We must free ourselves of the hope
that the sea will ever rest.
We must learn to sail in high winds.
~Leif Smith
PATTERN RESEARCH, Inc. offers research, consulting and training for innovators in the private, public and nonprofit sectors. We have provided "Tools for Explorers" since 1975.
TO CONNECT with us, call, write, or e-mail. Office hours are 8 am to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, and from 9 am until noon on Saturdays, Mountain Time.
Leif Smith: leif at pattern.com
Pat Wagner: pat at pattern.com
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Pat Wagner has worked with Pattern Research, Inc. and its predecessor the Office for Open Network since 1977. She is an educator, trainer, writer and consultant, focusing on personnel, management, leadership, marketing, career and strategic planning issues. She has special interests in conflict management, project management, community outreach and future studies.
Most of her current clients work with and for libraries of all kinds, plus library boards, foundations, Friends groups, and national, state and regional library organizations. Pat also works for innovators in universities, schools, nonprofits, local government and professional, business and trade organizations, as well as medical, scientific and research institutions.
Pat had a checkered past in the performing, visual and literary arts as a poet, graphic designer, publisher, writer, radio talk show host and printer She has a liberal arts degree with an emphasis in print communication and performance.
Leif scouts for new technologies and opportunities and connects clients with potential workplace partners.
The Networking Game (1980, booklet)
The Networking Game (web edition, 24k) is a concise guide to the five rules of networking, written by Leif Smith and Pat Wagner. We invite you to download your own free copy.
Pat conducts an average of 140 programs a year for audiences from Fairbanks, Alaska to Boston, Massachusetts, from Calexico, California to Miami, Florida in 46 states, Puerto Rico and Canada.
She designs and presents good-humored and practical workplace programs on personnel, management and leadership. She uses her background in the performing and literary arts to create programs that are both entertaining and insightful. First, she listens to the concerns of her customers. Then she seeks out the best ideas about human behavior and workplace performance. Next, she synthesizes models that are easy to understand and apply. Then, she designs the program in partnership with her customers. Finally, she presents in partnership with her audience.
OTHER services include researching study bibliographies, developing and presenting for-credit CE classes, developing and presenting live video and web-based seminars and taped videos, producing audiotape-based training, coaching individuals and consulting to workplaces. She can come crosstown for an hour or hit the road for a week visiting agencies around a state or region.
MOST OF her business is generated by word-of-mouth. Pat has many repeat customers; over 85% of her clients choose to work with her again. They like the personal service, the good-humored approach to training and education, the innovative mix of new and old ideas and Pat's willingness to work with them to create programs that reflect the needs of their audience. Participants like her programs because they are both entertain and offer specific, practical skills and strategies that can be applied immediately to real problems.
Ask yourself what measurable result you hope to achieve.
The answer to that question is the heart of designing a program with value.
IN 1992, Pat and Leif developed an interactive leadership education model that has served many professions and vocations. Pat has facilitated this model for librarians, teachers, community and nonprofit organization leaders, artists and arts administrators, college administrators, lawyers, military personnel, parents and federal employees. She has also participated in other leadership institutes as a featured speaker or presenter.
THIS MODEL allows active participation and encourages members of the class to think and act outside of self-imposed constraints. The materials and exercises can be shared by participants within their own institutions. Think of this program as a portable feast.
2008 Leadership Update: Our leadership programs focus on risk, influence, vision and ethics. Risk includes executive decision-making and governance: a series of exercises to help leaders and managers understand how to make the hardest choices. Influence at the leadership level is about politics, particularly in the context of larger institutions and the greater community. Vision focuses on the better future for the people your enterprise serves: how to anticipate changes in demographics, culture and technology. And ethics, which is about the study of morality, reminds participants to use both the head and the heart to do the right thing: a course in character.
The clock is ticking on the mass retirement of millions of 50+ workers, including experienced managers and leaders. Leadership training is urgently needed to help employees at all levels deal with the new demands of evolving workplaces. More clients want to fasttrack the development of practical leadership skills inhouse.
New for 2008: How can leaders anticipate problems, rather than just react? And what will they be willing to give up?
EDUCATIONAL ISSUES that Pat has addressed include training for adult educators, conflict management for school and parent groups, communication skills for faculties and staff, stress management for new public school teachers, planning for societal and technological change, leadership, lifelong learning, community education and building support networks for schools and other institutions.
2008 Education Update: Does distance learning work? Which software packages work best? What about workplaces without high-speed access to web seminars? We are continuing to test new technologies to ensure that budget and location will not limit our usefulness to clients only with money and bandwidth.
New for 2008: Integrating workplace education during times of rapid change: What is real motivation, and does it really work?
85% of the programs Pat currently conducts are with libraries and library organizations such as state and national associations and state libraries, as well as host institutions such as universities. She has worked with the library community in 42 states, from Alaska to Florida.
2008 Library Update: We now provide programs for some of the leading library training organizations in the United States including Infopeople and Nelinet, as well as national associations (ALA, MLA), state libraries and library systems and cooperatives. Please click on the update above for details about our library-related programs.
New for 2008: Helping libraries cope with the new, from changes in technology and culture to the changing expectations of library users.
FROM STATE budget cuts to the privatization of federal employees, there are special challenges for those working in tax-supported institutions. Public sector concerns that Pat has dealt with range from budgeting skills for managers in public colleges and libraries to building short term mission statements for federal agencies, in addition to governance training, strategic planning, conflict management, leadership and supervisory skills, problem-solving, and ongoing workplace education. She has worked with local government special districts, municipal governments, state agencies and many federal institutions.
2008 Government Update: Too many public sectors supervisors and managers receive inadequate training in managing people and projects; Pat is interested in helping to change that.
PAT HAS SERVED as a founding executive director, board member, staff member, volunteer and consultant for nonprofits in Vermont, Wisconsin, and Colorado. She has special experience in education, the arts, humane service such as animal shelters, community and neighborhood development, religion (regardless of denomination), health and wellness, social services, science, education and collaboration in the nonprofit sector.
In the library world, she has worked with Friends organizations in conjunction with their relationships with library foundations and boards.
PROGRAMS HAVE included marketing, budgeting, staff development, fundraising, board training, volunteer management, meeting planning, crisis management, leadership skills and how to manage the legal and ethical closure of a nonprofit.
2008 Nonprofit Update: Fast, Cheap and Decent Strategic Planning helps small organizations cut their time and costs associated planning processes while maintaining quality–and prevents "strategic avoidance" - nonprofits overwhelmed by planning models, so they do nothing...
PAT GREW UP in a medical family and knows firsthand the importance of good communications skills in this specialized workplace. She has been asked to address everything from the personnel issues of a private practice to management skills in a large teaching hospital, from rural community health initiatives to the impact of technology on health care, from the issues of doctors and nurses to the concerns of support staff. She has also worked with practitioners of both mainstream and alternative healing disciplines on marketing and customer relations. Much of her work in recent years has been with nursing home, home health care and hospice staff.
2008 Health Update: Project management tools can support the work of the helping professions, providing information about how to better communicate with fellow providers, patients and their families.
PRIVATE SECTOR clients tend to ask for programs on economics, strategic planning and customer service. Pat enjoys working with marketplace issues such as marketing, innovation and the application of classic liberal principles to everything from employee compensation to building community alliances. She has presented programs for many of the largest corporations in Colorado. Also, she enjoys working with inventors, artists, engineers, scientists, lawyers, craftspeople, computer experts, retailers, manufacturers, service professionals and those creating services and products in smaller markets.
2008 Private Sector Update: Even though the words being used are different, the basic principles of marketing have not changed: awareness of the customer, making changes in response to feedback and communicating the benefits of those changes to past, existing and potential customers.
IF PATTERN RESEARCH, Inc., is not the right solution, we will suggest other resources. There is no charge for referrals or phone/e-mail consultation.
Until we post meaningful, concise and useful descriptions of these topics to this web site, please e-mail, write or call us with your requests for more information.
The creation of an effective program is a collaboration. You tell us:
We provide:
Because we like to interact with audiences even during keynotes, we hope you allow your participants to have input in the process, both during and before the program.
Educational programs do not magically change the behavior of most participants. In addition to the programs, we can meet with the leadership and managers in your organization to help them understand that a workplace environment that both supports the individual and holds everyone accountable for his or her own behavior will help ensure that the good information in a training program "sticks."
What if you don't require training? What if you want to implement better behavior and management and want some help with the next step? What if your board needs to create a mission statement or discuss a difficult issue? We can meet with groups or individuals for coaching and for facilitating strategic planning, decision-making and conflict management sessions. We have worked with nonprofit boards, elected and appointed public officials, professional and trade associations, citizen groups and political organizations, as well as business boards, unions, staff committees and collaborative decision-making teams.
One of our more popular services is called Falling Between the Cracks. Perhaps your workplace has been too busy lately for effective staff meetings–the kind where problems actually are solved. Perhaps you are entering a period of growth and change–a new building, a merger, new automation, implementing a new strategic plan, new alliances, a budget crisis or an ongoing personnel problem is getting worse, fast. Otherwise good communicators are overwhelmed; issues small and large fall between the cracks. We start with a little education about governance and problem-solving and then help the group discuss, decide and execute. The goal is to clean up old business and put some simple and effective decision-making models in place. The group gets to practice on real issues so as to increase and sustain their own good decision-making abilities.
The issues don't have to be big ones, but they can be important to participants:
Our conflict management programs are educational, not adversarial. They are based on the idea that it is possible to learn how to create workplaces where the goals are improving productivity, making it easy for other people to say "yes, and eliciting the best from other people. Most participants are surprised at how much they laugh, and how much they learn. We use simple and elegant models drawn from many fields of human knowledge. They emphasize important behavioral goals in the workplace, such as personal responsibility and accountability, rapport and leadership, and objective, measurable information and mission. We do not conduct personality or psychological tests.
Many people still think they are working in the 19th century, when the education, training and experience they would have acquired in their early twenties could be sufficient to last a lifetime. These programs address many current career issues, including rapid change, lifelong learning, career switching and returning to school.
This programs are popular with workplaces in all three sectors: private, public, and nonprofit. They deal mostly with different aspects of marketing, including research, customer service, advertising, and the organization of small organizations, as well as practical politics.
These are "big picture" topics that are popular with those in management and leadership roles or those who want to become managers and leaders some day. If your organization can not provide time for the multi-week version of our Leadership Institute, some of these programs might be useful.
Programs on system thinking focus on how actions in the workplace are connected. They use models from history and technology to provide new insights into how to address issues of cultural change and technological upheaval.
Our business started as a network generator, creating useful relationships where information and ideas are exchanged. These are very interactive programs, suitable for opening and closing large conferences, as well as building rapport among friends, strangers, and coworkers at community meetings, on boards of directors, and among team members at work.
Even "grammar-phobic" participants enjoy these user-friendly programs on improving written materials. The emphasis is on writing and graphics that are clear and effective, produced within small budgets and tight deadlines.
Performance training and experience will improve your ability to influence behavior in the workplace, whether you are a leader, educator, salesperson, or manager. Participants have used the information in these programs to improve classroom performance, win customers, and even influence elections!
Leif Smith: leif at pattern.com
Pat Wagner: pat at pattern.com
Pattern Research, Inc.
PO Box 9100
Denver, CO 80209-0100
USA