We provide organizational work cultures, businesses, congregations, non-profits, and community groups hand-crafted resources that foster healthy discussions about difficult issues, and we offer empowering tools and trainings for learning more generous models and frameworks of communication.
One of the most popular frameworks we use is public deliberation. Recently, we offered a facilitation training at the Baylor Law School, and then, the facilitators we trained led a public deliberation forum for the rest of the students at the Law School.
“I never knew we could have conversations like this. It’s completely transformed the way I think about difficult, divisive conversations and hot button issues.”
Baylor Law Student
The communities and organizations we belong to shape our world. The frameworks we build around our stories and conversations help us process our experiences. We offer consulting, trainings, and retreats to help create brave spaces that reframe and nurture new and generous conversations.
We are also good at what we do!
Sharyl
Co-Founder
Sharyl West Loeung is a DEI trainer, an expert facilitator, and a change management specialist. She is former co-founder and co-leader of Baylor’s civic interfaith initiatives and has worked with a variety of students, staff, faculty, churches, and community leaders over the years, including: the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core, the Waco Immigrant Alliance, the Mayborn Museum, University Baptist Church Waco, and First Presbyterian Waco.
Josh
Co-Founder
Dr. Josh Ritter is an expert in public deliberation, organizational culture, risk mitigation, and curriculum design. He is former co-founder and co-leader of Baylor’s Public Deliberation Initiative and has worked with a variety of students, staff, faculty, churches, and community leaders over the years, including: Baylor’s School of Social Work, the Waco Foundation’s Leadership Plenty Institute, St. Alban’s Episcopal, First Presbyterian Waco, the Mayborn Museum, The Episcopal School of Dallas, and the Baylor Law School.
Consulting & Training
Kardia House offers Communication Consulting that focuses on strategic needs-based communication, adaptive values-based decision making, intentional gathering practices, and mindful management strategies. Together, we can prevent an unhealthy work culture or community dynamic before it happens.
People get stuck in tough conversations. Organizations experience conflict that generates division. Polarization and division are unhealthy for communities and for their communication.
Whether you are a business, a faith-based organization, or a non-profit, we want to help you reframe the conversation by changing the way you communicate, which begins with mindful communication. Mindfully changing the way you communicate is a form of healthy, generous communication that leads to meaningful impact, deep transformation, and relational and community wholeness.
The difference with our approach is that we do not simply employ strategies, analyze data-sets, or recommend methodologies. Instead, we focus entirely on our acts of communication (individually and organizationally) and how those affect our culture, our leadership, our teams, and our relationships. We are interested in meaningful and generous communication.
There are a lot of difficult topics and issues that businesses, organizations, and leaders of all communities must face in our complex and often polarizing society. Whether you are attempting to engage more deeply with diversity and difference or are exploring ways to move your community into an active engagement with public life, we want to help equip you with the tools necessary to achieve these goals.
Our consultation work is never a one-time deal. We are in this with you for the long haul. Our typical consultation partners stay with us for up to a year.
There is nothing to be found by retreating that is any more or any less sacred or meaningful than what is right in front of us in each ordinary moment of life. We offer retreats, reframed.
Retreats
Retreats are often created with a full itinerary and little time to actually retreat to access something “sacred” or “meaningful” or something separate from the rhythm of daily life.
At Kardia House, we find the sacred, the meaningful, the daily rhythm of life is precisely in this moment, right in the thick messiness of our day-to-day busy-ness.
We don’t have to “retreat” to find it. All of life is sacred. There is nothing to be found by retreating that is any more or any less sacred or meaningful than what is right in front of us in each ordinary moment of life. We offer retreats, reframed.
Whether you need our help to craft an impactful, Learning Experience for your faith-based community or organization or you are needing a fresh approach to Leadership Coaching and Mentoring, we are here to help you!
From exploring the Enneagram to using Priya Parker’s work on the art of gathering…or offering coaching in public speaking and teaching new curriculum, let us join with you and enhance the good work you are already doing!
Josh and Sharyl are both expert retreat leaders and workshop trainers. They have over 20 years experience, in both ministry and non-ministry settings, leading groups through community-specific learning experiences.