Licensed therapists training leaders since 2008.
SHiFT is a therapist-led company. We train leadership teams at mission-driven companies to respond to pressure with awareness and choice. Our founder, Dr. Isabell Springer, PhD, LMFT, has taught emotional maturity since 2008. She leads every Flourishing Quarter session alongside SHiFT partner and therapist Joella Walker, MSW, LCSW.
Therapists and business leaders, working together.
Our team includes psychotherapists, research scientists and business leaders. We teach emotional maturity: the capacities that keep leaders acting on their values when they’re under pressure.
Mission
Help founders and leaders develop the emotional maturity to create and sustain organizations that benefit humanity, so all people can flourish.
Vision
A future where emotional maturity is the foundation of every organization, shaping how they lead, collaborate, and make decisions that keep them true to their values and mission under pressure.
Our Goal
By 2036, 250 organizations with emotional maturity built into how they lead.
Strategy
Become the place founders and leaders return to develop and practice the human capacities behind what Eric Ries calls Incorruptible organizations.
What leaders learn here goes with them, into every team they lead and every board they join.
Our roots
Built on established research in human development.
SHiFT’s approach grows out of Dr. Harold Bessell’s early model of emotional maturity. We updated it into a model of nine capacities that people can practice and measure.
The model also draws on research in adult development and behavior change. Both point the same way: adults keep growing, and they can learn to see their patterns and choose differently.
SHiFT turns that research into a practice leaders use at work.
Our founder
Dr. Isabell Springer
PhD, LMFTFounder
Isabell has been teaching emotional maturity since 2008 across corporate settings, colleges and universities, business schools, engineering departments, leadership conferences, treatment facilities, recovery residences, and communities.
She developed SHiFT’s Emotional Maturity Framework and co-developed the assessment that brings emotional maturity into a contemporary system for learning, practice, and measurement.
Today, Isabell leads every teaching session of the Flourishing Quarter.
The team behind SHiFT
Partner & Chief Integrity Officer
Joella
WalkerMSW, LCSW
Business Development
Peter
Elkins
Chief Operating Officer
Keyur
Shroff
Chief Financial Officer
Emre
Gerger
Chief Transformation Officer
Tatiana
Santos
Chief Innovation Officer
Bryan
Barker
Chief Research Scientist
Dr. Felicia
Zerwas
Director of Brand
Ryan
Mish
Creative Director
Mia
Georgiev
Advisors
Legal Counsel
James
Paul, Esq.
Business Advisor
Ted
Astleford
Our approach
Why licensed therapists lead the training.
Emotional maturity grows when people notice a familiar pattern as it surfaces and practice choosing differently.
Licensed clinicians are trained in how people regulate emotions and how lasting change happens. SHiFT brings that expertise to leadership development, so leaders can spot their patterns and build healthier ways of working together.
It’s training. It doesn’t diagnose or treat anyone, and no one is in a clinical relationship.
Talk with the people who would train your leaders.
Start a conversation about your leadership team and whether the Flourishing Quarter is a fit.
A free 30-min consultation with Isabell
Tell us a little about your team and we'll reach out to set a time.
On the call you'll
- Talk through where your leaders get reactive under pressure.
- See how the Flourishing Quarter runs, from the first session to the six-month results review.
- Learn when the next cohort starts and how much time it asks of your leaders.
- Get an honest answer on whether SHiFT is a fit for your team right now.