About me
Denis Shackel, Ph.D., is President of Shackel Associates, a management consultant company, specializing in human resource development. His company, known as The Art of Unlocking Talents has a mission: “to inspire, motivate and challenge individuals and teams to facilitate the full use of their talents.” He is also an internationally published author and has been a Professor of educational psychology at the University of Toronto for 29 years. When retiring from University of Toronto in 2000, he was honoured as Professor of the Year. He has more recently returned to academia as head of the Management Communications Department at the prestigious Richard Ivey School of Business, where he taught within the MBA, EMBA, HBA and Executive Development programmes. In both 2004, and again in 2010, he was doubly honoured by being chosen Professor of the Year at University of Western Ontario. While having now retired from a full-time position at Ivey, he is still teaching within the Executive Development programme.
In June 2007 the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities recognized Denis as the “Leader In Faculty Teaching” [ LIFT award ] for all colleges and universities in Ontario.
Dr. Shackel’s publications include Improving Creativity Through Programmed Instruction; Imagineering: Teachable Techniques for Creative Thinking; Models of Communication and Nonverbal Communication. He has also been the National Evaluator for a number of large curriculum projects funded by the Canadian Institute of Mining and the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association. Although he has presented dozens of papers to various professional associations related to his scholarly activities, Dr. Shackel’s impact is far from confined to the academic world. His latest book entitled “Five Seconds at a Time” is a leadership text based on his own experience facing death at 8,000 feet on a mountain in his home land of New Zealand. A sequel to this text “Caring Enough to Confront” has recently been published and is making a significant contribution to the field of dealing successfully with challenging conversations.
In a very practical way, Dr. Shackel has assisted hundreds of executive managers to discover and experience greater leadership power within their places of work. Using a vital delivery style, he has led numerous workshops on management skills for both leaders and high-performance teams in business, industry and government. He was most recently nominated the prestigious Order of Ontario…. The highest award offered by the Ontario government.
A creative, courageous and energetic visionary, music teacher, marathon runner and father of five children, he radiates a positive, professional presence with confidence yet humility. Participant feedback gives testimony to Dr. Shackel’s “life-changing” gifts and talents.
