Pollyanna pixton constantly evolving.

• Author: Lindberg, Kelly J.P.
• Position: People - Biography

ITS EASY TO DETERMINE if a business is successful. First, is the business making a profit? Second, do the employees like to work there? If the answer to either question is 'No," the company is in trouble and most likely needs Pollyanna Pixton.

Tired of consulting in specific areas of a company only to see the effort diluted by other factors in the organization, Pixton founded a consulting firm that looks at faltering companies as an interconnected system. She helps organizations analyze how and where they can improve their productivity and expand their profitability to reach key company goals.

It was hardly a path one could have predicted. Pixton began her career 30 years ago as a computer programmer in the physics department at the University of Utah. After three years of graduate studies in theoretical physics, a feasibility study to bring manganese nodules off the bottom of the ocean led her to Seattle, where she completed a master's degree in computer science. She found herself rising through the ranks from team leader to project manager and finally to the executive level in a variety of organizations and different countries. She led the creation of the Swiss Electronic Stock Exchange, managed the development of control systems and work management systems for power plants, and advised conversion efforts during mergers.

"Looking back, it was all a study in how organizations work -- or, more to the point - fail to work," Pixton explains. She identified where companies had weak focus, miscommunication, lack of accountability, missing methodology, ineffectual market strategies, style conflicts or cultural clashes. Her experience turned into an ability to quickly see and facilitate interconnected leverage points throughout an organization to get people where they want to go.

"I...