Duane R. Nisly
Leading people is the hardest, messiest, most beautiful thing there is, and I love it.
My life-work has a common thread of developing leaders. Even before understanding what it meant to lead, I’ve been given the opportunity to influence others. As I’ve developed my own leadership, grown, studied, succeeded, (and failed), I’ve honed my passion for serving and developing leaders and their teams.
I’ve come to understand that for any business or organization to be truly successful it is essential to succeed in “the people business.” If the individuals within an organization come together as teams, align and commit to the tasks at hand, visions can become realities.
Leadership
I’ve spent more than twenty years serving in different leadership capacities. My resume is varied and eclectic – frustrating for those who like linear paths, but an invaluable palette of experiences considering all I’ve lived and learned.
I have a keen eye for organizational culture and health, and have helped executives and their teams maximize output through training and coaching. I’ve spent many hours with leaders ranging from celebrated CEOs, Presidents, and Founders commanding thousands of employees and seemingly endless budgets to unknown team leaders changing lives and communities through non-profits. One of my unique strengths is leveraging formal and informal conversations, coaching leaders to identify opportunities for growth and innovation while sharpening leadership skills and strategies. My training, speaking, and presentations are informed by years of teaching with an intent to inspire life-change.
As a consultant, a few recognized projects include developing and implementing a Customer Experience Strategy that is remaking a Top 50 Concrete and Aggregate company’s approach to B2B and B2C services. I also designed and led an Employee Engagement Strategy for a billion-dollar national manufacturing and distribution company, working through a team of on-site executives to lead culture change from within through communication of company values, history, and stories.
Entrepreneur
Also an entrepreneur, I am familiar with the joys (and pains) of vision-casting, raising capital, and developing teams. I’ve successfully started and led three self-sustaining schools which have influenced thousands of students and given work to over a hundred staff and teachers. I’ve participated in the formation of an international network of ministry leaders, providing one-on-one coaching while spearheading collaborative efforts between various ministries. I also worked as part the Executive Leadership of an international school with more than sixty locations throughout Latin America, Europe and Africa (I’ve spent the last years as a Board Member). More recently, I jumped at the chance to join the Executive Team of an emerging local brand of fast-casual restaurants in the Atlanta area where I championed the organizational culture and people strategies in one of the workforce’s most challenging industries.
Schooling
I’m a continuous learner, curious, and hungry to grow. Though I’ve completed a master’s degree, to date the school of hard-knocks has taught me the most (it’s taken some hard hits to get important lessons through my skull and into my heart).
I was regularly handed opportunities to lead way before I was qualified. I’m thankful for those opportunities and those that believed in me. I’d like to think I learned quickly, but truthfully I know that many mistakes were made due to my lack of leadership experience. I’m proof that “great intentions don’t always lead to great results.” Those experiences fuel my passion to help others lead well and avoid similar mistakes.
While leading (and thanks to online classes), I finished a Master’s degree in Global Leadership. This served to pour gasoline on my thirst to understand people and organizations while opening my eyes to how much I will never be able to know. My personal library grows weekly as I study to stay sharp and up to date.
By far I have learned most from my family. Being a dad has revolutionized how I see the world, how I value others, and my understanding of myself. Watching my sons emulate my good and bad traits, and learning to lead them without the “benefit” of a title has been the best leadership training to date. Having lost my first marriage as a result of my drivenness to change the world, I know first-hand the importance of getting family right and being truly alive and present as an individual before hoping to multiply ourselves into others.
Multicultural
I’ve lived the reality of different cultures first-hand and am thankful for the instinctive understanding these experiences give me. To date, I’ve lived more than half of my life somewhere in Latin America. I’m truly intercultural. Navigating how values and beliefs drive human behavior is common between organizations and “country” cultures. My international experiences have positioned me to have unique insights into today’s intercultural work contexts. Not only have I studied the dynamics, challenges, and opportunities of multicultural work, I have lived and navigated them myself.
Being fully bilingual has also given me the opportunity to translate projects ranging from the mobile team-member training platform for the most successful chicken fast-food brand in the world to best-selling books of authors I admire.
