Doing business for good

-

There's so much to do when you start your own company and so many 'foundations that need to be laid down', as I describe it.

 

One of the first things you have to do is to try and articulate what you do and why you do it. If you've got as far as having a business idea, you would think this is relatively easy. But for me, I actually think this was one of the hardest things to do.

 

So, the process that I went through, actually ended up taking me on a bit of a journey into my own personal values and beliefs(1) (stay with me, I'm not going deep and meaningful… although the process was really interesting, if you want to find out more let me know!)

 

And where I've landed, is in a world of 'doing business for good'.(2)



Which makes sense to me, really.

 

At the start of my career, after a couple of years in hospitality, I got a job at 19 as a receptionist in a Birmingham city-centre office and I absolutely loved it. I spent the next 9 and a half years working for the same business, a Consultancy working predominantly with the NHS and Local Government. I totally idolised the Directors I worked for(3) and loved the work we did. I progressed quickly from one role to another, soaking up the learning, the opportunities and the experiences, until my final assignment with them as a Senior Consultant on a Digital Transformation Programme in Southampton in 2016.

These years saw a company acquisition, a few rounds of redundancies across the business, my first sabbatical for a solo six-month trip around the world, a change of home city from Birmingham to Leeds, a couple of heartbreaks and a lot of growing up.

 

But one of the main things that kept me working for this company for so long, was the feeling of making a difference to the world we live in. And each of my jobs since then have also been for organisations that do something which has an obvious positive impact on society or the environment.

 

And now that I'm working for myself, this is still the mission that I'm on.

Who's with me?!


Find about more about DH Professional Solutions on our website and look out for future blog posts, where I'll be going into more detail about my business purpose and how I'm going to make this happen

 


(1) Thanks NatWestBusiness Accelerator course

(2) Also thanks in part to Fiona Ras-Jones at Make Impact, and the discovery of B-Corp UK, via one of the Leeds Digital Festival sessions earlier in the year

(3) Thanks to SarahAtkinson and Nigel Guest, who I used to refer to as my "work mum & dad", for taking me under your wings all those years ago

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Build an Effective High-Performing Team

-
Image
I'm passionate about making a difference and enabling businesses through team collaboration. Team collaboration improves team effectiveness. And effective teams are likely to be more successful, continue to be collaborative, and therefore become high performing. Are your business' teams effective? Do they work well together? More importantly, do they work well both within themselves and cross-functionally? It's hard to maintain team efficacy in today's ever-changing environments. Still, it can be far easier to manage, develop, and optimise team performance with a few solid foundations in place. This blog post is all about those key foundations. But, before we dig into what they are, let's take a quick look at why effective teams are essential for business success.   Why are effective teams so important? LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman says, "No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy if you're playing a solo game, you'll always lose out to a team....
Read more

5 tips to achieve a more environmentally friendly lifestyle - by Kevin Jeeps

-
Image
OK, so this is a guest blog written by Kevin Jeeps for my friend Danielle. We met through a local networking group, In Business , that, because of the current pandemic, is holding its meetings using Zoom. That, in itself, is helping the environment simply because the members and guests are not travelling, and therefore not producing exhaust emissions, to the meetings. Speaking purely personally, my car has done less than 1,000 miles since the middle of November 2020, a great result for the environment! Firstly, what’s my background and why am I interested in the environment? Well, I was born and bred in a village in Cambridgeshire and, although I went to my village primary school, my secondary school education was in Cambridge itself. When I was doing my Geography lessons at both O and A Level, I was taught about some of the earth’s natural energy sources. At the time, these were coal, oil and natural gas. I distinctly remember thinking to myself: “These are finite resources! What wil...
Read more

Get the SWOT Team in....

-
Image
When was the last time you carried out a SWOT analysis in your business? What is SWOT analysis? It identifies Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats and is such a powerful tool which can help you ensure your business is operating closer to its optimum.   SWOT analysis can be carried out as a short activity or can be scaled up for larger, more complex businesses and to get maximum value from the exercise. And you can choose a specific project (such as a new product launch) or think about the business as a whole.   How do you do it? Using a template like the one shown, start to fill in each section - I've provided some examples of questions you could consider for each one. Do this with other members of your team where possible to help increase the number of ideas generated.   St rengths: - What does your company do well? - What seperates you from your competitors? (your USP) - What internal resources do you have? (eg strong leadership, skilled ...
Read more