The Bio
Maggie Kolkena is the sole proprietor of Third Thought. She brings 18 years of experience in providing organizational, team, and individual development solutions to clients. Since 1991, she has provided a range of services focused on leadership development and building capacity to innovate.
Maggie received her Master’s degree in Organization Development from Pepperdine University’s acclaimed MSOD program, where her research compared comedy improvisation teams to corporate project teams to identify factors critical to collaborative creativity.
Over the years, Maggie has developed a distinct competence in coaching leaders around innovation. She was invited by McKinsey & Company to play a research role as part of a global research team working to understand how leaders innovate across large networks. She came away with a clear understanding of the context that senior leaders must create to be effective in fostering innovation in their teams. Maggie augmented these insights by developing a deep familiarity with key tools used to assess a leader’s innovation effectiveness. She has leveraged this expertise to coach various senior leaders on their innovation initiatives.
Maggie’s had extensive experience working with international teams and leaders in global firms. She’s been privileged to work with Nike’s leaders in Asia and the Americas. In 2002 she took an internal position with Intel’s first CTO to build a new global R&D organization. Since working with Oliver Wyman as an Associate Faculty member she’s coached leaders in firms such as Novartis, Bank of America and SUN Microsystems.
Prior to entering the business arena, Maggie was a professional actress, and her respect for the audience is evident in her workshops. Her sessions are creative and highly interactive.
Testimonials
Liked the flexibility of the facilitator, Maggie.
Interesting and relevant. Got me thinking about how to adapt to younger employees and customers.
Great add to the conference – enjoyed and was very interested in what Maggie presented.
Maggie did great Q&A with the audience. Enjoyed the activities that got us involved.
Great personality and energy; kept things moving; sweet; remembered everyone’s names; good job!
The Real Story
Until I was 33 years old I made my living as an actress, choreographer, and a teacher of dance and fitness. I did a stint as the dance reviewer. She sings, she dances, she’s an Angry Housewife!
Angry Housewives, Storefront Theater, 1989
She’s a Babe!
Sadly, the fun ended because I needed to make a more secure living. I took my first corporate job as an Employee Health Coordinator. At a utility company. There was a lot I loved about the job (nice co-workers, a steady paycheck) but privately, I thought the place was pretty dull. I referred to (I’m sorry!) The Utilitarians. When the company embarked on a massive re-engineering initiative (for you younger readers that’s a reinvention of core processes that begins with a blank slate) the results were underwhelming. “That’s just because they’re not creative enough”, I thought smugly. About the same time I went back to school.
My research for my MSOD degree at Pepperdine focused on Collaborative Creativity. I researched project teams inside the untility company and the same number of teams in a more creative industry…..wait for it….ComedySportz! I gathered lots of quantitative data (that’s me, Quant Girl) with the hypothesis that Comedy Improv performers are more creative than Utilitarians. Some people are creative, some just aren’t.
Ah youth.
Imagine my surprise when I calculated my Eigen values. There was no statistically significant difference between the two populations. They were remarkably similar in creative styles. What WAS different were 1) Team Dynamics and 2) Organization Climate. So here is what the research suggests and what I believe:
Everyone is creative.
We create in different ways
Improving team processes increases collaborative creativity
Increasing climate support for innovation increase innovation
When I began my practice in 1995 ‘creativity’ was still considered fairly discretionary. Not any more. Improving team effectiveness and shifting your climate to better support innovation WILL deliver a return on your investment. Plus, your employees will be more satisfied and engaged. Go ahead, ask them if they wouldn’t benefit from better team processes and a climate that doesn’t hinder innovation.
