—Systemic change begins with personal change—
Ann-Marie Heidingsfelder, MBA, ACC founded Partner4Success, which helps companies increase sales, develop their executives and improve the workplace.
She is a senior coach and workshop facilitator. Her clients experience a “connecting the dots†to improved job satisfaction, values, and business outcomes with a coaching style that incorporates heart, backbone, and humor.
Coaching since 2007, she is successful with front-line managers to C-Level leaders in the commercial, healthcare and government sectors. Specific areas of expertise include leadership development, sales, management training, emotional intelligence, change management, organizational strategy, team building, Situational Leadership®, and applied behavior analysis. There are few challenges in management and sales or the psychology of leadership that Ann-Marie hasn’t seen before, can’t relate to or hasn’t advised on. This makes her a highly relatable and seasoned professional who applies a genuine passion for management and leadership to help organizations and their employees succeed.
Ann-Marie holds an MBA from the University of Phoenix, Coaching Certification from Coach U. and BA in Psychology from Boston College. In addition to her role as a management consultant, she has articles published extensively in both print and online including Examiner.com, YFS Magazine, SalesPro Magazine and the Northern California HR Association Magazine. Ann-Marie authored The 20 Minute Sales Coach: Improve Sales Performance & Increase Sales in As Little As 20 Minutes a Day. She is also a member of the Association for Training & Development, the International Coach Federation, Northern California HR Association and is active in Boston College alumni affairs.
Before establishing Partner4Success, Ann-Marie worked in senior leadership roles at GE Healthcare Finance, Comcast, Hewlett-Packard Financial Services, DELL Financial Services and AT&T Capital Corporation. Previous awards include several years as “Account Manager of the Year†at AT&T Capital Corporation. She also received the coveted “Team Leadership Award†while at Hewlett-Packard. A native Bostonian, Ann-Marie resides in Sonoma County, CA with her husband, daughter, three cats and dog, Marty. When she’s not consulting, coaching and writing, you can find her running, gardening, reading period novels, volunteering at her daughter’s school and mentoring Boston College seniors.
I learned a lot in this conversation. That's a euphemism for it being challenging for me, since her values and working style differs from mine. You'll probably hear me struggling to listen and learn her experience and perspective. Part of why I invited her and value our friendship is our different values. Different values mean we balance them differently. Leadership means listening, making people feel understood, and supporting them as people, even when you disagree, at least my style. Listening now, I don't think I listened as much as I could have. I could have learned more about a different perspective that many people share. This conversation led to several monologue posts I put up on awareness often leading to inaction, rather assertive ones. As always with Ann-Marie, enjoyed the conversation and valued her being herself. Read the transcript.
You'll love how I met Ann-Marie, a friend whose perspective I value despite not having met in person yet. After the 2016 election, I posted a piece on Inc., If You Voted for Trump, Let's Meet, because living in lower Manhattan means what Trump voters are around get bullied, effectively, into keep quiet about it. I disagree with many Trump policies, to say the least, especially on the environment, but he won. I wanted to know more about him and his voters. She responded, among others, as I wrote in a follow-up Inc. piece, Leaders Listen: Crossing the Political Divide, What happened when I spoke to people on the opposite pole of everyone around me. I think we both pleasantly surprised each other on our civility, curiosity, and mutual unhappiness with our nation's level of political conversation, if you can call it that. We've kept in touch. My podcast conversation with Jonathan Haidt and reading his book led me to want to bring more diverse views on the podcast. I thought of Ann-Marie, invited her on, and here is the result. She describes herself as a green Republican but says there aren't many of her. I wouldn't balance issues as she does, but frankly I don't see the behavior of people on the left so consistent with their environmental values. I don't see almost any Americans polluting less. I don't think people like Ann-Marie are rare, but I do think people acting on the environment prefer to browbeat or insult conservatives and Trump supporters more than listen to them. I hope it's the first of more diverse views. I don't want a bubble or echo chamber for you. I want to learn and expand my network. I hope you this episode broadens your horizons as it did mine. Read the transcript.