The People Side of Growth with Dawn Mullarney

Growth isn't just about revenue; it's about the positive impact on your team and culture.

Growth in Organizations: Beyond Profitability

In today's fast-paced business environment, the emphasis on growth often revolves around profitability and revenue generation. However, as discussed in a recent episode of Culture Conversations with Megan Robinson and Dawn, true growth in organizations should extend beyond mere financial metrics. It is essential to prioritize the strengthening of culture and team dynamics to ensure sustainable success.

Tease Key Insights

• Growth isn't just about revenue and profitability. It's also about the positive impacts on culture, team dynamics, and leadership development.

• Misalignment can lead to retention issues and a toxic culture.

• Both internal and external connections are vital for sustainable growth.

• The fast-paced nature of today's business environment can lead to decision fatigue and unwise choices.

Why this Matters?

Alignment between leadership vision, employee engagement, and organizational values is essential for fostering an environment where innovation can flourish. By ensuring that all members of the organization are on the same bus, companies can achieve sustainable growth.

Strengthening your team culture will not only drive business growth but also create a resilient and dynamic organization ready to face the challenges of the future.

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Listen now to discover how to make our workplaces a place where teams can grow, innovate, and succeed together!

Dawn Mullarney

Founder & CEO

I’m Dawn- The Unique Connector,

a connection catalyst and strategic thought partner helping leaders build the kind of relationships that grow revenue, deepen trust, and leave a lasting legacy.

With over 20 years of corporate experience across sales, business development, client strategy, events, marketing, operations, and—of course—networking, I bring a rare, 360-degree view to the table. I’ve worked alongside elite CEOs, executive teams, and top-tier referral partners to help them scale smarter, lead with clarity, and grow with purpose.

I’m endlessly curious, constantly learning, and always refining how to make growth more efficient, strategic, and impactful.

From hosting elite events and podcasts to designing succession strategies that protect and transition key relationships, I’ve built a Rolodex rooted in intention and results.

This isn’t surface-level consulting. It’s bold, hands-on strategy—tailored for high-achievers who are ready to think bigger and lead with depth.

Whether I’m advising your leadership, aligning your team, or walking alongside you as a trusted growth partner—know this: I’m all in.

Let’s grow your influence, expand your impact, and build the kind of business that lasts—and lifts others along the way.

Full Episode

Megan:

Hello and welcome to Culture Conversations, the podcast where we explore the people side of work. I'm your host, Megan Robinson. For years, I've found myself deep in discussions about workplace engagement with industry experts. Now I get to share this wisdom with all leaders, new and experienced, on their journeys to build cultures that maximize potential. We spend so much of our lives at work. Let's make it a place where our teams can grow and succeed. Hello and welcome to Culture Conversations. I'm Megan Robinson, and I'm so excited to have one of my all-time favorite connections on the podcast today, Dawn. Dawn is an amazing coach consultant, really focusing on strategic growth partners for CEOs and executives. She really helps leaders scale smarter. aligning their teams, and expanding their network. With nearly two decades of experience in sales, leadership, marketing, branding, events, and business development, she doesn't just give advice or coach someone through challenges. She truly helps leaders execute the real growth strategies to make a difference. Welcome to the podcast, Dawn.

Dawn:

Well, thank you so much for having me today. So great to see you.

Megan:

It's wonderful to see you as always. When we were chatting beforehand, we were really focusing on this whole concept of growth, growth in culture and leadership and I'll say even communication or connection. Tell me more about what growth means for an organization.

Dawn:

Yeah, you know, I think typically a lot of leaders think growth is always instantly profitability and revenue and always money, you know, and I think the one of the things with growth is positive impacts on your culture. as well as your team dynamic and the leadership that you are grooming to hopefully grow into the business. And so when a business grows, the culture usually strengthens hopefully and will scale more and hopefully you'll be more profitable in the process. But if it's not grown positively, it sometimes makes it not such a great culture and some of the team and retention and all that stuff where it's misaligned and then you don't grow. So deep down, I feel like it always goes back to kind of the culture that you're creating.

Megan:

Beautiful. I love that focus on yes, growth is dollars and monies. There's other ways for you to be able to grow, but more important is almost that impact of the growth. What does it mean to grow, we'll say correctly, or I'll say sustainable, versus the opposite? What does it look like to grow incorrectly?

Dawn:

Yeah, I would say, so positive ways to grow in the culture, I would say, of course, is more opportunities for employees to develop their skills, to make internal bonds, to build relationships. It really kind of helps them get motivated. energized, they're going to come up with new creative ideas. Maybe there's ways that too, they're growing in the culture and they're loving it so much that so they want to share about it. And they want to build a reputation for the team and not just only for themselves, but the whole business. And so it's attracting more talent and it's going to attract more clients. And it's also an opportunity just for the employees to be really creative. And so I feel like if you're creating this positive space, you're going to keep growing the business positively. And if you are doing maybe some negative things, it can really impact it. You know, where the team isn't aligning with the values, their communication is broken down, so they're not building relationships. Sometimes the leaders can be the bottleneck because they're doing all the things and they're trying to please everybody and be everywhere and do all the stuff where sometimes they're stretched so thin that it creates not such great culture. And then it's kind of making people want to leave or get burnout or they're misaligned in their roles. And so then the infrastructure sometimes is broken down and the business can't keep growing. trying to get positive and negatives of where, you know, it could kind of really impact the growth of it.

Megan:

Well, I love that, right? If the ultimate was say, if organization A is growing and they're having more revenue and they're expanding, I'll say, and they're doing it effectively with all that. I love the ways that you identified what can impact the culture when you are having that great growth. What's the difference between organizations that are still growing, expanding, they're bringing on stuff and it's just toxic and people hate it and they have retention issues, even though they're growing?

Dawn:

I think of even my past.

Megan:

I was not supposed to bring up some PTSD, sorry.

Dawn:

No, no, I just think you know it's sometimes we get on this hamster wheel and we're trying to keep the employees around and sometimes the employees that we're keeping around are maybe not the best employees to be around because it's creating this toxic environment for the rest of the employees that are ambitious and young and trying to bring new creative ideas and you know sometimes it's part of that that growth of bringing in new employees but also it's the time of where sometimes we almost have hit their shelf life with some employees so we kind of hit this like stalled growth where it's not in alignment anymore and so it's like You know, I'm trying to think of even, sorry, how you asked that question, but I'm just thinking of my past where it was sometimes the other employees were hindering me from bringing creative new ideas because they instantly didn't like it because I was young and all these fresh ideas and oh my gosh, you're gonna ruin my opportunity to be stable and to be in this job. And it was a hard thing that I think many businesses are trying to navigate that path of the older generation, the new generation, and trying to keep the business growing, but also to lead the team. I think with so many leaders, sometimes too, they add so much on their plate that they can't actually lead the team and groom the team to where they should be going.

Megan:

The common thread that I heard with that is that alignment piece. And it's interesting, because you mentioned it when you're describing positive growth and that negative growth. Even when you're saying you have an organization that's growing, that difference is that misalignment. Whether you have the right people on the bus or people that are sabotaging it, to me, that really has that leadership alignment. Are we growing? How are we growing? Why are we growing? How do you get people on board, whether it's an individual? I have no idea what the situation was. You're young. You've got creative ideas. And we all did. We all do. We all did. We see other people and their hearts in the right place. And they think they're brilliant. And sometimes those ideas aren't really practical. Or I'll say they're not aligned well with it. It's not that you have the old crotchety person that's saying, we can't do anything new. No new technology. But that those recommendations are missing some fundamental piece. And I see that tension all that time, that lack of communication, that lack of collaboration, that lack of willingness to have those conversations. And it's easier to just say no. And it hurts innovation.

Dawn:

It does hurt innovation. I think it's sometimes it goes back to the clarity and the vision is deep down what the thing is. And I see this often too with some of my clients is, is some of the leaders are running so fast and they, in their mind, have given a clear vision because they know where they're going, but they haven't told the team. And so, you know, sometimes I have to almost put the brakes on some of the leaders to say, hey, The team doesn't even know where this path is going and where your vision is and where you're dreaming up. You haven't gotten everybody else on that same bus. You need to give that vision to give them clear understanding of maybe why you're saying no to their innovative ideas, or maybe why some of the team members are instantly like no, because they've maybe tried some of those things in the past. And so I think that's the part where it sometimes creates this discomfort when the leader in the end is not showing up and actually giving that clarity and given the big vision of where are we going on this bus or in this road? Yes, we can make some pivots, but deep down, where are we trying to all grow to? And that's the one piece I think people forget sometimes.

Megan:

As a leader, it is so hard to know because it's so crystal clear in your mind. How can you know? if you've properly communicated that or not.

Dawn:

Properly communicate, but also through the bus sometimes, too. Yeah, effectively. And I think the part, too, is sometimes the teams are changing. meaning you have new teammates, you have older teammates, some teammates forget about it. And so sometimes that's where I think the reminders and why sometimes too, not that we're trying to go into HR things or this or that, but it's like why you come up with policies, why you come up with handbooks, why you come up with a mission statement, why you come up with a vision statement is because you want to keep reminding the team and have tools because some people hear it, Some people want to see it and some people want to experience it. We all have learning different styles. And so one thing that I always like to remind leaders is you need to keep telling it and telling the story, creating the vision, keep talking about it, but also bringing it up in different ways for everybody's learning styles. And I think that's the part where some people forget that sometimes. Let's take a break. When's the last time we even looked at the mission statement? You know, when's the last time we even looked and talked about it? Or two, you maybe made a few things behind the scenes, but nobody really understands why you've made those changes. Like, let's talk about it more. And so that's where sometimes, not that it's about, you know, hiring external people, but sometimes it's best to have an external person come in from a different lens. and say, I can't even, I don't even know where the bus is going because I haven't even heard you talk about it yet. And so how would Susie Joe over here know about it? Um, so sometimes being an outsider, it kind of helps them to rethink about stuff or how they're approaching stuff to make sure everybody's getting it effectively understood.

Megan:

That's a lot of that consistency. It's a lot of that repetition. I love what you said about making sure people can hear, see it and experience it. and whatever learning style you're most comfortable in is probably the one that you've done a lot. Like I've told everyone a thousand times, okay well where have they seen it? How do they see it? Well don't they see it every single day when they walk into the office?

Dawn:

No, and that's where too I'm like, I always have to remind people is like even myself, sometimes we have our blinders on. Sometimes when you see things it's kind of even too with marketing you know what they say what five to seven touches until finally someone gets it, you know, even more sometimes and so that's where it's just like. there could be different opportunities and the leader sometimes thinks, oh my gosh, I've told this so many times. Well, maybe it didn't click to anybody yet. It clicked to you because you're so ingrained in it and you have your blinders on too of what's going on externally sometimes. So yeah.

Megan:

I love this conversation because just earlier this week I was coaching someone and we were talking about one of their clients who had some challenges. and wasn't necessarily aligned with some of the business philosophy and some of the business approaches. And how do we get them back aligned? Are they a good client fit or are they not? And I said, great. I mean, this was an educator that I was talking to, had a background in education. I said, great. How many times does it take someone to learn something? How many times do they need to hear it and see it and experience it before they learn it? Immediately, he said nine times. Oh, OK. I know I've always heard the five to seven for marketing, but if it's to learn something for them, it was nine times. That's what their data said. Great, you've sent one email. This has to be part, and it's part of coaching. We'll say team members, clients, when you really get someone to understand what you're about, they have to have multiple touch points to understand what that mission is, internally as well as externally. When you're networking, right? letting people know what it is that you're passionate about, what it is that you, you have to have that consistency in it in order to ingrain something. But particularly when it comes to growth, I love this missing piece of that alignment. And what most leaders forget is to really make sure that they are consistent with that message, that they're verbal with it, that is always top of mind, that they're constantly laddering back to it. It's so important. So we talked about growth, right? We talked about how do we have really painful, I'll say painful growth, is that fair? Versus successful growth? Because it's both successful, but it's more painful at some times. And making sure that you have that really strong culture that's aligned to it by talking a lot about what that is. How do you think the growth impacts the culture of an organization when you are in that growth mode? When you are doing it, what does that look like? How do you prepare for that?

Dawn:

Yeah. How do you prepare for that? And then that's the part too, is some of the businesses is of course, all different industries can be a little bit different, but also it's the, the growth of there's so many, I feel like that's the part where I always kind of see all the gaps I see in the puzzle pieces of a business. And sometimes you kind of have to move some puzzles in different ways or find the new picture of what it can be. And so sometimes too. It's growth of the future growth, of do we have the right leaders to take over in case something does go wrong, or to take the reins and to keep growing the business the way that you hoped it to be. I always think of succession planning, like who will lead the next and who will develop for the future leaders. Sorry, I just got distracted on that, but like, what was your question again?

Megan:

I was going to say that the gaps in culture, right? And so, or what does that growth create? And for you, you notice the gaps that the growth creates. The most important piece is the people. And I know you work a lot with professional services. I love it because the talent is so much the product. It's so much the people, but I will say culture. I don't care if you're in a manufacturing organization or if you're in a financial service advisor, you're still having the people that have to execute in it. And the people are the ones that are living in the culture. And whether you're growing with a physical plant or you're growing a team and growing an AUM, you still have the people that need to get on board with it. So succession, having the right talent to support that growth seems huge. What are the other gaps that you notice?

Dawn:

I always think there's gaps of the, of course, one that's always been around connection, but it's those internal relationships that sometimes teams overlook of having that time to bond. And because when you can have those teams bond and build trust and be vulnerable, That's where they're going to actually be able to commit to things, to actually hold each other accountable, to actually keep growing and, and kind of, I don't want to say calling people out, but like, Hey, this is what we committed to. Why aren't we doing this? And it kind of is the thing that that's going to help them get to the results and to really keep growing the business. So I always think deep down, it's the connection internally, um, that's going to help grow the business, but also it's even the external, which is a lot of businesses don't always think that externally too of. Who do we need to have thinking of us strategically to make referrals to us, to make introductions, to be top of mind for us? And so it always kind of goes back to connection of internal, external, to really keep like thinking top of mind for in case they do all of a sudden come across a great person that would be a great team player on our team because they know so much about our culture and our values and what we're all about and what we're trying to get to. Or maybe it's opportunities of, hey, you know, I heard you've had some of these challenges. Have you met this consultant over here in HR? Like they could help you, you know, work on this better and your employees and your team. And so that's the part where it's always deep down for me is the connection piece that is going to help businesses grow faster and the gaps that they're sometimes missing on those opportunities of the internal external connections of things.

Megan:

I love that hesitation of having that external, if you're not connected to the community, to other people, to other businesses, you're really going to miss out and have that uphill battle. But on that internal connection, what came to my mind was actually risk. When you said vulnerability, growth takes taking risks. And if you do not have that strong team, that's able to take risks with each other, they're never going to be able to grow. They're never going to be comfortable testing that. And it's going to be that uphill battle for the leader to keep pushing everyone to do something that they're not comfortable doing. I was just talking, sorry, earlier before this with an organization that wanted their leaders to be more decisive, to make more decision. I said, great, we can talk about decision-making skills, but do you have a culture that's going to support decision-making. That was a hard no. I said, great, I'm not even going to give them the skills because they're never going to be able to practice. Yeah. So my last question for you, Dawn, because I love talking about it. You're so knowledgeable with it and I love how you've really been able to connect the people and the human element of growth and what that looks like for businesses and the connections that are necessary for it. But what are the challenges that you see in organizations that stall that growth? What are some of the roadblocks that you have to remove when you work with the clients?

Dawn:

One thing that I see often is, oh, we're so busy. We're so busy. How can we add more things on? And I think that's the part is like, we can be really busy, but is it really being productive? Is it gonna make the boat move faster? Is it gonna make this team wanna stick around? You know, time is always clicking. And so that's the part for me is I'm always trying to figure out ways to support the team, to also give them some strategic ways to grow, maybe take breaks on certain things. Maybe it's also understanding like, you know, taking the time to actually understand what is the makeup of our team? How can we keep growing and, you know, grooming the people the right way? And sorry, gosh, I am not the best with listening to questions today. I'm like, what was your question again?

Megan:

So the challenge, the challenges that you notice that stall growth, I'm going to say is busy culture.

Dawn:

It is the busy culture.

Megan:

Always busy culture. What is the other thing that you notice in organizations that has stalled their growth? It's getting in their way.

Dawn:

Yeah, I think with the times that we live in are very fast moving of like technology, this, this, you know, this event, you got to go to this organization, all these things, options, let's just say that it almost creates fatigue sometimes for people making decisions. Or sometimes they're making all these decisions that aren't really strategically right for their business or right for their team. And I feel like that's the part with our society right now is, you know, you gotta hurry up and make these decisions, go here, there, everywhere, or you're gonna miss the boat, or you're gonna miss the opportunity. And I think that's the part sometimes that stalls businesses growth, because they're not making wise choices. They're not making strategic decisions that are gonna like stick to the culture or stick to what they really want for the vision or for their team or the vision that they've been talking about. Does that even align? to go back to even what we were saying earlier, that it's not an alignment. And that's the part that's kind of sad about how fast our technology is moving. I mean, they say what we're accomplishing these days with AI would have taken us 10 years before. And so I think that's the part that some of these businesses are taking some risky moves too fast, too quickly. And it could really affect the team, it could affect the culture, it could affect a lot of things. And so that's the one time it's like, do we need to push on the brake a little bit more on stuff? And deep down, maybe we're not going to grow as profitable today, but deep down, we're going to grow smarter and more aligned. We're healthy.

Megan:

Yeah, I love that. Honestly, I'll say both of those. And it was where we started this conversation, comes down to having that clear vision, that clear strategy. And I think what you're really saying is taking that critical eye, right? Are we busy? Are we busy? Are we productive? Really depends if you have a really rock solid strategy and the proper filters in place, right? Do you have so many options? Are we getting emotional or physical whiplash? from having all these different directions, from having all these solutions and being able to act so quickly that we're actually lacking the strategic vision with it, that strategic alignment. Now, I personally experienced that with the leader lot this week. It's been a busy week for Megan. Is there any other parting words or anything else that you'd like to share?

Dawn:

I think like I said earlier, growth isn't all about just revenue. Think about your team and the impact that it could make on your team, the long lasting impact and the strategy of the long game. Are there things that you could be bringing in to build deeper bonds with your team or opportunities to groom the future leaders? Just take the time to really align them to your vision and what makes most sense. And I think if you see those weird opportunities and gaps in the business, how can you do it a little bit differently and more effectively for your team to embrace them and to keep growing to where you hope that the business is to be and to sometimes slow down a little bit and take that pause. Is there kind of what I've learned even personally over the years is take the time to slow down because if we go too fast, we're going to lead to burnout and we're going to, you know, it's going to be sad and maybe you'll give up on the business and that's not what we want. We want you to actually grow it the right way. So that's my ending random thoughts.

Megan:

I love the random thoughts because I think it truly paints the picture of some of your unique skills and abilities, right? You are not just focused on growth, on dollars, on cents. Yes, you have. You have the playbook. Yes, you've been there. You've got the black book. I've got a ton of books, apparently. And you can get someone there. But you're looking at growth very, not just strategically, but holistically. What does it look like from an organization? What does it look like for different team members? How is this something that's sustainable? And how do we plug in the proper gaps to make sure that this is growth in the right direction in a way that's going to make sense for everyone to actually get us happy, not just get us results? Thank you so much for your time today, Dawn. It was lovely chatting with you. If you do want to connect with Dawn, her information will be in the show notes. And I do highly encourage it because Dawn is so brilliant at what she does. And she is able to find those unique connections, those unique gaps to make sure that it's whole. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Culture Conversations. I'm your host, Megan Robinson, founder of eLeader Experience, a professional leadership development company. Today, we shared actionable ideas to navigate the evolving workplace landscape, compete for talent, and build cultures that maximize potential. If you're looking to learn more about how to support your organization's leaders, you can learn more about our work at eLeaderExperience.com. Now get out there and contribute positively to your organization's culture with your own conversations.