About the Bloggers

Lorraine Rieger McGregor and Rob McGregor have been teaching companies and their management teams how to be the ripple since 2000 using their Smart Team Tools. Lorraine writes this blog (with Rob’s collaboration) to provide ideas to the world about how they can be a better ripple in their environment and reap better results than bemoaning the catch 22’s that often seem to plague the best laid plans. Every catch 22 is an opportunity… but only if you know how to turn it into a ripple.

Contact Us 

Call us at 604-377-4307 or visit us at www.spiritwest.com or email us at riegermcgregor@gmail.com

About Lorraine and Rob 

Lorraine Rieger McGregor is a marketing and management consultant as well as the author of Be the Ripple, an allegory (shh… it’s the secret to building shareholder value). As a strategist, MBA and proponent that environmental solutions make business sense, she is full of ideas and experience in helping companies find new smart ways to engage the customer and their employees.

For 17 years she has worked with environmental technologies (now affectionately known as CleanTech), software and manufacturers to help capture new markets with their innovations and solve problems for customers that result in revenue growth.

Rob is a change management consultant, mediator, trainer and coach. His focus is to work with leadership teams that want change but are not sure how to get their people to do what is necessary – change their way of working, how they work together and take responsibility for their own professional development. He is the person boards and CEOs call when a manager isn’t performing or a team is struggling in making progress.

Rob is the author of Followership Intelligence: Learning to Lead in a Way Others Can Follow. This concept is now being proven in a multi-stage research study underway at the Gallup Leadership Institute at the University of Nebraska.

 Lorraine is a vibrant, insightful, funny and pragmatic speaker. She is highly interactive by helping audience members to demystify the business and people issues that concern them and then expanding the topic into ideas everyone can relate to.

 Rob is a story teller, a humorist and a keen observer of all that entangles people into challenging management interactions. He loves to share how to demystify why conflict happens, what creates stress (shh… it’s how you choose to think about a situation … or that person) and what you can do about it.

About the Book(s) Be the Ripple

Her first book, Be the Ripple, (currently in editing mode summer 2007), has now become two books – a right brain version for those that love to learn from stories, and a left brain version for those that want the how to formula for being the ripple. They will be released chapter by chapter on this blog when all that editing makes them fit for print… and your discerning eye.

Does Your Company Have the Potential to Ripple?

We favor working with companies that are ready to learn how to make a more profound impact on their market place, for their customers and with their employees. If that describes your organization, then read on…

Lorraine and Rob work with three types of clients. Go to www.spiritwest.com for case studies:

1. Growth companies: Her specialty? Planning and implementation to get off the plateau and on to the next level of growth through joint ventures and distribution expansion… In software, clean tech, water, wastewater, alternative energy and distributed utilities. His specialty? Mentoring the management team to ensure employees also grow into capable managers not just technicians.

2. Mature companies: Her specialty? Where to find the gold by going green, expanding the brand and removing the hassles for customers… for organics producers, grocery, consumer industrial products, utilities, academia, education and manufacturing. His specialty? Mentoring and coaching the leadership team to deal with change, each other and the pressures of juggling change, productivity and increasing performance before they burn out.

3. Advisors to Private Equity buyers: Her specialty? Post merger integration of strategy and people issues… the things that skewer the best laid plans. Designing and implementing a P/E buying strategy that yields growth, synergies and minimizes the effects of change. His specialty? Ensuring the people stay with the company post integration and find a way to mix and intermingle the cultures that work for all… before change and power struggles erode profitability.

She holds an MBA from Simon Fraser University, is a certified master coach and mentor, a certified creative planner and launched her first softare development company in 1987, before it was a popular thing to do. Having lived and worked in both the US and Canada, she can interpret for principals on both sides of the deal.

Rob holds a B.Psych degree from the University of Saskatchewan, a Masters in Divinity from the Emanual and St. Chad’s, a Certificate in Conflict Resolution from the Justice Institute and is a certified master coach and mentor. He learned the art and business of working through messy leadership situations by working with the military, government, health care and with youth at risk, especially mentoring the teachers that tried to teach them.