Dawna Markova, Ph.D.

Internationally known for her groundbreaking work in helping people learn with passion and live on purpose, Dawna Markova, Ph.D. is the CEO of Professional Thinking Partners, Inc. She also cofounded the Worldwide Women's Web, and is a former research affiliate of the Organizational Learning Center at MIT.

Her clients include CEO's and senior leaders of several Fortune 500 companies, some governments including The Government of Nigeria; the Canadian health care system; and entrepreneurial businesses such as Canyon Ranch. In addition, she has worked with many non-profit organizations, including foundations and school systems around the world.

A long term cancer survivor (she was told she had six months to live almost thirty years ago), Markova has appeared on several radio and tv shows, including National Public Radio.

Her books include I Will Not Die an Unlived Life, The Open Mind, and No Enemies Within: An Unused Intelligence, co-authored with her husband and business partner, Andy Bryner; and How Your Child Is Smart and Learning Unlimited, co-authored with Anne R. Powell. As one of the co-editors of the Random Acts of Kindness series, she helped launch a national movement to help counter America’s crisis of violence.

A former board member of the Visions for a Better World Foundation, she is very active in making the world a better place. Her initiatives include:
* Omnibus, a training of leaders of nonprofits in statewide drug prevention programs in Vermont.
* A five day program entitled “War of Song," designed with youth leaders in Dublin, Ireland to create an alliance between Protestant and Catholic children.
* With Dee Hock (founder of Visa International), worked with government and corporations to envision the future of New Zealand.
* Alliance programming for the Hospital System of Quebec – creating a collaborative atmosphere within the French and English healthcare system.
* The Institute for Human Ecology, a nonprofit entity offering leadership development training to emerging community leaders in New England.

Barry Johnson, Ph.D.

In our culture we are "springloaded" to define all difficult situations as problems that can be fixed. If we are only smart enough to find the right answer, the problem will go away. But life's experiences tell us that this approach frequently doesn't work - some problems never seem to get solved. The truth is, some "problems" are ongoing and can never be solved in a traditional sense. These are polarities - situations in which both conflicting points of view are true.

Regarded as both an effective consultant and leading thinker in the management field, for the past 35 years Barry Johnson has been working to help create organizations that are good places to work, to own, to do business with, and to have in the community. In the process he has founded 5 organizations, and in 1994 he founded Polarity Management Associates. Through this consulting and training organization, he has worked with a great variety of organizations on four continents to increase the effectiveness of leaders inside their organizations through problem-solving.

Johnson asserts that problem solving methods alone cannot work on many of your most critical issues. Polarity Management supplements traditional either/or problem solving with the ability to capitalize on chronic problems that are unsolvable, unavoidable, and indestructible.

Polarity Management (working with polarities – dilemmas & paradox) can significantly reduce the cost of overt and covert resistance to your change efforts. A shift in mindset from seeing all difficulties as problems to solve to a mindset that recognizes some difficulties as polarities to manage is the most powerful change readiness intervention available today. With Polarity Management, opposition becomes a valued resource.'

Johnson's book Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems presents a unique model and set of principles that will challenge you to look at situations in new ways. Also included are exercises to strengthen your skills, and case studies to help you begin applying the model to your own unsolvable problems. Johnson also wrote several articles relating Polarity Management™ to a variety of issues including: Resistance to Change, Mergers and Acquisitions, Intercultural Team Building, Capitalizing on Diversity, and Encouraging Experimentation and Risk Taking while Maintaining Tradition and Security.

Johnson has worked with businesses in many countries including:
Advanced Engineering Staff, General Motors; Canadian Imperial Bark of Commerce; Canadian Tire; Amoco; Intel of Ireland; Unilever de Mexico; ABB, Germany; Syncrude of Canada; Motorola; Shell Oil; The Hartford; Xerox; Amex; The Williams Company; H.B. Fuller; UCSD Medical Center; De Beers Consolidated Mines, South Africa; Cargill; Chevron; Lockheed Martin; Wal-Mart; Goodyear, and New York Life.
He has also worked with government agencies including:
Provincial Government of Ontario; Canada Post; UK Cabinet – Top Management Programme; UK National Health Service (NHS); UK National Audit Office (NAO); South Africa Department of the Treasury; Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) South Africa; US Internal Revenue Service (IRS); US Federal Executive Institute; US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI); US Defense Acquisition University; US Navy; and the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
And educational organizations:
University of the Virgin Islands; Notre Dame; Pepperdine University; University of Monterrey, Mexico; Washington University, St. Louis; University of St. Thomas; and the Archdiocese of Chicago School System.