Introduction
Pat Savola Consulting provides a broad range of mindfulness-based services to individuals, groups and organizations with emphasis on the workplace. Hence, "mindfulness at work". I work in the areas of business, management, career development, education, not-for-profit agencies and counselling. My theoretical framework addresses the question, "How can you understand complex systems so you can just let the next transformation happen easily?" For more see theory.
Rather than doing work for my clients, I collaborate with them to generate new perspectives on familiar issues whether progressive companies looking for an edge or traditional organizations attending to problems. A "problem" is defined by how we view it. Therefore, if we begin to look at it differently, we can change the problem! Working hard at solving the wrong problem is, in the words of Virginia Satir, "bucketing the wrong well." My skills and interests are in setting problems, rather than solving problems. By the time the question is clear, the answer is usually self-revealing and comes with ease!
Why do I do it? I do this work because it's service-work, and congruent with my values and beliefs. It's engaging. I do it because I like it, and people find it helpful. I like to explore the depths below the surface--below the obvious, below what is already known. I like to investigate meaning. The interior of human experience and human endeavour must be explored in relationship, not simply with Technical Rationality. This leads to new ways of understanding.
For example, consider the old line, "When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember that you came to drain the swamp." Imagine the swamp-drainer, highly-trained in land reclamation according to the principles of Technical Rationality. Broaden the context, and alligators suddenly seem easy! He or she not only struggles with toothy reptiles, but encounters new problems as they emerge: groups of farmers impatient to begin tilling the reclaimed land, picketing by alligator-conservationists, lobby groups of tannery businesses anxious to get working, increased government scrutiny, requests for media interviews, and ambivalence in the Board of Directors about whether to continue with drainage at all! It seems clear that the problem is no longer one of swamp drainage, but requires new ways of understanding where values and beliefs must be central.
My work involves dis-solving problems and exploring transformation; both generate ease in people's work. I believe that ease is a good thing and simplifies the world! Years ago, I heard "insanity" defined as repeatedly trying to solve a problem with the same solution, even when the solution was unsuccessful. We all do this; "keep trying", "try harder", and "once more"... Helping people to have new understandings is about ease and success.
I'm curious. I like to figure out how things work. That includes how it might change over time, and "what does it mean?" This cultivates a degree of scepticism about how things seem to be, and values the process of investigation. For example, I heard a physician speaking:
When I hear that nine out of 10 doctors prefer Brand X for headaches, I always wonder, "What does the tenth one know that the other ones don't know about and how can I find out?"The physician re-framed information to make new meaning!
My work involves creative problem-solving that runs contrary to the generally-accepted principle that "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck." Maybe it's a darn good decoy! And that might matter a lot if you're a duck and it happens to be Saskatchewan in hunting season! Investigation is important. Context is important. Be clear about what's taken for granted.
I do this because work is important and interesting to me. This includes working, the work-world, work-life, and the study/work of work (or meta-work). I've been working for thirty years; this is how I put it to work for me!
In summary, I like my work a lot. This introduction has offered a very general description, as the work varies with every client -- more details follow. My goal is also to have conveyed my sincere wishes for the well-being of the folks with whom I work. To pirate a Vulcan greeting from the original Star Trek, may your organization, career or business enterprise "Live long and prosper."