About
Lisa Tong Parola Gaynier, M.A.
Founder and principal of creativechange.biz
Throughout an entrepreneurial career, Gaynier has developed expertise in organizational effectiveness, leadership and mediation. She has over twenty-five years experience as a business owner, leadership coach and consultant. Her special areas of practice are leadership development, coaching and mediation. Past clients include engineers, educators and human resource professionals at organizations such as the University of Michigan, Honeywell, Eaton, Sysco Foodservice and Ford Motor Co.
Early in her career, Gaynier owned and operated two successful multicultural restaurant operations. It was during those twelve years that she developed skills in organizational effectiveness: creating humane work environments and profitable businesses. In addition, the challenge of working with the many independent-minded business people in her community taught her valuable lessons about effective collaboration, influencing people when you are not "in charge," and the importance of leadership and clear vision.
In the early 1990s, Gaynier was a survey research manager at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. In 1997, she integrated her business experience with the field of organizational development and founded creativechange.biz.
Since 2006, she has been the director of the Master’s program in diversity management (an organizational development program) at Cleveland State University, of which she is also a graduate, and B.A. in social science from Michigan State University. In addition she has extensive post-graduate training from the Gestalt Institutes of Cleveland and Cape Cod. Gaynier's lifelong immersion in multiculturalism (she is of Pacific-Asian & European ancestry) serves her well in assisting the organizational sub-cultures of her client systems in more effectively recognizing their differences and the impact of those differences on their work together.
Gaynier is a member of the national and local ODNetwork, the Mediation Association of Northeast Ohio and the Northern Ohio Minority Business Council, She is certified to administer the Myers Briggs Type Indicator and the Emotional Intelligence Inventory. She is the Board Chair of the Cleveland Mediation Center and a certified member of the Northeast Ohio Minority Business Council.
Gaynier is also the co-author of the award-winning Remembering Diamond Head, Remembering Hawai'i, A Cookbook Memoir of Hawaii and its Foods. She has also published journal articles on Gestalt methodology, mediation, global leadership, including "Global Leadership Competence: A Cultural Intelligence Perspective," winner of the Best Paper award.
LISA (TONG) PAROLA GAYNIER
Founder and principal of creativechange.biz
2933 Berkshire Rd.
Cleveland
Heights, OH 44118
e-mail: lgaynier@creativechange.biz
Phone 216.470.3366