Donna Hamlin is a “make it happen” person. She learned early on that whatever dreams she had would only happen if she had the gumption and energy to make it so. As the first of seven children in her family, she became the “little Mom” for the family when her mother became seriously ill. At 12 years old, she learned to run a household, attend school and hold down a part-time job. The burden of medical costs left no family funding for college. She knew the only way she would get there was to make it happen. She did!
Her awareness of people dynamics started with a big family and grew as she became the high school president of the student council and vice-president of the Siena College Student Council, where she developed skills to negotiate with administrators to implement new programs students both needed and wanted.
How GE Changed Her Life
Completing college, she took a role in General Electric, initially in human resources and then promoted to strategic planning in corporate headquarters. Working full-time while also taking her doctoral program at RPI, she came up with an idea that changed her career direction. She met with CHRO Frank Doyle and said “I bet you need a study done as much I must do one for my doctorate.” She discussed topics together and selected a key topic, which would entail an 18 month project covering practices in 20 key GE operations. GE was both creative and flexible and proposed to take her off her role, offering her a contract as consultant, so she could do this as she saw best.
Donna created a proprietary psychometric method – she named Cascade© -to understand employee attitudes, needs and expectations within the company culture, which were used for creating employee engagement improvements. The method also provided forecasts for acceptance of union contracts which turned out 100% correct.
What an impact! GE presented her with an award for the valuable results, she completed her dissertation and Ph.D., and GE taught her how to become a consultant.
She returned to GE until a colleague in California called two years later to ask if she might be open to create a consulting firm as a co-founder with him, to both make CASCADE available for more organizations and expanding services from there. Knowing no one other than her colleague and little about Silicon Valley at the time, she accepted, moved to San Jose and started the firm, telling her partner “Let’s make it happen.” It’s celebrating 41 years this year.
Her entry into work included a rich cultural context, with work in Asia, Europe and North America. This expanded her sensitive understanding of different ways to address people and performance issues in ways that fit within a culture. With experience in 52 countries, she works with organizations to ensure they govern and manage exceptionally well. The vision and purpose of the firm is to create fresh solutions to solve any challenges in the way of high performing management and board governance.
Her colleagues recognize her deep curiosity, diplomacy, sense of humor, imagination and strategic thinking to invent ideas to solve challenges. Complexity does not trouble her. She uses her skills to find creative ways to face challenges and “make things happen” wisely.
Christina Ellwood, COO of Eluvio.io comments: “Donna is undaunted by complexity. In challenging discussions, she is adept at shifting tension into productive channels of inquiry. She is resilient and has a deep-seated belief in her ability to overcome obstacles in executing plans. Her recommendations are pragmatic and often creatively align multiple ideas into a holistic approach. She uses humor and fun to create a relaxed and exciting atmosphere within which to work. She and her team offer amazing, valuable solutions every time.”
She reminds people:
“Much wisdom comes from the wacky side of life. Amid humor often lies the solution”
“Ask three questions before you declare any opinions. It makes you wiser.”
“ Bring people together who think about issues differently than you. Then, come up with ways to solve a challenge in a unique way everyone will call memorable.”
Values, Success and Principles
Donna believes success comes from three key factors:
Always learn while helping. Stay constantly curious about new innovations, ideas and possibilities is key to creative, impactful remedies and results.
Broaden experience in new industries, projects and new issues. The deeper the experience, the more valuable one becomes for the next client who needs help. Many times, something learned in one instance opens the door to solutions for a different situation years later. The more learned, the better the results are for problems in the future.
Collaborate, not compete. Work well with other organizations to help others. Complex challenges often take a “village of thinkers.” Competition is in the way. Collaboration creates the way forward.
By example, we do not compete with governance associations in each country, such as NACD and others intrinsic in each country. We collaborate, offering global insights to those within each country, based on their governance framework. We honor what they do and help by adding to it so we all learn more about most impactful governance results.
Innovative Ideas
Donna believes the better answers come from looking at problems from different angles, which is often a deeper sense of the psychology of customers. Often, companies make the mistake of assuming how their customers think and miss the real needs that make all the difference.
One client explained: Donna’s team saved us from making a seriously expensive mistake in strategy. We had planned to invest in adding drive-through pharmacy services at all of our stores to keep up with our key competitor. Based on the CASCADE research, they recommended an entirely different direction far more valuable to customers. We pivoted and competed in a new and different way. It worked!”
Major Services
The firm works with clients to create best practices in governance and management.
Board work includes: independent board evaluations and recommendations for improvements, research of best practices globally, advise and consulting on key topics, board certification in governance, and board director search and placement.
Management work covers all needs of the executive suite, including: facilitating strategic vision and planning, change management, HR, organization development, leadership and professional development, branding and marketing, in-depth research of customer attitudes and needs, mergers and acquisitions due diligence and integration and communications.
Heroes or Teams
Organizations hope to benefit from both individual heroics and team processes. If an organization is lucky enough to have heroes, they should acknowledge them for their contributions. More vital is focus on developing leaders who can create high performance teams who make a significant difference. This take commitment and is well worth it.
Role and Best Part of the Work
As founder and CEO, Donna works on business development, strategic partnerships and service to clients. She also provides speeches and publishes articles and blogs on key topics in governance and management.
The happiest part of daily work is when she brings a group of diverse thinkers together to explore a problem and brainstorm magical ways to work it out.
The happiest part of life is sharing time with her three adopted daughters. She chose to adopt them to give then a chance at life instead of the orphanages in which they each were. In that way she moved from “make it happen” to “make it possible” for three great young women.
Advice for First Time Leaders
Reach out to work with the best mentor you can find. It is valuable to have a safe way to think out loud with an experienced, mindful person who can help you with challenges that are new to you.
Donna was blessed with two amazing mentors who made all the difference in her journey. She now does the same for burgeoning leaders in return.
