Who Am I?

“Hi! Dawn Gannon. Nice to meet you!”

“Hi, Dawn. I.M. Fulavet. Nice to meet you, too. What brings you here?”

What brings me here – to this moment – to this event? In other words, who am I?

As business men and women, most of us already know the answer to that question, and those who don’t are struggling to find out. 

For those who do know who they are, have you checked in with yourself lately? Are you really who you wanted to be? 

I’m sure Mr. Fulavet believes he is.

I know this blog has a different tone than most of the others I have written, but the Passover and Easter seasons have struck a different chord with me this year. Both holidays represent freedom from captivity, albeit in different ways. 

Reflecting on the meaning of both has led me to ask myself the following questions:

• What if I have unknowingly become captive in a persona I would never have wanted or could believe I could be?
• Is the success of business goals my highest priority? If so, at what cost, both personally and professionally?
• Have I knowingly stepped on and over others to reach my goals? If so, why would I do that when I have been taught all my life that it is unacceptable behavior?
• Do I have my priorities straight? Where do my family, friends, and I myself fall within that list, and why are they in that order?

The answers, for me and anyone else, lie in the answer to the question: Who am I, really?

Granted, in business, the sharks generally consume the little fish and are successful simply because they think only of themselves. As a business leader, thinking and planning for the success of your business is also tremendously important.

However, in the 1998 version of the movie, You’ve Got Mail, Tom Hanks’ character, Joe Fox, tells Meg Ryan’s character, Kathleen Kelly, that the forced closing of her store is just business; that it’s not personal. But it’s Kathleen’s response to that statement that gets me every time. Click the link below to see the scene.

“All that means is that it wasn’t personal to you. But it was personal to me. It was personal to a lot of people. And what’s so wrong with being personal anyway? Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin with being personal.”

In other words, making your business successful is a great accomplishment, as long as you don't forget to be personal as well.

So, who am I? Perhaps I should start with being personal and let Mr. Fulavet take care of himself.

To those who celebrate, Chag Pesach Sameach and Happy Easter!

Before founding her own consulting firm, Dawn Gannon served as a respected management professional in the military, higher education, and healthcare fields for 25 years. As a Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt, Dawn’s commitment and personal mission to improve the lives of others through service to the community focuses on providing administrative operations management and strategic planning. She is the author of the Management in Motion blog, and has written a number of articles for RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association on the topic of childfree living.

What Do You Mean, "Happy Festivus?"

“Happy Festivus!” Those were my words to a group of Millennials last night as I was leaving to go home.

Their response – “what’s Festivus?”

“Really?” I asked, and then followed with, “In the words of George Takei, ‘Oh myyyyy.’” 

Their response – you guessed it – who is George Takai?

At that moment I felt really old. Then I realized that it was an excellent example of the differences between the Baby Boomer generation – of which I am a part, and the Millennials – which they represent. The Seinfeld television episode where Frank Costanza explains how the holiday came to be first aired in 1997, when the Millennials were just babies. Of course they won’t understand!

Similarly, in talking with a nephew recently the subject of Lucille Ball was raised. He listened for a few minutes to the adults around him talking, and then bravely asked, “Who is Lucile Ball?”

Again – really? Sigh…this generation really missed a LOT!

Over the last few years, academic and business researchers have been writing more and more often about the challenges of working with and managing employees from four separate generations: the Greatest Generation (born before 1946), Baby Boomers (1946 – 1964), Generation X (1965 – 1980), and Gen Y or Millennials (1981 – 2000).

The challenges facing management today include not only in developing a good working relationship with individuals from separate eras, but also recognizing that there are also significant differences in how they communicate, view their time with your company in both length and purpose, compensation, motivation, collaboration and training, just to name a few.

Each generation grew up with different experiences and values, while witnessing different world events as children rather than adults, and entered a world completely different from their parents from a technology perspective. 

The challenge, then, is to learn to not only understand the differences, but to manage in a way that meets the needs of each generation. Without meeting them where they are, and in a manner in which they can understand and respond appropriately, chaos will eventually ensue, and you will be looking for another new employee – again.

There are several books, published studies and other materials available to help you make the best decision for your specific situation. One of the better articles I have found was written by Jan Ferri-Reed in the April 2012 issue of the Journal for Quality and Participation.  In this piece, Jan focuses on ways to work proactively and effectively with Millennials by helping the reader understand why they think so differently, and place higher or lower values on things other generations deem non-negotiable or unacceptable.

There are other bodies of work describing the differences, and how to effectively manage them, but I would love to hear your thoughts. How do you work best with the different generations? What works, what doesn’t, and if you know – why?

As you are considering your response, please also take a moment to celebrate the differences, and celebrate Festivus – a Festivus for the rest of us!

Before founding her own consulting firm, Dawn Gannon served as a respected management professional in the military, higher education, and healthcare fields for 25 years. As a Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt, Dawn’s commitment and personal mission to improve the lives of others through service to the community focuses on providing administrative and volunteer management, consumer education, public outreach, event planning, relationship-building efforts, and strategic planning. She is also a published author on the topic of childfree living.

Why the Successful Celebrate Failure

We all know that everyone makes mistakes. In fact, our humanistic nature absolutely guarantees that we will all fail at one thing or another during our lifetime; most likely, many things.

In its September 2004 Special Einstein Edition, Discover magazine pointed out that even Albert Einstein made mistakes – big ones. And yet, many of those mistakes led to a tremendous number of future successes for which we are all grateful today.

As a business leader, I suspect you make time to celebrate the big successes of your team. What about the smaller successes, and even the failures?

Multiple studies and best-selling books, such as Heath’s Celebrating Failure, tout the positive impact of mistakes. From continuous improvement of a product or service to the innovative creation of others, small successes AND mistakes are more often than not serve as catalysts to forward progress. After all, you know what won’t work as a result of the mistake; don’t you? Or, do you just brush off the mistake and put it down to the incompetence of the person/people who made it?

In their book TheLeadership Challenge, Kouzes & Posner point out that effective leaders not only encourage mistakes, but celebrate them by getting personally involved as well. What better way to lead, than to get in the trenches with your team? By sharing the experiences of their challenges, and celebrating both successes and failures, you can reinforce the team’s courage to continually drive innovation, while building on the strengths of an open, collaborative corporate culture.

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, what will you celebrate this week?

Before founding her own consulting firm, Dawn Gannon served as a respected management professional in the nonprofit military, higher education, and healthcare fields for 25 years. Dawn’s commitment and personal mission to improve the lives of others through service to the community focuses on providing administrative and volunteer management, consumer education, public outreach, event planning, relationship-building efforts, and strategic planning. She is also a published author on the topic of childfree living.