Maximizing human potential in a technology-obsessed world.
Anne Winn
Strategic Humanist
My best gift is seeing people, situations, and problems clearly. Working at the intersection of logic and creativity, I design and build something new and then hand it off for sustainment.
The key is envisioning the system and structure that should exist underneath and understanding what people need to help it thrive.
The same job, five different rooms.
A student success center built out of four fragmented units. An advisory function consolidated from four disciplines. A learning platform for eight thousand people. A change capability handed back to a client team that was about to lose it. An engagement and culture program for nine hundred people in the middle of a reorganization.
Different sectors, different decades, one shape. Find the thing the organization needs and does not have. Design it. Get people to want it. Build it. Teach somebody else to run it. Leave.
It took a long time to notice it was always the same job.
There is a longer answer to how I got here. Be Human First →
What's next? I'm open to possibilities.
The type of work and the impact it has is more important to me than the form it takes.
I am launching a research practice and building a body of work. Alongside that, I am open to the right role, and it may not have a title yet. The work I do best usually gets described after it exists: someone has a problem they can name but not solve, a need that feels impossible, or a function that should be there and is not. It's hard to write a job description, let alone a posting for that need.
So rather than wait for the right listing, here are some ideas of work that I am open to:
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A senior role with authority to solve problems and address root causes rather than delivering recommendations.
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Fractional or interim leadership creating real value and having a meaningful impact, alongside the research.
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Advisory work on a defined problem or initiative with a clear objective and outcomes, and being the person to diagnose challenges, evaluate strategies, and propose a solution.
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A research partnership, sponsorship, and interesting people to share ideas with.
If you are carrying something that sounds like any of these, I would love to hear about it.
PERSPECTIVES ON THE WORK
CLIENT
“It was a treat and learning opportunity to see Anne, a third party, navigate a complex corporate structure and influence key stakeholders at different levels of the organization.”
KAROL HERNANDEZ
TEAM
“She really has an extraordinary way of making people feel safe while challenged, fostering joy in team dynamics, and making space for reflection that leads to elevated systems.”
JASMINE JACKSON
PEER
“She has a knack for being able to get to the root of an issue quickly and with elegance... she has consistently leaned in to drive things forward with wisdom and decisiveness.”
BRIAN CARMICHAEL
Selected work:
Function
Consolidated four consulting disciplines into one advisory function, with career architecture, skills assessment, and calibrated promotion standards.
Capability
Recovered at-risk revenue by building an in-house change capability and transitioning it to a global client team.
Platform
Built an experiential learning platform for eight thousand learners. Engagement up seventy-five percent in year one, two national awards.
Culture
Led an engagement and culture initiative for over nine hundred people through layoffs and reorganization.
The writing and the research:
While I write about a range of topics related to activating and realizing our human potential, the theme that runs underneath it all is distance. Distance interferes with progress personally and in how we engage with one another.
Personally, it affects our ability to be our best selves and realize our potential. In management and leadership, it is a barrier to motivating and activating people, effective collaboration, productive culture, and the development of authentically high-performing teams. And both of these expressions make it harder to do our best work and to create real efficiency in our organizations, groups, and communities.
As I formalize the mechanisms to collect data around the methodology, my objective is to more deeply understand the factors and variables that both create and close that distance as well as the impacts of increased distance on the vision and plans we have for ourselves, our teams, and our organizations.
The research runs in public, and the survey is the fastest way in.