Search Results for: Leading from the middle

About Giana Consulting

Closing the Gap between "Your Reality" and "Your Vision"

 

Giana Consulting was founded by Chery Gegelman.

 Why we do what we do:

After years of developing people and leading change from the middle and the edge of organizations, Chery is convinced that:

  1. Organizations, Communities and Nations are healthier and make a greater impact when a balance of TRUTH and GRACE drive their thinking and behavior. 
  2. People matter.
  3. Poor leadership and conflict destroy.  (Everything!)
  4. Many of the answers organizations are seeking, are lying dormant inside of their employees, their customers and their suppliers just waiting to be discovered and unleashed.
  5. Each of us is capable of making an extraordinary difference regardless of what our title is.
  6. Anyone with a leadership or management title has a great responsibility to listen, to model the behavior they would like to see, and to serve those they employ.

Giana Consulting helps people and organizations close the gap between “what is” and “what could be” by facilitating listening, dialogue, truth-seeking, understanding, collaboration, change and growth.

Instead of  treating symptoms and wasting your time and resources:

Through Keynotes, Workshops, Coaching and Consulting we help you:

  1. Address root causes.
  2. Build bridges of communication and understanding across silos and division.
  3.  Lead positive change.
  4. Unleash your employees energy, knowledge and collaboration.

PEOPLE learn to:

  • Listen and think at a higher level
  • Lead themselves first
  • Lead others with vision; compassion & accountability; consistency & fairness
  • Speak truth to power and lead change
  • Transform divisive environments into energizing cultures

ORGANIZATIONS: 

  • Unleash the knowledge and skills of their people
  • Become healthier and more effective
  • Serve their customers, employees and communities at a higher level
  • Grow
  • Accomplish their mission

GROUPS and COMMUNITIES: 

  • Build bridges with those that don’t look or think like them
  • Have energizing and productive conversations about divisive issues
  • Become more informed, compassionate and effective without enabling

We’ve worked with:

  • People from more than 50 different nations, races, tribes, cultures and languages
  • Front line employees, mid-level leaders, and executives
  • Community members, and special needs adults
  • Automotive Groups, Business Associations, Community Colleges, Career Schools, Large Non- Profit Organizations, Government Agencies, Staffing Services, Insurance Companies, International Residential Compounds, Faith-Based Organizations, and other Consulting Companies both nationally and internationally.

View Testimonials Here

Your growth begins with the courage to dig into and examine uncomfortable TRUTHS.  

  1.  SOLUTIONS are more than pixie dust, and include the development of individuals, leaders & processes.
  2. Resulting in your ability to be highly effective and to achieve unprecedented RESULTS.

Call to learn how you can close the gap between your reality and your vision!  832-557-5327

Our Core Values:

[Tweet ” It takes two to speak the truth, one to speak and the other to hear.  ~Thoreau”]   

I am convinced that once organizational health is properly understood and placed into the right contextit will surpass all other disciplines in business as the greatest opportunity for improvement and competitive advantage.  Really.  ~Patrick Lencioni

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7 Quotes that Inspired a Young Leader

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I was recently cleaning closets and opened a box of paperwork, re-discovering  one short story and several quotes that I found so inspiring as a young leader that I shared them with all of our front line employees, supervisors, and managers at our daily meetings.

Then I purchased beautiful paper, typed them up and copied them onto that paper, cut them out, boxed them up and sent them to some of our other locations to share with their teams.

When I re-discovered them, I felt like I ‘d just found buried treasure.

And then I thought of the stories we all hear, about people who climb the ladder of success and sometimes forget where they’ve come from.

So if you have a leadership title of any kind, take a closer look:

Learn How To Instigate and Lead Change…

No Matter Where You Sit!

Discouraged that the change you seek hasn’t happened yet?

For 20+ years I’ve led organizational development projects in companies and nonprofits of various sizes.  (Often leading those changes from the middle of the organization.) Including company-wide change for those with a national footprint and for clients in private and public and nonprofit organizations.

The answers you are seeking are lying dormant waiting to be released.

It is important to note that even in empowered environments it can be very difficult to lead change.

At at one point in my career I had intentionally joined a company that was deeply invested in empowering people at every level of the organization to make a greater difference.   In spite of all of the time and resources they had invested in making that vision a reality, one of my functional leaders asked me why I had to challenge everything.

Fortunately, we were at a corporate event, where we were being encouraged to think and to challenge anything that was limiting our service, our employees, our results and our future.  So two hours later, that courageous leader followed up to tell me that I was doing exactly what I’d been hired to do and to keep doing it.

As a mid-level leader trying to lead up, I experienced the highs and the lows of trying to share big ideas with people that had positions and power that were much more significant then my own.

Then experienced the unbelievable joy of working with groups of people that courageously did things differently and made an impact that was bigger than anyone ever imagined.

And I’ve felt my stomach churn when opportunities passed by that could have limited or prevented downsizing.

I’m not alone.  Even in empowered environments, Change Agents often struggle to learn:  

  • When to share a risk and an opportunity
  • How to present it in a way that is short and effective – especially with people who think differently than they do
  • How to demonstrate respect for someone else’s experience and/or position while sharing urgency
  • When to wait for someone with more positional power to do something and when to follow up
  • Who else to involve and when to involve them

The gift of a change agent is that they see what is and WHAT COULD BE and they want to help you get there.

The challenge of a change agent is that they can’t turn off their ability to see WHAT COULD BE.   …And often their passion and drive to make things better for their customers, their employees, their organizations, their communities, their nations and our world – causes people in power to feel irritated or threatened. (Which is actually kind of funny – because those same powerful people will later express frustration when their employees and citizens won’t take more ownership!)

If you are a change agent with a fire in your belly that wants to lead up more effectively…

Or if the people that report to you have offered you the gift of their insight and courage in a way that it is hard for you to hear…

This Instigating Change Checklist is for you! 

It is FILLED with SIMPLE SECRETS for change agents, to more effectively communicate with executives so your organization accomplishes your mission and maybe even changes the world!

The change you want to see, is waiting for YOU to act

Receive your FREE copy here: 

Download Now

 

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Risk, Conflict, Struggle and a Path Forward

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Last week someone asked how I was feeling about a particular topic.

I answered from the heart.   I was struggling.  I was viewing something with fresh eyes and could clearly see that years of doing something had created a comfort zone where there is risk.  Today that comfort zone is so big that unnecessary risks are being taken without a second thought.

Instead of really listening, this person attempted to explain away my concerns with something that sounded a bit like this, “We’ve always done it this way and we’ve never had a problem…”

When the conversation ended I felt like a puppy dog that had been patted on the head and dismissed.

I felt frustrated about being asked to share my thoughts, when the person asking did not demonstrate any desire to hear them.

As I was tempted to dwell on the frustration I made my mind switch gears and consider another perspective:

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5 Ways To Fire-Proof Your Character

An unexpected leadership lesson from vacation

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A few years ago my husband and I vacationed in Paris.   We went for adventure, for love, for history…  It was my first trip “across the pond” and although I was anticipating romance, joy, and the wonder of the old buildings, old streets and art.

I was NOT anticipating a leadership lesson…

Everyone recommended touring the Gardens at The Palace of Versailles. However, before we went, I did no research so I was completely unprepared for what I saw.

The gardens:

  • Are on 800 hectares, which is the equivalent of 1,976 acres of land in the United States.
  • Have over 200,000 trees and over 210,000 flowers.
  • Maze-like hedges are lined with marble statues.
  • Each path leads to one of 50 gorgeous water fountains.
  • In the middle of the gardens lies a cross-shaped Grand Canal for boating and fishing.
  • And situated on these spectacular grounds are the Palace, the Grand Trianon and Marie-Antoinette’s Estate.

Gardens at Versailles

The Gardens at The Palace of Versailles