Mary Lee Gannon, CAE

Gannon Group is an executive coaching, training and consulting firm that helps clients lead higher performing teams, re-frame goals and manage personal challenge through Executive Coaching, Organizational  Development, Board Development, Training and Productivity in the areas of...

Healthcare Consulting

Business Coaching

Operational Excellence

Strategic Direction & Meeting Facilitation

Association Management

Leadership Development

Non-Profit Management

Communications, Public Relations and Image

Personal Turnaround

Sales

Executive Coaching: Mary Lee is a graduate of The Duquesne University Professional Coaching Program and was a participant in the Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital Coaching in

Medicine & Leadership Conference 2010 as well as many other education programs.  She has worked for 12 years as a president or chief executive officer, working with many C level executives and their teams.  Her clients are executives who want to create higher performing teams, clarify career strategy, and overcome personal challenge.

Healthcare Consulting: Mary Lee has served as president and CEO of hospital foundations at three hospitals. She has served the for-profit and non-profit side of healthcare and other

businesses since she began her career in the Houston Medical Center. As a manager within the Ophthalmology Department of Hermann Hospital she began to understand very early the

dynamics of a hospital, its professionals, its patients and their families, its administrators and its vendors. 

Communications, Public Relations and Image: Later working as a journalist for major metropolitan newspapers who covered healthcare and other business, she analyzed opposing sides of issues as they related to the needs of consumers and stakeholders.  Mary Lee has served as the public relations director for organizations that include medical services and device

companies, service companies, medical offices, school districts, professional associations, and more, scripting executives on key issues and securing media attention.  As an experienced CEO

and a former model, Mary Lee advises on the style and image that a "C" level executive needs in order to be effective.

Sales: As a Sandler trained sales professional selling to companies in the healthcare and other sectors she created solutions that increased business and overcame obstacles. 

Association Management: Moving on to become the executive director of a trade association and earning the distinction of Certified Association Executive (CAE) she learned to build

consensus and advance mission in order to increase trade show attendance by 150% and membership by 40%.  She is the past president of the Pittsburgh Society of Association Executives.

Leadership and Board Development:  Mary Lee has led many teams, fundraising campaigns, programs and boards of directors both in a professional capacity and in a volunteer leadership role.  She is a graduate of Leadership Pittsburgh XV and sits on many boards of directors.

Personal Turnaround: Mary Lee’s personal turnaround was as a stay-at-home mother, with four children under seven-years-old, who endured a divorce that took she and the children from the

country club life to public assistance from where within a short time she worked out of that to the level of CEO.

Fundraising Consulting: A strong vision, specific strategies and accountability are what guided her to reinvent her life as a chief executive officer in hospital fundraising.  She has served three

hospitals in this capacity with demonstrated success as a change agent using the principles of operational excellence.  Her last capital campaign raised $12 million across four projects.  She is

on the Board of Trustees of the Pittsburgh Planned Giving Council.

Non-Profit Management:  Mary Lee has served in the roles of president, executive director and president and CEO of non-profit organizations with assets of up to $26 million and actively serves on the boards of directors of several non-profit organizations.

Strategic Direction/Meeting Facilitation/Consensus Building: Throughout her career in her roles as CEO and president of other boards of directors Mary Lee has facilitated hundreds of

meetings, retreats and planning sessions.  She has built consensus among staff and volunteers and created and executed strategic plans that have advanced organizations. 

Operational Excellence - A Culture of Rapid Change: Mary Lee has created programs from scratch and turned around programs that were floundering.  Utilizing operational excellence strategies, identifying key metrics and building a team around those metrics has enabled her to create cultures for rapid change.  This along with her years of executive leadership experience working with large organizations in healthcare and other industries are what she specifically brings to her coaching.  She helps executives and leaders create accountability tools that result in a measurable difference in their own lives and the lives of those they lead.

Ok, so you want to make some changes in your life but those changes scare
you a little, invigorate you a lot and the ambivalence can sometimes paralyze
you.  You just don’t know if you can make it work but you know you have the
energy to make a difference.  What you don’t realize is that you have already
been through this before and succeeded.  

Remember the first day of school, the first day of scouts, the first day at camp,
the team try outs, going away to college, and starting a new job?  You weren’t
sure if people would like you or your book bag.  You couldn’t count on getting
played a lot in every game.  You didn’t know if the lonely feeling of standing out
would dissipate to reward.

How you met these challenges head on is exactly how you will overcome any
new challenge.  First you taught yourself how to accept the situation.  And
once you could cope, you strategized for better success.  Acceptance comes
first so that your emotions aren’t in the way when you need to plan.  And
planning is imperative for success.   

See if the following scenario is familiar.  

Meredith and Jessica are third graders who are standing in line at the bus stop.

Michael shows up and cuts in front of them just before the bus opens its
doors.  He scales the steps two at a time and beats them to the last seat on the
bus where the girls have sat  every day since school began.  Michael throws
his elbows up over the seat in front of him, leaning forward with a Cheshire cat
grin. “Got your seat!”

Meredith stands up straight like she’d swallowed a poker. “Bus driver!  Michael
Miller just stole our seat.”  She stomps her feet to the back of the bus, pointing
at Michael.  “He cut in front of us in line and should go to the principal’s  office.”

Jessica watched the bus driver sip his coffee from one of those coffee shops
that charges more for coffee than her lunch costs.  She slides into the seat in
front of Michael.  “Meredith, let’s just sit here today.”

“No way!  That is our seat.”  

More children file onto the bus and bus starts to pull away from the curb.  

Meredith is jostled down in the seat next to Jessica and lets out a sigh that
would have put the big bad wolf to shame.  “I hate that Michael Miller and I am
going to tell his homeroom teacher what he did as soon as we get to school.”

He pokes his face between them and bellows, “I’m so scaaaaaaared.”

Meredith starts twisting the key tags on her backpack until one breaks off.

Jessica opens her backpack and starts flipping through her flash cards.  
There is a spelling test first period and she kept getting “consume” wrong last
night when she was practicing.

Who do you want to be?   

Meredith is not able to accept the situation – she is not able to find peace.  
Michael is controlling the situation – playing his own game.  The bus driver is
disinterested in the situation – he quit the game early.  And Jessica chooses
not to let having to change seats get in the way of what she needs to do –
study for the test.  She is the only person peaceful enough to move forward.  

Jessica realizes that the energy spent on fighting for a certain seat on the bus
does not have anything to do with where she ultimately wants to be.  She
wants to get an “A” on the spelling test.  Meredith probably wants that too.  But
fighting with Michael is easier and probably fulfills an emotional need that she
has either to control or to be heard.  Either way, fulfilling the emotional need is
not going to get her an “A” on the spelling test.

It is very easy to get distracted from your goals with emotions that really do not
have anything to do with where you want to be.  People do this because it is
easier than focusing on something that is more intimidating – your own
accomplishments.  You can fail at reaching goals.  You can’t fail at arguing.  
Anger is easier.

Know the difference between your emotions and your goals.  Get your own
negative emotions out of the way so that you can get on with success.

Mary Lee Gannon

Executive Coaching, Training, Cultural Turnaround, Productivity, and Leadership

412-874-3918

info@startingovernow.com

www.StartingOverNow.com