Barbara L. Schultz

Barbara L. Schultz, MA

The Communication Factor

Leadership Coaching and Consulting

Summary of Professional Experience and Services

Barbara L. Schultz is a seasoned professional whose expertise spans the intersection between Leadership Development and Coaching, Organization Development, Change and Communications, as well as both internal and external Corporate Communications. Her consulting practice emphasizes leadership development, carefully targeted inter-cultural and global business communication, employee engagement and customer focus. Drawing from extensive experience as a professional facilitator and communicator, Barbara works collaboratively with stakeholders to lead, strategize and execute an extensive range of global system-wide initiatives.

Her consulting approach integrates organizational development and change methodologies with proven communication guidelines to achieve clarity, consistency, credibility, authenticity and interactivity throughout an entire initiative. With a passion for professional development, she also applies the latest knowledge from emerging disciplines—such asneuroscience, intercultural communication and social media—to clients’ initiatives. The result is a complete system of strategic, well-integrated communication for an organization’s leaders, managers and entire business community.

Select industry and client experience includes hi-tech (Cisco, Symantec, HP, SGI, Cognos, Compaq, Apple, SPANworks-Toshiba), marketing strategy development and implementation coaching for European software entrepreneurs (Global Connexus, Oulu Innovation),  telecommunications (AT&T), biotechnology/pharmaceutical (McKesson, IDS), consumer/office products (Clorox, Eastman-Kodak, Xerox, Polaroid), media (Knight-Ridder), energy (Chevron), executive team strategy development and implementation (Rudebeck Consulting), as well as many small-medium businesses and socially-oriented organizations.

Barbara holds an MA in Organizational Leadership from The Center for Leadership Studies and a   BA in Journalism and Communications from UC Berkeley.

Core Competencies

Professional Highlights

Organization and Leadership Development, Strategic Change Management and Communications

·         For a global Fortune 500 company, worked with Business Process Operations team under CFO to develop and implement strategic change management and stakeholder communications during various stages of an outsourcing initiative, from selecting offshore service providers to transitioning over 25 business processes to them. Along with developing the guiding strategy and plan, responsibilities included roll-out of change toolkit for managers, FAQs, emails to stakeholders from C-level execs, content and presentations for leadership All Hands, support of related trainings and web site content, along with tracking alignment with HR/OD, corporate communications and legal stakeholders, and measuring results.

·         Conducted planning sessions, stakeholder analysis, change readiness evaluation and monitoring, and content development for employee change messaging during an in-depth IT outsourcing evaluation by external service providers for a large consumer products firm; included coaching IT managers in strategy development, communication and delivery.

·         Designed change strategy and implementation process for introduction of new business intelligence and corporate performance management software initiatives.

·         Facilitated strategy sessions for communicating product development process change that included designing reliability into hi-tech hardware from the front-end; included management coaching.

·         Developed and implemented communication plan for recruiting and adding a new layer of management to a national pharma sales operations team.

·         Working in partnership with leadership, organizational development and employee communications professionals within a hi-tech firm, conducted employee focus groups, developed and implemented internal communication strategy and best practices, communicated change initiatives and produced educational events.

·         Designed and facilitated live and virtual team meetings, strategic planning processes, local and global product value tests, management and production team development, visioning and goal-setting, roles and responsibilities clarification, and team alignment in hi-tech product development process.

·         Conducted diagnosis and clarification of communication issues between executive team members and their new CEO; included creation of leadership transition strategy and leadership coaching.

·         Facilitated international OTC Sales team in “To-Be” design workshops during an SAP Finance and Accounting implementation for a major energy company.

Internal/External Marketing and Materials Development

• Researched and analyzed current literature covering elements related to the effective and efficient functioning of C-level executive teams, particularly in strategy development and implementation.

• Strategic market development and inter-cultural business awareness for Finnish entrepreneurs taking their products and services global. Included long distance and one-on-one coaching, introductions to potential clients, GoToMeeting coordination, slide deck and materials preparation.

• Designed and facilitated stakeholder and customer focus group processes for design and naming of consumer medical product linked to Smartphone application.

• For workshop introducing changes in software development process, developed collateral materials emphasizing communication essentials for influencing employees, management, and leadership.

• Collaborative production of Implementation Guide for communicating and integrating intensified reliability testing into front-end of product definition process.

• Researched, developed and implemented facilitators’ script for real-time beta tests of laptop software supporting collaborative decision-making; facilitated principals in branding and marketing strategy.

• Co-designed and developed of Leader's Guide for Total Quality Management (TQM) Process Improvement training that integrated metrics and team-building skills into a training simulation.

• Researched and wrote The Nature of Process, a white paper exploring the impact of improved human communication processes upon business and technical processes.

• Researched and wrote of benchmarking report on TQM training programs in hi-tech companies.

• Conducted contractor assessment for management to establish effectiveness of coordination and communication during major hospital construction project.

• Extensive content development for internal communication portals, including conducting executive interviews and marketing of employee events.

• Extensive public relations, marketing collateral and web site content development.

• Conceptual and literary edit and review of books, technical and other materials.

• Research and writing for magazines and trade publications.

Education

• M.A. Organizational Leadership - Center for Leadership Studies/The Graduate Institute, Milford, CT
• B.A. Journalism and Communication - University of California, Berkeley, CA

Advanced Professional Development

Extensive professional training includes:

Leadership Development and Coaching, Leadership and Neuroscience, Collaborative Leadership, Inter-Cultural Business Communication, Managing and Communicating Complex Change, Achieving Change through Collaborative Organization Design, Communicating for Results, Meeting and Conference Design and Facilitation, High Performance Team Development, Process Consulting, Conflict Resolution, Presentation Skills, Instructor/Trainer Skills, Transactional Analysis, Organizational Effectiveness, Whole Systems Consulting, Creativity Development, Deming's Total Quality Management, as well as Leadership and Mastery, Inquiry and Dialogue, The Enneagram, Psychosynthesis, Intuition Development and Personal Mastery oriented to effective leadership and organizational performance.