Category: Uncategorized

  • Collaboration: Theory vs Action

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    Helena Byles

    In my 10 years being a yoga teacher I have been on countless trainings, it’s part of the yoga culture of self development, it’s pretty addictive. In the years that I’ve taken a step back from this world I realised that these products play on two things; a feeling of never being or knowing quite enough and the dopamine hit that comes from the new exciting potential of what you can do with this new information. 

    Of course it’s not just the yoga industry that does this, the self help industry can be pretty toxic, and what about all the courses you can buy to elevate your sales, improve your social media, make you a star!

    The issue is, and I know this because I’ve done it, is that we rarely put into action what we’ve learnt. We have all the gear and no idea. 

    I found the same was happening to me with coaching sessions I was having. They were excellent, and helped me understand so much about myself and what I needed to do, but what I lacked was support to take the required action.

    Executing is hard, especially if you’re doing (or feel you’re doing) it alone. Humans are social creatures, we evolved through community and collaboration, and the world of self employment doesn’t always offer that opportunity of support, maybe until you’re ready to employ someone. In the fight between theory and action, action is not doing well. 

    This is where we can help. We will help you to TAKE ACTION. We get involved and help you get things moving, together.

    We help you create productivity rituals, to help you focus on the work that makes an impact. We turn learning into doing.

    Just like virtual assistants are now commonplace, we want to make fractional business managers the norm in elevating businesses, bridging the gap between now and employing someone full-time.

    Put simply we’re not just going to give you videos or handbooks, we are people to work with so you take action.

  • The power and importance of human connection in reaching our goals

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    Helena Byles

    In this time of possibility, when anyone can launch a business from home in their PJ’s, with absolute freedom, we paradoxically see entrepreneurs struggling to make their business sustainable, to realise the vision, are working long hours and the dream has turned into worry and burnout. 

    Images for entrepreneurs (we searched a lot of these when building our website) often reflect the ‘solo’ nature of the work, and in fact the term soloprenuer that describes the entrepreneur that runs the entire business themselves, so no co-founders, no employees, is commonplace. 

    For the struggling soloprenuers and entrepreneurs two issues are arising: 

    You’ve heard the sayings ‘if you want something doing, give it to the busy person. And you’ve experienced it, when you have lots of time the task fills that time, and when you give yourself a short deadline, you get it done in a fraction of the time (thinking back to my dissertation there, in which my best work was done in the last 2 days). When left alone, with an ocean of time and potential in front of you, you literally kill motivation and action.

    Freedom doesn’t create entrepreneurial successes, structure does. Creating deadlines transform your ideas into project plans, they make it concrete; working with someone to relieve the mental isolation, to bounce ideas off. As Jack Dorsey (Founder of Twitter) once said, “Constraints inspire Creativity”.

    The second, and very related factor at play is how a lack of human connection affects our motivation.  A paper by Ryan & Deci, 2000 discusses how connectedness with others and social accountability is an essential condition for intrinsic motivation in Self-Determination Theory.  

    People pay for personal trainers each week because they want someone to keep them on track and motivated.  ‘White coat compliance’, is an increase in adherence behaviour in medical changes observed with regularly visiting a health care provider. Both are the result of the power of social accountability. 

    We are social creatures (yes even if we’re introverts or love time alone), who have literally evolved our self awareness and ability to self-regulate from being with people as part a community. (Scheier & Carver, 1977) (Silvia, 2002).

    We experienced this affect ourselves, going from two solopreneurs not quite reaching what we wanted, to weekly supportive catch ups, where we’d discuss our businesses and goals and started to collaborate. This forced us to set goals that the other held us to account for by the next coffee date. It worked!

    We need a structure in our entrepreneurial freedom, with trusted allies, because we perform at our best when we feel connected and supported. 

    This is what we offer; a personal trainer for your business. Someone with knowledge, who can help you get clarity on the right work to do for maximum impact, to support and empower you, kindly hold you to your goals and help you set productivity rituals. Autonomous accountability is where we’re headed.  

  • Why you don’t need to work alone or employ someone to grow your business.

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    Helena Byles

    It’s competitive our there. Now more than ever people are making business ideas a reality, jumping on opportunities, making use of the tech and working remotely. If you want to grow you need your business to be agile. You need to be ready to respond, to take the opportunity, to try something new, quickly and without overcommitment. For new businesses, soloprenuers working at capacity or businesses with small or streamlined teams, we can end up being fragile, not agile. This is just one example of where the ‘Fractional Leader’ can help, and is why it’s becoming a more common.

    What is Fractional Work?

    Fractional workers are essentially freelance experts. They work for you and your business for a fraction of their time. But unlike the typical freelancer who feels outside of the business, the fractional leader gets to know the business, gets more involved and takes responsibility. Like becoming a very small part of your team, with a very specific job to do. 

    A fractional leader is often enlisted to make necessary changes, implement effective strategies and processes, and set foundations for the future.

    Fractional leadership is often something discussed in the world of BIG business, where it’s discussed as someone ‘on the board’, but small and medium business owners can benefit from this work too, in fact could benefit more! 

    Fractional Leadership has inspired the way we created our Office Hours approach. We work fractionally, as part of your team.  

    How Fractional Leadership can help you

    • The most common reason a company hires ‘fractionally’ rather than getting stuck into employment is it makes financial sense. You will be in total control of how much you can afford. And the right person will help you understand what can be achieved in that time/budget. 
    • They are there to get the job done. They focus narrowly on key projects instead of getting sucked into day-to-day distractions or politics.
    • You already have the expertise in-house in your industry, so Fractional Leaders offer expertise in something like sales, marketing, leadership, or transformation where you may have a skill gap. 
    • It takes far less time than recruiting, so they can step in almost immediately and quickly start making an impact. Positive change is the KPI they live by.
    • Fractional leaders arrive refreshed and ready to leave a lasting mark. It doesn’t make sense to expect the same old team to achieve different results, which is why it pays to bring in the fresh eyes of outsiders. 

    Why not schedule a call with us and see how we could help you!

    Get in touch