Step into Our Office…

“Welcome! Please remove your shoes…Would you like some slippers?” This is likely, what you will hear as you enter through our door at M E Clarke Consulting, LLC. More on the “no shoes” part later! We would like to virtually invite you into our space for the next few minutes as you read this article about how we like to do things differently.

In early January, we moved into a new office space. Since then, on top of our already busy schedule, we’ve been working towards making it our own. We’ve torn out ceilings, painted using vibrant colors, bought new desks and chairs, stocked the kitchen with goodies and filled the closets with supplies. While things are helpful in making our work easier, for example without desks and chairs we would be sitting on the floor. The things we’ve bought are not exactly what make our space conducive to excellent, productive work. Below are the ways in which we are striving to enhance the way in which we do our work.

Wisdom Whiteboard
 “Our what?” you are probably saying. Yes, it is just a whiteboard (though it is pretty cool, because it’s a whiteboard painted on the walls!). It’s not the whiteboard itself that I want to highlight here but how we use it. What you might already know is that we’ve started a #WisdomWednesday hashtag in which we share quotes of wisdom with you on Wednesdays. What you probably didn’t know is that the same quote is also written on our whiteboard for the entire week. For that week, it becomes like a mantra and serves as reminder because here at M E Clarke Consulting, we like to practice what we preach! We also use our whiteboard as a tool for communication; writing reminders to each other, holding brainstorming sessions, and analyzing feedback from group sessions.

Our Wisdom quotes are not our only mantras, if you look hard enough, you can see them throughout the entire office space!

Strengths & Goals
 We believe that when you focus on your strengths your growth potential vastly outweighs your weaknesses. Each of us has taken the Strengths Finder assessment from Gallup and to say we recommend it would be an understatement. After completing an on-line self-assessment, you receive a document with your top five strengths, a personalized paragraph explanation on how each strength applies to you, ten ideas for exercising your strengths and reflection questions to help you apply your talents. After we each read through our reports, we sat down together to come up with distinct goals and action steps so that we can start working on exercising our strengths! These goals our posted in our office where we can see them each and everyday and help remind each other to follow through with our goals.

Along with our personal strength goals, we have also set goals for the business and specific goals for marketing. These are written out on huge posters because, seeing is believing! Sometimes, I’m working on a smaller piece of a larger goal and it’s hard to see the value but when that larger goal is visible, waiting to be checked off the list, it’s motivates me to proceed with purpose. These goals lead to action and action leads to success!

Our Success Journal
 Over the past few months, we have been meeting and exceeding goals like crazy! We typically acknowledge these successes in our weekly check-in’s with each other and in aspiring to come up with a better way to celebrate all that has been accomplished, we started a success journal! When we reach a goal, or have a good session with one of our partners, we write it down in this little red journal. This allows us to have a record of everything we have accomplished so as not to forget how far we have come.

Slippers ONLY
 I know you’ve been dying to hear. So here it is: we don’t wear shoes in the office! Cool, right? In all seriousness, we ask that all shoes be removed because we believe this is sacred space. Also the act of removing one’s shoes is symbolic of the following quote by Dr. Inayat Malik, “In order to know a person you need to walk a mile in her shoes. In order to do that, you first have to take your own shoes off. That is the most uncomfortable part”. Don’t worry though, when you come for a visit, we have a large basket full of all shapes, sizes, and COLORS of slippers to choose from and comfortably slip into. And of course, you are welcome to bring your own! Once you are comfortable, we will get down to business!

As you can see we have designed our space to be inviting, not only for you but also for ourselves! When you feel motivated, and invigorated by your surroundings that is where great work happens. I hope you enjoyed your virtual visit and hope you come to visit us in person soon. We are excited to have a space to call our own, and to start welcoming people in. Come back soon!