image of Kimberly smiling

Kimberly WieflingConceive it. Believe it. Achieve it.

Strengthen Leadership, Team Effectiveness, Innovation & Create Inspired Organizational Cultures

Scrappy Project Management

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Successful projects require at least two things: Great teamwork and discipline. We all know about the teamwork part. Duh, right? But, what about the discipline? Discipline means process, and Scrappy Project Management combines exceptional team leadership with just the right amount of process. By ‘process’, we mean clear goals and checklists that are followed rigorously, even when you don’t think you have time. Read More…

Inspired Company Culture

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Recently, several of my clients have become extremely interested in exploring what they call their “corporate DNA.” This model is being used to explore the unique identity of an organization — the historical strengths that are admired, and should be preserved and transmitted to future generations. Read More…

The Possibilities Toolbox

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Equip Leaders & Teams to Make “Impossible” –> Possible
Using tools from the Possibilities Toolbox®, Kimberly will enable your team to…
1. Build Lasting Trust, 2. Dramatically Improve Communications Across Cultural Barriers, 3. Align Individual and Team Goals, and 4. Bring clarity to Shared Purpose. Read More…

Scrappy Design Thinking

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Both design thinking and Scrappy Project Management© share an obsession with “the customer”. Both start by “thinking from the future” rather than getting stuck in the current situation, hampered by self-­limiting beliefs about what’s possible. Rather than using the classic design thinking model of Empathize–Define–Ideate– Prototype–Test, we use the Why, Who, What and How model. Read More…

About Kimberly

2013-09-18 17.15.21-FurukawaASKimberly Wiefling helps organizations achieve what SEEMS impossible, but is merely difficult. How? By turning managers into leaders and groups of people into real teams.

LEADERSHIP isn’t the same as MANAGEMENT.
A GROUP of PEOPLE isn’t the same as a REAL TEAM.

#1 Engaged Employees –> Agile Teams
#2 Agile Leadership and Management (Fast, Focused, Flexible) wins in a VUCA World.
#3 Diverse Global Teams Win – Crossing Borders and Boundaries of Every Kind

Kimberly says “My superpower is to help organizations achieve what seems impossible, but is merely difficult. The secret to success? It isn’t secret! But it does take discipline, and a bit of guidance and support. The best compliment anyone ever paid me is that I’m a ‘force of nature’ (the good kind!). Reading about exercise won’t make you strong, and leadership “training” doesn’t turn people into leaders. I create a ‘learning laboratory’ where people can experiment with more powerful ways of leading, behaving and communicating like the kind of leaders you admire. My ‘workSHOCK’ therapy changes behavior in ways that positively impact business results.”

KIMBERLY’S PROVEN RESULTS – PAIN for which we provide the PAINKILLER:

  • RETAINED KEY EMPLOYEES: Reduced voluntary turnover in Japan’s #1 most innovative company of 2019 from 22% to less than 1% annually in a target audience of 250 managers over 5 years, and to 12% in their direct reports.
    • CRUCIAL: Monthly thinking partner teams holding each other accountable for implementing key insights, and executive sponsor showing interest and tracking progress.

  • IMPROVED MANUFACTURABILITY & ANNUAL FAILURE RATE (AFR): Reduced production time of an HP mass spec from 35 to 5 days, and reduced the AFR by more than half, through process optimization and an R&D NPI redesign team she led.

  • OPTIMIZED NEW PRODUCT INNOVATION (NPI) PIPELINE: Unclogged new product development processes in a company with over 300 engineers through strategic prioritization & resource allocation in alignment with company strategies.

  • INCUBATED INNOVATION: Half of ~90 “impossible” projects launched in these programs were partially or fully implemented in the years following their incubation.

Kimberly will get your stuck project team moving again, facilitate the discovery of breakthrough ideas, and inspire an entire company with her dynamic and energetic presentations. Even the most experienced project leaders will learn new and extremely useful things from Scrappy Kimberly. Scroll down to learn more about four of her most successful tools and areas of consulting. But, don’t let this list limit you. If you need help with anything related to the leading of a team, project, or organization, drop her a line or give her a call.

KIMBERLY’S DREAM FOR OUR WORKING WORLD: “I love to work with purpose-driven organizations committed to optimizing overall “success”, starting with defining what exactly “success” is for their complex stakeholder universe. Doing this we would demonstrate the superior results (including financial) such organizations enjoy, attract more investors to these better-performing investments (long-term), and attract more and better workers to these organizations. Eventually both investments and workers would preferentially flow to these kinds of organizations instead of the soul-sucking variety, and the sick, twisted, dysfunctional organizations of Our World, which will eventually wither and die for lack of financial resources and people.”

Consulting Services

Enabling Managers to be Leaders and Groups of People to be Real Teams!

Kimberly’s business consulting portfolio focuses on improving the effectiveness of teams and leaders. Her track record of success is impressive. You and your team can benefit too. Here is a sampling of the kinds of ways you can have Kimberly engage with your company:

Keynote Speaking & “Lunch and Learns”  … that Inspire and Entertain

Send us details about your event and audience and we’ll conjure up something extraordinary. Sample Topics.

Workshops … that Immediately Improve Business Results

“Training” doesn’t change behavior, and changed behavior is required for improved business results.  Kimberly delivers! Sample Topics.

Thinking Partner Coaching … that accelerates the achievement of the “impossible”

Dare to dream bigger dreams, and accelerate the achievement of these dreams through a powerfully supportive “thinking partnership” with Kimberly. Her track record of opening the door to amazing breakthroughs for other people extends over 15 years and a wide range of examples of the “impossible” becoming inevitable. Read More…

Consulting … that Dramatically Improves Business Results

Improved business results requires changes in Action, Communication, and Thinking (ACT). Results-focused consulting doesn’t just deliver recommendations or create dependency. To achieve real and sustainable change, ACT! Kimberly is obsessed with results, and overcoming negative stereotypes of consultants.

Energizing and Effective Facilitation … that Brings People Together

Strategic Planning Offsites, Project Kickoffs, Executive Working Sessions, and Team Events produce better results when taken with a dose of Kimberly. Read more…

Executive Forums … that Engage and Ignite Action

People need to eat anyhow, so spend your lunchtime with us to learn and grow as a team. Sample Topics.

Breakthrough Results

Meetings CAN be real work … if you prepare for them and execute them with excellence!

  • Strategic Planning
  • Project Kick Offs
  • Important Meetings
  • Events

Learn More, Get Help


To learn more, visit the key consulting area websites listed above, explore Kimberly’s main business site, or better still, give her a call or drop her a line for a quick assessment of your needs and best path to success. You could arrange for a personalized consultation, an onsite WorkShock™, or even just a listening ear and quick advice. Her invaluable wisdom will get your new team off to a great start or existing team back on track.

Contact Kimberly Today!

Scrappy Books

What does it mean to be Scrappy? We have a long definition, but, to really learn all about how to be or become Scrappy in a variety of fields, read the terrific books on this page.Check out the complete series of Scrappy Books, some written by, and all edited by, Kimberly Wiefling. Available from Amazon and the publisher, Happy About

Get the full scoop on Scrappy Project Management.

Partial Client List

Intuit, Symantec, Extreme Networks, P.A.R.C., Panasonic, AMD, Rockliffe, Bad Girl Swirl, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, HP, UC Santa Cruz, I-4, Kyoto University, Chiron, Entelos, Suntory, Daiichi Sankyo Pharma, Oracle, Kuraray, Mazda, Pigeon, Mizuho Securities, vmware, Yamaha, Cisco

Testimonials

The recommendation of a transformed cynic: Kimberly is a bit like a cyclone – she will turn your world upside down and blow you away. Unlike a cyclone, however, she will be sure that all of the important pieces remain; neatly reorganized and stronger than before she met you. She will also, undoubtedly, leave many gems behind for you as well – some ready to display and others for you to continue polishing throughout your life and career. You will definitely be richer for having crossed her path. With unrivaled passion, Kimberly effortlessly blends principles of transformational leadership, communication, cultural understanding and relationship building and links them directly to operational excellence with brilliant simplicity. I learned more practical skills in a 6-day program led by Kimberly than I have in nearly three decades of management education and experience. These lessons will not only allow me to foster an environment that is both enjoyable and highly productive, but will, as a result, make the company I work in stronger and more successful. Without question, Kimberly merits my highest recommendation.

— Ross McClure, Manufacturing Manager, SuperPower, Inc., a Furukawa Company

Kimberly’s Leading From Any Chair workshop is the single most powerful class I’ve attended, and the highest rated class I’ve participated in. Her teachings have fundamentally changed me as a leader, a coach, and a team member.

Lesley Kew, Intuit

Read many more testimonials…

Bio

Kimberly Wiefling helps individuals, teams and organizations achieve what SEEMS impossible, but is merely difficult. How? By turning managers into leaders and groups of people into real teams through her unique “WorkShocks” – highly engaging, experiential, interactive “Learning Laboratories” where meaningful positive change happens.

DEEP EXPERIENCE with GLOBAL COMPANIES: Kimberly has worked all over the US, Europe and Asia, traveling to Japan over 100 times, to work with culturally diverse employees of globalizing Japanese companies. Her superpower is bringing people with diverse backgrounds, cultures & styles together, across borders and boundaries of every kind, to achieve what none could do alone. See details of her work at Silicon Valley Alliances.

Kimberly’s first book, Scrappy Project Management, was also published in Japanese by the #1 business publisher in Japan, Nikkei Business Press. She has edited and co-authored an additional 6 books in the “Scrappy Guides” series, and dozens of blogs. Her mentor, Dr. Edgar Schein, wrote the foreword to her new book “Inspired Organizational Cultures – Discover Your DNA, Engage Your People, and Design Your Future”, which was published in a dual English/Japanese format in March of 2018.

A TECHNOLOGIST with HUMAN SKILLS: A physicist by education, Kimberly realized long ago the limits of technology devoid of human skills – the so-called “touchy feely” aspects of working in teams so vital to success, and so frequently overlooked. Kimberly’s mentor, Dr. Schein, has been a guiding influence on her work to transform business results through practical, sensible approaches. Kimberly is a co-founder of the Silicon Valley Engineering Leadership Community Meetup (SVELC, formerly SVForum EL SIG), building leadership capabilities and community among Silicon Valley technical leaders.

BUSINESS RESULTS FOCUS: Kimberly facilitates highly engaging leadership, organizational change, and team effectiveness workshops based on her “Possibilities Toolbox”, Scrappy Design Thinking, Scrappy Project Management, and Inspired Company Cultures. Her intensive behavior-changing “learning laboratories” directly translate into positive business results which are meaningful and measurable.

SPECIALIZING in CROSS-FUNCTIONAL AND CROSS-CULTURAL TEAMS: Kimberly has worked globally with people from over 50 different countries, in every corporate function, including manufacturing, finance, Information Technology, R&D, Engineering, Marketing, and executive leadership teams. Her clients include many well-known global brands in a broad range of industries including B2B products and services, pharma, 3D printing, financial services, food and beverages, online portals, and consumer products.

FROM STARTUPS to GLOBAL 1000: In addition to her extensive experience with global companies, Kimberly is a serial entrepreneur. She’s been involved in ~ a dozen startups. One was acquired by Google, Elite Horse Clothing is still in operation, and she helped EmbeddedWorks bootstrap to 7 figure annual revenues.

MAKING a DIFFERENCE: Kimberly is passionate about making a meaningful difference by working with organizations, individuals and teams committed to solving the problems of Our World – profitably and thus sustainably. She is determined to transform Planet Earth one effective leader and engaged team at a time!

Kimberly’s books are available on Amazon here.

Contact

Learn MORE than any human needs to know about Kimberly’s business here:

wiefling.com

Meet her amazing Silicon Valley Alliances Team here:

siliconvalleyalliances.com

To Schedule a Consultation, contact Kimberly at:

Wiefling Consulting, Inc.
Phone US: +1 650 867 0847
consulting@wiefling.com