Everything about our business was people and care. 

Me, a first-time business owner and an enthusiastic entrepreneur, never envisaged how far and how fast the company would grow.

I remember doing a strategic plan for my personal vision. It was a one page mindmap that sat behind the strategic plan mindmap for our company. That was my first strategic plan. We were sitting around the dinner table outside my small office at home. Our business advisor was there, Tom – my husband and me.

That felt like a big milestone to have documented.

That strategic plan was torn up by the end of the next year.

We were growing, and expanding and opportunities were coming towards us in our service of a niche market. I soon moved from my dinner table to an office for three, then six, then twenty staff, and a big meeting room. I met our advisor monthly as I learned the ropes, ran the business, and ‘put out spot fires’ as I called them. Mostly those were related to drama and people, now that I think about it!

The change to CEO of a large organisation was me shifting away from being hands-on, front line, delivering my service to the clients and nurses I enjoyed serving. We hired internal people to help deliver what we said we would for the external people because I had other responsibilities I was managing.

Let me explain!

1. Our internal people recruited, and then allocated shifts to, our external people. They worked under pressure around the clock, seven days a week.
2. Our external people were also our clients. We were a nursing agency. To me, they chose our agency expecting us to provide them with the right work, at the right times, at the best sites. I wanted to honour that request.
3. In turn, they represented us as labour-hire employees, working on those sites professionally. It was agreed they’d remain available, ready and punctual, and show up with care and skill to care for other people.
4. Those other people were nursing home residents or hospital patients who needed nursing and personal care when the site had run out of people to fill their rosters.
5. The people managing those worksites were our clients. They needed people. We supplied the people, and issued the invoice. They paid the bill, we paid taxes and wages of the internal and external people. That cycle continued 24/7 for 16 years. 

We didn’t sell widgets, we supplied people. More specifically, nurses and care staff to care for those who needed it, for hundreds of thousands of hours each year. 

Everything about our business was people and care. 

All of us needed to be in sync, so that all the people were in the right place at the right time in the office, waiting for calls at home, or on-site.

As the business grew, I chose to get myself advisors, brought in experts in areas of business that I wasn’t. We ran trainings and knew everyone’s Top 5 strengths. I found the best personal development programs and introduced team rewards. We paid well and offered flexible work and work-from-home arrangements.

The people part was the hardest part to get right.

If I could have a do-over, I’d have invested in understanding how I (the woman, the entrepreneur turned leader) and each team thought, interacted and took action.

I’d have liked to see what was going on beneath the surface for them. I’d have loved to create a culture that had everyone in sync, communicating well, and focused on our outcomes.

That is what I would do now. So that is the work I’ve trained and become certified in now as a 3 Vital Questions facilitator with the Center for The Empowerment Dynamic (*TED). This way, I deliver meaningful work to help other leaders and teams like mine. The 3VQ work benefits every kind of workplace. Whether supplying widgets or nurse hours or needing those, drama is evident in every workplace.

It’s not that a workplace is necessarily bad or toxic. If we’re dealing with people, drama will be there.

Drama is the human being’s default way of getting by, or reacting in times of stress. The 3 Vital Questions and TED* reconnect us with a healthier alternative way of responding to life’s circumstances. We do have that in us, it’s just that our default reaction has been around for a very long time. So it takes conscious effort, and it’s about choosing drama or empowerment?

Questions I’d have asked back then if I knew to:

1. Where am I, or are we, putting our focus? On drama and problems or on vision and outcomes?
2. What makes each of us show up the way we do in different circumstances? 
3. How come some people react to, or cause or thrive on drama?
4. What makes others be able to stop for a moment and look above the drama to see what it is we said we were working towards? 
5. When are each of us most clear-minded and vision-focused?

These are just some of the many better questions that would have made a people-centric business a lot easier. I’d have brought the two frameworks I train people in now into my business. I’d do that even BEFORE I employed my first people because every employer of people needs to understand themselves first.

If you’d like to explore the 3 Vital Questions and TED* frameworks and how the programs will benefit your leadership team and people, contact me here. I’d be happy to talk with you about the best option or starting point to suit you and your team as we head towards the end of 2023 and the beginning of what comes next!