Ben Kadel

Ben Kadel
Lifeboat Academy

Ben is the founder of Emotus Operandi, Inc. and a co-founder of the Lifeboat Academy and the Farmastery at Spalding Valley. He brings over 30 years of organizational development experience and a unique mix of skills to every project he works on. His specialty is working with the emotional dynamics that often keep work teams from performing at their best.
Equally at home with hard data or hot emotions, Ben has developed an approach to teamwork that blends good fundamentals—structure, process, and culture—with the “soft” skills necessary to navigate the challenges of working with purpose and passion. He spends the time necessary to get to the heart of the matter then draws on an extensive toolkit to design participatory processes that maximize impact and increase the group’s capacity to address new challenges by improving communication, growing trust, and deepening the group’s shared understanding of each other and their shared goals.
Ben has a B.A from Pennsylvania State University and a M.S. and PhD in Sociology and Social Psychology from the University of Wisconsin—Madison.