"Each generation is differently motivated. Eliminating right and wrong and good or bad is significant. Different is the word of the times."
Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, Ph.D., international speaker, best-selling author, and Executive Leadership Coach/Consultant, is the founder of 4 companies including The Institute of Healing Arts and Sciences through which, as a leader in the field of integrative health in the United States, for 19 years she trained thousands, including physicians, nurses, physical therapists, and other medical practitioners, as well as non-medically trained individuals, in the multi-dimensional field of integrative health and energy medicine.
She has a clear understanding that healthy leaders who are thriving create a healthy culture in businesses that are thriving as well. Now, as a specialist in working with women in leadership, Dr. Dorothy has seen the immense power, insight, and skills of women in leadership positions. In addition, she has also seen many patterns used by women in self-sabotage, self-betrayal, and more.
Consequently, she wrote her most recent book, Real Women Change the World: Letting the Good Girl Die so the Real Women Can Live. On her journey from an orphanage to the Board Room, Dr. Dorothy has learned the skills of resiliency, authenticity, claiming the “I AM” and knowing anything is possible with the right tools and loves sharing it with others.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Dorothy A. Martin-Neville: As a multi-decade entrepreneur, I’m a woman who has lived her life and her career doing what can’t be done. After several twists and turns, and being told I could never attend college or any nursing school in the country because I graduated from an unaccredited inner-city high school and consequently would not be qualified, I achieved my PhD, and later became graduate faculty at a university and then a clinical instructor at the University of Connecticut Medical School. Focus and intent are powerful beyond measure in business and in life.
While having a psychotherapy practice, seeing 42 patients a week for 20 years, I recognized a correlation between personality style and disease/disorder development. Through an NIH Frontier Medicine Grant, I tested my theory doing quantitative and qualitative research working with Fibromyalgia patients and found an 87% recovery rate primarily by changing mindset and self-image, and ultimately stress patterns, for a disease that is considered incurable. I founded an Institute and for 19 years taught MDs, LPRNs, nurses, physical therapists and so many other medical and non-medical practitioners this work, changing their approach to health care.
Ultimately founding 4 companies, and growing as a leader in my own right, with the past 16 years as an Executive Coach and Consultant, I have created a Leadership Self-Assessment Tool process to support leaders in understanding their style of leadership, their stress patterns, and the consequential disease development. While teaching leaders how to effectively lead, be present, and develop relationships, rather than “correctly” lead, I have supported many in understanding their own stress patterns and belief systems focusing on how they get in their own way and for some, how to recover or move on from breast or prostate cancer, heart disease, and more.
My joy, is in working with leaders to prevent any of those diseases from developing, to support them in loving what they are doing or, if needed, to change it and to do either with grace, and a sense of adventure. I offer classes on line or in person and work individually with those who choose.
2020 and 2021 threw a lot of curve balls into business on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past couple years, how can businesses thrive in 2022? What lessons have you learned?
Dorothy A. Martin-Neville: Having moved my business from a standard in-person office setting, I now have clients from throughout the country and farther. It’s a great way to grow a business. However, because of a rapidly developed push toward working from home, many of my clients miss the interaction with others at their level even if loving the convenience.To support corporate culture and employee engagement, it is imperative that we have in-person events to stimulate, challenge, and develop a sense of community and belonging for employees regardless of the size of the company.
Those now doing a 2 & 3 day office-home split weekly, are more inspired, supportive, and invested. For the companies to thrive while increasing retention, a strong corporate culture and developed community are necessities.
Eliminating the cost of training new employees, creating effective teams, and stimulating creativity and brain storming, requires a blend of in-person and work-from-home if that is the pattern. Time put in working alone does not encourage any where near the same level of improvements and development needed for a company’s growth. As we know, growth and not maintenance is the success of an organization.
The pandemic seems to keep on disrupting the economy, what should businesses focus on in 2022? What advice would you share?
Dorothy A. Martin-Neville: Being more transparent with customers and employees. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Not only do you lose credibility, you lose favor and can then more easily be replaced. Whether it is finding new/additional vendors or changing the training of new employees to emphasis a changing time and needed suggestions and improvements, flexibility is the name of the game.
As we all adapt to a changing and highly polarized political landscape, changing work culture, and rapidly fluctuating economy as a way of life, we need to remember the employees make or break the business, have high impact on consumers, and have the ability to support or contain growth.
How has the pandemic changed your industry and how have you adapted?
Dorothy A. Martin-Neville: My primary adaptation came from the elimination of speaking engagements. Many of my clients, and a percentage of my income, came from speaking engagements and the sales of my books. There is little profit in book sales but they are an effective business card yet one I could not as effectively promote during lock-down.
My staff has increased in the area of on-line promotion and marketing and I now offer more group programs on line as well as see clients from the around the world virtually.
What advice do you wish you received when the pandemic started and what do you intend on improving in 2022?
Dorothy A. Martin-Neville: That this would last so long…… I intend to improve my reach virtually and develop additional programs.
Online business surged higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for 2022?
Dorothy A. Martin-Neville: That that will continue. Some in-person speaking opportunities are developing but I believe Zoom, or whatever follows it, and on-line trainings are far more the norm now.and will remain so.
How many hours a day do you spend in front of a screen?
Dorothy A. Martin-Neville: 8 -10.
The majority of executives use stories to persuade and communicate in the workplace. Can you share with our readers examples of how you implement that in your business to communicate effectively with your team?
Dorothy A. Martin-Neville: Creating deeper and deeper relationships with then, knowing what is happening personally for those I most interact with. Sharing my vision for my immediate project as well as my long-range goals.
I have developed a far more interactive work style, short but effective, to support a shared vision and shared desire for success of the projects but also for each of us within the company. I want them to feel that I am invested in them as much as any project or my own success.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as the real challenge right now?
Dorothy A. Martin-Neville: Creating a culture that has a unique flavor to keep my staff in place and committed, I want one they can’t get any where else in just the way I can create – expansive and with compassion.
Supporting creativity in each member is important to keep things fresh and worth coming in for. The biggest challenge is having them feel creative and acknowledging their importance when we are inundated with so many seemingly doing the same thing. Finding the differentiators is important for all us.
In 2022, what are you most interested in learning about? Crypto, NFTs, online marketing, or any other skill sets? Please share your motivations.
Dorothy A. Martin-Neville: I constantly want to learn more about differentiating – perfecting and expanding my skills – online marketing and financial investments versus simply doing real estate.
A record 4.4 million Americans left their jobs in September in 2021, accelerating a trend that has become known as the Great Resignation. 47% of people plan to leave their job during 2022. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued and misunderstood in the workplace. Do you think leaders see the data and think “that’s not me – I’m not that boss they don’t want to work for? What changes do you think need to happen?
Dorothy A. Martin-Neville: One, bosses need to recognize saying “Good Riddance” has too high a price tag. Each generation is differently motivated. Eliminating right and wrong and good or bad is significant. Different is the word of the times. I think more bosses simply don’t know what to do. They may try but it is a shot in the dark. Recognizing that belonging, being stimulated, and seeing possibilities for growth is imperative for so many.
When you recognize that many of the younger IT innovators recognize that a five year investment in a new company which they can then sell for tens or hundreds of millions is the goal, it is ridiculous to tell someone that they need to do a decade or more in your company in order to progress to any great extent. Objectives rather than timelines are needed. Training and impactful team projects are powerful since they become invested in the culture and the team. Impact and influence need to be stressed in addition to profits.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Dorothy A. Martin-Neville: I would be able to speak to or train millions, supporting each in recognizing their intrinsic gifts and inspire them to go and create a productive culture of creativity, joy, and passion with a shared purpose of making this world a place where we were all one community in whatever way their gifts aligned.
What does “success” in 2022 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Dorothy A. Martin-Neville: Success in 2022 means I have offered each of my programs to a packed audience and have had a huge impact on reorienting them to what they want to do rather than feel compelled to do because of self-sabotage or to meet someone else’s expectations.
Supporting health and joy in the leaders I can support generates the same in all who work for them by shifting the culture of their organization.
By touching one directly, I can effect thousands indirectly. That more than satisfies me personally and professionally.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Dorothy A. Martin-Neville for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Dorothy A. Martin-Neville or her company, you can do it through her – Linkedin Page
Disclaimer: The ValiantCEO Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.
