about us

We have been where you are and we have never forgotten it.

The principals of Performance Consulting are experienced management professionals with over 70 years of personal experience running businesses. We have accumulated over 30 years of practical consulting and coaching experience in a variety of organizations. Our commitment to learning keeps us expanding our understanding about organizational management so we can continue to find the best solutions for our clients. We care about our clients and are committed to you and your organization’s success.

We formed Performance Consulting in 1989 to help leaders and managers build the skills and capabilities necessary to plan, execute, communicate, and develop people. By providing strategic and tactical performance consulting, we can offer customized approaches that always meet and often exceed our customers’ needs and expectations. 

PARTNER BIOS

MALCOLM (Mal) BOWEN

Mal specializes in facilitating Process Improvement Teams and Strategic Planning. His consulting practice includes Baldrige based Business Improvement Assessments, strategic planning, business process improvement, facilitation of teams/groups both face-to-face and virtually, creating performance management systems, and building the skills of improvement teams in facilitation and problem-solving skills. He also has an active coaching practice that focuses on improving an individual’s personal effectiveness

Over the last 20 years, Mal has developed and tested the Personal Effectiveness Process—a process that enables clients, both personally and professionally, to determine what they really want. This individualized coaching process has been successfully used with more than 800 clients.

Mal was a manager with Pacific Bell for 24 years, primarily in operations. He managed and led large teams in numerous successful process improvement efforts. As a principal developer of Total Quality Management (TQM) for Pacific Bell, he designed, internally consulted, facilitated, and trained over 2,500 employees in the use and application of TQM tools and processes. During this effort, Mal helped deliver TQM concepts, tools, and improvement processes to both internal consultants as well as most of the major departments inside Pacific Bell. He specifically designed and delivered the Quality Champion’s process and used it to develop the capabilities of 350 internal change agents. 

Mal has a B.A. in Mathematics from the University of California at Riverside, a M.S. in Human Resource Management (Personnel Development) from Golden Gate University in San Francisco, and is certified in Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), a communications rapport building technology. Mal taught process improvement, strategic planning and thinking, and problem-solving courses to graduates and undergraduates at the John F. Kennedy University’s School of Management in Walnut Creek, California for seven years. He also taught a Group/Team Facilitation course at the UC Berkeley Extension for three years.

Mal and his partners have published two workbooks that support their teaching and consulting work: The Quality Managing and Planning Tools’ System and The Basic Quality Improvement Tools, HRD Press. They have also produced Crafting Personal Effectiveness, a workbook that supports their Personal Effectiveness (Coaching) Process.

TOBY SIMONS

Toby specializes in strategic planning, leadership development, executive coaching, communication, and project management. Her principal focus is helping individuals and teams produce exceptional results through relationships based on shared commitment to the purpose of the organization. Additionally, she encourages clear communication, mutual accountability, and aligned action. Toby believes her primary role is to simultaneously coach leaders to engage employees in the work to be accomplished, while assisting everyone in assuming 100% responsibility for the organization’s results.

Throughout much of her career, Toby has focused on collaboration as the key to successful organization and community-based endeavors. She has developed an expertise in helping people shift their perceptions and collective understanding of issues or concerns, thus allowing new choices and possibilities for action.

Current clients include executive leadership teams of hospitals and health systems, not-for-profit organizations, and service firms. She also works with management groups, project teams, and departmental units to improve workflow and communication systems. And she coaches senior executives, physicians, entrepreneurs, and individuals in transition. 
       
Toby has 18 years of management experience, including senior executive for two hospital associations, where she served as the Regional Vice President of Performance Improvement for VHA West Coast and the Executive Director of Cooperative Hospitals, Inc. Her specialty was clinical improvement and physician development strategies. She managed collaborative projects, provided on-site consulting services, and developed new products for distribution. She also coached the CEOs of her Board, provided education and training to senior hospital personnel, and contracted for a variety of shared services. 

Toby holds a Master in Psychology with an emphasis in organization development from California Institute of Integral Studies. She is a Certified Professional Coach by New Ventures West where she also helps train new coaches. In addition, she acted as graduate advisor for the Masters in Management Program at John F. Kennedy University School of Management and taught coaching at the University of California, Berkeley Extension.

GARY SCHOUBORG, Ph.D.

Gary taught values clarification and criticism at Loyola University of Los Angeles in the 1960's and at the University of Texas at Austin in the 1970's.  While in Austin, he also did psychological testing and had his own practice facilitating personal development.  In the 1980's he was an Industry Consultant in Pacific Bell and AT&T marketing departments, where he also had sales management and training responsibilities; he was later Sr. Learning Researcher in corporate education.  Since the Fall of 1989, he has been one of three partners in Performance Consulting, specializing in individual and organizational development.

He is the author of FLEX: A Flexible Tool for Continuously Improving Your Evaluation of Training Effectiveness (HRD Press, 1992).  He is co-author of The Quality Managing & Planning Tools (HRD Press, 1994) and The Basic Quality Improvement Tools (HRD Press, 1994). He has also published poetry as well as articles in philosophy and religious studies. 

Gary's academic credentials include a B.S. in Mathematics from Loyola University of Los Angeles (1958), an M.A. in Philosophy from Saint Louis University (1964), an S.T.M. in Religious Studies from the University of Santa Clara (1969), and a Ph.D. in Philosophical Psychology from the University of Texas in Austin (1978).

He is a member of the American Philosophical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Psychological Science. He is certified by The TRACOM Group to provide Social Style training.

The common thread throughout his varied career has been applying various conceptual systems — philosophical, religious, and behavioral — to individual and organizational development. Click here for his writing on individual development.