We are Strategy Doulas. We are an organizational and leadership development ecosystem whose foundation is based in the very idea that we need care as we work.
Have you ever seen a baby giraffe try to walk? As it finds its feet, it is incredibly unsteady and its legs look way too long for a creature of its size and structure. It wobbles and often falls back to the ground. With some encouragement, a little extra holding, and boundary’d spaciousness, it starts to notice that the ground is actually solid. Knowing it can depend on the ground and feeling the encouragement from its parents, it moves from unimaginably wobbly to running. Running! Every time I see a video of a baby giraffe, I try to do the math of the time from wobbly to walking to running…and it just doesn’t add up. How does that happen? Is it magic? Is it just how math works for giraffes? Or is there a truth in its journey that we can all learn from? I have spent my career watching organizations move through phases of development and I have noticed a truth about organizational change that is reflected in a baby giraffe’s first steps: Care and grounding makes all the difference.
Strategy is what allows us to move in lock step with one another as we do our work, serve our mission, and deliver for the people who come to us because of the work we do. And Doulas go to places where people need extra care and support as they are transitioning from what is to what will become. So when we bring that kind of care into the workplace, it requires both strategy and the multifaceted support that Doulas uniquely bring. Clau and I created Strategy Doula to bring science-based, researched-informed, organizational development frameworks together with the kind of care you can feel in your body as you work. We meet you at that intersection.
What does it look like to work with a Strategy Doula? We start with a foundation of centering the human. That is through-line when the path weaves and bobs. In working with our clients, we help them stay grounded when roadblocks come up. In so doing, we remain whole, the work is made whole, and the mission remains intact. From that place, we can have the kind of impact that strategy, operational plans, process steps, and technology on their own cannot do. Instead, we weave all of those elements with care and grounding. It’s that through-line that brings everything into alignment. It creates the kind of impact that each of those elements added together will not create. It creates something that adds up to much more than the sum of its parts. It’s like watching a baby giraffe get on its feet. You feel the magic of it in your body.
Welcome to the Strategy Doula™ way!
PS – Some words I wrote in this article are not real words. I made them up because I liked how they sounded and they made sense to me as I wrote them.