From Perfection to Passion, it's a Divanation

Lisa Cregan has been a first in many things.

She was among the first class of girls to attend a traditionally male school. She was among the first females to earn her MBA from Georgetown. Then she went to work in financial services and became one of the first females to be a regional manager.

Yet something was missing, she says.

Then, a few years ago, Cregan attended a presentation on female leadership by Leanne Meyer who, with Frank Lehner, runs Divanation, a niche consulting firm on Pittsburgh’s North shore.  Intrigued by Meyer’s speech that day, Cregan began one-on-one coaching with Lehner and Meyer.

Not long after, Cregan’s firm, UBS Financial Services Inc., reorganized. Through her coaching with Divanation, Cregan took advantage of the organizational changes to restructure a role for herself, a more fulfilling one that would help her pursue her passions of coaching and mentoring women.

Cregan now oversees a $100 million operation with the company while acting as its head of career development for women. 

Stories like Cregan’s are not that uncommon at Divanation, which takes a multi-faceted approach to fostering women’s leadership. Lehner and Meyer offer one-on-one coaching and, on a separate front, work with organizations  to create environments that nurture and promote opportunities for both males and females.

It's a Business Issue
What is so unique about Divanation is their approach. It completely rejects pretty much every politically-correct message offered up in corporate America today. Divanation professes that businesses and organizations need to focus on and acknowledge the differences between men and women instead of pretending they don’t exist.

And the strengths and drawbacks that XX and XY executives bring to the boardroom are worth examining.

“We get meaning and find value in being in relationships with people,” says Meyer of women. “Women are more collaborative, empathetic, and know how to work well in teams. They know how to motivate and to create a future picture one can work towards.”

There is a downside to these qualities, she notes. Women often get so lost in the requirements of all these people they have no sense of self. This can lead to burnout, depression, and loss of identity.

That's where Meyer found the inspiration for Divanation. There are many reasons to recruit and nurture female leaders.  Perhaps first and foremost,  Meyer says, it’s just smart business sense. 

 “Companies with the highest representation of women in senior leadership positions are 18 to 69 percent more profitable than organizations that are not,” says Meyer.

A Change of Heart
And the female perspective is an important one for any business trying to sell goods or services, she adds, pointing to to recent statistics showing that women make 80 percent of all household purchases. “Go into Best Buy. Men are looking. Women are at the register buying,” Meyer notes.

Meyer didn’t start out in women’s leadership.  An industrial psychologist by profession, she came to Pittsburgh a few years ago, bringing with her a soft accent that originated in her native South Africa, and developed through several years apiece in England and Ireland. And while she is now one of Pittsburgh’s biggest admirers, she admits to some initial hesitancy to relocate here.

“I said I’m not coming,” Meyer recalls telling her husband upon learning that his firm, Waterford Crystal, had transferred him to Pittsburgh a few years ago.

But she came for a visit and, as she and her family drove through the Fort Pitt tunnel, Meyer recalls being taken in by the beauty of the city that opened up before her. Now, she lives in the suburbs and her children are having the kind of childhood she had growing up in South Africa. They spend their summers barefoot, playing outside.

“My neighbors will phone and say ‘do you know what your kids are doing now?’” says Meyer.

Meyer initially formed an organizational consulting firm, MindMan (short for Mind Management) but found that more and more of her clients were asking her to address women’s leadership issues.

“The more I immersed myself in it, I realized there was no school of thought in women’s leadership. People just take men’s leadership or generic leadership and put women in a room and train them in quote unquote women’s leadership,” says Meyer.

Meyer met up with Lehner and the two opened Divanation in early 2007.
With most clients, Meyer provides the one-on-one coaching and Lehner works at the organizational level to make it more inclusive. Some days, Lehner, a Pittsburgh native, works exclusively with men. On others, he will walk into a room, and find that he is the only man among thousands of women.

“It’s been eye-opening to say the least,” says Lehner, adding that just as surprising has been the response from women at his involvement in an organization that works to promote female leadership. “We thought it would be an issue. What we found is most women appreciate having a man in the room to provide perspective.”

Prior to Divanation, Lehner—a poet, playwright, book designer at University of Pittsburgh Press and professor in the School of Leadership and Professional Advancement at Duquesne University—worked at Development Dimensions International and later ran Psycho Guys, a consultancy business focused on organizational design work and individual coaching.

Lehner's guiding principle throughout this career is born of two beliefs: everyone wants to be somebody and we all want to participate in a project larger than ourselves.

The way to achieve that is by developing your narrative and telling your story.

“The story imagines a future where your identity is realized. It takes into account your past and gives meaning to what you do in the present. It gives a grounding and a sense-making to who you are,” Lehner says. “We are narrative creatures. Narrative bring a sense of continuity and constancy to our lives that stops it from being a series of fragmented moments.”

While Divanation continues to grow in unexpected ways, Lehner and Meyer say they want to keep is small and manageable.  They recently opened an office in South Africa and plan to publish a book.
“Truly, we’ve been surprised at how well it’s going and so quickly. Where we see it for both of us, we would always remain a small, niche consulting firm with an international flavor,” Meyer says.

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Main photograph: Leanne Meyer and Frank Lehner

All photographs copyright Brian Cohen