Pivot At Work - Learn To Pivot At Work, Home And Play

Becky Swanson is a Leadership Life Coach. Her practice is dedicated to connecting, nurturing, and enacting real and meaningful change through spiritual guidance. No one is better equipped to do this life sustaining work than Becky. Becky has more than thirty years’ experience in organizational development, learning design, coaching, and leadership. This work began with her own consulting firm serving non-profit and religious organizations. However, her talent was noticed by the corporate world and soon she was recruited to multinational firms who desperately needed her talent to improve the way they approached learning. Becky worked for firms including St. Paul Companies (The Travelers), Best Buy (during their rapid growth), CVS/MinuteClinic (during their national footprint) – to name a few. In her free time, her deep abiding faith never wavered, and she remained committed to serving the faith community. She earned a M.S.M., degree from Luther Theological Seminary and was ordained a Deaconess in the Deaconess Community ELCA. Becky pivoted once again, leaving corporate life behind, and began a coaching and consulting practice. This allowing her to focus her attention to building strong organizations in non-profit and religious organizations and serving in the Deaconess Community. Her calling was not yet finished - she became an ordained minister in the ELCA and served as a pastor in congregations in the Midwest. In the spring of 2022, Becky spent a month on a walking pilgrimage across Spain. She did this to reconnect with her center both spiritually and physically. One of the things she takes from this experience is we have the power to define our lives, what is needed and not needed; and that what is needed is often much less than we have been told. Becky is truly a unique, multi-talented soul. One of her long-time colleagues describes her this way – If you need to laugh, call Becky. If you need spiritual guidance, call Becky. If you need to be shook, call Becky. If you need solace, call Becky. When Becky speaks, listen close. In a sentence, she will say something that will make you think. It will take you weeks to unpack. It will hang with you – in a good way. It will roll around in your head. It will come back to you when you least expect it to and when you most need it to.

As President and Founder of Pivot At Work, founded in 2002. Larry works with individuals and organizations to increase effectiveness. This is done in a variety of ways; individual and cohort coaching, outcome based experiential cohorts, and facilitated process work. Recently, he has dedicated his time to working with content creation with experts in various disciplines, coaching officers in the military, and advising organizations in learning architecture. Clients include Surest, Best Buy, Boston Scientific, Carlson Companies, CHS, Carlson School of Management, Williams Energy. In addition to Pivot At Work, Larry has worked inside organizations including UnitedHealth Group, CVS/MinuteClinic, Adaytum, Carlson School of Management. In 2012, his book “A.R.T.ful Leadership The Path to be Admired, Respected, and Trusted as a Leader” was published. For two years, Larry went underground, producing a podcast to uncover the impact of individuals who experience trauma from being led by poor or abusive leaders in organizations. Through interviews, people came forward to describe how their experience impacted their professional lives, their financial lives, their home, and what recovery has looked like for them. Towards the end of this journey, Larry shifted his attention to focus on how leaders and organizations were responding to the Pandemic. Larry’s approach to his work has been described by a colleague as “whole-person leadership”. “He understands that we are complex and multi-dimensional creatures. He often references that how we communicate is formed at age 3 – that means, how we respond to conflict, how we interact, how we engage in feedback, how we play in the sandbox has roots in our earliest experiences.” When Larry works with people – whether individually or in groups, he often pushes them to explore family dynamics, self-awareness, self-confidence, and work. Each impact the other. Understanding each of the components is necessary to not only realize strengths, but to uncover barriers and challenges that exist. In graduate school, Larry studied Marriage and Family Dynamics, Dyadic Communications, Management, Diffusion of Innovation, Group Dynamics, Organizational Communications, Interpersonal Communication, Nonverbal Communication, Economics, Marketing, and Public Relations. All of this was intentional, and he had to fight academia to make it happen. He never stopped looking at tackling issues from a multi-discipline approach. Looking at Leadership, or Teams, or Organizational Culture from a variety of perspectives – and collaborating with a variety of disciplines to solve a problem. Being constantly curious is an amazing and wonderful thing. Larry lives in Minneapolis area with his wife Nancy. They have two children, Alex and Kathryn who also live in the area.