MSLOC in the Field: Stephanie Waite on Designing for Real People and Real Results
Introduction
Ask Stephanie Waite (MS13) what she’s up to professionally and she’ll tell you that her work is “unlocking and activating people potential to achieve their business results.” That’s more than the tagline for her company, 7 AIR; it’s the roadmap for the people strategy work she does with and for executive leaders, groups and teams within organizations, and boards of directors. Her focus, informed by her professional experience and her academic scholarship as a former student and current instructor and mentor on the MSLOC faculty, is on understanding and transforming clients deeply so they can create long-term change the clients are equipped to sustain.
Career Impact
Waite knows first-hand about making major transitions and sustaining changes over time. After an early career as a science educator in Racine, Wisconsin, Waite used her time as an MSLOC student to gain “the vocabulary, frameworks, and community” she needed to take a big next step in her career. Waite shared, “I wanted to build a bridge to transition from my career in public education into the corporate sector. I pair my science background, identifying and creating repeatable processes with my formal education from MSLOC to support my clients in my consulting, executive thought partnership and designing leadership experiences work. I value how MSLOC equips us to use science as a tool to make culture and leadership development tangible for our organizations and clients.” Waite also sees MSLOCers bringing “a grace and an elegance” to change and transformation, which she says is required when leading large-scale transformations in our currently complex world. MSLOC gave her the content and application insights to translate what works to a variety of real organizational cultures.
Yet, interestingly, Waite does not consider herself solely as a change practitioner. This may be surprising given her former post as President of the Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP) Midwest. She explains: “Change is asking someone to do something new. We do that all the time no matter if you’re a change practitioner or not. The way we do that is by helping people learn how to do that new thing. Using my learning and education background, I help break down complex, largescale changes into learning something new. This is another thing MSLOC allowed me to do – articulate and solidify my unique point of view around how I view organizational dynamics.”
Community Impact
Waite pointed to the interdisciplinary nature of MSLOC’s curriculum and community when discussing her role as an MSLOC faculty member and mentor for the Designing for Organizational Effectiveness Certificate (DOEC) program since the first DOEC cohort in 2017. Waite shared, “I only have incredible things to say about DOEC. I was so drawn to the design of
the program, that you could do the DOEC graduate certificate individually as a four course program; or do it as part of the master’s program. It’s a beautiful duality – our DOEC cohorts each have both degree and certificate students.” Waite, and her fellow DOEC mentors, serve as an additional cadre of instructors working alongside the instructors who are tied to specific MSLOC courses. Waite explained, “You have your course instructors and you have the ability to access mentors, who are also your instructors and can provide one-on-one education and support for you. That’s why I wanted to be involved from the beginning – you don’t often get access to experts in an academic program, often it’s focused on theory – DOEC is elevating the experiential opportunities for it students by facilitating a parallel experience with a mentor during the entirety of the DOEC program. It’s the best of all worlds. As faculty mentors, we’re building relationships—lifetime relationships—that go far beyond the class.”
Mentorship and Advice to Learners
Waite also shared how important mentorship is for students working their way through the DOEC design project process, reflecting that “after students conduct interviews, listen to all the user stories, and start developing an opportunity solution tree, that’s when they can use support to keep going and making sense of everything they’re finding. They discover they are in a low-risk environment to practice, play, and develop their own identities as organizational effectiveness practitioners.”
Waite’s commitment to learning starts, and continues, with herself. She recently returned to Northwestern Executive Learning and Organizational Change (ELOC) to complete her coaching education, which fulfilled her education requirement to become a Board Certified Coach through the Center for Credentialing & Education. It’s another critical skill in Waite’s toolkit as she works to equip her peers—colleagues, clients, and students alike—to achieve the leadership and organizational excellence that is theirs for the taking.
MSLOC in the Field is a series where community members share perspectives on their professional journeys and the roles MSLOC has played in advancing their learning and career goals.