Tim McNichol, Associate

Tim McNichol has more than a decade of experience as a consultant and coach helping organizations and leaders improve their effectiveness. Tim has found the complex and often emotional issues related to diversity to be an ideal crucible for developing the leadership skills needed to succeed in today's evolving business environment. He loves the challenges and rewards inherent in the work of helping others develop their intercultural competence.

Tim is also a founding partner of FourOaks Consulting, an organization development firm based in Portland, Oregon. He is known for his ability to design and facilitate improvement initiatives that produce results that are aligned with strategic goals. His systems approach helps clients address the underlying thinking patterns and organizational structures that drive the behavior.

Tim received his master's degree in Whole Systems Design/Organization Development from Antioch University with an emphasis on collaborative learning and systems thinking. He is an adjunct faculty member in the Master of Business Administration Program at Portland State University.

Personal/Professional Philosophy:

• For change to be sustainable, improvements at the individual, group and system level have to be integrated.
• The wisdom and energy needed to make the improvements already exists within the individuals and groups that make up the system.
• I can add value by partnering with people in the system to design and facilitate ways to bring out and apply that energy and wisdom.

A Favorite Book: Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech.

Lessons Learned: In a sentence: this is difficult, needed and incredibly rewarding work.
At a more detailed level, as a white, heterosexual male, I am continuing to learn:

1. The current system gives me great privilege ... and it is destroying me.
2. The current system oppresses others who are not like me ... and it is killing them.
3. The current system, and my place in it, makes it difficult for me to see 1 and 2.
4. Knowing this gives me the motivation and responsibility to not only understand these dynamics, but to work to change them.
5. The insights and growth I have seen in myself and others give me the hope and energy I need to continue this work.