Right at the end of last year, we were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Joy Gillies, a Global Fellow, dear colleague and friend of many years. I last caught up with her at the end of November when she was still able to summon the energy for a chat and a hug. A month later, she was finally relieved of the constant pain of her cancer.
In thinking about how we wanted to commemorate Joy and the impact she had, I realised that she was one of those people whose contribution will long outlast her physical time with us. I have no doubt that, for years to come, we will find ourselves asking ‘What would Joy do here?’ or ‘What would Joy be thinking?’ as we face a delicate strategy session, board meeting or facilitation.
I knew Joy for over 30 years. We met when I was with leadership development consultants Zenger Miller back in the early 1990s. Joy was working with PA Consulting, who had brought Zenger Miller into Australia. We really enjoyed each other’s company and just kept staying in touch, grabbing a coffee together whenever the opportunity arose.
There weren’t a lot of females in the consulting world in the early nineties. Nevertheless, Joy managed to break through and was promoted into a senior role at PA. The story goes that she left the organisation after a conversation in which she was focused on the potential impact the organisation’s culture might have as opposed to the financial results that might be achieved. One of her colleagues referred to the people stuff as ‘fluff on the top of a cappuccino’.
Soon afterwards, Joy established her own business. She called it CCE, standing for ‘cappuccino change engineering’. She ran CCE for over 25 years.
Joy also became one of our first Global Leadership Fellows a few years later. Through our various conversations, the topic of collaborating on some work together eventually came up. It was obvious to us that her insight and clarity of thought would work well with our clients, and on her side our concepts around emotional health sat very comfortably.
Joy had many gifts, though two of the most prominent lay in strategic planning and a powerful ability to ‘cut through the noise’ and get to the heart of an issue.
She was a wonderful listener. She truly heard, with an amazing ability to really see through what someone was saying and, with authentic compassion, tap into what their real needs were.
It was the same during strategy discussions in organisations. She was always incisive, able to bring real insight to a situation and be very clear about what was really occurring. She was a master at identifying a board’s desired strategic direction, often more clearly than they could themselves, along the way separating out the real ‘fluff’ on the top of the coffee.
And then there was her insatiable desire to learn and, in particular, learn about herself.
An essential part of increasing your level of emotional health is a willingness to seek to understand yourself, your motivations and fears and the coping strategies you put in place to get your needs met. Whilst some may see this as self-indulgent, we know and appreciate the difference it can make. It’s about understanding yourself in order that you can be a better person for others. This was a real strength of Joy. And she was always willing to share what she learnt in the hope that it might support or encourage others.
I’ll finish here with the words of two of our other Fellows, Devon Bunce and Marina Mele.
Joy played a role in Devon coming to us. Joy was doing some work with Rios Partners when Devon approached the firm looking for an internship. Joy suggested Devon try us and, well, the rest is history.
“She was such an important person to me even though I didn’t get to spend much time with her. You won’t believe that I was actually telling the story of how she brought me to all of you just yesterday before the message came through. Joy was a guiding light and [remains so] even in her passing.”
Marina – Fellow and Founder of Global Leadership Foundation Italy – never had the opportunity to meet Joy in person, rather on various of our regular online meetings of Fellows across the world. Yet even in this context, Marina came to see the essence of Joy and her gift to the world.
“I have a clear and warm picture of her in my mind. I am sorry for all of us because we have lost a genuine, open-minded person with a lot of sensitivity.”
Joy will remain in our hearts and in our lives. You will continue to find her details on our website as she will always be part of our Global team.
Gayle