About

About Our Founder

Joel Bennett | Leadership Change Consultant

It’s been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result.  This “insanity cycle” is evident in how companies traditionally train and develop their leaders.

Early in his career, Joel was frustrated with the conventional “hope and pray” approach to leadership development.  Companies would routinely hire talented trainers with great content and who received fantastic evaluations from participants.  But 30 days later, few participants could remember any of the training content itself, and even fewer were doing something different because of it.  Invariably, this negative return on the time, resources, and dollars spent in these programs created cynicism about investing in additional development for the leaders who most desperately needed the support.  As a results, LD efforts would be discontinued until the company fell into a leadership crisis and returned to its previous “hope and pray” model of development.

Out of this frustration, Joel launched Veel Hoeden Consulting with a singular focus: create a leadership development methodology that provides

  •  high-quality content in an interactive format
  • ample classroom opportunities for participants to explore context for their work challenges
  • workplace application focused on practicing new habits that change leadership behavior
  • and a clear view of the progress and impact that is achieved along the way

In short, we are Developing Leadership That Lasts

With over 25 years of people development experience, Joel builds improved organizational capacity by providing consulting, customized training, and coaching services to growth-focused businesses.  In addition, his expertise in leadership and organizational development, performance management, and change management allows him to assist leaders in tackling challenging employee and team issues.  Joel works with clients in a variety of industries but takes pride in being one of the few firms in the Midwest which specializes in developing leaders in blue-collar environments like manufacturing, construction, and field service.

Joel graduated from the University of Northern Iowa with a B.A. in History & Geography and an M.A. in Organization Management from the University of Phoenix.  He is a certified DISC practitioner, and an Actionable Consulting Partner experienced in habit development and impact measurement tools.

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