On the 1st of September 2021 I stood on Hove Lawns walking my dog Biff, exhausted, frustrated and upset. That was the moment I took the decision to close my business after 13 years. Covid has destroyed my business. The business I started with my parents in their kitchen. The business we had invested all our time, energy, and love into making it work. A business that had, to us, been incredibly successful. If you run or have ever run your own business, you will know how challenging it is. It can, if you allow it, take everything you have physically and mentally. Running a business is a choice. Yet it can feel, like it did for me, that it wasn’t, and I felt I had to keep on going despite the negative impact on my physical and mental health. The problem with the hustle culture We live in a culture of “hustle” and “the grind”. Social media is awash with messages of people who are working harder, smarter, and better than you. We’re continually pushed the message that if you’re not working 70+ hours a week, you’re not a good business owner. You will never be successful. Yet conversations around burnout are common, more so during the pandemic. It’s no wonder people are questioning their life, career, needs and wants. It’s been dubbed the “great resignation”, and people are quitting their jobs to go and find work that makes an impact, has purpose, and allows more freedom and flexibility. This is good news. The world of business is changing for the better. We must be honest with ourselves that this kind of life is not sustainable long term. We all have our breaking point and mine came on that day in September. Since then, I have learned a lot about myself and business. Here are the most important things I learned. Read Full Article in Sussex Business Times ➡️ http://thebusinessgroup.co.uk
What is your biggest fear in business? Cashflow, people politics, public speaking? If you could take a magic eraser to Sunday night dread or pre-presentation tummy turns, how would that impact your day-to-day experience of work? If professional failure and success held the same value for you, how would that change the shape of your business? What might ideas and innovation look like in that space, and perhaps most importantly, what kind of team would you build in that environment? The great resignation of 2021 represented a tidal wave of personal and professional re-evaluation, triggered by polarising politics, global social justice movements, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the inevitable, yet drastically accelerated shift to more flexible ways of working. The 2021 Indeed Workplace Happiness Report found that second only to pay, lack of happiness was the leading reason that those surveyed considered quitting. The role work plays in our lives has shifted drastically over recent generations; we are now more driven than ever to seek work that provides us with a sense of identity, purpose, alignment and fulfilment. Despite countless management and leadership studies indicating that happier, healthier teams produce tangibly better results, even by the traditional metrics of profit, productivity and presenteeism, many businesses still don’t seem able to move beyond the fear that prioritising people over profits might lead to catastrophe. Read the Full Article in Sussex Business Times ➡️ http://thebusinessgroup.co.uk
We’ve all been there. Something unexpected has happened. It is time for a meeting. That meeting. The more people talk the more one thing becomes clear; no-one knows what to do. The longer it goes on, the more confused everything gets. Arguments break out. Frustration boils over. Eventually, painfully, a course of action gets chosen. The same one as before. Yet the one thing everyone knows is that “same as before” will not help. At work – and going all the way back to school – people expect us to have a ready answer. Not knowing is a failure. Something to be ashamed of. Something to hide. So we act as if we know what to do. That leads to wasted effort, missed opportunities and avoidable disasters. It leads to meetings just like the one above. The problem is that we are not allowed to go off-script. There is a script – an expected order – at work. Something happens, so we do this, and then we get the right outcome. Repeat and profit. When those things stop lining up, however, we do not know what to do. READ MORE
Within the last 18 months, we have seen a range of organisations consider ways in which they can enhance representation through people, processes and procedures. However sometimes it is questionable as to how many have fully grasped what this actually entails and how to make changes that support growth, strong leadership and innovation. Many businesses may struggle to know where to start… What is representation? According to Google’s dictionary, ‘representation’ is, “the description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way.” Systems of representation are used by people to organise the world through signs, symbols, languages, cultures and characters. But for leading Media & Cultural Studies Professor, Stuart Hall, representation goes a little further. Hall describes representation an event, which takes place when someone takes information and presents it to you. However depending on who is representing, will provide different meaning to what is being represented. Therefore, what makes representation meaningful is dependent on how and who is represented. Representation has always been of interest to me. As a mixed raced young girl growing up in Sussex during the nineties, I experienced a range of challenges due to a lack of representation. As a result, I would regularly question my identity and what this meant to others. Why was there few people like me on TV? Why were Bond Girls never black? Why is Scary Spice ‘scary’? Why is blackness not embraced in commercial beauty and fashion? These questions were brought on by narratives that were being presented (or not being presented) in the media, at school and other external forces. In many ways a lack of representation in marketing adverts and media spurred me on to promote inclusion and diversity in a personal and professional level. Although at times it has taken a lot of confidence building and personal development to challenge commercial ideologies and represent an alternative, the biggest hurdle I have experienced when challenging a lack of representation, is not my own perception of myself, but the perception that others may hold of me in terms of what I represent or don’t. Thankfully, life has moved forward in many ways since my youth, but as we continue to see, there is still much progress to be made. In 2018, Disney executives behind Marvel did something that had never been done before. They created a blockbuster movie that had a black led cast, production and marketing team. It went on to become one of Marvel’s most successful movies. Marvel’s ‘Black Panther’ made millions and the marketing behind this supported earnings reaching over a billion dollars. Children and adults bought into this film because it provided a new and refreshing narrative – leadership and success through a black superhero. Read More
Born 9 October 1955, Steve Ovett OBE won gold in the 800 metres at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow and set 5 world records for 1500 metres and the mile and a world record at two miles. He won 45 consecutive 1500 and mile races from 1977 to 1980. His arrival on the international stage began a golden era of British middle distance running.