We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Gwendolyn Avington. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Gwendolyn below.
Alright, Gwendolyn thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?
It takes perseverance, a strong team, and a clear vision of what success looks like to you. My personal story that illustrate these three points is when I decided that I wanted to get my doctorate degree. I knew it would be a marathon and not a sprint to start and commit to finish the degree. I learned two key pieces of knowledge that kept me focused on the finish line. First, there are many people who start out with the goal of getting a doctorate degree, but only one percent of the worlds population have actually finished their terminal degree. Secondly, most people who finish their terminal degree spend five to ten years to do so. I decided that I would finish in less than five years and I completed my Doctor of Health Administration in 4.9 years. It definitely was an exercise in perseverance as I overcame obstacles to completion. I had a lot of support from colleagues, classmates, and professors as I navigated this educational landscape. As for a clear vision, I knew quitting was not an option, no matter the level of difficulty to the finish line. After I completed the doctorate as a personal goal to arrive at Maslow’s Theory of Self Actualization.
Gwendolyn, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
CLATAK Consulting is a communications business. We help individuals and organizations learn how to use effective communications to transform, elevate, and be empowered. We accomplish this through connection and collaboration to identify and remove barriers to effective communication. Our vision is to be the catalyst to igniting and enhancing communication as bridge builders who empowers individuals and teams, facilitating conversation and training in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), building strong relationships that result in creating a community that all humanity can realize their full potential.
CLATAK Consulting serves a wide range of clients from different industries, helping them to achieve their business communication goals. We are a team of highly qualified and experienced consultants who use a unique and result-oriented approach bridging the communication gap to avoid the domino effects of poor communication. We offer unique solutions addressing team collaboration, team building, conflict resolution, executive coaching, diversity, equity, and inclusion. CLATAK Consulting is certified by the Certification Office of Business Inclusion and Diversity: COBID #13305 and the Office of Minority Women Business Enterprise (OMWBE) Certified: OMWBE #D3F0028215. Our range of tailored services include strategic advice, executive coaching, team building, conflict resolution management, and diversity, equity, & inclusion training that are designed to meet the unique needs of your organization.
I want to share with the readers a couple of testimonials:
Jared Brown, President, Oregon Paralegal Association
“We hired Dr. Avington and the team at CLATAK Consulting for our annual leadership retreat. We are a 100% volunteer run organization. This means all of our leaders juggle full time careers and personal lives that come before their volunteer duties. The CLATAK team took the time to research and understand the areas for opportunity that are unique to our leaders and members. The content was well thought out and engaging. I highly recommend CLATAK to help organizations identify areas for improvement and keep their leaders engaged.”
— February 2, 2022
Collina Beard, Former Director of Business Services, Lane Transit District/Current Chief Business Officer at Eugene School District 4J
Intuitive. Insightful. Impactful.
I met Dr. Gwendolyn Avington during a meeting of the Oregon Association of minority entrepreneurs. I invited many of the small businesses who were present to reach out to me for upcoming opportunities with the firm that I was currently working with. Of that group, only Dr. Avington reached out and boy am I glad that she did. Shortly after making a connection, I engage Dr. Avington for executive coaching. Over the next year and a half Dr. Avington patiently walked me through lessons focused on leadership development that were specific and tailored to my personal style, and that took into consideration the next step I desired to take in my career. Additionally, she assisted me with creating professional development plans for my direct reports as well as in contributing to the strategic vision for my team that specifically catered to my organizations, mission, vision, and values.
— November 13, 2022
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
The year was 2020 that I had to pivot as it relates to my career, business, and life when faced head on with the uncertainty of a global pandemic. I spent the first 32 years of my career as a Clinical Laboratory Scientist. I spent the last 12 of those career years traveling as a Locum Clinical Laboratory Scientist. I worked in clinics and hospital laboratories of various sizes all over the United States. I had become adept at quickly adapting to the environment and organizational culture that was required of me. After two years of traveling, I begin to write down what each laboratory had in common and what was different about each one. I begin to meet with CEOs, CFOs, and COOs for informational interviews asking them questions about their dashboards, the populations they served, bottlenecks in their service delivery system, and cost containment strategies, etc. The interviews were readily granted because I was working on my Doctor of Health Administration, which I completed in April, 2017.
I had assumed I would get a job as a CEO, CFO, or COO once my degree was complete. However, I did not factor in the racial barriers, the gender barriers, or the agism barrier to this plan. I finished up what would be my final travel assignment in December 2019, drove home to rest for a few weeks and planned to go on my next contract assignment. Well life took a turn that spun my healthcare career on its head. In March 2020, it was announced that a disease of pandemic portion, COVID 19 was spreading all around the world and it was deadly, especially for black and brown individuals and those over 65 years old. Also, it was said that little was known about this virus. It was in those first few scary months, that I knew I had to pivot in my career and my life. You see, I could not escape the realism that I was an African American, traveling Clinical Laboratory Scientist, and the very real possibility that my life could be lost.
In the beginning, I just operated in the fear of so many unknowns. Soon, I turned to those notes I had been writing for the past 10 years. I reviewed the business ideas that had been churning inside my psyche and those that I had written down. I was afraid to step out into my own business for fear of failure. Now, I was at a crossroad in my career and my life. I prayed about the way forward as I worked through my thoughts, notes, ideas, and contingency plans. I wrote a business plan, talked to the local Chamber of Commerce, and the Secretary of States Office aligning my big dreams with the required work to get the business started. Finally, in early 2021, I opened my effective communications business, CLATAK Consulting, LLC.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
CLATAK Consulting is still a business in good standing in 2023. This is my resilience story because it took a long time to have the courage to change my career. It felt like the safe choice to just continue in my healthcare career until I was starring death right in the face. It may sound dramatic, but for me as a middle age African American Female, it was that serious. My choice was to go out into the pandemic unknowns or pivot. I pivoted and have learned the true essence of resilience is to never give up and never quit on your dreams, even when it is hard. As you can imagine, my 401k and savings was drained out quickly. There were not real programs for new businesses unless they were started pre-pandemic. There have been moments where money was lean and few contracts were obtained that I thought let me just close the doors and go back to the Clinical Laboratory, but I would feel my dream, pressing me to keep going there is light just up ahead. Resilience is defined as the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties or toughness! I can say with 100% certainty that I and CLATAK Consulting are resilient and here to stay the course for decades to come. We bring hope to those individuals and organizations, who are looking to learn and grow their effective communication strategies, in a world that has changed the way in which it communicates.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://clatakconsulting.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clatak_consulting/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/clatakconsulting
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gwendolyn-avington/
Image Credits
Kateshia Pendergrass Prosper Portland Bryan Welsh