About Bricolas
The practice, named.
Bricolas is composed practice — moves drawn from a wide repertoire of frameworks, designed for this team, this leader, this room as it actually is.
The practice is not a methodology, and it is not a service menu. It is a way of working. Each engagement gets the move that fits — sometimes a strengths conversation, sometimes a 360, sometimes group-relations methodology applied to what's happening between the people in the room, sometimes the 4MAT cycle shaping a workshop arc, sometimes none of those and a long pause instead. The discipline is in the choosing.
The signature move is the pause. Most leadership development gets paid for covering ground — slides delivered, frameworks installed, action items generated. The pause is what makes the rest of the work possible: a half-beat of attention to what's actually happening before the next move gets made. What gets composed is what fits.
Four doors lead into the same practice. Executive coaching for senior leaders carrying roles where the stakes compound. Team development for the leaders responsible for the people they lead. Supervision for coaches working with senior leaders, in the reflective-practice tradition. Mentor coaching for credential-track sharpening against the ICF Core Competencies. Different surfaces, same underlying work. The composition is the craft.
Why "Bricolas"
Three meanings, one practice. Each true on its own; stronger together.
About John
John Weng is the founder of Bricolas. Sixteen years in leadership development across higher education, executive coaching, and team consulting. Eight years in the boutique practice that took shape as Bricolas — the named container for work that had been quietly composing itself across engagements before the name landed. Beyond Bricolas, John holds an appointment as leadership coach and consultant for Cambridge University's Judge Business School executive education programs, and previously served as a leadership solutions facilitator for the Center for Creative Leadership.
A doctorate in Leadership Studies from the University of San Diego. ICF PCC (Professional Certified Coach) and ACTC (Advanced Certificate in Team Coaching). A Postgraduate Certificate of Advanced Study in Coaching Supervision. Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach. Hogan, MBTI, and WPB5 certified. Certified Consultant with the A.K. Rice Institute for Social Systems, and a co-creator of Group Relations International — the lineage that grounds the group-relations and systems-psychodynamic dimension of the work. Trained personally by Bernice McCarthy in the 4MAT learning cycle, which shapes how workshops and learning journeys get designed.
Current work runs across four registers. Executive coaching with senior leaders, partners, and founders carrying complex roles. Team development that ranges from a single workshop day to multi-month learning journeys for intact teams, often surfacing authority dynamics and the question of what the system around the leader is doing. Coaching supervision with PCC and ACTC track practitioners working with senior leaders, in the Bachkirova-Jackson Oxford Brookes pluralist tradition. Mentor coaching for ICF credential-track work and core-competency sharpening.
The through-line is composition. The frameworks in this practice are not proprietary — most of them are well-known. The craft is in which one shows up when, for whom, and held with what kind of attention. Twenty-plus years of training are what make the moves available; the pause is what lets the right one get chosen.
Selected publications
A scholar-practitioner record across leadership development, emergent pedagogy, and group-relations methodology. Five selected; full record indexed via the standard scholarly databases.
- Weng, J. (2025). Coaching for leader development. In D. M. Rosch, S. J. Allen, & D. M. Jenkins (Eds.), Moving the Needle. Emerald Publishing Limited. doi · 10.1108/978-1-83708-544-620251006
- Weng, J., Werner, L., & Steffensmeier, T. (2024). Emergent teaching movements in leadership development: Group relations, case-in-point, and intentional emergence. New Directions for Student Leadership, 2024(181), 11–19. doi · 10.1002/yd.20587
- Weng, J., & Seemiller, C. (2024). Learning needs of the 21st century: Using intentional emergence with Generation Z college students. New Directions for Student Leadership, 2024(181), 31–39. doi · 10.1002/yd.20589
- Weng, J., & Werner, L. (2024). Cautions and limitations of emergent pedagogies in leadership development. New Directions for Student Leadership, 2024(181), 97–105. doi · 10.1002/yd.20596
- Weng, J., & Hubbard, L. (2022). Understanding the impact of case-in-point courses in graduate leadership programs. Journal of Leadership Education, 21(2), 51–74. doi · 10.12806/V21/I2/R4
About our team
Bricolas works with a network of affiliated practitioners — coaches, facilitators, organizational consultants — sharing decades of experience in leadership development, facilitation, and coaching, with affiliations across higher education, corporate, public-sector, and global contexts. Specific engagements compose the right team for what the work calls for.
Common questions
What does "Bricolas" mean?
The name carries three meanings at once. Bricolage (Lévi-Strauss) — making whole from what's at hand. Bricola — the painted poles in the Venetian lagoon that mark passage through narrow channels. Bricoler — the French verb to tinker, to play, to make. The practice runs on all three.
What does "composed practice" mean?
A way of working, not a methodology. Each engagement gets the move that fits — a strengths conversation, a 360, group-relations methodology, the 4MAT cycle, sometimes none of those and a long pause instead. The discipline is in the choosing. Frameworks held lightly; the pause is what creates the choice.
How does Bricolas differ from a typical coaching practice?
Most coaching practices specialize narrowly — one credential lineage, one framework, one engagement model. Bricolas is built around composing across many — group relations, 4MAT, strengths-based work, systems thinking, psychodynamic noticing. The craft is in which framework shows up when, for whom, and held with what kind of attention.