Working in collaboration with my partner firm, agilityIRL (agility In Real Life), I help leaders, from the front-line to the C-suite, transform their organization’s world of work: lead the re-invention of their organization based on speed, change adaptiveness, a sustainable work pace, and delivering products and services that create customer requirements to which would be competitors would be compelled to respond.
I can do this because I have done it myself–I’ve been in your chair. I’ve personally led the creation of 10 new organizations (3 being companies that I founded or co-founded), the renovation of 4 under-performing ones, and the redesign of 2 that were doing OK but were tooled for the past, not the future. My work earned Medtronic’s Wallin Leadership Award and Cowles Media’s President’s Award. It is this experience that enables me to speak authoritatively to both the theory and the pragmatic issues involved in leading organizational change. And it is this experience that is behind my book, Windward Leadership: Taking Your Organization into the Prevailing Winds and Political Seas.
Mine has been a deliberately eclectic career. I’ve been a C-suite executive, entrepreneur and small business owner, consultant, author and keynote speaker. I’ve held leadership roles in IT, Product Development, Operations, and Sales & Marketing, during economic conditions ranging from dramatic growth to brutal reduction, at companies including 3M, Apple, Biopolymer Engineering, Cirrus Aircraft, FutureDude Entertainment, Harley Automotive, Medtronic, Seagate Technology, Star Tribune and StealthMark, as well as founding or co-founding three companies of my own. I’ve also served on the boards of 3 organizations.
Besides making for a more interesting career, this experience has inoculated me against the orthodoxy that plagues every profession and industry. It enables me to see things, find connections, draw insights and offer creative solutions others may not. I’ve learned to build authentic relationships with, cultivate consensus among, and communicate naturally with people regardless of level or background. I’ve also learned to balance interests across stakeholder groups, and build a culture of collaboration across organizational boundaries, geographic boundaries, and professional specialties.
I bring a sense of adventure, an entrepreneurial spirit, a creative vision, global experience, diversity of thought, a design perspective, and a combination of energy, resourcefulness and experience to make a difference. I am a truth-teller, a path-finder, a talent spotter, and I mobilize cultural energy. I put purpose before process, and process before technology. I favor organizing for joy, giving people the freedom (and the expectation) that they will connect, create and surprise.
Doing work that matters for people who care.
Ruprecht on Leadership 