We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Annie McGhee Stinson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Annie below.

Annie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry? Any stories or anecdotes that illustrate why this matters?

Our mission at InteraWorks is “Elevating the Human Experience at Work”
and this is the imperative of our time. We believe that the workplace and business models of the last century are outdated. The paradigms they created are outdated. The dogma and doctrine based on these models is inadequate for the challenges we face. We believe we need to shift these paradigms and shift them quickly. The dogma I am speaking of is linear, cause and effect – that the future can be predicted based on the past. That organizational hierarchies based in left-brain attributes of command and control are effective. It’s a dangerous illusion and it’s predicated on the idea that security and certainty are the goals or outcomes of these structures and the policies and procedures that support them. We need to shift to more holistic and regenerative models that are predicated on the idea that organizations are more like organisms: Living Complex Adaptive Systems and that human beings are the life blood of any organization. Rather than focusing on over-operationalizing and outdated Performance Management Systems – our focus should be on relationships and opening up to the right – brain attributes of relationships, empathy, compassion and yes even LOVE. The greatest technology is within us and the new science backs this up, but most corporations are not practicing or even aware of this perspective and the extraordinary opportunities it provides.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I have over 25 years of experience in Coaching, and Consulting.  My life-long devotion to help others explore and express their deepest potential began in Europe and the Far East where I spent 8+ years working with an American University overseas. This extended exposure to different cultures so early in my career helped to broaden my perspective and deepen my appreciation for the infinite variety of the human expression.

When I returned to the U.S. she began working as a Senior Manager for a Washington D.C. based consulting firm owned by Everett Alvarez Jr. Mr. Alvarez is best known as the first American shot down over Vietnam and the longest held POW in American history. Mr. Alvarez’s deep humility about this experience had a profound impact on me. The simple intention that sustained Mr. Alvarez and his fellow prisoners through 8.5 years of brutal captivity: Return with Honor. During my years with Mr. Alvarez’s company I absorbed the lessons offered by this quiet hero; not as concepts, but as a living, breathing model of wisdom and integrity.

Today, Iam Co-Owner and Managing Partner of a highly successful Performance and Productivity Training and Consulting Firm: InteraWorks. This innovative company serves corporate clients around the world to learn to manage distractions so they can focus their time and energy on what matters most. While that sounds simple; anyone in corporate culture knows that managing distractions is one of the single most difficult aspect of day to day organizational life.

I have a balance of formal education (M.A. in Resource Development, post-graduate studies in neuroscience and Masters in Neurolinguistics, Masters in Spiritual Science) as well as on-going fascination and research in quantum science and its application in business.

In my free time, I support the artistic expression.  I have written a book and produced 3 full length plays based upon the concept of Wisdom with a commitment to “Creating a Forum for the Living Voice of Wisdom in our Communities.”

We need to evolve our capacities for high order thinking, and we need to draw on the science and technology of our time to be able to solve the issues that confront us. We will not be able to resolve these issues using the level of thinking that created them. (Gandhi quote)

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

We believe that the team is the primary life blood of the organization. We invest in the team. We pay them well, we reward results, we are generous with profit sharing, we provide many many opportunities for growth and development and taking on shared leadership – we spend time together 1:1 and as a team on retreats etc…We ask for and acknowledge team input, we take feedback, we foster shared values, shared vision, shared mission. Most importantly we believe in our team, our mission and we believe in our approach. We love our work and we love our team. We believe in growth as an outcome, not growth as a strategy. Our growth is an outcome of our beliefs.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

The book on how to “do” business in 2022 and going forward hasn’t been written yet. In my opinion we need to get out of the box of “the way business is done” and start writing our own books. We need to invest time and research into understanding the implications of Quantum Science and how we might apply these principles in our work and lives. We don’t need to be physicists to do this. A laymen’s understanding of the broad implications will re-direct the way we conduct ourselves and our business practices. Study the nature of consciousness, philosophy, Quantum Science, Neuroscience, and then apply these principles to the human dynamic and then apply the human dynamic to the organizational dynamic. (Ken Wilbur, Ian McGilchrist, Dan Siegal, Joe Dispenza, HeartMath Institute, IONS, Don Hoffman, Robert Lanza).

“The problems of today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that created them.” ~ Einstein

Change our thinking, change our mindset, change our brains. It is the essential pivot of our age.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.InteraWorks.com