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Featured Affiliate - Joe Braidish
By: Molly Warner
There are many aspects of a person’s life that require
attention, and for most people, balancing them all can be a difficult
task. Designed Learning affiliate Joe Braidish, however, has no trouble
putting his heart into every segment of his life- family, job,
community, and himself. “If there’s anything I want to come through
about myself, it’s my heart,” he commented.
Joe first became involved with Designed Learning in 1989
when he brought in Phil Grosnick to work with his learning and
organizational development team at Support Systems International, in
Charleston, SC. “As with many of the affiliates, I started as a client
and went from there,” he explained.
The first thing that attracted Joe to Designed Learning was the focus on
helping people build their capacity based on what they already have.
He feels there are so many groups who try to work with a deficit
mentality, analyzing people for what they don’t have and looking for ways to fill in those gaps. Designed
Learning looks at this problem from a different perspective.
“We’re all richly endowed with so much. It’s really about getting
someone to get clear about what it is they can do… what gifts they
already have. If there’s anything people need, it’s encouragement
to access these gifts,” Joe remarked. This idea of helping
companies to face and embrace their own capacity is one of Joe’s main
goals when working with his clients.
A more personal goal for Joe, he
explained, comes in three parts. He first wants his clients to
recognize what he has to offer, and embrace their own gifts along with
it. Secondly, having the courage to act on that offer, and finally, to
be able to understand how to work effectively inside an organization and
find an appropriate way to market what they find to be expressing most
authentically inside them. “I always encourage my clients to not only
get a better understanding of who they are, but to also never lose sight
that they work within an organization, a community.”
When asked about his favorite workshop, Joe began to detail more about
the personal benefits of working with Designed Learning. While he
hasn’t been able to implement it yet, Joe stated
that Building Accountability and Commitment is the most
thought-provoking workshop to him personally. “When I think about
that workshop and the idea of conversations, I find it touching at a
much deeper level. I believe that if I’m going to change the
nature of the relationship, I need to change the nature of the
conversation,” he said. “All relationships live and breathe inside
conversations.”
The Building Accountability and Commitment
workshop is just one example of why Joe loves the internal effects of
working with Designed Learning just as much as the external. He
recalls a friend at Designed Learning telling him, “Joe, we help other
people with their version of our problems.” He explains that the
issues facing many of his clients are the same challenges Joe faces
himself. “Having conversations that matter, embracing my own gifts
as well… these are all things that I struggle with in my own life.
I always try to remind myself and my clients of this fact.”
Luckily, embracing the ideals of Designed
Learning and implementing them in his own life seem to have paid off.
“I have a lot to be thankful for,” Joe professed. In the next year, Joe
will be welcoming three grandchildren into his life, along with marrying
his fiancée, Karan, in June. After Joe left his job at Indiana
University’s Kelley School of Business, he moved to Boulder, Colorado.
“I had a couple retainer contracts in Boulder, and that allowed me to
get my feet on the ground.”
Along with
these retainer contracts, Joe also sits on the board of directors for an
organization called, “All Together Now,” which focuses on women’s
economic empowerment and children’s education and health care. He is
also a business advisor for CTEK, a company that incubates small
businesses. “Basically,” Joe explained, “I come in and help these
businesses get on their feet by advancing their capacity to design and
implement strategy management systems, business development processes,
and organizational development systems.”
Joe admitted that he loves working with small businesses and
bringing a little management rigor to their enterprise.
When asked what he loves about Colorado, Joe
explained his adoration for nature. “I’m an explorer at heart,” he
admits, “I love being active and outdoors.” Outside of his job and
volunteer work, he takes full advantage of his beautiful new setting.
Skiing, paddling, cycling, and hiking are only some of the ways he
spends his free time. “Basically, I’ll do anything that can be done
outdoors.”
Looking
back on his past ten years, Joe laughed a bit. “It’s not exactly the
way I saw my life working out,” he confessed, “but it’s been a very
exciting ride, full of challenges and triumphs.” Joe admits that he’s
somewhat embarrassed to say that he still holds on to some of those old
visions of how he thought his life would be, but agrees that it’s almost
empowering how full of possibilities life really is. “I guess the new
challenge for me is to let the vision of my life catch up with reality.”
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