About Clarrus

Over 20 years ago, Jim Brosseau identified a need to reconcile how projects are traditionally run (following the old hierarchical concepts formalized in the Industrial Revolution) and how this could be improved.

In working to find a better way, Jim founded Clarrus in 2002 to follow his vision of teaching people more collaborative and inclusive ways to work together that nourish better and more productive results.

In 2018, Clarrus acquired E.M. Sciences, a pioneer in the field of team-based project leadership. We continue to run E.M. Sciences sessions originally created by Gary Robinson, and honour his philosophies.

Our workshops are available in person, online and in a growing collection of asynchronous options.

The values below are the essence of what we have learned from our experiences, the distillation of what drives us.

Foster collaborative, balanced relationships.

We believe in honesty, trust, integrity and balance in our relationships with our customers and within our organization. We believe that when we follow these principles, we have the best opportunity to achieve our fullest potential.

With no balanced relationship, there is no synergy. No synergy, no progress.

Measure success from the perspective of our clients.

We believe that success is better measured from the eyes of our clients, not just from numbers on our bottom line. We’ve been able to quantify significant value in our engagements with our clients, and this success is reflected by the number of repeat engagements with past customers.

We recognize that a job well done for our clients repays itself, and the bottom line takes care of itself.

Emphasize problem solving over symptom masking.

We believe that it is important to respect the information we see in our client engagements. This means working to actually solve the underlying problem rather than simply obfuscating the data to present a pretty picture.

Our goal is to eliminate the problem and drive genuine gains.

Engage only if reasonable value can be provided.

Sometimes, we’re not the solution you need for your problems. In that case, we’ll honestly tell you and we’ll gladly refer you to others from our network that a can meet your needs – and we won’t take a cut.

Balance our clients, community, and families with ourselves.

We know from experience that long work-weeks aren’t really productive (and we don’t want to miss the experience of watching our kids grow up!).

We regularly give back to our community through volunteering and donations and we constantly work to improve our own skills and knowledge wherever possible.

Be genuine in all interactions.

Our goal is to provide clarity to our clients, not to appease them when they realize that becoming a more effective organization can be a difficult path.

We try to be true to our North Star so we can can better guide you on your journey.

Solve problems that have yet to be solved.

Sometimes our clients sound surprised when they tell us how much we’ve helped them. It is in these moments that we feel we are in the ‘zone’.

When we hear “That can’t be done”, that’s when we really get interested in solving the problem.

Treat each experience as a positive, learning one.

Not all of our experiences turn out as anticipated – sometimes the deepest learning can come from the most difficult failures.

We have learned quite a bit along the way, and our goal is to make mistakes only once.

Our Team

Jim Brosseau

Jim is a well-respected speaker, facilitator, educator, author and thought leader in his field. He is passionate about educating people and organizations on deliberately crafting cultures that foster collaboration, inclusion, and creativity. For over 20 years, he has facilitated powerful in-depth workshops on team-based project management and business analysis techniques. He provides consulting on organizational strategy and frameworks and personal and team resilience.

He is the author of Jounce!: Crafting a Resilient Life in an Increasingly Chaotic World and Software Teamwork: Taking Ownership for Success.

Winney Chow

Winney provides sales, marketing and administrative support to Clarrus. She has a long career in sales and marketing and has worked with companies like Trade Technologies, TD Securities and Export Development Canada over the last 30 years.

In her spare time, Winney works with textiles, has volunteered with the Vancouver Food Bank and was on the Board of Directors for the Vancouver Farmer’s Market from 2017 to 2020.