Professional Profile

Patty has worked in the fields of Organization Development and Learning for over twenty years. In the first ten years of her career she was an internal consultant at UC Berkeley, Kaiser Permanente, and Apple Computer. Since she joined IA in 1997, she has consulted across a broad range of clients and projects. In addition, she has held several leadership positions in IA over the years. She holds a BA in General Psychology, an MS in Industrial/Organizational Psychology (both from San Francisco State University) and did post-graduate internships at Kaiser Permanente and the Stanford Business School.

Current and Past Clients Include

Roche, Kaiser Permanente, The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Genentech, Sun Microsystems

Pro Bono Clients

She is a volunteer mediator with Community Boards of San Francisco and the Office of Citizen Complaints. Past clients include Headlands Center for the Arts (an arts organization in Marin county), JDL and Associates (an educational consulting firm), Planned Parenthood, and Kidserve (providing service learning and arts opportunities for kids in the Bay Area).

On Working at IA

I do this work because it never stops fascinating me. At IA, I can bring everything I know and everything I am to work, every day. It's the best deal I can imagine.

More About Me

In my family, our parents taught us, mostly by example, that people can and should love their work. You make friends there, you laugh there, you do your best, sometimes you take it home because you just do. When I think of what IA is about at the core, I think it's that.

Recommended Books

Books: Mom-in-Chief by Jamie Woolf, 2009 (a fun, smart read by an organizational consultant who applies the core principles of artful leadership to the challenges of parenthood),
Now, Discover Your Strengths by L. Buckingham and D. Clifton, 2001 (a powerful and positive model for development),
Intuition Allegra Goodman, 2006 (a novel of intrigue and mystery set in a cancer research lab--not perfect but gave me insight into the ethical and scientific demands of the quest for break-through cures and treatments).

Articles: "Innovation: The Classic Traps," by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, HBR, November, 2006 (a summary of how organizations can undermine or limit the potential of innovation, and remedies for these systemic errors).
"Level five leadership: The triumph of humility and fierce resolve," by Jim Collins, Harvard Business Review, January, 2001.
"Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail," by John P. Kotter, Harvard Business Review, 1995.