• Columnists

Alice Waagen, Workforce Learning

COLUMN = MANAGEMENT

Alice Waagen, PhD, is president and founder of Workforce Learning LLC, a leadership-development company that since 1997 has provided managers and C-level executives with the skills and knowledge they need to build a more productive work environment.

Prior to founding Workforce Learning, Alice served as senior director of corporate training for Amtrak in Washington, DC, and director of education, training, and development for Freddie Mac in McLean, VA. In both of those positions, Alice created and implemented workplace-development programs that served her internal clients from the shop floor to the executive suite.

Alice has a passion for working with organization leaders to identify their successful HR programs and practices as well as to develop new programs that increase leader effectiveness. In the past three years, more than 125 leaders from 24 different organizations have graduated from Alice’s unique leadership-development workshop series.

Alice is frequently called on to present on topics of organizational learning best practices. She has spoken at the International Personnel Management Association (IPMA) annual conference, numerous chapter meetings of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFFP), and the American Legal Association (ALA). She has facilitated strategic leadership offsite for a number of Metro DC organizations, including the Civilian Research & Development Foundation (CRDF), Haynes Boone Inc., McNeil Technology, Horizon Corporation, and US AID.

Alice earned a BS in Education from the New York State College at Buffalo, and MS and PhD degrees in Education from the Pennsylvania State University. Giving back to the community is also important to Alice. She currently serves on the board of directors for Habitat for Humanity, Northern VA, as well as on the advisory board for Marymount University Reston Campus Graduate and Adult Education Programs.

For more information, contact Alice:
• By phone: (703) 834-7580
• By email: alice@workforcelearning.com
• On LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/alicewaagen
• On Facebook: www.facebook.com/alice.waagen

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

– Martin Luther King Jr.

Entrepreneurs willingly assume responsibility for the success or failure of a venture and are answerable for all its facets.”

– Victor Kiam

Remove those ‘I want you to like me’ stickers from your forehead
and, instead, place them where they truly will do the most good—on your mirror.”

– Susan Jeffers

A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.”

– Carlos Castaneda

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!”

– Andrew Carnegie

I may not be able to change what takes place, but I can always choose to change my thinking.”

– Michelle Sedas

Change is a math formula. Change happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change.”

– Alan Webber, author, "Rules of Thumb"

You don’t go into a field that requires cracking people’s heads open or operating on something as delicate as the spinal cord unless you are comfortable with taking risks.”

– Dr. Ben Carson

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

– Audre Lorde

Do you believe it is important to give back some portion of your wealth to support charitable causes?”

– Steven Schussler

By your stumbling the world is perfected.”

– Sri Aurobindo

The world I believed in, back in my most innocent, uninformed, childish mind—is real.”

– Martha Beck

Find somebody to be successful for. Raise their hopes. Think of their needs.”

– Barack Obama

The person who makes a success of living is the one who see his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.”

– Cecil B. DeMille

It is to no purpose to turn away from the real nature of the affair because the honor of its elements excites repugnance.

– Carl von Clausewitz, On War

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

– Carl Rogers

The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Chuck E. Cheese's

No longer talk at all about the kind of man a good man ought to be, but be such.”

– Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.”

– Corita Kent

Part of your destiny is to live in the zone of maximum satisfaction.”

– Martha Beck

Traveling is one way of lengthening life, at least in appearance.”

– Benjamin Franklin

A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.”

– Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

– Robert Frost

You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it.”

– Goldie Hawn

Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.”

– E.B. White

You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing.”

– Maya Angelou

Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

– Christopher Robin to Pooh

Entrepreneurs are willing to roll the dice with their money or reputation on the line in support of an idea or enterprise.”

– Victor Kiam

Entrepreneurs need to search purposefully for the sources of innovation that indicate opportunities for success.”

– Peter F. Drucker

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

– William Butler Yeats

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

– Leonard Cohen

We are not meant to resolve all contradictions, but to live with them and rise above them.”

– William Blake

Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.”

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A truly forgiving person is someone who experiences all the anger merited by injustice and still acts with fairness and compassion.”

– Martha Beck

Never cut what you can untie.”

– Joseph Joubert

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”

– Helen Keller

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

– Winston Churchill

You may ask me for anything you like except time.”

– Napoleon

The only dream worth having is to live while you’re alive and die only when you’re dead.”

– Arundhati Roy

Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask, and that’s what separates the people who do things from the people who just dream about them.”

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Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

– T.S. Eliot

There is little success where there is little laughter.”

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To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

Do you have the desire to create something new; the strength of conviction to believe your creation will be successful, and the reservoir of energy necessary to thrust it into the marketplace?”

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Whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is most important that you do it.”

– Gandi

We are perfectionists. We are hungry to work all the time. We are entertained by every aspect of business and we never want to stop working.”

– Suzy Welch

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

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At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.”

– Lao Tzu

The follow-your-gut mentality of the entrepreneur has the potential to take you anywhere you want to go or run you right out of business.”

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