Q: Dear Tristan, I’m CEO of a fast growing business and I’ve heard that you work from home, is that true? If so, why do you do it? How do you do it? And what impact do you think it has on your team? I’d love to work from home but I’ve no idea how to do it. Please fill me in - EK
A: Dear EK,
Yep, I sure do work from home 3-4 days every week and have been for the past 18 months. It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Here’s how I’ve made it happen..
In short, here’s my week. I’m..
Energised - by finishing my first Olympic distance triathlon yesterday!
Pleased – to be sharing To The Point with Steven (a member of the Culture is Everything community) tomorrow morning
Excited - about The Physio Co family’s first 2012 Learning Event, ‘Helping oldies with Delirium, Dementia & Depression’ on Tuesday. (Join us if you’d like..!)
Attending - a free ‘Business is Booming’ event by Brad Sugars. (Interested? Sign up here)
Improving - the way we make Culture is Everything TV. (No episode this week, it’ll back with a couple of changes next Tuesday).
Focussed - on improving my presentation skills in session 2 of The Physio Co’s program with Communicators Melbourne
Learning – from a master! I’m attending a Business Chicks workshop with Tony Hsieh of Zappos on Thursday. (Awesome!)
Training – 3 hours in the pool, 7 on the bike & 5 hours on foot this week. Only 12 weeks until Ironman Australia!
Helping – to organise a long lunch for my good mate Mike before his big wedding day!
In short, here’s my week. I’m..
Welcoming - a new physio (Kelly) to The Physio Co family on Tuesday morning
Attending - my monthly EO forum on Tuesday
Writing – my first monthly post for Dynamic Business on Thursday
Registering - for The Growth Faculty’s National Growth Summit in Sydney March 15-16
Preparing - for an Olympic distance triathlon on Sunday
Considering - heading to the 2XU Falls Creek Triathlon on Saturday to cheer for my mate Steve Glowrey
Reading – The Wealthy Speaker by Jane Atkinson
Planning – my first eBook to be published on Amazon’s Kindle store
In short, here’s my week. I’m…
Welcoming – 2 new physios to The Physio Co family on Tuesday morning.
Attending – My monthly Entrepreneurs’ Organisation (EO) forum meeting on Tuesday night.
Reading – Pricing with Confidence, by Reed Holden & Mark Burton. (This one is required reading for The Physio Co’s leadership team this month)
Training – There are 17 weeks to Ironman Australia. This week I’ll be spending 6.5 hours on the bike, 3 hours in the pool and 4.5 on foot.
Learning – How to use iMovie to create Culture is Everything TV.
Recruiting – A positive & super-organised Support Office Coordinator for our South Melbourne office.
Loving – watching our nine month-old, AW, fine tune her crawling technique. She’s on the move!
Who will win the 2011 Tour de France? Well after only 8 stages it’s a bit too soon to tell. But, it’s very likely that winner will be a multi-specialist.
A multi-specialist? Yep, a cyclist who can perform consistently near the front of the field for the flat stages, the hill stages, the sprint stages, the time trial stages, in the wet, in the dry, in the wind and under pressure. All around skill as a professional cyclist is what generally wins le tour.
The same applies for business leaders, especially CEO’s. We, too, need to be multi-specialists. We need to understand all aspects of our businesses. Operations, marketing, sales, people, finances, technology and every other department. Performing consistently across all these areas on the good days and the tough days is the CEO’s responsibility.
In the tour, the multi-specialist leaders have team mates to protect them from the wind, the road furniture and break away attacks from other teams. In business, the CEO has managers to help run the marketing, finance and technology departments.
Cycling teams and executive teams both need great people with complementary skills. The leader however, needs to have the capacity to be a multi-specialist.
Learning a new skill takes time. The complexity of the skill and many other factors impact the time it takes for the skill to be learned.
Way back in 1967, Fitts and Posner suggested that the learning process is sequential and that we move through specific phases as we learn. If a skill is to be mastered, the three phases of learning will be visited every time.
The three stages to learning a new skill are:
The learning of new skills requires the individual movements to be assembled, piece by piece. Feedback is used to shape and polish the new skill into a smooth action.
I first discovered the stages of learning in year 1 at Physio School. Their importance is as relevant to me today as a CEO as they were to me then as an aspiring physiotherapist.
As a CEO, I am an educator. Delegating and teaching new skills to the guys in my team is a critical part to our success. Leaders create more leaders.
The annual BRW Best Places to Work edition is out and The Physio Co is the 12th Best Place to Work in Australia for 2011!
As the CEO, it’s both humbling and exciting to know that our fast growing team rates The Physio Co so highly. In fact, the results of the independent survey show that 92% of TPCers would honestly say “this is a great place to work”. That makes me smile!
The Physio Co’s journey as a Great Place to Work started in 2009 when we were ranked no. 37. In 2010, we jumped to no. 19 and in 2011 we have risen to no. 12. With this progress our Painted Picture of 2012 goal to make the top 10 by 31 December 2012 is alive!
The Physio Co team is just fantastic, I can’t thank them enough for their hard work and dedication. What a milestone!
PS – Click here for a feature article on The Physio Co in today’s BRW
PPS – BRW Best Places to Work 2011 – the full list:
Every morning at The Physio Co we run a short, sharp huddle. This stand-up meeting is called ‘To The Point’ and it’s on from 10:05-10:17am without fail.
The purpose of To The Point is to keep our team aligned and focussed on bringing our Painted Picture of 2012 vision to life.
To The Point to is good fun and THE most important meeting that The Physio Co support team have.
A daily 12-minute meeting with 5-7 people contributing needs lots of discipline. Everyone arrives by 10:04 and our To The Point Captain kicks off at 10:05 sharp. Being late or unprepared is not an option.
The concept of a daily huddle was introduced to me by Verne Harnish and is based upon the way John D. Rockefeller ran his business, Standard Oil (now Mobil). Rockefeller’s disciplined approach replaced the helter-skelter methods of most growing businesses and catapulted him to lead his industry way back in the 1800’s.
Since 2009, The Physio Co has been using a Rockefeller-style meeting rhythm that has improved the way we communicate and provided a daily focus on what is important.
The Physio Co team and I LOVE welcoming guests into our support centre to join us for a To The Point. If you’d like to join us, grab the details from over here and make it happen.
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Running a fast growing business is not for the faint-hearted. Every single day there are challenges that test me and stretch me to my limit. Plenty of people might think this is crazy. You might ask: “what’s the rush?”. To me, growing a business fast is fun. I wouldn’t want it any other way!
For the last 2 years, The Physio Co has been ranked by SmartCompany as one of Australia’s fastest growing SME’s. As financial year 2011 comes to a close, we will again add about 40% growth to our top line in the 12 months to 30 June.
Why do I choose the challenges and seeming stress that comes from growing so fast? Because I love it! I love learning new things, testing myself and leading our team.
Managing a business is one thing, leading & growing a business fast is completely different. The latter is my preference, every day of the week.
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