Thea Spitzer, Ph.D.


Guiding

Organizations and Individuals

through

Critical Change

Consulting  & Coaching Services

When change must work

many call Thea 


With 30+ years’ experience as a trusted consultant, advisor, and coach in large organizations, Thea helps to: align direction and execution, navigate complex change, and build sustainable, resilient futures while achieving results today. 


She also guides and supports individuals to identify and enter their next chapter with clarity, purpose, and passion.


Change is viewed by some as inspiring.

Others see as a threat.

How do people you know tend to view it?


Services Thea Offers to Help Organizations Thrive 


Guiding Critically Needed Change 

Independent firms like McKinsey and others report that only about 30% of large-scale changes attempted in organizations actually succeed. The other 70% face persistent challenges. Thea is a change expert and can guide your firm to navigate change successfully. She brings clarity to ambiguity, aligns people around a shared purpose, and turns ideas into practical actions that deliver lasting impact.


Finding Your "North Star" and Inspiring You to Achieve It 

Having a solid direction means that your organization and teams have a “North Star”. This enables staff to make excellent decisions and take the right actions to help reach organizational goals. Most agree that this is essential. Yet so many lack a North Star. Could you use assistance in discovering yours? Critical Change can help.


Building Leadership Excellence

Companies need leaders with the right values and competencies. Folks who lead others superbly, and know how to inspire people to go in new directions. That's a lot to ask. They also need opportunities to expand their perspectives and skills. Thea has helped so many leaders over the last 30+ years, and would be honored to assist.


Coaching and Training for Leaders and Key Individuals Thea offers group and one-to-one work to sharpen skills, self-awareness, decision-making, and impact. She helps vital staff to navigate complexity, align their actions with organizational goals, and move forward with greater clarity and influence.


Launching and Sustaining Effective Collaboration

People can no longer afford to work in silos. Yet, they can’t do everything together. They need targeted collaboration that furthers business goals and builds the best products and services. We aren’t born with these skills. We learn them from folks who have an expertise in collaboration. Thea has that expertise. 


Services Thea Offers to Help Individuals Thrive 


Coaching and facilitating Individuals at Crossroads

Change may sound simple on paper, but in real life it’s messy, emotional, and often uncomfortable. We aren’t taught how to make changes in our lives, even ones that benefit us. Fortunately, there are things that make change possible, safe, worthwhile, and exciting. Especially when reinforced by a knowledgeable and supportive coach like Thea. She helps you clarify what truly matters, uncover passions and strengths, and turn uncertainty into a confident, actionable path toward your next chapter.


Coaching Individuals Transitioning into Retirement 

Thea supports you in redefining your purpose beyond your established career. She helps identify passions, strengths, and values -- and guides you in designing a fulfilling “third act” marked by meaning, engagement, and an intentional next chapter.

What Clients Say About Thea’s Work

“It’s fair to say you have worked some magic here.”

Senior VP at Microsoft commenting on Thea's work improving collaboration between two important business groups that needed to work closely and had been unable to do so for several years.

“Thea understands the culture needed for large corporations to succeed in today’s global market and knows how to create that culture.”

GM at a Fortune 500 Company

“Thea has become our expert on cross-group issues.”

Organizational Consultant at Microsoft

“We found Thea to be very professional, very knowledgeable, and very committed to meeting her customers’ needs. She exceeded our expectations in all the work she performed for us. Her willingness to coach others and to share her knowledge and skills is unique and a real strength.”

VP at an International Fortune 500 Company

“It’s fair to say you have worked some magic here.”

Senior VP at Microsoft commenting on Thea's work improving collaboration between two important business groups that needed to work closely and had been unable to do so for several years.

“Thea understands the culture needed for large corporations to succeed in today’s global market and knows how to create that culture.”

GM at a Fortune 500 Company

About Dr. Spitzer

Thea Spitzer, Principal of Critical Change LLC, has been a consultant, strategic advisor, and coach to executives, leaders, teams and pivotal staff at organizations for 30+ years (including 16 years with Microsoft). Additionally, she has long-term experience in skill-building, coaching, and guiding individuals through important changes. 


Her expertise includes fine-tuning business direction, aligning staff with that direction, implementing complex changes successfully, increasing employee productivity and achieving bottom-line results.  She identifies and solves tough challenges. And has designed and executed over 1,000 solutions; sharing practical tools that help guide firms and individuals to new levels of success.   


She helps people do things in ways that make the most sense for today and tomorrow, moving beyond practices that worked in the past but are no longer effective. Thea figures out what’s really going on and solves root causes rather than symptoms. She creates trust and safety that encourages openness and honesty. And does this with speed and quality, consistently exceeding expectations. 


Thea has worked in a variety of industries and has long term specializations in technology and health care. Her expertise also helps organizations and individuals increase  sustainability and resilience. 


In addition to consulting and coaching, she delivers trainings, workshops and inspiring talks. And has received  accolades and awards for her work. Thea earned her Ph.D. in Organizational Systems from Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, her M.S. in Community Health from University of Cincinnati, and her A.B. from the University of Michigan. Leveraging her longstanding expertise in collaboration and discussions with Silicon Valley leaders, Dr. Spitzer offers a highly effective and practical approach for creating a collaborative culture in her book The Power of Collaboration, (Weiser, December 2017). 

Examples of Results Thea has Achieved for Clients

Business Strategy & Product Innovation

Challenging Situation: A product offered by this company had been highly successful. But advances by competitors was decreasing its profitability. Leaders knew they needed to make changes but weren’t sure how.

  • After becoming familiar with the product and division, Thea designed and facilitated a process that engaged the creativity and knowledge of key employees to reinvent the product. The process was highly successful. Employees were motivated to contribute. Working with Thea, they created an innovation that took the product in different directions and made it highly profitable again.


Decision-Making Processes and Ownership

Challenging Situation: In partnering with the leadership of a division with 15,000 employees, Thea discovered that people didn’t understand who had authority to make what decisions. This decreased their effectiveness and  resulted in missed opportunities and mistrust.

  • Thea determined the root causes of the issue. She then constructed a practical and easy-to-use decision-making process that fit the culture and alleviated the issues. It was met with huge enthusiasm and started being used regularly. A six-month follow-up showed that the new process was working really well. Thea made a few tweaks that made it even better. Four years later these decision processes were still meeting the needs of that division and had spread across the corporation.


Cross-Group Collaboration

Challenging Situation: Two groups in this organization had complex interdependencies requiring joint brainstorming and decision-making, in order to develop an important new product. There had been problems between the groups for several years. Delivery dates were missed and customer relationships were affected. Resources were wasted because the groups duplicated work, engaged in finger-pointing, and were no closer to having the needed product. 

  • Thea put together an accurate picture of the situation. Using this information, she facilitated several streams of work to improve the way people worked, both individually and with others. Immediate positive results were seen in the way the two groups collaborated. The most significant proof of success was the creation of a fantastic new product by these two groups working together.


Leadership Coaching for Higher Performance

Challenging Situation: An important leader had strong skills in many aspects of her job, but was unable to influence others in positive ways. She had been made aware of the problem and had taken trainings to improve her skills but wasn’t yet changing her behaviors.

  • Individual coaching was needed to assist this leader. Over the course of several months, Thea met with her regularly, providing appropriate challenges, skill-building, and support. The leader gained deep insights and was finally able to change her beliefs and behaviors. Over time she became known as “a key influencer” and got the respect of those that she had previously alienated. She contributed more to the organization’s success and was rewarded with a well-deserved promotion.