About CHUCk WISNER
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
— Victor Frankl
Chuck Wisner is a leadership advisor, coach, and author specializing in the art—and impact—of conscious conversations. For more than twenty-five years, he’s helped leaders and teams in some of the world’s most influential companies navigate the human side of work: how we speak, listen, make decisions, and build trust.
Chuck’s approach is grounded in both deep research and lived experience. Early in his career, he spent fifteen years as a partner at HKT Architects in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A shift toward human dynamics led him to study mediation at Harvard Law School, train in advanced coaching at the Newfield Institute, and work as an affiliate with MIT’s Center for Organizational Learning. Along the way, he became fascinated with one enduring truth: conversations are at the heart of everything that works—and everything that doesn’t.
Today, Chuck has worked with leaders and teams at Google, Apple, Tesla, Rivian, and other Fortune 200 companies. His past clients range from Harvard Business School to the Detroit Mayor’s Office.
He’s the author of The Art of Conscious Conversations, a practical guide to making communication more intentional, impactful, and human.
Chuck lives in New England with his wife, Kata, an artist. They have two sons who are out in the world chasing creative dreams.
“Chuck has taught me so many lessons over the years; the true test of his effectiveness is that I still hear his voice in that millisecond before reacting to something. Through my work with him, I came to realize that so much of our interaction with others is determined by the stories we unconsciously tell ourselves, or that others have of us. Chuck has a unique ability to identify those narratives, dissect them, and help others to be more mindful of their positive and negative consequences. He’s had a profound impact on my success as a leader. Even my wife agrees!”
— Jay Finney | VP Marketing, Peabody Essex Museum
Thirty years ago, I was a young architect whose creative aspirations collided with the business realities of the building industry. As a result, I became increasingly aware of disruptive and dysfunctional behaviors among team members, headstrong contractors, and arrogant owners, where contentious meetings driven by piles of money, egos, and distrust were the norm.
Over the course of four years, I was driven by my frustrations and an insatiable intellectual curiosity; I emersed myself in ideas and methodologies of conflict resolution, mediation, and transformational leadership culminating in a new career. My first venture outside of architecture was as a certified mediator in the courts of Massachusetts. Simultaneously, I also enrolled in the Ontology of Language - Mastering Professional Coaching program by the Newfield Group. That uncovered a world of knowledge about the power of words and language that changed my thinking and life.
Inspired and unemployed, exhilarated and fearful, I stepped into the unknown, knowing in my head and heart that I was making the right move. But, as life goes, closing one door often opens others. A few months after my journey began, Leslie Pollitt (my coach at the Newfield Institute) and Fred Kofman (a professor at MIT) invited me to be a coach and a teacher in a transformational leadership program at MIT, spearheaded by Peter Senge, then a senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and author of The Fifth Discipline. Another life-changing experience.
Over the past thirty years, I have helped hundreds of people at Apple, Google, Tesla, General Motors, Yahoo, Ford, and DTE Energy apply the lessons I learned. After seeing the powerful impact that understanding the power of language and conversations had on my clients, I decided to write The Art of Conscious Conversations.