Active Choices, Inc. is a strategic advisory and training firm that specializes in creating authentic Positive Energy Workplaces and leadership through its proprietary methodology and proven impact model, the IEP Method®.
We’ve been building psychological safety and security; honest conversations, connection, and collaboration; and positive energy workplaces and leadership since 2002. We partner with our clients to create real and sustainable change through strategic discovery, training and workshops, executive retreats, keynotes, and enterprise-wide integrations. Learn more about our methodology here.
We are driven by helping people and organizations show up in a way that helps them create alignment and ease with themselves, solid resilient leadership with those they love and lead, a healthy productively contagious culture, and ultimately positive impact in the world.
Our clients say we build creative leaders, make people better,
and get people having honest conversations.
ACI was founded in 2002 by Anese Cavanaugh who saw the essentialness of Showing Up, self-awareness, honest reflection, being present and intentional, and taking care of ourselves in relationship to healthy leadership and creating a positive impact in the world. Over the last twenty years in working with organizations big and small and business leaders of all kinds, Anese created the IEP Method® (Intentional Energetic Presence®) to support clients in integrating some of the most essential components of leadership, well-being, accountability, integrity, and energy management into one model.
In 2021, after working with organizations in both cultural “triage” and “optimization” modes, she created the Positive Energy Workplace Initiative™ to give companies a framework for creating not only solid business results, but more importantly, authentic (not toxic) positive energy and well-being in the company and people. Seeing the effects of this work on others, and experiencing it for themselves, she and her team have an insatiable hunger and drive for paying this work forward.
How We Work
There are several pathways to creating usefully contagious leadership and authentically Positive Energy Workplaces with our clients. We offer a range of experiences from enterprise-wide solutions for the whole organization to online self-study courses. Our approach is bespoke for each company we work with and may include a combination of consulting, training, retreats, coaching, cohorts, keynotes, and more. Each engagement includes our proprietary ACI Client Journey which involves a Discovery Phase and a Positive Energy Workplace™ Diagnostic, for assessing needs and crafting an ideal engagement to optimize your experience and results.
The best way to proceed is to contact us for an Exploratory Conversation to see how we might partner together.
Paying It Forward
We do our best to pay this work forward in multiple ways and we do it in community. When you participate in this work with me, you pay-it-forward, not only with the people you love and lead, but in supporting others. We contribute 10% of our annual profits to supporting food security and our Impact Scholarship Fund which expands access to our programs to leaders from traditionally underserved and underrepresented groups, or who’ve been significantly impacted by the pandemic, for whom paying full fees in our programs would be prohibitive in helping them get the support they want/need.
Common Times to Start Working With Active Choices, Inc..
You have infighting or accountability and communication issues between leaders that are threatening a client project or team health and you need to get them realigned and focused on the right things.
You’ve just lost a major client or had a critical project stall — due to a lack of productive communication, honest feedback, or clarity in collaboration needs — and you need to get it back on track immediately.
You’ve completed your Employee Engagement Survey and one or more business units are below the acceptable norm.
You have a high-stakes upcoming executive meeting or conference scheduled, or you are about to launch a new training initiative, and you want to make sure that people show up well, are clear, present, and intentional, and create the best experience and results possible.
You’re doing a lot of training or cultural change initiatives, but they’re not working (or perhaps need some optimization). They maybe feeling more like a “flavor-of-the-month,” or you’re not getting your optimal ROI on them, and/or (even worse) people are doing the skills learned, but they’re still not showing up well doing them — costing you more time, energy, money, and credibility — and you’ve had enough.
You’re promoting or onboarding 10 or more people into leadership roles and want to make sure they’re set up with a good foundation so that any other training you do is more effective and they are a cultural-enhancer from the start.
The energy of your company just feels “blech,” disorganized, confused, anxious, and/or exhausted — and you’d really like to cut through it all and get back on track for creating solid results AND feeling good
ANESE CAVANAUGH
CEO + Strategic Advisor
Founder of The IEP Method® and The Positive Energy Workplace Initiative™
Anese Cavanaugh is the CEO of Active Choices, Inc., creator of the IEP Method® (Intentional Energetic Presence®) and the Positive Energy Workplace Initiative™ and a strategist and advisor to leaders and organizations around the world. She is devoted to helping organizations support their people so they are able to show up and bring their best selves to the table, create significant impact in their lives, and create (authentic) positive energy workplaces and cultures. Anese is a keynote speaker and author of CONTAGIOUS CULTURE: Show Up, Set the Tone, and Intentionally Create an Organization That Thrives (McGraw-Hill, 2015), CONTAGIOUS YOU: Unlock Your Power to Influence, Lead, and Create the Impact You Want (McGraw-Hill, 2019), and THE LEADER YOU WILL BE: An Invitation (a leadership storybook).
As a leading voice on intention, energy, and presence in leadership and culture, she helps people unlock greater leadership potential, collaborate more inspiringly, create more openly, intuit more bravely, and lead more joyfully and effectively. She holds a degree in Kinesiology as well as multiple credentials in coaching, training, facilitation, and relationship systems that support her in bringing a breadth of knowledge to clients in order to meet them where they’re at and best pair the team with the optimally fit engagements.
Top innovators and executives in companies including Ford Motor Company, IDEO, Zingerman’s, Cooper, GM Financial, Vistaprint, 15Five, Fitbit, Vivayic, Kaiser Permanente, BNY Mellon, and others have engaged with Active Choices to strengthen team health, maximize leadership impact, and optimize company culture. In addition to appearing in publications like Harvard Business Review, The Huffington Post, CEO.com, Forbes, the NY Times, and others, Anese writes a column, “Showing Up” on Inc.com, blogs regularly for subscribers of ActiveChoices.com, and speaks on stages (in person and virtually) around the world. Learn more about Anese here.
ACI OPERATIONS + CLIENT SUCCESS TEAM
SANDY MARTINI
Director of Finance + Online Operations
JENNY WILEY
Director of Programming + Community Growth
JACOB CAVANAUGH
Data Science + Research Specialist
ACI FACULTY + PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION TEAM
Our training team is a collaborative group of certified coaches, facilitators, strategists, teachers, thought leaders, practitioners, and therapists, with a breadth of experience in healthcare, corporate, military, education, design, finance, tech, and many other industries.
We work together to create the co-designed outcomes you and your organization need and desire.
ACI SUPPORT TEAM
AMY RICHARDSON
Operations + Customer Support
PAYTON PRATHER
Operations + Marketing Specialist
JENNIFER PROUHET
Events Specialist
Ready to Learn More?
- Anese can be found on podcasts, in columns, on (virtual) stages, on our blog, and in social media. You can also learn more about the IEP Method® in Anese’s books.
- Learn more and save your seat for an Executive Session, find upcoming private events and conferences where Anese will be on stage, and view a sample of current programming in the Positive Energy Workplace Initiative™ Community.
- For media boilerplates, headshots, and other handy information head over to the press kit.
- Read what others have shared about working with Anese and experiencing our programs.
- View examples and details for our experiential keynotes, workshops, and events.
- To schedule an Exploratory Call to see how this work can serve your organization, reach out here.
- View our Frequently Asked Questions for partnering with the ACI Team.