Everyone can benefit from an outside ear and eye. Someone who focuses on listening to your professional stories with only your goals in mind.
Hello, my name is Karolyn Schalk. When I first fired up the website, in mid-2014, I was launching Garden of The Intellect, LLC as a niche consultancy providing interim CIO services, and support for technology transformations. In September 2015 I joined IBM, and while I meant to maintain the Garden as my personal blog, work was all encompassing, and regular updates didn’t happen.
It was an interesting six years with IBM, so interesting that I decided to retire in April, 2021 and spend my time focused on ways to share my expertise and energy in ways that I hope will make a difference. The world of work is in a constant state of change, both what people do, and how pundits, critics, and researchers talk about work. In all this change there are a few things that do stay constant, the need to have a network people who you can share ideas with, and will give you honest, open feedback. If you are lucky, you can find that person in your workplace, and sometimes we need to look further than our current situation to find someone who can be objective – a truly outside eye, with enough experience to bring broad perspective to a situation or need. Sometimes what you need is a listening ear, sometimes you need a coach to help you get the motivation to change.
My professional success was due, in large part, to my ability to navigate corporate politics, shifting markets, and general uncertainty while driving productive changes. As a manager of people I delighted in helping my teams develop their abilities, giving them support in their career journey even when that meant their leaving for a different role. My success in retirement is due to my separating my personal worth from my professional work, and having a plan for how to use my time well. This gratitude and appreciation for my own contentment motivates me to share what I’ve learned with others so they can have satisfying careers, and retirements of their own.
If you decide to engage my services we will work on a clear articulation of your professional, and personal value, identify areas for growth, and put together an approach to navigating the world you find yourself in as you work towards your goals. To see the trajectory of my career, and some highlights and accomplishments visit my LinkedIn profile. You can Google me and come up with an interesting bunch of links. Everything from what I contributed to the A.L.I.C.E bot project to card game instructions on How Stuff Works (I’m rather proud Canasta.) I’m endlessly curious, so you never know what I’ll be diving into next
