Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Rose Irby- Wilkins.
Dr. Wilkins, please share your story with us.
After serving more than 30 years as an educator in various roles, I launched The Irby Wilkins Group (IWG) in 2011. The initial goal was to provide support services for school leaders to enhance student performance, social interactions, and improve school culture. Our primary service-delivery models focused on consulting, professional development, and side-by-side coaching in schools.
In 2012, we introduced School Scrimmage to offer personal development and clarity coaching for middle grades, high school, and collegiate levels and expanded services to also include private clients. School Scrimmage utilizes fundamental principles of coaching, metaphors, and lingo used in organized sports to guide personal development. The concept soon became a popular tool for coaches, mentoring programs for males and student-athletes, especially at the collegiate level.
Additional development occurred in 2015 when I received a graduate fellowship while completing doctoral studies in Organizational Leadership. The Community-Leadership Engagement Fellowship was used to provide coaching for student-athletes at Clark Atlanta University. Male and female student-athletes selected by the university for participation were on athletic scholarships and had become ineligible for participation in competitive sports based on academic probation placement or low performance. We also launched daily text messaging, “Mindshots” as a positive touchpoint with students and adults subscribers.
Today, our School Scrimmage Model is a published curriculum and daily Mindshots are our signature approach for reaching students and adults via text messaging, emails and on social media platforms. Over the past several years, we have also completed ethnographic research at schools and community-based organizations, focused on thought leadership and holistic coaching drivers for change within organizations.
Research findings led to the development of two additional service models- aThought Leadership Academy and City Blocks. Our company specializes in change facilitation for schools, businesses, non-profit organizations, social entrepreneurs or any individual seeking a growth strategy, change, strategic planning to launch ideas or to enhance overall performance. In May I published a book – “Thought Leadership- Disrupting the Status Quo to Create Change.” The book serves as a springboard to initiate dialogue about creating shifts in leadership development and practices through the use of internal cohorts.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The journey to our current status as a rising service agency has moved forward on a rocky-bumpy terrain with potholes and the occasional ditch. Over the past several years, growth has been interrupted by personal losses of key family members, financial strains, and denials in our efforts to find a productive place as an effective competitor in the consulting and coaching marketplace. We have spent time finding our niche, but niching down is not enough.
As an experienced leader, I recognize that no matter how big or small a market, providing the right solution extends beyond niching and requires that we diagnose and prescribe to give people exactly what they want and need. The problem is that until a few decades ago, that was simple. But, today it is not simple, because people have so many choices which make it hard to decide on what they want. We approach clients with this awareness, recognizing that it is critically important to help people first discover what they need, which opens a pathway to finding out what they want.
Another long-lasting issue is that a small company is still required to compete at the same level as larger well-established companies. Consequently, small company leaders are required to leverage limited human-capital and financial capital resources in a highly competitive and crowded marketplace, which often means that the leader must maintain multiple roles. That’s where navigation on a trajectory toward success is most difficult…
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about The Irby Wilkins Group, Inc. – what should we know?
The Irby Wilkins Group provides professional development training, clarity and personal development coaching for youth and adults, executive coaching for leaders and consulting and side-by-side coaching in change facilitation, strategic planning, and leadership development. We utilize a blend of professional practitioners who from diverse backgrounds and experience. Expertise is the key.
To get the best results, we select professional practitioners as partners who have the knowledge, time, know-how, and commitment to determine how to best engage all stakeholders in a rich set of experiences that will enable them to develop collective ideas, and actions that lead to change. Two other factors that set our company apart are “disruptive thinking” and “creativity”. We recognize that what clients don’t want (and have too much of) are programs and cookie cutter models that are not making a real difference in how organizational stakeholders and members, learn, perform and interact.
On the other hand, what leaders and other clients want (and don’t have enough of) are high-quality, engaging activities that are relevant to their daily lives, customized around the organizational issues, that can activate and facilitate change. So, we build services based on the following measurable paradigms: assessing needs, creative out-of-the-box approaches, customization, progress monitoring, and quality control and feedback. Our company motto is: “Your Needs Become Our Goals”.
That statement drives our efforts, decision-making, and service delivery and that’s what we are most proud of…
What has been the proudest moment of your career so far?
Watching others emerge into change is always exciting and awe-inspiring, especially youth who demonstrate major shifts in habits and accomplishments. In business, accomplishing small steps are what I am most proud of. Being persistence and completing doctoral studies provided a profound sense of accomplishment, especially given the many obstacles. I am also proud that I authored a book on leadership less than one-year after graduation.
Contact Info:
- Address: 3155 Seven Pines Court Suite 204 Atlanta, GA.30339
- Phone: 708-250-6778
- Email: info@irbywilkinsgroup.com
- Facebook: www.irbywilkinsgroup.com
- Twitter: DrRoseWIlkins@irbywilkins@irbywilkinsgroup@school scrimmage
- Other: Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/rose-wilkins-phd-a868a9a6/
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