Boaz Soifer

Throughout my career as a founder and executive in renewable energy companies, I’ve been endlessly curious about, and engaged in, organizational development. I have been especially interested in questions like, “what needs to be true for a group of people to come together to achieve extraordinary results?” I’ve had the privilege of exploring this sort of question in a variety of contexts, from working in start-ups and other small teams, to leading organizations up to about 500 people. 

In my exploration, I encountered a series of influences that fed my desire for and, slowly, my deepening understanding of human systems. These have included more business-oriented frameworks such as Jay Galbraith’s Star Model, Eliyahu Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints, Michael Porter’s views on strategy, and Peter Senge’s descriptions of “Learning Organizations,” as well as more philosophical or psychological ones such as Attachment Theory, Jungian Psychology, Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory, and most recently, dialogic organizational development, especially Bohm-inspired Dialogue.

With these frameworks as a foundation, I’ve come to understand organizations primarily as a collection of the beliefs held by their constituents - in other words, “the stories we tell ourselves and each other, consciously and unconsciously, about the organization itself.” I approach organizations as a manifestation of consciousness, and consider performance - the ability to get results -  to be an outcome of the quality of individual and collective consciousness within the people who comprise the organization. More and more, I approach outcomes such as great leadership, culture and strategy as more likely to emerge and mature in a high-functioning and well-maintained container. So my job is to co-create that container with key stakeholders in the organization.

“Creating the container,” for me, often results from routines of continual improvement in self-awareness and communication. Such practices include individual work that prepares members of an organization to meet one another more constructively, as well as collective work bringing together people, ideas and information to create greater shared understanding and alignment, which results in better and faster decisions and more effective actions. 

Consciousness, in many ways, is quite splintered these days. All of the unhealed emotional material we carry individually and collectively is projected into the external structures - the society itself - that we co-create. Our lack of connection - to ourselves, to one another, and to consciousness itself - combined with an ever-accelerating expansion of technology leave individuals and organizations grappling with an increasingly complex and even existential problem. How can we create meaning, and execute effectively, in any sphere, when the world around us is changing so quickly and our internal landscape is so fragmented?

In a way we’re fortunate to be at this painful juncture, if systemic pressure is necessary for evolution to occur. I am optimistic and curious about how we will find our way towards greater coherence by increasing our ability to hold complexity and paradox, and continually find new methods of apprehending it. Einstein’s famous quote about problems not being solved at the same level of consciousness at which they were created, becomes more salient to me with each client engagement. That’s a lot of the fun in organizational development work, I think - accessing higher consciousness to transcend barriers together.

I founded Pebble Tossed Consulting in 2023 to help leaders and organizations level up their ability to cultivate consciousness, so that we can create meaning and connection, learn to design and hold containers from which new understanding can emerge, and develop organizational cultures that resonate health and resilience. We can make sense - and achieve our goals - despite the rampant fragmentation around us. 

I work as a coach and thought partner with individuals committed to their own self-development, and with teams as both a facilitator and active participant, to generate greater coherence and subsequent results. I welcome your inquiries.