Background
Blink is a Seattle-based, user-experience research and design firm that helps companies take the guesswork out of delivering a great user experience. Karen Clark Cole co-founded Blink in July of 2000. Today the company has 40+ full-time employees who envision and design their client’s futures. Blink’s clients include a range of companies from Fortune 100 to start-ups and everything between.
“I am a CEO… and I’m also a mom and an athlete. The Pacific Institute changed me, and the ripple effect has touched every part of my life. The training inspired me to dream bigger and reach higher. They gave me the tools to unleash potential in myself and everyone around me. We changed our company vision, our goals, and now the sky really is the limit.”
Challenge
Before engaging with The Pacific Institute, Karen and her team were experiencing a classic corporate challenge: “Not everyone at Blink was marching to the same beat and performance wasn’t as high as it could be. I wanted everyone to have the same enthusiasm, vision and drive I have as the CEO and owner of the company, but I didn’t have the tools to understand why this wasn’t happening and what to do about it.”
Experience
Karen and key members of her team completed The Pacific Institute’s facilitated seminar, Investment in Excellence®, over the course of four days. The rest of the staff soon followed.
Outcome
For Karen and others in the company, transformation started small and has grown. “The main thing I found so amazing was seeing how I was reaching new heights. I saw how quickly and easily that could translate to all aspects of my life and to every person at the company. As a leader, it has given me tools to help people reach their potential, even just in the way I talk: using one word instead of another. It’s that simple and amazing. When I’m doing it well, you notice how smooth things go. The Pacific Institute approach is to improve the lives of individuals one at a time, so they reach a higher potential. When this happens, the company will naturally benefit.” Blink rewrote the company’s vision statement to describe the future in the present tense. “We frame meetings like that now. Rather than focus on the how, we first focus on the what – what is the right thing to do, and then make it happen. Our culture has changed: We now identify and remove limiting beliefs, which helps free us to think bigger and more creative.”The visualization technique we learned from The Pacific Institute is highly effective. I’ve always visualized, especially in sports, but the curriculum has helped me take it to the next level around goal setting.”
As for bottom-line benefits: “Financial success comes from employees performing at a higher level and clients getting amazing results – we want long-term client relationships who see us as strategic partners. Building that relationship requires dedicated, innovative and strategic thinking from each of our employees. A result of this emphasis is really excited employees, which is attracting great new talent. Clients are also being drawn to this magnetic energy. It’s contagious, and I love it.”