
Flexible, adaptive, creative work solutions for you and your organization.
How It WorksConnect With UsOur Mission
Flexible Work Solutions, Inc., is a purpose-driven consulting firm that specializes in leadership and personal assessment, development, and satisfaction for all levels—executives, professionals, early career, and youth. Our purpose is to improve both the workplace for workers and workers for the workplace. We specialize in maximizing leadership potential, especially for technical leaders.
Who We Serve
Technical Leaders
You are an engineer, scientist, or other technical leader, or an HR partner or consultant who works with technical leaders, and you are looking to assess or improve your leadership skills, create a high-performing team, manage emotionally charged situations, or build trusting relationships.
Organizational Leaders
You are or want to be a C-Suite leader, executive, or director in a small/medium sized business and you want to assess your leadership potential or someone else’s, hire an executive-level leader, or develop systems to delegate work and manage people.
Career Seekers
You are in your early, mid, or late career and you do not know what you want to do, or you don’t like what you’re doing now and don’t know what else is out there. You want to find a job that you love and a boss who will understand you and support your goals.
Parents & Teens
You are a teen, young adult, or parent of one, and you are overwhelmed or afraid of failing, and you want to be empowered to do what you do best, to be who you are and let go of what others want you to be, and feel confident to make mistakes and recover from them.
How It Works
Our approach is similar for all kinds of coaching—leadership, team, career, and life coaching.
1
Interview &
Assessment
You start with an interview with a coach to determine what your goals and expectations are.
The coach will recommend assessment(s) for you and the coach to identify where you are starting from.
2
Feedback &
Planning
You and your coach go through your assessment results and identify what strengths you can leverage and what you might change to get the results you are looking for. Then, together, you create a custom action plan.
3
Coaching &
Action
Working with your coach, you learn and practice new tools, strategies, and behaviors. In between sessions, you apply what you’ve learned and take notes on your successes and challenges along the way.
4
Review &
Revise
Based on your results, you and your coach determine what to keep doing and what to adjust. When your goals are met and you feel comfortable in your new approach, you choose whether to work on something new or wrap up.
Clients


























Testimonials

‘Consulting to Technical Leaders, Teams, and Organizations’ is for consultants who work with or want to work with technical leaders in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). It describes unique characteristics of technical leaders and organizations, includes excerpts from interviews with technical leaders, and provides consulting models to help consultants better understand and connect with technical leaders.
‘Flying Without a Helicopter’ advises parents and young adults on what is important to help produce healthy, independent, self-reliant young adults who will thrive on their own. The advice in this book is based on decades of experience in working and consulting with employees, managers, and executives in the business world.
Books
Books
Subscribe to our Newsletter
Let us send you information on our latest articles, videos, podcasts, webinars, and services.
Read Latest Articles
Lessons From The Workplace
What does it mean to be authentic at work?
Authenticity has resurfaced as a buzzword in the workplace. In the early 2000s, authentic leadership became popular in response to Bill George’s 2003 book called Authentic Leadership. Leaders found that being more genuine and transparent helped them build trust among...
How to Stay Positive During the Holidays
Give yourself a gift this holiday season. Read this blog. I promise you will learn how to feel less stress and more happiness. “'Tis the season to be jolly,” they say. But let’s be honest. It’s not always easy to stay positive, especially when there’s conflict in your...
3 Ways to Become a More Caring, Empathetic Manager
It seems like work should be back to normal by now, but everyone keeps saying it’s not as fun as it was before the pandemic. People seem less friendly and more impatient. And, what’s scary for managers is that employees are less engaged and are more willing to quit if...
3 Keys to Become Comfortable Giving Feedback
How do you get comfortable delivering feedback to people? How do you do it in a nice way, so it’s not awkward or demeaning, but not so nice that it gets ignored? Here are some tips. First, let’s acknowledge that giving feedback can be hard, especially if you don’t...
Podcasts
Nerds are increasingly being asked to have it all—technical expertise and people skills. Join engineer-turned-psychologist Joanie Connell on the Reinventing Nerds Podcast as she interviews nerds and people experts to uncover the best communication strategies for technical people. She brings in everyone from big name scientists and computer geeks to everyday working ones as well as other entertaining and insightful people in a quest for the keys to help nerds interact more successfully with people of all types. Asking thoughtful questions of her guests, she affectionately gives self-proclaimed nerds insights into important people strategies in a light-hearted, conversational style.
Trusted Business Partners
We partner with these companies to offer our clients the best comprehensive services available.

Gallup
CliftonStrengths
Joanie is a Gallup Certified Strengths Coach, and we employ the CliftonStrengths assessment in many of our coaching engagements for people to leverage their natural abilities to solve problems and get things done.

Rady School of Management
We partner with the Center for Executive Development at the University of California San Diego to provide leadership assessment and training for executive leaders. Various courses and programs are available.

Positive Intelligence
We partner with Positive Intelligence to provide Shirzad Chamine’s method of mental fitness assessment and coaching to help clients weaken their inner saboteurs and strengthen their mental muscles.

7 CTO's
We partner with 7CTOs to offer peer coaching for executive-level tech leaders. Joanie is a forum facilitator, presenter, and a coach for 7CTOs. View their page for more information on their methods and techniques.