Intelektularo was imagined in Jakarta, Indonesia and founded in Portland, Oregon by Jennifer Hart in 2015. Today, we are a nimble, travel-ready organization led from the Washington, DC metropolitan area able to work across the United States, internationally, and on multiple virtual platforms.
About Our Name and Our Vision
“Intelektularo” -- Esperanto for “intellectuals” – is a slightly irreverent nod to our global roots and a reminder that curiosity and lifelong learning mean never settling – nor taking ourselves too seriously! “Intelektularo” also serves as the basis for our vision: To help create a purposeful world where leaders inspire journeys rather than destinations.
From Practitioner to Manager to Leader
Jennifer’s own leadership journey began with a 15+-year career with a global public affairs firm, where she worked in 11 countries with clients representing government, nonprofit, professional services, consumer and other sectors; built, managed and inspired international teams; and aligned diverse and often contentious stakeholders
As a consultant with management responsibilities, Jennifer struggled first-hand with the perennial dilemma facing senior leaders across the professional services industry: how to be an effective manager, an inspirational leader, a productive rainmaker, and an expert practitioner offering clients the highest level of service and satisfaction – all while meeting billable hour targets.
Identifying a 21st Century Challenge: Work-Life Integration
As work-life balance seemed increasingly elusive, a new challenge was emerging – work-life integration! Jennifer saw this phenomenon permeate multiple organizations transcending borders and sectors. The upshot, she thought, if left unattended: cross-organization tension, lowered morale, top-performer burnout, high turnover, and ultimately a decreased bottom line.
Developing a Solution: Intelektularo and The Making Work Rewarding™ Model
Jennifer also realized that her unique skill – and her true passion – was helping to find the “secret sauce” that made work rewarding and effective for vastly diverse managers, employees and customers.
Jennifer’s experience both as a consultant to clients and a manager of diverse communications professionals worldwide, led her to:
- Determine that work-life integration is a unique challenge for expert practitioners;
- Establish in 2015 and build in Intelektularo a small, minority, and women-owned business – dedicated to helping clients develop leaders and achieve intentional leadership, improve workplace communication, and align stakeholders with divergent viewpoints from across their organizations; and
- Develop the proprietary Making Work Rewarding™ model.
In 2016 Intelektularo introduced the Making Work Rewarding™ approach to a public sector client and successfully applied it in both training and coaching for a number of not-for-profit clients in 2018. Jennifer began to see recurring patterns among leaders at all levels: a disconnect between how they believe they are doing, and how they are actually performing.
She asked herself: How could Intelektularo’s work help shine a light on these blind spots and not only help leaders do better – but, just as importantly, feel better about their work?
During this time our focus grew to include organizational culture and team development. We added assessments, including MBTI®, DISC, the Five Behaviors™, and The Leadership Circle (LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® was added to our repertoire in 2022) to help teams explore their differences with easy- to- apply frameworks and neutral language.
In 2018-2020, Intelektularo integrated individual leadership coaching across our practice. Believing that learning is more effective than “unlearning,” we encouraged clients to offer coaching to leaders at all levels – not just to senior executives.
We also grew our bench of partners during this time, ensuring Intelektularo could deliver to clients a diversity of background and coaching style to mesh with their specific needs.
The global pandemic of 2020 through 2022 produced disruption, uncertainty and anxiety across every organization in every sector, everywhere.
Today, leaders and teams across government, not-for-profit, and business sectors are asking themselves and Intelektularo:
- How do we get to know and understand those we hired to work remotely?
- How do we ensure that the level of collaboration and cooperation between and among our leaders, employees and partners continues to grow and improve?
- How should we go about setting norms, policies and expectations of our increasingly diverse and remote employees while ensuring their work is meaningful and rewarding?
With Making Work Rewarding™ informing our customized coaching, leadership development, consulting and assessment services, Intelektularo is ready to help you, your leadership, your employees and your organization become the very best version of yourselves – and to make work rewarding.
Explore a world of possibilities
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