Sandy’s Story

Sandy was born on the southern tip of the African continent in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she lived for the largest part of her life, until she immigrated to the USA in 1998 and opened an office in Dallas. She founded the Gluckman Group Inc. in 1975 with the purpose of assisting leaders to envision and execute strategic changes that would drive profitable growth.

South Africa

Many of the major organizations in South Africa were able to reinvent themselves when apartheid was abandoned and global sanctions were removed, using Sandy’s innovative methods and tools for igniting and employing the energy and spirit of the employees as a competitive edge. One of the lessons that Sandy learned was that the companies that were able to successfully transition from the old South Africa to the new, were led by leaders who were able to build high performing business teams. She discovered that these leaders interacted with the workforce in specific ways that energized and excited them about the business goals. These were the who leaders knew how to re-engage thousands of alienated and hurting employees and build a culture of courage, determination, focus, accountability and collaboration. Sandy studied these successful leaders and found a clear pattern of behaviors and ways of communicating which she describes in her book, Who’s in the Driver’s Seat?. She also discovered that the unsuccessful leaders were those who were unable to engage and connect with their employees. These leaders showed a pattern of behaviors and used a language that switched the workforce off, causing them to tune out and deliver poor performance.

With Nelson Mandela

In her eternal quest to bridge the communications gap between people, Sandy added a division to her company in 1990 called The Corporate Theatre Company. The objective was to use the dramatic arts to assist leaders and their teams in ‘experiencing’ new ways of interacting with each other. They would watch scripted scenarios played by talented performers and then dialogue and redirect what they had seen. The results were dramatic (excuse the pun!). These enactments cut through resistance, and people adopted new behaviors and communication skills almost overnight. Sandy continues to use theater in her programs and keynotes today with outstanding results.