Pat
Sweet
I’m a researcher, educator and consultant. I help leaders, organizations and people get things done without burning out.
What I do
My work revolves around helping to develop leaders and organizations involved in knowledge work hit their goals and help their people thrive.
Consulting
I use a systems thinking approach to help develop leaders and their organizations through consulting, coaching and speaking.
Research
My research and writing revolves around management, leadership, systems theory, complexity theory, and wellbeing.
Education
I teach courses in leadership and management for university students, executives, and professional development.
Areas of Expertise
My goal is to help organizations and their people flourish. I use systems-thinking and complexity theory to dig into how organizations work under the surface to help find new ways to lead such that people and their organizations can flourish simultaneously.
Leadership
I help people develop the skills and abilities they need to thrive in leadership roles in today’s complex environments. My research on leadership focuses on advancing the state of the art in leadership, helping to develop new ways to lead for a new world.
Wellbeing
Organizational performance too often comes at the cost of harming people’s wellbeing. I look for ways to advance our understanding of the drivers of wellbeing and how to help people and their organizations flourish together.
Systems thinking
Organizations are collections of dynamic, interconnected elements where the whole cannot be reduced to the sum of its parts. My research and consulting takes a systems-level perspective.
Complexity theory
The world is anything but linear and predictable. I adopt a complexity-based view of social systems and organizations to help make better sense of them.
Why I do what I do
For thirteen years, I worked as a systems engineer and engineering manager on some of the world’s most complex technical projects – from automated driverless trains in Kuala Lumpur to the world’s most advanced warships at home in Nova Scotia, Canada. This was the kind of work I dreamt about as a kid who hoped to be an engineer one day.
Unfortunately, despite working with some of the most brilliant people in the world and having access to incredible resources and technology, things rarely went well on these projects. Deliverables were late. Goals were missed. People burnt out. Looking back, I realize now that I burnt out, too.
This experience lead to a question: what should we do differently so that organizations can achieve their goals and their people stay happy and healthy? The way we’re working isn’t working – there must be a better way.
Today, my work as a researcher, educator and consultant revolves around finding answers to this question and sharing what I learn. It’s my sincere hope that my work can help organizations better achieve their goals and for the people working within those organizations not only survive but thrive.
What I'm Working On
Research
- A qualitative study on the how leadership affects safety culture in the context of surgical teams,
- A systematic review of how learning organizations affect employee wellbeing in the context of knowledge work
- A study using agent-based modelling to explore the effects of complexity leadership theory on organizational learning in a complex environment.
- Leader stress, coping mechanisms and their impact on leader behaviour: a multisource-feedback exploration of coaching in Canadian soccer.
- A complexity-informed systems-level intervention to address burnout in leaders and students in academic medicine
Training and Education
- Goal setting training and coaching for organizations participating in the Centre for Ocean Ventures (COVE) and Entrepreneurship’s UK Accelerator Programme in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
- A self-paced online productivity course for engineering managers.
Other projects and links of interest
- If you’re intersted in my consulting work, you can visit my site here.
- I have a blog and podcast for leaders in engineering.
Let’s Start Something new
Say Hello!
If you’re interested in my work, or you just want to chat, I’d love to hear from you. Please reach out using the form below. (I don’t share my email or phone number here on the site to keep the spammers at bay – I promise I’ll respond to you!