Karen Bading

“I learn and I teach—they are the same.” That’s what my non-dominant hand wrote in response to the question, “What is your mission?” I believe we learn to be the way we are and we can learn to be different. As a coach or facilitator, I’m a learner listening for what is so for my clients now, how it made sense in some context, and how it could be different. I listen to the words and for what’s beneath the words. Together we discover how they can make changes, sometimes huge but more often subtle, to get results and discover what is possible.

I learn best in community and that’s what I create with my clients, whether that’s in a 1:1 coaching conversation where it’s safe to challenge the old story and find a different relationship to self and the world; in a group learning to have new conversations or have the old conversations in a new way; or in a training room guiding people to embody new ideas and behavior. Someone has said that listening is an act of love. I hold a space to stop, listen, and learn for my clients and for myself.

Karen V. Bading, founder and principal of Infrasonics Coaching and Consulting, practices hearing beneath the words and creating the future with individuals, teams, and communities who are:

• Developing ways of being that lead to effective action.
• Building and maintaining community across distance.
• Increasing productivity, collaboration, and satisfaction.
• Living and expanding their story with intention and integrity.

Karen is a facilitator and coach with twenty-five years of experience in technical, manufacturing, and non-profit environments such as Sun Microsystems, EDS, Rockwell-Collins, City of Pasadena, Agilent Technologies, PAX Scientific, Phillips Graduate Institute, Performance Learning, LLP, Los Angeles Educational Partnership, MCI, PG&E, Hollywood Urban Project, and Kaiser Permanente. Her current learning edges include blended facilitation, using both face to face and virtual facilitation for maximum impact; learning design consultation to make meetings, retreats, and trainings engaging, effective, and fun for both leaders and participants; and coaching the whole person in the workplace.

Karen holds Bachelor’s Degree in English from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (stories), a Master’s Degree in Counseling from Rhode Island College (more stories), and is a certified NLP trainer and Syntax Consultant (changing the stories). She is a certified by Newfield Network in Coaching for Personal and Professional Mastery (changing the storyteller and the story) and has studied Appreciative Inquiry (creating new community stories). She is author of Saying No, A User’s Manual, and Saying Yes, A User’s Manual. Contact her at Karen@InfasonicsCo.com.