We make work life work well.
Workplace Psychology - based in New York City and White Plains NY - is a boutique consultancy focused on leadership development and career advancement. We provide c-suite advisement for enterprise leaders and their senior executives, leadership education for managers and the people they lead, as well as executive coaching for leaders in a private practice setting. The firm was established in 1996.
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Our Commitment to You
Core Values of Workplace Psychology
The common thread in everything we do at Workplace Psychology is our dedication to meaningful learning and sustainable change. Our key method is penetrating conversation: dialogue that gets to the heart of issues, navigates obstacles and conflicts, opens new possibilities, and drives to practical solutions. To serve this end, we are guided by a set of core principles. These are our working values, and also a set of process steps that structure our work with you:
Keeping it Real: As we begin and throughout, we create authentic connection with you. We serve you as professional advisors, and we bring our expertise to that role. But our relationship also builds upon wide-ranging open dialogue, grounded in our shared humanity.
Seeing the Whole: When assessing your presenting problems and concerns, we contextualize them in a broad systemic perspective. We explore environmental, organizational, group, interpersonal, personality, and other factors in our quest to understand your issues.
Finding the Core: Probably our most important contribution is penetrating insight. Exploring the whole, we progressively uncover and discover your core issues. This allows us to offer plausible working hypotheses about the roots of your difficulties and levers of change.
Pushing the Edge: Of course insight alone is never enough. To implement change, and to test new insight, action is required. So we help you create strategies of personal and organizational learning, allowing you to experiment with insight and practice new approaches.
Making it Count: We are invested in making a real difference. As we conduct and conclude our work with you, we help you consolidate sustainable results. We are committed to your betterment: being a better leader, leading a better team, managing a better enterprise.
At Workplace Psychology, we are dedicated to Making Work Life Work Well. We help leaders improve their work lives and product. This helps them improve the work lives and product of the people they lead. This, in turn, fosters enterprise mission and enhanced results. To achieve this, we attend to "making work life work well" on all of its operative levels - including productive results, economic profitability, organization effectiveness, group cooperation, meaningful contribution, and individual satisfaction.
Managing Principal - Joel Mausner, PhD
Joel Mausner, PhD, is the Managing Director & Principal Consultant of Workplace Psychology, based in New York City & White Plains, New York. He has 20 years experience as an Executive Leadership Psychologist, and over 35 years experience as an expert in human behavior, personality and group dynamics. Since establishing his firm in 1996, Joel has specialized in the psychology of workplace functioning, including leadership development, executive teamwork, organization effectiveness, change and conflict management, and career advancement.
During his years with Workplace Psychology, Joel has advised an array of corporate, non-profit and healthcare leaders, including numerous CEOs and C-Suite executives. He has offered consulting guidance (and led consulting teams) to deliver organization development projects. He has designed and facilitated leadership learning programs. And he has coached innumerable senior executives, middle managers, and aspiring leaders, helping them meet their challenges, improve their performance, grow their capabilities, and further their careers.
In past years, Joel worked as a Leadership Consultant and Executive Coach with the Hay Group, a global human resources and executive services firm, and with Stuart Levine Associates, a leadership consulting firm that specializes in health care. He also served as Chief Learning Officer of the Non-Profit Leadership League, a professional association of non-profit consultants and leaders. In addition, Joel taught for five years as an Adjunct Professor at NYU, where he led a seminar on Group Dynamics in the Masters Program in Organizational Psychology.
Earlier in his career, Dr. Mausner was employed as a clinical psychologist in multiple healthcare settings. He then served for a decade as a Clinical Assistant Professor at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, where he taught and mentored trainees, managed treatment programs, and conducted staff and team development. He also served as an internal organizational consultant at the medical center, advising healthcare leaders about team building and program development.
Joel earned a BA in Cultural History from Yale University, an MPhil in Philosophy from Columbia University, and a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the City University of NY. He studied Group Dynamics with the AK Rice and Tavistock Institutes, and received an Advanced Certificate in Organization Development from the NTL Institute. Joel has been an active member of several professional associations, including the American and the NY State Psychological Associations, the Society of Consulting Psychology, and the Organization Development Network.
Senior Associates of Workplace Psychology
Workplace Psychology - based in New York City & White Plains NY - is a leadership consulting and executive coaching group that specializes in leader advisement and career advancement. When our organization consulting projects require the work of more than a single consultant, we can call upon a group of associates to staff larger initiatives. Our senior associates are deeply and broadly experienced, bringing together a diverse set of skills, which allows us to offer a wide range of services on multiple aspects of work life and organization. The specialty that we share in common is leader development consulting (including assessment, training, coaching, talent advice, and program development). But - as indicated by the bios below - we have expertise in other domains of management consulting and organization development as well.
Jim Oher
For nearly 40 years, Jim Oher has been coaching, consulting and empowering business professionals with clear-headed advice and customized tools to maximize their career performance and connect them to their passions, talent, purpose and values. Jim is a former corporate executive, accredited psychotherapist, and group trainer. He specializes in tackling complex workplace issues that can compromise productivity, profitability and morale – addressing demanding matters of leadership, motivation, senior team alignment, resiliency, collaboration and conflict. Jim has co-authored and edited two books, The Employee Assistance Handbook and Employee Assistance Treatment Planner, which are considered essential resources for clinicians, administrators, and human resource professionals. These reference works feature leading experts, illustrating their innovative and groundbreaking program and service initiatives, as well as best practices for intervention, treatment and prevention programs, regarding all issues affecting employee productivity. In addition to his management consulting, Jim specializes in developing, reviewing and analyzing employee assistance and counseling services, helping them to deal better with a variety of personnel problems affecting workers and their functioning in the workplace. Jim has coached and consulted with many national and global organizations in a variety of industries, including pharmaceuticals, health care, professional services, academics, manufacturing, retail, technology, and finance. Prior to beginning his own business, Jim directed internal corporate functions at two major international firms. He served on the leadership team of the Alexcel Group, a consulting firm of prominent international coaches, and he is currently an active member of ORGDYNE, an international coaching and consulting consortium. He has been on the faculty of the NYU School of Social Work and the William Alanson White Institute. At the outset of his career, Jim received a master’s degree in Social Work, as well as psychoanalytic training.
Esther Matte
Esther Matte is an organizational coach and trainer with extensive experience and practice in change mobilization and development processes for teams, projects and organizations. Esther subscribes to a core belief that any group of people working together has the necessary wisdom, passion and knowledge to accomplish their intention, whatever it may be. She coaches clients in co-creation processes that are rooted in dialogue, planning and action, to achieve optimal and sustained results. Using large group techniques, such as Open Space, Appreciative Inquiry, World Café and other methodologies, Esther helps clients to accomplish more than they would have thought possible. Such techniques foster system-wide engagement, encouraging each member to contribute the very best of themselves. Specific consulting engagements have focused on matters such as team building, productivity improvement, conflict resolution, communications strategy, future planning, and project implementation. Esther’s consulting philosophy is grounded in “Leadership 3.0”. This is a way of being more than a way of doing. It is leadership anchored in an organic worldview, where all are interconnected and interdependent, and where synergy is the source of creativity. Leadership 3.0 manifests itself in openness and authenticity, and in a work culture dedicated to growing both individual and collective responsibility. It is the sort of leadership that optimizes employee engagement, which thereby optimizes enterprise agility. Esther earned a Certificate in Organizational Communications, as well as a Diploma in Group Facilitation Techniques, from Tele-Universite du Quebec (Montreal), and she is also specifically certified in various large group facilitation methods. She is an active member of the Open Space Institutes of Canada and the USA, as well as the Open Space World Organization. Esther previously specialized in organization communications consulting, and has since worked as a management consultant for about 10 years. Her clients have included numerous non-profit and public sector organizations, mainly in Quebec and other parts of Canada, but also in NYC.
Mark Sirkin
Mark Sirkin is a psychologist, executive coach, and management consultant. Over the past 20 years, Mark has worked with a great variety of businesses, from large Fortune 50-to-500 companies to smaller publicly-held firms, as well as many family enterprises, law firms, and not-for-profits. He specializes in human capital development, employing a systems theory model focused at the interface of people, talent and organizations. Mark received his PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Connecticut. He began his professional career as an academic clinical psychologist, teaching systems theory, family dynamics, and group psychotherapy to students in medicine and psychology. He initially served on the faculty of the University of Rochester Medical Center in Psychiatry, and later at the Ferkauf Graduate School & Albert Einstein College of Medicine. During that time, he re-trained in organization consultation, obtaining a post-doctoral certificate from the William Alanson White Institute in NYC – and he began consulting to family businesses soon afterwards. Mark then became a full-time consultant with RHR International, where he served as director of their Family Business Practice. After that, Mark joined up with the Hay Group (the world’s largest human resources consultancy) as a senior consultant with their Executive Services Practice, where he focused on executive development and organization change. Following that, Mark consulted for Hildebrandt (now a division of Thomson-Reuters), specializing in professional service firms, especially law firms. Based upon his many years of experience, Mark has synthesized his insights about systems theory and organizational life into a book: The Secret Life of Corporations.
Lori Roth Gale
Lori Roth Gale is a specialist in organizational learning, with deep experience in the design and implementation of executive education and leadership learning programs. Lori is also an executive coach, specializing in coaching leaders through major transitions. Previously, Lori was the Executive Director of Columbia Business School’s Institute for Not-for-Profit Management and a member of Columbia’s Executive Education faculty. For 15 years, she managed, designed and/or directed over 100 programs with over 2000 participants from community-based organizations, established regional organizations and large public-sector institutions. She also served as a coach and facilitator in Columbia Business School’s Emerging Leaders, High Impact Leadership, and Executive MBA Programs. Her clients while at Columbia included: Robin Hood Foundation, After School Corporation, UJA Federation, United Neighborhood Houses, Girl Scouts, NYC Police Department, Fire Department of NY, and the US Dept of Homeland Security. Lori is valued for her broad knowledge of management, leadership, and adult learning theory and its practical applications at work. She is known for her collaborative approach, engaging clients and program participants in both design and evaluation of the programs she develops. Participants in her programs form strong learning communities, which support their ongoing growth long after the program ends. Lori earned her doctorate (EdD) in Adult Learning and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. She wrote her dissertation on CEO succession and strategy development in the nonprofit sector. She earned her masters (MPPM) in Public and Private Management from the Yale School of Management, her BA from Brandeis University, and a certificate in Organization Development and Human Resource Management from Teachers College. Lori currently teaches master's level seminars on leadership development at the New School for Public Engagement (Milano School).
Israel Romano
Israel (Issy) Romano is a psychologist with wide experience in management consulting and executive coaching, having worked with a diverse array of individuals and businesses. He also has 15 years of experience as a healthcare executive, with expertise in all aspects of managed healthcare. He has especially deep expertise in quality improvement (as well as a Black Belt in Six Sigma). He is currently employed as the Vice President for Behavioral Health Services at AlphaCare & Senior Whole Health, a care management organization for senior citizens. Issy's experience as a consultant includes organizational assessment, executive coaching, partnership mediation, team building, leadership training, project management, and conducting executive retreats. He has developed and offers engaging workshops and talks on topics such as emotional intelligence, adapting to change, executive coaching, self-awareness in leadership, and inspirational leadership. Issy's work empowers individuals, groups and organizations to articulate their vision, and helps them map their way to it. Issy received his PhD in Clinical Psychology from the Derner Institute at Adelphi University (in NY), and a BA in Sociology & Politics from Hebrew University in Jerusalem (Israel). He later earned a Certificate in Organizational Development & Consultation from the William Alanson White Institute in NYC. Some of Issy's distinctive perspective on organizational dynamics was developed during his years of service in the Israeli military.
Elana Shneyer
Elana Shneyer is a former non-profit executive who now works as an independent consultant. Her consulting work is focused on government, politics and community relations, as well as non-profit organization development - including strategy clarification, growth initiatives, capacity building and performance management. Elana’s experience as a community organizer and training in cultural anthropology inform her approach to making change. She works from a starting point of dignity and respect for all human beings, and believes that we make progress toward improving the world by practicing our values in all that we do. She focuses especially on harnessing the power of people, uncovering underlying structures, and creating executable strategies to impact sustainable change. Over the course of her career, Elana has worked with a range of leaders and organizations, e.g., from non-profits interested in making changes to elected officials wanting to design effective community engagement strategies. She recently served as Chief of Staff to New York State Assembly Member Daniel O’Donnell, where she focused on criminal justice reform, preserving affordable housing and improving public education. Before that, Elana worked for over a decade in the affordable housing movement in NYC - most significantly at the Pratt Area Community Council (which is now known as IMPACCT Brooklyn), a community development corporation in Brooklyn. While at PACC, she assumed increasing responsibility, completing her time there as the Chief Program Officer. In that capacity she increased financial support for the enterprise, led a strategic redesign of the program offerings, and grew the management and leadership skills of the staff. Elana holds a BA in cultural anthropology from Reed College, and she has since participated in an array of leadership learning experiences, including programs sponsored by United Way/Baruch College, NYU/Wagner Institute, Bank of America and The Center for Leadership Innovation.