About Me - What Makes Me Tick
Entrepreneur | Business Strategist | Trusted Advisor | Team Builder | Expert Facilitator | Teacher | Optimist | Insatiably Curious
I'm Bryan Kohl and I'll be the first to admit: I'm an imperfect leader (even with over 15 years of experience building and leading teams). For many of us, a week doesn't go by without us learning something about ourselves. The question remains: how do we convert that learning into results for ourselves, our teams, our organizations?
My career began working for numerous tech startups, then moving into large organizations across various functions (including Sales, R&D, L&D, and HR), eventually being given the opportunity to launch and lead a behavioral health organization. It's that combined experience I draw on when designing and delivering my services.*
When asked how best to describe my experience, I'm quick to invoke the familiar Venn diagram as I've always been at the intersection of strategy development, talent and team development, and technology. In short, nothing fires me up more than witnessing personal and professional growth in an individual, across a team, or throughout an organization!
As a child, I recall my father encouraging me to read Dr. W. Edwards Deming's 14 Points of Management. I found myself wondering what Deming meant by "Drive out fear" (his 8th point) while deeply appreciating his 13th point - " Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement." (See my blog post titled, "Why We're Still Struggling to Drive out Fear at Work.") Upon joining the workforce and being exposed to other ideas and practices - the Agile Manifesto, positive psychology, psychological safety, servant leadership, to name a few - it was easy for me to see how they were all connected, and interestingly, how they were all attempting to "drive out fear" from the workplace...and more importantly, what I've committed to doing throughout my entire career as a way to maximize what we all desire: to learn, to contribute, to produce, and to learn again.
* This website and its contents simply represent a journey I have been on. I, like many other leaders, have had to acknowledge and learn from our imperfections - hence the name "The Imperfect Leader." Out of respect for the author of a book with the same name, I wanted to share his body of work here. While I hope to meet with him soon, this website does not reflect the contents of his book.