Welcome to The Crucible Leadership Experience

I met Shaun in 2021 for an assignment to co-facilitate a multi-team leadership program for The Bose Corporation. The work spanned over a year, so we had a lot of time to learn about each other’s facilitation styles and philosophies.

The chemistry was evident, and it also revealed the ingredients for a solid business partnership: Shaun embraced and encouraged my direct, and assertive, native “New Yorker-ness,” and my transparent way of communicating concerns, observations, ideas, etc. – which is the only way I roll. 

From my point-of-view, embracing Jackie’s native “New Yorker-ness” was a learning opportunity.  I spent the first part of my life in Buffalo, NY. The folks from Buffalo are "nice people". Perhaps a little too nice and deferential, sometimes surrendering their needs and point-of-view to manifest harmony.  After moving to the New York city area, I quickly realized that my challenge was to be more direct, assertive, and clear in my communications. 

There is a natural tension that forms when we’re making decisions about our company. Tension is a main ingredient of a successful partnership. This partnership works because we can disagree and not get stuck on being right. Instead, we listen, clarify the other’s thoughts, and share our own ideas without threat. We keep each other psychologically safe. We build on our differences and work in tandem towards our unified goals. We know that radical candor is an active process and a necessary catalyst for managing tension and conflict.

This is why we are confident that the Accelerating Team Performance learning experience, along with our proprietary Heat Index™ methodology, will support clients’ teams to move beyond their conflicts and tensions, towards consensus and high performance.