Kathy Dempsey, a top business consultant with ties to Chattanooga, says that much of her management philosophy was shaped by a chance conversation here in the 1990s.
Then an employee of Memorial Hospital, Dempsey was having a discussion with a colleague about his pet lizard when the idea of “shedding” skin struck her as an apt metaphor for corporate change.
“The whole concept is that we need to let go of the old and embrace the new, in both our personal and professional lives” she said.
Up to 80 percent of businesses, she believes, are stuck in old patterns of thinking and are consequently dangerously resistant to change.
Dempsey is the author of seven books, including the popular “Shed or You’re Dead: 31 Unconventional Strategies for Growth and Change.”