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About Cliff Kayser

Cliff is an experienced organization development (OD) consultant, executive coach, and leadership trainer overseeing Polarity Partnerships' east coast operations out of Washington, DC. In 2017, Cliff became a founding partner of the 501(c)3 organization the Institute for Polarities of Democracy and in 2018 the healthcare coaching/consulting firm, SixSEED Partners. Cliff is a faculty member at American University's Master's in OD and KEY Executive programs and is a Coaching Fellow for George Mason's Accredited Coach Training Program under the Center for the Advancement of Well-being. His past work experience includes VP of Organizational Development and Training for The National Cooperative Bank, Senior OD Consultant for The Washington Post, and Corporate Manager of Human Resources (HR) and Training for The Washington Post Company. Cliff earned Master's Degrees in OD (2007) and HR Management (1998) from The American University and his Coaching Certification from Georgetown's Executive Leadership Coaching Program in (2008). He is a PCC (Professional Certified Coach) and a graduate of the 2-year Polarity Mastery program (2010), and has served as the program dean since 2014.

Seven Polarities: Harvard Business Review

By |2020-03-11T09:12:30-04:00February 27th, 2020|Polarity Thinking|

A February 20, 2020 Harvard Business Review article by Jennifer Jordan, Michael Wade, and Elizabeth Teracino contrast traditional leadership model with a new-emerging one. One of the key points is: “…to be successful in the current environment, executives need to be good at both styles. If a leader relies solely on positional authority he/she will run [...]

Scaling Leadership: Building Organizational Capability and Capacity to Create Outcomes that Matter Most

By |2020-03-03T11:11:31-05:00February 25th, 2020|Polarity Thinking, Scaling Leadership|

Scaling Leadership: Building Organizational Capability and Capacity to Create Outcomes that Matter Most Robert J. Anderson and William A. Adams Wiley, 2019   Key Themes “Conscious” -- Introduction pg. xx (Discussion of scale) “…the only way for this to happen is for conscious leaders to scale conscious leadership.” Pg. 3 -- “At a certain point, [...]

Support for the Seeing Step 1: The Important Distinction Between Technical and Adaptive Thinking

By |2020-03-03T11:11:53-05:00February 24th, 2020|Polarity Thinking|

Summary of “Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for A Complex World” by retired Army General Stanley McChrystal For additional focus on Team of Teams, see: https://www.xperienceit.com/growing-a-culture-of-purpose-and-trust/ “If there is a single key point that stands head and shoulders above the rest in my mind, it is this: The never-ending quest for efficiency must [...]

Joint Chiefs of Staff Paper on Polarity

By |2020-02-18T23:53:13-05:00February 18th, 2020|Polarity Thinking|

Among the award-winning papers for 2015-2016 that were recently featured on the Joint Chiefs of Staff website is, “PARADOX & POLARITY: TOOLS FOR MANAGING COMPLEXITY” by Tod A. Roy of the Defense Intelligence Agency.  JPME (Joint Professional Military Education) institutions are potentially valuable sources for lessons learned and of military academic research results. Mr. Roy’s [...]

Chapter 1 of the Tao Te Ching

By |2021-09-04T15:22:53-04:00January 5th, 2020|Polarity Thinking|

From time to time I'm asked when or how my “path to polarity” began and because I’m a consultant and executive coach my answer is, “it depends" (in this case, on when you start counting). In one sense my path is the same as everyone's  -- we’re all on our polarity path -- trying to [...]

Honored, Proud, and Blessed – Gestalt OSD Lifetime Achievement Award

By |2019-09-16T15:58:15-04:00September 16th, 2019|Polarity Thinking|

On Saturday night while hosting the third and final OSD weekend cohort at Kayser Ridge, John D. Carter, PhD and Veronica Hopper Carter, PhD presented me with the Gestalt Center’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Also present from the Gestalt OSD Faculty was Rachel Ciporen and Faculty Monika Moss-Gransberry, MFA. I’m including a few pictures below (Rachel [...]

Multipliers, Revised and Updated: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter

By |2020-03-11T09:05:51-04:00September 10th, 2019|Polarity Thinking, Polarity Thinking and Problem-solving Thinking, Self and Other|

Leadership expert Liz Wiseman explores these two leadership styles analyzing data from more than 150 leaders, Wiseman has identified five disciplines that distinguish Multipliers from Diminishers. These five disciplines are not based on innate talent; indeed, they are skills and practices that everyone can learn to use—even lifelong and recalcitrant Diminishers. (NOTE: Wizeman’s focus on [...]

Medical Education Pole Dancing and “How-to” for Starting to Leverage Polarities

By |2019-08-08T08:39:04-04:00August 8th, 2019|Polarity Thinking|

If the title of this Cliff’sNOTE intrigued you, you’ll love Samar Ahmed’s article entitled, “A Pole Dance for an Educational Reformer.” Samar is a friend, colleague and Professor of Medical Doctorate, MHPE, FF and Director of Ain Shams MENA FAIMER Regional institute. It’s a delightful read as well as a “how-to” engage key stakeholders to [...]

How the Army is Looking at Avoiding War

By |2019-08-07T16:00:29-04:00August 5th, 2019|Institute for Polarities of Democracy, Polarity Thinking|

Umm. OK. Check this out… A new book, titled “Empirical Paradox, Complexity Thinking and Generating New Kinds of Knowledge” by Dr. Bruce West, a senior scientist at the Army Research Office, uses mathematical modeling to address why thinking in terms of either/or outcomes means the inevitability of another world war. (JULY 23, 2019 by U.S. Army [...]

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