Michelle Gonzalez’s work is in shaping networks and organizations.  Her specialty is in the arena of facilitation, behavior change, and policy & practice development.  She has 14 years experience working in public health, wellness, and organizational development field.  She is a consultant and co-owner or New Commons, Inc.

In our consulting work she develops and implements projects around people mobilization, innovative organizational structures, implementing multi-site events, group facilitation, and organizational change projects with a focus on individuals and groups. Her current research work involves codifying unique leadership practices in action at organizations in flux specifically those of women in a variety of leadership roles.  Her intellectual and creative interests lie in linking cultural mythos, artistic inspiration and modern structures to create fuller economic and social interactions.

As health advocate and change agent she has brought together groups to target the workplace as an intervention.  From 1999- 2000, she was the president for the regional chapter of the National Association of Worksite Health Promotion, currently a chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine. In this capacity she set in motion redefining the regional Association’s role by creating networks for professionals to share best practices and knowledge, and developing a functional collaboration with other organizations with similar missions.  The role also involved marketing and funding a regional annual conference for over 200 health promotion professionals.

From 1997 – 2001 Michelle worked as a project manager and senior health educator at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, in Wellesley, Massachusetts.  Working with client organizations, she designed and implemented targeted programs that respect individual readiness to adopt health habits along with social, cultural and environmental factors.  From 1989 – 1997 she worked as a fitness trainer and certification specialists for personal trainers and coaches; was the Fitness and Wellness Director for the National Fire Protection Association, where she directed the onsite fitness club, and implemented a wellness program as a way to bring community to the employees and management of NFPA.

Michelle has a BA in English from Wesleyan University, MPH from Boston University and an executive development certificate from Boston College’s Leadership for Change, a twelve-month leadership program for change agents. 

Organizations are all around us.  They are more than the corporate entities we frequently imagine.  They are found among communities of interest, associations, non-profits, groups, employee-owned corporations, and commercial enterprises, municipal and federal government and within academia.  What ties them together is a purpose and the work.  However, more and more these organizations are not getting the results nor tapping into their full capabilities, due to structures that prevent knowledge from being constructively activated or distributed.  In fact, many organizations have structures that inhibit debate and agile decision making that allows innovative outcomes.

My capabilities range from project management of complex and distributed teams to developing process to implement strategy and meet objectives.  What most drives me are human dynamics, people, elegance, deep possibilities, and systems design.

The research I am doing is aimed at furthering the knowledge capacity around organizational structures; specifically a language and model that helps others define the “non-organization, organization.”  Theoretically, this concept is framed as a paradox to move current thinking to the possibilities.  In many shapes and forms, I suggest that this concept is a living structure that is being practiced currently in distributed teams and virtual organizations.  My research focus is about creating a framework that bridges current bias about how a non-organization, is organized to further accelerate getting the work done.

In viewing organizations from the above perspectives, I am engaging the following principles to assist a number of organizations to evolve their structure:

• Organizational Justice:  engagement of the entire workforce
• Agile teams: beyond cross-functional to entrepreneurial
• Human motives: behaviors and change development as it affects performance
• Leadership:  promoting it, finding new forms for persuasion and debate to shared accountability
• Mission accomplishment:  serving the strategy through action and reflection
• Paradox:  accepting and working through disparities to solve problems
• Balancing: multiple bottom line focus

The questions I hold are:

Is redesign (not just re-structuring) possible?
What must die and what must be a new beginning? How do you do this?
Where is the new narrative?
And what is a living structure in organizations?

2009 Current projects:   Providence Connects: Implementing the First Source Ordinance for City of Providence, Cultural Plan for the City of Providence Art, Culture + Tourism , New Economy Roundtable Collaborative, OSHEAN Community Forum, Provincetown Economic Development Plan, Boston College Learning Forum, My Soul at Work:  Women leading in their own way and EPSCoR Diversity Workshop and initiative