So getting my hands dirty was pretty much an immediate thing. Had to let some people go, hire some new ones, figure out what the hell was going and work with the past GM who was still there. Not all very comfortable to say the least. And that was just for starters.....we had a huge system change over at the same time where anything and everything that could go wrong did! This is what happens when people do not understand the implications of testing a system before you switch to the new one.
So my first 6 months were comprised of hiring and firing, learning the business politics, meeting the speakers as I had not been officially introduced to them as you would expect, get my head around what was going on with the events and deal with the bloody new system that didn't work. Then a brilliant plan was hatched! NOT! It was decided (out of my hands) we needed an business investor to help take over the running of the business and invest some money.
Now this could be a very long story but for my own sanity I am going to cut it VERY short. It was not the best experience I have ever had and certainly wasn't to be my last, however having to beef up security at the events and our offices, defend our personal reputation and deal with all this crap which trying to run the business and put on more events than we had ever done before. Well all I can say is we survived and the investor didn't! You can't be an investor if you don't even invest any money - key rule this. Didn't know people like this existed an this was my first and not last experience of those who have the gift of the gab. With his cronies he wheeled and dealed and under estimated my loyalty to the product. Funny how the personal development industry itself knows how to take care of itself and throws out those that are not real, authentic or care about people. So for the sake of £1 our little skirmish with the con man was over. Whew!
It taught me some very big lessons and unfortunately made me very sceptical of the whole set up as so much was wrong, we didn't know where to start. Now during all of this we were making great changes at the events, crew were agreeing to work with us again and the standard of the events really improved. So did the moral of the whole company and finally after a year we were motoring along nicely. Well as nicely as we could be! Another lesson learnt, very difficult to have any control of a business or know how well you are doing when you don't have a system that can tell! Don't develop your own systems - there are many that work that you can buy off the shelf. We were and events business without an event management system but everything else except the fact it never worked.
By this stage all the last year of blah had not improved business relations between the two parties and so it all got very tricky. We were stuck in the middle as I agreed and disagreed with both sides. But we had a business to run, so that is what we focused on. One thing that really stood out as our regular saying - behavioural flexibility! Goodness did we take it heart as without it we could not have survived.
Now I speak about "we" as every business is about people and nothing else! I had an incredible team who started off really challenged but worked their way through developing their skills and adjusting to the madness. However over time and after a rather large amount of crap, we started to fade in our commitment and really the only thing that kept us going was the energy of the events! So many changes, so many bad decisions, so much mess! Then even those started to be affected.
When a new CEO was brought in to help and gave his very grave response about the business model and state of play and where things needed to change in the land of OZ, he got fired. And then just when I didn't think it could get any worse, our star product was making his own life changes. I knew it was time for a new adventure...and to get the hell out so I could remain just a little sane but also make time for me to take care of myself!
At the same time I decided to change something else in my life - my husband and that turned out to be an even bigger nightmare. Also a long story that is very boring and not worth the energy - safe as to say, it ended really badly when I decided it couldn't go on and it took another year of pure shyt! to finally remove the bad energy! So two pretty life changing experiences in 12 months - well if you are going to change your life you might as well do it properly.....
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