended. Her guidance is never generic; it’s always profoundly thoughtful and meticulously tailored to your unique situation. Suzi’s impact on my life is immeasurable, and I am deeply grateful for her wisdom, support, and friendship. She deserves ALL the awards, and I am so glad that today she is presented with this one.”  Yana Buhrer Tavanier

Suzi, it has been so fun. That’s my call right there, to become great with Suzi on the phone. God, thank you so much for this invitation. I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. I’m actually – my son’s a collegiate golfer, I’m at a golf tournament right now, so I appreciate the break, because they’re making us walk 36 holes today. so I appreciate the time that I get to come into the clubhouse and just be with you and tell you how awesome you are and how I have such immense admiration and gratitude to you. You personally have profoundly impacted my life, my career. I have kids the same age as Suz – a boy and a girl – and so she has helped me walk that journey which hasn’t always been so fun. It’s been challenging and wonderful all at the same time, so I thank you for that. But you really have transformed me. The trajectory of my life and my career has – it wouldn’t be the same without you in my life. And we’ve known each other forever. I remember when I had an opportunity to choose my coach and you were the first one I called and your response back to me was “have you interviewed anyone else?” and I said “no I haven’t but I feel a connection” and you said “go interview someone else” and I did and I didn’t even make the full hour on either of the other two calls because I knew firmly like you were you were my person that I had to be with. You’ve become more than a coach to me, you’re a friend, you’re a trusted adviser. And just to let you know how impactful you have been in my life truly. I’m so blessed to have you in my circle of friends and in my life as a coach. So thank you for that. Thank you.  Laurie McClintock

For those of you who don’t know me, you will be surprised that I am somewhat succinct in my comments. Hey as somebody who filibusters for a living. A very famous presidential speechwriter once said, “big things are best said with small words.” So, thank you. Thank you for all you do. Thank you for always being there.  Michael Robinson

So first, let me take a moment and express deep gratitude to Maureen and William and The Professional School of Psychology. This is incredible, and I’m truly grateful that y’all have taken this moment to recognize this amazing human being. Also, quick shout out — thank you — immense amount of gratitude to Renee for connecting Suzi and I so many years ago. Now. Truly nothing but immense gratitude to you, Suzi. There are those individuals in your life who you can say unabashedly, without thinking twice, that they had an impact on you and changed the entire course of your life. I hear a lot of that in this in this room and truly I can say Suzi is one of those people for me. In my professional life, in my career, in my personal life, in all those times in my marriage where my wife has said “thank God you talked to Suzi”. And into me becoming a parent and having this wonderful little toddler around. The conversations we have had, the reflections you have shared back with me, the moments you have helped me think through and dig into some of the most complex and challenging things I’ve ever faced, and helped me — helped guide me to the place where I had the courage to do what was right, the ability to stand up and truly without hesitation stand up for the people that are with me, that are beside me, that are working alongside me, that are working for me. The just the true centering and space from which I operate gives me the ability to always come back to the conversations we’ve shared the lessons you’ve taught me, the mentorship, the coaching, everything. Like, truly my life is better for having known you, and always will be. I mean, there are so many things I could say but I think I can say nothing deeper than that. That truly – I am blessed, and I am so eternally grateful for the incredible person you are, for how giving you are, for all the work that you do in the world. It matters in so many ways. And there like I know we’re all on this call and so many of us have had our lives impacted by your incredible work. What we don’t see are all of the millions of network nodes and connections that are all impacted by the change you have had on our lives, and the way that your incredible work, your incredible heart, your deep spirituality and wisdom impacts not just the people you talk to but everybody around you, and everybody throughout the world. Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything, truly. I can say nothing more than thank you from the deepest bottom of my heart and through my soul. David Kanter 

Friends’ and Family Comments

So, I’m kind of a Suzi newbie, I’ve only known her maybe a year and a half, two years. I met her through a friend’s party, Shawn Adler, on the phone, and what’s remarkable to me is how the same person that I know from fun drinks at a pool party is the same person you all know through all the different experiences, that all the different ways in which you’ve encountered her. It’s the same wonderful, multi-dimensional, spiritual, compassionate, insightful person. Over gin, somehow in five seconds, we were talking about God and Heaven and the life after death, and I’m like, ‘oh, this is the kind of person I want to hang out with more.’ So you know, we, we kind of stuck it out. But what’s also occurring to me is the echoes of that authentic person that she is, echoing in everyone here. This is a truthful moment, this moment is real. The moments when you second guess yourself and you doubt yourself and you wonder, ‘what should I, should I have not?’ Those are the voices that are leading you astray. The voices now, here, this is true. And I just saw ‘The Prince of Egypt’ the other day. If any of you celebrate Easter or Passover, please watch that film. That song, ‘Through Heaven’s Eyes,’ – how we really lack the capability to truly see ourselves and what we’re worth and what we mean. But in a moment like this, you’re getting that rare opportunity to see yourself through Heaven’s eyes. The love, the honesty, the beauty present in this space is a reflection of the truth of who you are. So thank you, Suzi.  Dave Boulet 

Hello, thank you everybody for being here to support my mom. We’re both really appreciative about it and mom we’re really, really so proud of you and thankful for everything you’ve done for us and we love you so much.    Bryan Pomerantz

I just wanted to say thank you thank you thank you to everyone who’s here it’s so wonderful to see all your faces and to put names to faces that we’ve been hearing about for years it’s so wonderful and I know you’re all a big part of our mom’s life and you really make a difference for her so, so thank you.  Samanatha Pomerantz 

So, I didn’t know if I could be here today and that’s part of the reason that I didn’t send in anything, but it’s probably just as well that I didn’t. And in listening to everything that everyone has been saying I could repeat it all but there are moments in your life where you turn around and you look back and you go that’s when everything changed, that’s when I went on this course and when I started to get to where I am now was when I was in the middle of a really froofy, very ugly sorority house at the University of Virginia and surrounded by froofy sorority girls and this random person walks across the room, breaks into the circle and starts talking with her hands, and I thought I like this girl alright, maybe I’ll come back. and then it rained the next night and I didn’t go anywhere and I gave up, and then I saw her again in a class from afar and then I saw her again in another class from afar and then we were both in the Ed school together in the summer of 1988 and we introduced ourselves to each other and that was it. Best friends ever since, ever since. Suzi brought me two brothers, sometimes I like them, sometimes I don’t, two lovely children who I get to dote on and care about and see do amazing things and a whole family, because what Suzi did was include me in her entire life and that’s not something that everyone does or everyone can do, but she’s generous and she’s kind and she’s thoughtful and she’s warm, she’s too empathetic for her own good and not selfish enough, but she is good at the things she’s good at because of who she deeply is and I’m incredibly lucky to have Suzi as a friend and consider her one of my two closest friends in the world, it doesn’t get better than that. So, thank you for everything that you’ve done, thank you for everything that you’ll do, thank you for being my friend, thank you for taking care of Skylar, and I look forward to seeing you sooner than later. I love you.  Dani Bratton 

“Suzi and I raise kids together and share life events as family.  She has always been my beautiful, steadfast, accepting, loving, giving human on every level.  I feel so fortunate to have met her almost 20 years ago and continue to feel grateful for the time we spent together.  Can’t want to see what the next 20 years and beyond look like together as family, as memory keepers.” Lori Marshall

“Suzi is a dear friend and we have shared so many wonderful conversations, meals and much more over two decades.Suzi has always been a gentle and keen listener and has helped me tremendously in my personal and professional journey. I always look up to her and admire her willingness to offer unconditional support, and I appreciate her insightful approach to resolving issues without any judgement. Suzi deserves this recognition more than anyone else I know.” Padma Ayyagari

  I might have the distinguished honor of being the person who’s known Suzi the longest on this call. One of. I’m among good company, for sure. I can certainly say I knew you when — before you became a coach, and when you became a coach. I remember when you became a coach and I remember it was right after the Forum. You decided you were going to be serious about it, and I remember you and your – you know the Rockville apartment and you said I’m going to do this. And I’m like, what’s coaching, right? it’s like 1993 you know . Suz, I know we haven’t – we’ve have had our parallel lives and we sort of intersect you know once in a while, and I’m going to cry. I just love you. I just love you. Wow. You know from first moment we met, you know there was that instant chemistry, that instant connection. You are a giver and you’re full of love and that’s evidenced by all of the incredible followers you have and friends and encouragers on this call. It’s such a beautiful thing to see you know? Suz, after all these years? Look at look. Look at this. Like look at this. Amazing. It’s amazing, and I just want to see you more thank you for inviting me here, you’re just a precious joy to the world and to me and I just thank you for who you are. Yeah love you. Shira Lotzar

I too will get a little a little weepy, because I’ve known. I’ve known about the empathy, about the caring for a very long time now, and it is such, I’m sorry, it’s so wonderful to hear all of you – you know I’ve heard about a lot of you, because we talk a lot and she’s got she has so many people in her life who she cares about, but you know I just have to say that that I knew that Suzi was great at what she did because I had the opportunity (I knew it anyway) but I had the opportunity once to actually sit in on a little bit of a coaching session and I watched her come up with thoughts and suggestions well thoughts and suggestions that I that nobody in the room had thought of and we were all looking at each other saying how does how does she do that? And so I asked her about it afterwards and I figured well you know it’s part of it’s the empathy and she said she said you know I just feel like I’m channeling something. Well I knew she had learned a lot. She had learned a lot from colleagues, she had learned in other ways, but I think part of part of what makes her this kind of special is we all know the warm fuzzy part that we love and that helps her understand people, but she also has the ability to step back and to look at a situation and understand an organism, whether it’s a person or it’s a business and figure out what it needs. What would help it function better? And to be able to connect and express that and I think that’s an amazing combination of factors. Yeah. And you know I love you. Also a wonderful mother and friend and relative and everything else. Love you, babe.  Bethany Silberfarb

“My husband, myself, and a dear friend were all driving to a friend’s wedding at Lake Anna about 15 years ago.  The entire trip, they were raving about a fellow coach, Suzi Pomerantz.  And finally, I was going to get to meet her.  I’m pretty sure I went up to her and said “so you are the great, amazing coach, Suzi.  I have heard about you for years. I had a lovely time at the wedding and Suzi and I bonded nicely and decided to meet for coffee monthly, which we did for years.  Not only was she a special treasured friend, but she always asked me about my business and then proceeded to give me brilliant ideas that always made an enormous positive difference.  I definitely got to see why my husband and friend bragged about her all the time.  I got on the Suzi, Coach extraordinaire bandwagon easily, in addition to my very special relationship as “friend”.  Suzi, I just want to tell you how blown away I was. I mean, I always knew you were very terrific and I know people loved and admired you, but oh my God, oh my God! How touching, how moving, how inspiring, how amazing you are, just amazing! It was just it was an honor to be there, I wrote something in the comments because I didn’t know if I would speak and since I wrote something I decided not to speak, anyway it was just fantastic. Congratulations you were absolutely amazing. And you have a support system unlike anything I’ve ever seen. So, I hope your life just gets – I hope it just goes on an upward shot now, you know. So I love you and congratulations I am so so proud of you.” Bev Nerenberg

I’m hoping I can say a few words, Right, I raised my hand on this, but I think it’s a picnic, which means the problem is in the chair, not in the computer, so I apologize for that. But, Alex and I are Suzi’s aunt and uncle, and of course, you know, when, when we talk about, and everybody has said how long they’ve known her and how long since they’ve met her, we’ve known Suzi since she was a couple of days old, and have had the pleasure, honestly, of seeing, this adorable, wonderful baby grow into an inquisitive, loving, responsible, caring, and intelligent child, teenager, adult woman, mother, old lady, no, not old lady, we’re in our 70s, so you’re not anywhere close to an old lady, but the Suzi that we knew as a child and a teenager and a young adult, and has grown into a professional woman, her own company, driven, loving, really high emotional intelligence, and that everybody has seen in you what we’ve known and seen in you all along. But Suzi, my message, I guess, and our message, life is a journey, it’s not the destination, and we all go through different times of being up and being down and being up again, and it’s like hills and valleys in life. you’re so brilliant in so many ways, and you just need to hear the strength from everyone that has spoken, and some that have sent messages that have not necessarily spoken, and get that strength, because we all go through times when we doubt ourselves, but you are loved and known for who you are, know it and count on the people around you that have spoken to be there when you need to touch base, because you’re more brilliant than you know you are at all times. And congratulations, I agree with a couple of people that said it, it’s only when you go through life that you, you hear these things that they are the most important to you, because there are the things that count, because now you’re hearing from so many people that you’re not quite sure what they think of you, you think you know it, but to hear it and have it documented by voice or by letter means a lot. So congratulations. Love you. Ditto from me, she speaks for me, so I throw a few words in there.  Lisa & Alex Spector 

AI-written Themes and Summary:

Unleash Your Leadership Potential with Sustainable Leadership Coaching from Suzi Pomerantz

For senior executives seeking to drive sustainable, systemic change in their organizations, Suzi Pomerantz is a rare find – a leadership coach who seamlessly blends principled, people-centric values with a proven track record of impactful results.

Suzi’s recent recognition with the prestigious Gordon Lee Salmon Sustainable Leadership Award, presented by the Library of Professional Coaching, underscores the powerful impact she has on the leaders and teams she works with.

What sets Suzi apart is her ability to help executives develop the mindsets, behaviors, and capabilities required for 21st century leadership. Rather than focusing narrowly on tactical skills, she cultivates sustainable, values-driven approaches that lead to lasting transformation.

Key advantages of working with Suzi Pomerantz as your leadership coach:

Principled Inspiration – Suzi’s unwavering integrity, empathy, and passion inspires those around her to raise their own standards of leadership. She leads by powerful example.

Collaborative Empowerment – Suzi is praised for her generous, non-hierarchical approach, empowering executives to grow through shared learning and mutual support.

Catalytic Organizational Impact – Suzi’s work has a multiplier effect, positively influencing not just individual leaders but entire teams, departments, and enterprises.

Sustainable Mindset Growth – By blending technical expertise with deep personal insights, Suzi helps executives embed sustainable shifts into the core of how they lead.

For senior leaders seeking to future-proof their organizations, there are few coaches who can rival Suzi Pomerantz’s ability to unlock sustainable, purpose-driven leadership. Her pioneering approach is an invaluable asset in today’s volatile, complex business environment.

Invest in your leadership – and your legacy – by partnering with Suzi Pomerantz.

Competition and collaboration are two sides of the same coin, both are a critical part of business success. Leaders must effectively integrate both to get ahead in the disruptive global economy we exist in today. To that point, I was a guest on the Vanguard conversation series sharing a case study about how the DuPont Legal Model integrated the tensions of presence between competition and collaboration.  The video of that conversation is below. Scroll down for the transcript, if you aren’t able to watch the video. Or you can listen to it as a podcast on the Apple Podcast App or online here: Innovative Influence with Suzi Pomerantz

InviteCHANGE hosts a series of Vanguard conversations that are open to the public and they describe it as:

“Leaders at the vanguard of ideas and change inspire us to loosen our grip on the comfortable status quo, in favor of exploring new possibilities that better align with the altering patterns of our personal and professional lives. As we shape a world where people love their life’s work, this live conversation series showcases global leaders who embody the curiosity and discernment that stimulates a new relationship with change.

Join CEO of inviteCHANGE, Janet M. Harvey, MCC, and her co-host, CEO of Choice Magazine, Garry Schleifer, PCC, with their guest, CEO of Innovative Leadership International, Suzi Pomerantz, MCC. Explore the idea of being comfortable with the tension that exists between Competition and Collaboration.”

Janet M. Harvey (she/her): Well, welcome everybody to the 2023 Vanguard Conversation series. I’m Janet M. Harvey CEO, of invite change, and please join me in expressing a special thank you to our Co-Host and sponsor choice magazine founder and publishing editor, Garry Scleifer.

Garry: Yay, thank you very much. Recent issue healthcare coaching. Read it, even if you’re not in the healthcare industry. It is a great issue.

Janet: You did a fabulous job of curating the authors. I have read every single article really, really enjoyed this one. It’s fun to take a a deep dive into a vertical industry that way.

hmm! Maybe that’s an idea of her future issues. anyway. So what are we doing here at Vanguard each of the episodes. This year we’ve brought a different is inspirational, global, visionary leader to join us and exploring a thorny problem they faced and how they navigated it. Part of what we’re doing. And you see this in the instrument that we gave you, and I think it will be posted here in chat shortly.

Janet M. Harvey (she/her): The tensions of presence method was something that I started to notice with leaders that the thornier the problem, the deeper they needed to be in reflection.

Janet M. Harvey (she/her): and I know deeper is kind of a tough word what the heck does that mean? Behaviorally? So part of what we’re doing here is maybe looking underneath a bit to say.

Janet M. Harvey (she/her): what is this skill set of self reflection about what’s actually occurring? Not what we think or what we assume, or what we prefer, or maybe historically have accepted is occurring

Janet M. Harvey (she/her): right? We all like shortcuts in business, because time is money, and sometimes that backfires that we need to pull back for a little perspective and dig a little deeper into some of the reasons and the root causes that our biases shown up. And we’re not really understanding the whole story

Janet M. Harvey (she/her): which goes to boy, aren’t we working in

Janet M. Harvey (she/her): unprecedented times? We are absolutely feeling disrupted every time we turn around. And

Janet M. Harvey (she/her): that’s actually not a reason to go faster. It’s a reason to go a little slower and to spend some quality time and the emotional courage necessary to say, I don’t have all the answers.

Janet M. Harvey (she/her): and want to lean into the people who have been involved in this, who might see it from a slightly different perspective. And this is the beginning of collaboration, which yes, this is what we’re talking about today, competition and collaboration. But before we go there I want to turn it over to Garry, who will also share a few thoughts and introduce our global visionary leader for today.

Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): Well, thank you, Janet, as we’ve mentioned, vanguard is

Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): means many things. But to us, being at the forefront of ideas that are emerging, so we can proactively disrupt our thinking. Remember that proactively. I have a note up here, and it says, be provocative and bold, and I’m going to add provocative.

Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): One of the easy ways to think about how we don’t act or think that way is in a tradition of Thanksgiving

Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): turkey and cranberry sauce. So those of you that know American traditions? That’s one of them. So what’s turkey without cranberry sauce. Well, our conversation focuses on our experience of life today rather than a theory, an outcome, a process, or a promotion to provide, to buy anything. We invite you to transform

Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): your process of listening

Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): to getting something, to giving yourself an opportunity to experiment and learn through practical application that is relevant to your life.
Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): My goodness, what can we say about Suzi? So thank you for throw tossing over to me, cause I was, gonna say.

Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): Suzi Pomerantz.

Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): dear, dear friend known, for II don’t know. What did we say the other day at least 20 years

Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): the co-creator of the library of professional coaching, one of the very first master certified coaches in our profession.
Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): Oh, my gosh! I don’t know. I just get chills thinking about her. She’s a dear friend. We do everything that we can together. She’s on the editorial board of Choice magazine. She’s our strategic advisor. She is. What else? Hold on! There’s one more.

Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): She’s the writer of our sticky situations. She’s one of the people that weighs in on the sticky situations in every episode issue of choice. What else would you like us to add, Suzi.

Suzi: that I’m just honored and excited to be invited to be here with you guys and get to play with you.
Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): We are, too. I can’t tell you when we, when we had you, you were Number one on our list of people, and we’re glad we could match you with this tension of presence. And you have a great story coming up, and I can’t wait.

Suzi Pomerantz: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. This this tensions of presences really near and dear to my heart, because we’re looking at going from competition to collaboration. And I’ve had my coaching business for 30 years now.

Suzi Pomerantz: and in the beginning I worked predominantly with lawyers, and lawyers in America are probably the most competitive. I mean, next to professional athletes. Right? So they breathe competition.

Suzi Pomerantz: And the story I’m gonna share with you is about the business driven necessity

Suzi Pomerantz: for lawyers at one of America’s oldest corporations to actually become collaborative. And this happened back in the mid nineties. In the early 19 nineties the chairman of the Board of Dupont. The Chemical Company challenged the company to cut a billion dollars 1 billion with a B in operating costs. They wanted to cut a billion in operating costs hard to get our brains around that those of us that are small businesses.

Suzi Pomerantz: But at the time I was coaching leaders in the law department there, and the law Department was

Suzi Pomerantz: committed to doing their part to contribute to this 1 billion dollar challenge. And they realized when they started looking at the practice of law inside this corporation, that they were gonna have to change their thinking.

Suzi Pomerantz: just to set a little context kind of the way in the past Dupont had operated was

Suzi Pomerantz: kind of a steady, predictable pace in a contained marketplace, and what they found in the early to mid 19 nineties is that they had to create some really profound transformational paradigm shifts because

Suzi Pomerantz: they had to deal with. Suddenly this fast paced, interconnected global economy that was

Suzi Pomerantz: rapidly increasing their legal costs. So let me give you some numbers to make this a little more real.

Suzi Pomerantz: So at the time when they started evaluating and assessing how they were doing the practice of law, and what would need to change, and what change might look like.

Suzi Pomerantz: They had over 6,000 legal cases on their docket. So 6,000 lawsuits and they were spending in in that year that they looked at it. 97 million dollars on lawsuits and the cycle time of these lawsuits

Suzi Pomerantz: from filing to resolution was taking them about 40 months, 39 to 40 months. It was a long cycle time.

Suzi Pomerantz: and they had they had been working with. In addition to their Internal law department. They had over 350 external law firms providing legal services to them, and what they realized all of this was

Suzi Pomerantz: they. They they really couldn’t afford as a company to be working with and paying 300 law firms. And something had to change if they were gonna cut costs.

They did this analysis. And they looked at the fact that 90% of their cases were settling. However. 80% of their litigation costs were spent in the discovery phase. So

Suzi Pomerantz: for those of you like me who are not lawyers, the discovery phases, all of the data sharing all of the document, sharing all of the research, all of the

Suzi Pomerantz: You give us everything you have. We’ll give you everything we have, and we gotta learn each other’s stuff before we can go to court. So that’s the discovery phase. So if they were spending 80% of their litigation costs 80% of this 97 million dollars is being spent in discovery. They started to analyze. Well, what? Why, right? That’s yes, that’s

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): done it. But what are the underlying beliefs and principles and values that got us here.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): Was there something, Janet? You wanted to know? Exactly. That’s exactly. I mean, that’s the heart of it. Right? Don’t don’t keep doing the same old thing.

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Suzi Pomerantz: Yeah. And they discovered a number of things actually,

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Suzi Pomerantz: but one of the main discoveries in that was that

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Suzi Pomerantz: instead of being focused on the practice of law and trying to be super thorough in analyzing and researching all this discovery material and

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Suzi Pomerantz: trying to avoid risk and trying to win each case as if it were a bet. The company kind of a case. They realized, maybe we can be more strategic here, and maybe we can step back and look at it from a more global perspective. And maybe there’s other ways to think about this that will help us to reduce the outside, because we’re not necessarily

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Suzi Pomerantz: focusing on the whole in terms of the practice of law for Dupont we are focused on winning each case at all costs, and that’s costing us time, money, etc.

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Suzi Pomerantz: So how do we get from the competition to collaboration? So here’s here’s what they did. They. They created something called the Dupont legal model. And I mean, if you Google it today, there’s still tons of stuff about it, because it was completely transformational in the field of law. At the time. This Dupont legal model basically turned turned the practice of law on its head. And instead of it being

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Suzi Pomerantz: just a corporate law department that works with over 300 external law firms, they started to say, Okay, what if we create something in the spirit of partnership. What would that look like? What if we reduced our number of outside law firms.

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Suzi Pomerantz: but did it with specific criteria, and made it like a competition where the outside law firms had to get aligned with us in our thinking and in our values, and they had to put their money where their mouth is in order to play with us and get to be our law firms, and

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Suzi Pomerantz: would that work? Would they be willing to do that?

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Suzi Pomerantz: So this convergence they called it convergence. This convergence process took about a year, and what they ended up doing was coming together with like 34 different primary law firms. They called them primary law firms, and what was really fun as a coach in this was to get to see that the primary law firms, you know, they had

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Suzi Pomerantz: for each one. They had, like an engagement partner for each of these 34 primary law firms that were selected, and they all had to be aligned around certain core principles like they wanted, Dupont said. We want these primary law firms to

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Suzi Pomerantz: to value diversity more. We want we wanna increase the hiring of diverse legal staff to represent our cases. We wanna retain and have more contributions from women and

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Suzi Pomerantz: underrepresented groups. And that’s gonna be important to us. So if you’re just giving us the same old white men on every case, we’re not gonna be counting you as one of our primary law firms, and this created a scramble in the law firm side of how side of the house

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Suzi Pomerantz: the law firms realized. Hey, we haven’t been hiring for this. We’ve been hiring people who

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Suzi Pomerantz: remind us of our most successful partners, so we’ve got a lot of old white dudes, and maybe some white women who kind of remind us of our our sisters and mothers. Right? So this was a big on the law firm side, which, as a coach, you get to hear these kinds of things.

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Suzi Pomerantz: Which was really kind of the fun part for me was was being being able to witness all of this transformation unfolding as they thought, through it.

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Suzi Pomerantz: So there were. These were the elements. They had to have diverse staffing. They had to embrace technology. The law firms that served with coupon had to embrace technology because they were gonna create a wide area network that everybody was linked on that Dupont and the law firms that were in this primary law firm group were all linked together through technology using the same technology. So the law firms were gonna have to spend money to do that

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Suzi Pomerantz: which was unheard of at the time. You know. Wh. This was not a marketing budget. This is not taking your client to a ball game to get the business. This is now you have to transform how you practice law to work with this client

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Suzi Pomerantz: strategic partnering. It was based on mutual trust. It was based on sharing the risk and reward collaborating in service of the client. This was a stated objective right? You competitive lawyers will collaborate on our behalf. Really bold for a corporation to say that kind of thing.

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Suzi Pomerantz: And have to. This was the piece that was really interesting to me. Everyone who who came into this Dupont legal model had to commit to each other’s financial success.

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Suzi Pomerantz: That means not just the law firms committing to Dupont financial success, not just Dupont committing to the law firms financial success. But these competitor law firms committing to each other’s financial success very interesting belief or philosophy that had to be implemented to be part of this conversions. The other piece was early case assessments. So really doing this kind of analysis of the case, like, how thorough do we really need to be?

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Suzi Pomerantz: Looking at alternative fees, doing value based billing as opposed to just the hourly billing that they always do doing some strategic budgeting, but really shifting from being like an order taker, legal provider to

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Suzi Pomerantz: a business focused business driven case management partner with the client and with these other law firms. So let me pause there and see if there’s questions on kind of what that premise was. Cause. There’s a lot of moving parts in there.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): Well, and really a dramatic transformation, and how they thought about the business and definitely competition and collaboration. And I’m curious, you know, as a coach you have an insider’s view.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): What were some of the beliefs that were coming up. and

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): preferences, perhaps maybe some biases that were prevalent in the senior partners who had to sign off on changing these criteria and be able to, you know, stand confidently to say, you will make this investment, and it will be good for you. You’ll like it.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): What did they have to change in themselves in order to even pitch this to the partners at the outside law firm.

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Suzi Pomerantz: Yeah, I mean the the belief that

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Suzi Pomerantz: every case is worth taking to, you know, all the way through trying to get to settlement, but going in lawsuit to get to settlement. The the fact they had to. They had beliefs about

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Suzi Pomerantz: that. Lawyers wouldn’t

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Suzi Pomerantz: want to collaborate because of their competitive nature, so they had to let go of that. They had beliefs that these outside law firms wouldn’t want to spend money on technology.

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Suzi Pomerantz: They were there, were you? One of the habits was clearly the, you know. Everybody looked the same. There was not much diversity representing these cases. So it was really

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Suzi Pomerantz: it. It was the kind of thing where it was bold, and that it created a lot of grumbling on the part of

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Suzi Pomerantz: these 300 law firms that had something to lose and not, you know, if they weren’t willing to transform their entire law firm to work in this way with this one client.

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Suzi Pomerantz: But there was also the ones that did come on board

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Suzi Pomerantz: were able to shift to a belief that if this works for this client. this might give us an edge with other clients.

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Suzi Pomerantz: Wow! So it becomes an innovation by collaborating and not competing exactly exactly.

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Suzi Pomerantz: There was a quote in. So there was a book that got produced here. And if you guys can see this legal model a New Year. This was reproduced in the

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Suzi Pomerantz: Oh, I don’t know. I’m getting so it was. It was produced in 1999. So we started the legal model it 92 is when the chairman said, Cut a billion. And that’s when this kind of process began. And then this whole book was put together with all of the the aspects of the legal model. And one of the quotes in here

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Suzi Pomerantz: is that, competition and organizational changes go together. Firms who are unable to implement major organizational changes will slip behind the competition and suffer embracing change will be a critical factor for success.

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Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): Yeah. So back to what? What Janet was saying. They’re the leaders. Fear of change.

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Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): not just resistance. But it’s like. I. Yeah. don’t. We all hear stories of fear fears of change.

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Yeah.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): you know, this was a. This was a very interesting discussion I was having yesterday with a mastermind group about what is it that gets

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): into the psyche of leaders that has them stay so attached to the status quo.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): If the chairman hadn’t said, you need to cut a billion dollars, or else. If the leaders at Dupont couldn’t see. You know what. We’ve got some habits like hiring people that look like us, a bunch of white guys that don’t look like our customers.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): and few more things that you mentioned here. If they hadn’t paused to notice.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): they wouldn’t have come up with a new strategy, and they would have been the ones that would have been behind the curve.

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Suzi Pomerantz: Right? That’s exactly right. That is exactly right.

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Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): And I and I’d love to know who that was, because there’s the statement, drop a billion dollars. So he that would probably wasn’t him. most likely him. Who was it that took that pause to say.

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Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): what if we transformed the whole business model? It was not even the. It wasn’t even the

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Suzi Pomerantz: the head of the law department. It was his second in command. So the head of Law Department was supportive of this, of course, but the the ideas came from a guy named Tom Sager, who was the Vice President at the time? And and Tom brought in

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Suzi Pomerantz: a really a really transformational consulting.

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Suzi Pomerantz: forward thinking, Guy named Dan Luzack, who is no longer living. Unfortunately,

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Suzi Pomerantz: and Dan Luzack is the really the mastermind behind. Seeing all of these things, and as a coach, II came in as part of Dan’s team, and ended up coaching Tom directly for about 12 years. So it was. It really was quite fun to have a front row seat. To all of this, as Tom coaching

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Suzi Pomerantz: to see his sort of growing awareness throughout this process cause at first, when Dan started talking about these things with the folks at Dupont.

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Suzi Pomerantz: There was quite a bit of resistance, as you can imagine. Yeah,

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Suzi Pomerantz: But Tom was really the first guy who got his brain around it was able to run with it was able to spearhead. It was able to connect the dots and get the resources lined up inside Dupont to really make some of this happen. And then there were Tom’s team. Tom had a huge team of people that went and talked to, you know, have the conversations with all of these law firms, and

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): brought in the the partners. And so you said something really interesting there that Dan was able to connect the dots, and I think this is, coaches are in this position all the time, where the need for the change gets revealed right that gets evoked in the awareness. But it’s like, Oh, my God! Now, what do we do? So how did Dan make it into a connect? The dots to me is is a little bit like cause and effect.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): Right? So this is what’s happening is causing this consequence. We wanna do something different. It means we need to be different.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): What dots was he connecting for them that they could stomach collaboration

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Suzi Pomerantz: it? So lawyers and business leaders always think bottom line. So Dan was able to point to how these transformational changes were not just nice to have, but directly connected to the bottom line, right? So it was hard originally for them to see. Well, if I’m bringing on women and people of color who are gonna be younger and less experienced, was the belief right? How are they gonna serve our cases? And, by the way, don’t we wanna reduce our cases? So are we setting up these young

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Suzi Pomerantz: women and minorities to fail right like it was all these layers of what ifs? And Dan was able to cut through that he was really quite brilliant, and he was able to cut through that in a way that

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Suzi Pomerantz: connected the dots directly

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Suzi Pomerantz: for them in their language about the business results. And let me just jump to the results that got. So as a result of this Dupont legal model.

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Suzi Pomerantz: the 6,000 cases on the docket got cut to 1,700 cases. So that’s big the 97 million dollars that it was costing them to do this

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Suzi Pomerantz: in the. In the first 3 years they saved 13 million dollars, and continued after that to save between 8 and 12 million dollars per year, and at the 15 year mark of the program had saved, they could point directly to bottom line savings of 175 million dollars. By doing this Dupont legal model stuff. The cycle time, if you recall it, was like 39 to 40 months that reduced down to 22 months of cycle time.

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Suzi Pomerantz: and the the 350 law firms became these 34 primary law firms and some service providers in there as well. And and it really became

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Suzi Pomerantz: we had. We had annual and midyear meetings with all of the primary law firms and service providers and and the the key people at Dupont legal and as a coach it was so much fun to see this collaboration form. There was so much bonding. That this group really was committed to all these same goals aligned on all these values in it for the same

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Suzi Pomerantz: purposes. It really was an experience of the rising tide raises all ships, and everybody was in it together. So it really was such a great feeling of team

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Suzi Pomerantz: and then there were some really creative spin offs that happened. As a result, like there was a minority corporate council network that was created because all of these people who were coming into this world somewhat for the first time. Right in this corporate law world. They got to create their own

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Suzi Pomerantz: connections in a in a network. And then there was a Dupont women, lawyers, network that got created so that the women could kind of create a parallel universe, and what the the fun part about that was. The women did things around marketing and business development in collaboration with their competitors that was so transformational in the field of law that they then got noticed by the bigger Dupont network.

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Suzi Pomerantz: who said, Hey, teach us how to do that? You know. What? What is it. You figured out over here that looks like a like collaboration on steroids. What is that? So, yeah, really fun to be part of that experience.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): So that, you know, you’re really highlighting the tension. Competition doesn’t go away. Collaboration doesn’t replace it. They work in unison in a different ratio in different contexts. But when we let them both coexist, and we can start to think more creatively. I mean to me, this is a lesson in change.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): That collaborative came up with consistency around goal values and purpose. And then they opened up the gates and said, What do we do?

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): Brilliant, just brilliant.

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Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): And and you know and I wanna say. hearing your story.

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Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): I had the feeling that that Tom and Dan, whatever there was that

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Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): pause that Janet talks about. There was. There was a moment where somebody took a breath

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Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): and something else entered into their mind. Another possibility like it’s it’s it’s

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Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): tangible in your story

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Suzi Pomerantz: that actually happened every time Dan stood up in front of the room and talked.

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Suzi Pomerantz: He created pause just in his speaking. He he was one of these that

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Suzi Pomerantz: he would stand up and say something, and you could just see

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Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): like you can physically see, mine’s change right? You could see people listening. What did that guy just tell me.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): so I’d like to give the audience an opportunity to go around, go away and play a little bit, and then come back and ask Suzy some clarifying questions and share some comments, if you like.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): and keep this simple with each other. Maybe you both get to go. You’ll have about 10 min together. Please say your name. And

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): a way that’s really easy to connect is what’s a top personal or professional value for yourself. So take a moment to please do that. And then you might think about a thorny problem that you’re facing right now and work your way through at least the first of the 3 steps.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): and then look at the second one, and see if by saying it out loud and having it be witnessed, you realize, oh, my God! We have such a preference to doing blah blah blah, right? That’s the status quo side of things. Or maybe you recognize that some of the players have a certain bias. See if you can start to get your reflection. Muscles strengthened a bit when you’re working together just conversationally, and

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): will put you into pairs, and so I know that my colleague Aaron, is doing some magic in the background. There you’ll get a join button here in just a second and we’ll close it at 10 min, which means you still have 60 s. Don’t forget, and we’ll see on the other side.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): Have some fun.

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Erin Moncada: There’s gonna be one, I think one group of 3. Yeah.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): great. Thank you. Erin.

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Erin Moncada: Yeah. Here we go.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): Thank you.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): Well, welcome back everyone. While you were working, Gary and Susie and I continued our conversation a little bit, and there are a couple of nuggets that Susie would like to share, and then floor is open to comment about your experience in the breakout room or ask Suzy a question to amplify something in the story. If you would please go ahead and raise your hand, cause it’ll help us queue to make sure that we anybody that wants to. Your

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): you’re certainly welcome to make a comment, and if you’re shy and not feeling like you want to use your voice, feel free to put it into

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): alright over to you, Suzy

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Suzi Pomerantz: Janet, I’ve already forgotten what I was thinking about. You said to me. This was my first corporate assignment as a Co. Right? Right? So it was. I was a very young coach. I was 24 years old when all of this was happening. It was my very first corporation and my very first corporate law department, and what ended up happening as a result of this work?

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Suzi Pomerantz: In my coaching business was that for the first and 10 years of my coaching business. The majority of my clients were all lawyers, and I am not so. Janet was saying. You know, as far as niche for those of you who are coaches who are worried about, you know, choosing your niche. I did not choose that niche. I would not have chosen that niche, or need the French way to say it. But it chose me, and

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Suzi Pomerantz: ended up being really quite a lot of fun, because they were so brilliant. And you know, once I learned kinda how they think, and once I learn to be prepared to be

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Suzi Pomerantz: in the deposition phase at the beginning of every relationship and then then it ended up being great fun to work with them. But now II work predominantly with Ceos and scientists. Oddly enough,

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Suzi Pomerantz: But I don’t think I have any. I have one lawyer now, one lawyer still, and there’s Suzy that actually Gary was hinting at in the bio. But this is the other part of the story is telling the truth.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): She walked into Tom’s office, and he put his glasses down his nose, and she said, I bet I know what you’re thinking. And then what did you say?

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Suzi Pomerantz: Yeah, he he was looking at me over his bifocals, and when I said, I bet I know what you’re thinking. He kind of sat back in his chair and crossed his arms and and said, Oh, really, what am I thinking? And I said, you’re thinking, who the hell is this little girl? And what is she doing in my office? And he busted out laughing, because that’s exactly what he was thinking, and that was the beginning of a relationship where I ended up working with him as a coach for the next 12 years

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): old. Courageous, speak the truth, is so always going to win the day. So thanks for modeling that Susie alright. So questions. I don’t see any hands raised.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): I see a note here from Sarah. Thank you, sharing your about your Ngo experience.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): Oh, that was, too, at Sarah from Renata. Wonderful!

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): Oh, you guys are so nice with each other. I appreciate that very much.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): No questions or comments. Go ahead. End up.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): Oh, okay, Bruce, thank you. I can’t find my digital hand. So I’m seeing if this works.

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Lisanne Thomas: I had a fascinating conversation in our breakout room, and

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Lisanne Thomas: I’m not sure if we we’re talking about what we were meant to.

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Lisanne Thomas: But my question, that was, I have a question that’s pulling at my attention from the situation you described.

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Lisanne Thomas: and it had to do with how Dan was able to connect the dots.

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Lisanne Thomas: and was able to speak to leadership from the bottom line.

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Lisanne Thomas: and I was wondering about the ethics of having a mandate to higher minorities.

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Lisanne Thomas: and what we know about

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Lisanne Thomas: how minorities are not treated equally with pay. and the goal was to reduce pay. Just how that

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Lisanne Thomas: like was that the language he was speaking to leadership to get the message through. And then I I’m just calling myself out of my own bias like is that. Isn’t that a terrible thing to say about people? But how do I balance this

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Lisanne Thomas: goal to reduce costs

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Lisanne Thomas: and mandate to hire minorities when we know what we know about

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Lisanne Thomas: how unequitable it is.

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Suzi Pomerantz: That’s a great question. That actually was not part of the conversation at that time. Not explicitly, that I heard.

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Suzi Pomerantz: and, what it was more, the bias of

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Suzi Pomerantz: There was a belief amongst the old school guys that they wouldn’t be able to find talent with the same qualifications as who they were used to hiring. That was the bigger concern.

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Suzi Pomerantz: which got proven wrong again and again and again. So, of course, as we know. Right? So if typically just like in any field, least, my observation or my bias at this point is that if you’re a person of color. You’ve had to work twice or 3 times as hard to get half as far as every you know, as as these other people that

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Suzi Pomerantz: are blocking your way. And

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Suzi Pomerantz: typically what we find is exceptional talent when bringing in under represented minorities. So the the cost that wasn’t one of the connecting of the dots to directly answer your question. Lizanne?

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Suzi Pomerantz: You know. How do you get from? Is it’s the right thing to do versus how? How does that translate into business because it. The whole shift was about becoming more business-focused.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): It it does seem to me maybe, Suzy. I’m reading too much into it that the fact that they were able to hire diversity

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): and those people who came in and those 34 final law firms were committed to collaboration.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): They actually increase revenue.

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Suzi Pomerantz: It did just about saving the 1 billion. It was about actually up leveling the entire experience of Dupont. And I think that’s a connect. The dots that’s super important, and up leveled the law firms as well, because they realize that that was a blind spot that they hadn’t been aware of. And just I should specify. This was not an exercise in

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Suzi Pomerantz: getting rid of the white guys right? Like the. There were still plenty of old white guys around. It was just bringing in more diversity

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Bruce Hostetter: on behalf of the old white guys. Thank you.

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Bruce Hostetter: II was with, and we were able to pace ourselves and get through the entire thing. Derek asked me a question at the end. We ran out of time. So how do you feel? And I thought that was an interesting question, and

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Bruce Hostetter: where that takes me is to this whole balance between curiosity and judgment.

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Bruce Hostetter: because I could see how in some situations, and I was referencing an organization that I worked with. not myself. It could create defensiveness. And yet there’s something that’s structured. It’s kind of like appreciative inquiry.

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Bruce Hostetter: you know the questions that kind of save questions, the reflective questions. And I’m just curious. How do you deal with that balance of helping the client stay on the side of curiosity rather than judgment.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): And how do you do it, Bruce?

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Bruce Hostetter: Oh, God! She’s my previous teacher! No wonder he’s everybody’s teacher, Bruce.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): Okay, I can make something up right? Well, it’d be better to drop into your own experience. Right? What do you do when you’re faced with someone who’s being judgmental.

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Bruce Hostetter: Yeah, I think that it helps. If the client is coming

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Bruce Hostetter: to coaching. experiencing pain. that there’s something there that they would not have been unable to resolve themselves. and to be able to frame it as well.

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Bruce Hostetter: you know, sounds like you’ve tried this, this and this. What if we tried that or tried that. Why don’t we try this?

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Bruce Hostetter: It’s just an experiment

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): that would be the opportunity for reflection.

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Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): mirroring back.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): And they’ve come. I think that’s the thing to remember, clients. Come.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): they come with something that’s a dilemma. They’re unable, without the benefit of the dialogue between us that’s open and available for anything to emerge like you came here.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): What are you available to set on the bench for a moment.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): and in the pause moment see what emerges

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): and give them back their autonomy.

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Suzi Pomerantz: Yeah, building on that, Janet, the reflective inquiry piece I find just

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Suzi Pomerantz: feeding their words back to them, either in a synopsis form, or just as a reflection allows them to keep going with that train of thought, and hear themselves say the answer they came to you, for

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Suzi Pomerantz: often I don’t say much of anything in a coaching conversation, and they get there themselves.

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Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): That’s usually what happens. The best coaching sessions ever is. When I hardly say a thing at the end they go. Oh, my gosh! You have such wonderful questions! I’m like.

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Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): listen to you. Go through your process.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): And, Miss Grace, you’ve patiently been waiting. Please jump in.

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Grace Kim(she/her): Thank you. Thank you, Janet, and thank you, Susie, that this case was particularly interesting, because

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Grace Kim(she/her): this

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Grace Kim(she/her): living up to aligning with the value of a diversity rewarded with a financial reward at the end. my question is based on your relationship. Long relationship with Tom. What if

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Grace Kim(she/her): this plan didn’t yield this immediate financial reworld next year the next.

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Grace Kim(she/her): What do you think how this case will?

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Grace Kim(she/her): what what will happen?

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Suzi Pomerantz: Well, the thing about lawyers is that in addition to being extremely competitive and bright, they are

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Suzi Pomerantz: what I like to think of is the A plus students. Right? So if they’re given a challenge or a task, they want to get an a grade in doing it. So if the task was, we are going to do these elements of the Dupont legal model, and we are going to have that result in not only cost savings for our clients, but increases in revenue for our partnering law firms

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Suzi Pomerantz: they were all in and creating that result. It couldn’t fail. So they didn’t even consider the what if it fails because their lawyers they like to win, and the win in this case was not settling a lawsuit. It was achieving all of these objectives of the legal model.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): You know, Susie, you’re reminding me of. Most people are either afraid of success, afraid of failure or afraid of mediocrity.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): And this is where kinda like can competition and collaboration. If you hold it as an either, or I’m either competitive or I’m collaborative. That’s where we’re standing. Fair success or failure. Fear may accurate mediocrity, and if we can hold both right. Let my competitive spirit keep seeking another answer. Even when we hit a dead end. It’s like, Oh, that was dead end. Let’s back up 3 steps and turn left.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): That begins. That process of collaboration, trusting in both is really where the answer lies.

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Suzi Pomerantz: Yeah. So it ended up not being all rainbows and and fireworks in terms of equality in divorce representation. So hence the creation that I mentioned before, of these separate networks the the minority network as well as the women’s network. Because

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Suzi Pomerantz: they said, Okay, we get the point, and we see that you are trying to bring in more of us into your cases, and we can be more collaborative with each other in service of that, and feed recommendations if we have our own network going on over here. So

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Suzi Pomerantz: you know, it’s not that it

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Suzi Pomerantz: it it didn’t fail. It’s just it didn’t take off as quickly as people had hoped around specifically around the the diverse representation. But then these other networks helped advance that ball

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Suzi Pomerantz: and did some great collaborating along the way.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): II love Mona’s comment here if you all didn’t see brothers, that is a remarkable film.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): And it is with, absolutely there’s a question from Sarah for you, Suzy. What was the impact on the average billables for those firms that were retained in the smaller group?

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Suzi Pomerantz: I don’t know.

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Suzi Pomerantz: I don’t know. I don’t know that that was reported. Let me see, I have kind of a summary of results here, but it’s all from the Dupont side.

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Suzi Pomerantz: I mean, obviously the primary law firms. The 34 law firms

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Suzi Pomerantz: stayed. For the most part there were some that dropped out, and other new ones that came in, and ultimately, I guess. About a few years later it was a group of 40 primary law firms. So it grew a little bit. But

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Suzi Pomerantz: but the ones that stayed obviously, were achieving advances in their own revenues, or they wouldn’t

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Suzi Pomerantz: right. And you can imagine, just in serving Dupont right. If you’ve got 300 law firms who have a piece of the pie of 6,000 cases that now gets whittled down to 1,700 cases, that only 34 law firms have a piece of the pie. They’re getting a bigger piece of the pie, even though the docket has

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Garry Schleifer (he/him/his): become smaller. Yeah, that’s that’s what I was thinking. That’s

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): and Fred’s comment, I think, is also something you were hinting to Susie this notion of the systemic context that Dan and Tom are able to speak to both internally at Dupont, and externally with the partners

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): that being able to set the picture big enough.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): you know, we think about this in one on one coaching, for sure, like, if we can hold the bigger dream, then the client can dream yet they’ll step into it.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): And and I think that’s the difference between the the single threaded problem that’s brought and helping clients look systemically. You live inside of a system, and that system lives inside of a system. What are all the influences. Even that simple question opens up the imagination.

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Suzi Pomerantz: Yeah, and even expanding just the continually expanding

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Suzi Pomerantz: dive into what’s possible. Now, right? So we’ve achieved this. Now, what’s possible? Right? It’s and that’s that ever expanding systemic view.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): Exactly. Exactly. Well, we have. Suzie’s right up for you, and Aaron will put that into the chat for you, and also some contact information for Susie Suzy. What would you like to leave them with? As we are approaching the top of the hour here. Would you like to say to complete the story?

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Suzi Pomerantz: It’s just that it, because of this experience that I was honored to participate in. I really do hold the tensions of collaboration and competition as one in the same. They’re 2 sides of the same coin, and I have that this as a lived experience of of it, right? It’s it’s one thing to have that is sort of a theoretical underpinning, but to see it in action. In

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Suzi Pomerantz: a a corporation that’s over 200 years old and really stayed in its ways of being was really

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Suzi Pomerantz: revolutionary. So

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Suzi Pomerantz: just that they do these. There doesn’t need to be attention, because they coexist, and they’re 2 sides to the same point.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): And and ultimately I think it for me. A definition of hope I heard recently is confident expectation.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): I think that the when we can hear a story, Susie, like what you fraught, it reminds us that even when we’re in the mess of something is not quite working out, pay attention, because somewhere in that tension is a gold mine, a gold thread of answers, and it’s staying with it and remembering it is possible.

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Suzi Pomerantz: That’s great. Yeah. And I’ll I’ll leave you with my la, my favorite Dan Luzack quote. So Dan was the the visionary. I actually have this hanging on my bulletin board because I love it so much, he he said.

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Suzi Pomerantz: Life sure does throw us curve balls, or maybe life is curve balls. We keep expecting to be straight

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): good ones.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): I think that’s great. And now A. Dan’s last name is spelled LLUC. A. K. There we go. There you go, folks, it’s in chat. If you want to copy and paste it. That is excellent. Alright, everybody! We have one more in the series this year. It will be on November seventh.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): We hope you will come back. It will be looking at control and agility.

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Janet M. Harvey (she/her): Thanks for being here, Susie. Thanks everyone for coming. Have a great weekend like, I say, if it’s Canadian enjoy Thanksgiving, if you’re not just give thanks somewhere. And and think of your favorite Canadian. Maybe it’s me.

For all the talk of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as well as Anti-Racism, leaders are lacking a cohesive playbook for how to cultivate the leadership skill of inclusivity.  Deloitte has been studying this since 2011, and based on their research there is a wonderful model of the six traits of inclusive leadership which leaders can develop in themselves and across their organizations. According to them, inclusive leadership is about treating people fairly, understanding and accepting their uniqueness, and leveraging their thinking for smarter decision-making.  The elements of inclusion are:  fairness and respect, value and belonging, and confidence and inspiration.  The six signature traits of an inclusive leader are comprised of 15 elements.

1.  Commitment includes the elements of personal values and belief in the business case.
2. Courage:  humility and bravery
3. Cognizance of Bias:  self-regulation and fair play
4. Curiosity: openness, perspective-taking, coping with ambiguity
5. Cultural Intelligence: drive, knowledge, adaptability
6. Collaboration: empowerment, teaming, voice

Putting this into the context of leaders, inclusive leadership is about:

• Treating people and groups fairly—that is, based on their unique characteristics, rather than on stereotypes
• Personalizing individuals—that is, understanding and valuing the uniqueness of diverse others while also accepting them as members of the group
• Leveraging the thinking of diverse groups for smarter ideation and decision making that reduces the risk of being blindsided

To achieve these aims, highly inclusive leaders demonstrate six signature traits—in terms of what they think about and what they do—that are reinforcing and interrelated. Collectively, these six traits represent a powerful capability highly adapted to diversity. Embodiment of these traits enables leaders to operate more effectively within diverse markets, better connect with diverse customers, access a more diverse spectrum of ideas, and enable diverse individuals in the workforce to reach their full potential.

Please visit the full report by Juliet Bourke here.