On Achieving Personal and Professional Objectives with Karen Mathews…

Agnes Lewis
HR Manager
SE LABORATORIES

Our company has benefited greatly because of Karen's ability to handle a variety of employment issues, as well as assist in our strategic planning sessions.
I have been asked by others to summarize where we have ended up as a company as a result of our work with Karen Mathews. What’s wrong with that question is that it assumes we’ve “ended” anywhere. What Karen enabled us to do in unison was start again, this time with a shared set of objectives and values, plus a process to come to agreements, as a team, on our work as we head into uncharted territory.

It was wonderful to discover that Karen Mathews had insights to be able to assist our company at every level.
Karen gave us the example, through her work, of truly aligned practices. Whether she began with a strategic question or an implementation issue, Karen was able to ask the questions our management team needed to work through. We had not taken whole system views of decision making before—to unite intention with execution and to create consistency. Before Karen Mathews’ work with us, coming to a decision felt like looking for the one red seat in a dark theater…we knew it was there but had no idea how to get there efficiently.

Karen is an outstanding coach and role model.
It seems so simplistic to talk about integrative practices and whole system thinking as revolutionary. Certainly they were practices I knew of. But, on a day-to-day basis, there are so many personalities, activities and priorities whizzing by that it is difficult to know what to grab hold of, what will give you leverage. For this reason alone, I found Karen’s ongoing coaching to be invaluable.

On a personal level, Karen has coached me through problematic areas, then challenged me to clarify and define what it is that I wanted, and then to commit to a plan to get there.
I spend my days laying track for others to succeed, ensuring equity and trying to build in predictability into what management does. Ironically, my personal and professional satisfaction was often lost in the mix. It just couldn’t be right that to be an advocate at work I had to sacrifice my own sense of personal balance, my own pride in personal achievement. It was like I was on the edge daily, with no solid ground to stand on, but working, working just the same. Karen has helped me to gain perspective and master logistics both professionally and personally.

Karen Mathews expands your ideas of what’s possible and then paves the path to take you there!
It is easy in our society to feel overwhelmed. So many things clamor for your attention. There was no rationale, except expediency, in so much of what I encountered before I began working with Karen Mathews. I learned with Karen that I had the wisdom within me to discern my best course of action. I only needed help to untease the confusion that had grown over the years of my putting myself last, after dozens of unrelated, often conflicting demands. Once I had my direction in clear view, committing to a course of action was nearly effortless.

Karen Mathews helped me to uncover the pivotal actions—high leverage and requiring less energy—that could turn around any situation.
As we worked together, I realized Karen not only understood these “effectiveness points” in every situation I presented to her, but she conducts her own highly successful consulting practice in the same manner. Her walk became a real world example—on top of her unparalleled advice.

Karen Mathews renewed our vitality as an organization and that of every individual, like me, who was fortunate enough to interact with her on a personal coaching basis.