About
Founder: Rory Sylvia
Rarely satisfied with the status quo, I’ve always considered myself a change maker, culture shaper, and positive disruptor. In past careers, I did what I could to improve culture, but no matter how many development programs I was a part of or leadership and self-help books I read, I still felt like I lacked the skills to shape culture. That’s because culture is elusive! It was here before we arrived and it will be here when we’re gone. It’s always present yet constantly changing. How can you shape something that is constantly changing?
My perspective on culture change was upended when I was part of the global culture team at The Boeing Company. We partnered with an external org transformation company to improve our team’s ways of working so that we could go out and teach others around the company. We were a team of teams. And we were fully remote, distributed across the US and Europe.
Prior to the partnership, our team was experiencing the all-to-common signs of an unhealthy organization. We had good intentions but didn’t trust one another, worked in silos, hoarded information, and had far too many meetings. We started working differently, learning new meeting structures, decision making processes, and mindsets in order to show up and move work forward, together - all while building trust, community, connection, shared ownership, and accountability. We improved our ways of working one day at a time, celebrating what was working while experimenting to improve the things that weren’t. We didn’t need a perfect plan, just a place to start. And it worked.
Long story short, that ended up being the best work experience of my life and to this day, I adore each of the teammates that were part of that team. And now I that I’ve experienced better ways of working and how to tactically shape culture, it’s all I want to do. And I’ve seen it work over and over again.
You don’t need an organizational development degree or development programs to be able to positively shape culture. You just need the courage to try something different, stick with it long enough to see what is and isn’t working, then navigate based on what’s happening. I founded The Ways We Work because everyone deserves access to the skills and knowledge to transform the ways we work.
My background includes 17 years of experience working with global corporations like Costco, Boeing, and Starbucks across a variety of functions, including Leadership & Professional Development, Learning and Development, Human Resources, Manufacturing, Engineering, Business Operations, Customer Service, Quality, and Organizational Transformation. I’ve led initiatives such as the Starbucks hybrid workplace employee experience strategy and global first line manager development at Boeing. As a consultant, I’ve worked with small startups as well as large organizations like The Boeing Company, C2 Technologies, and the University of Washington. I hold bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Business Administration.
I was born and raised in Washington State where I still reside. In my free time, I enjoy skiing, whistling, cheering on the Seattle Mariners, personal and professional development, wood working, gardening, cracking puns, and pursuing anything longevity-related. I’m married to my best friend and partner in crime, Mina, and we have a delightfully joyful toddler, Ari.
One of my greatest passions and joys is volunteering as a youth mentor with Journeymen, whose “mission is to encourage compassionate, inspired and resilient young men through nature-based rites of passage, mentorship, and community engagement.”