Disruption, reinvention, adapting to change.
These are terms thrown around in modern business and I have never understood their meaning as much as in 2018.
Anyone following my entrepreneurial journey may have noticed some changes, some large and some subtle. I'd like to share with you what has been happening with Symes Group, where I am taking the organisation and what was the process that propelled the changes.
But before I do, any good story about change and the future needs to start at the beginning. It’s almost 10 years since I started my own business, 10 years since I traipsed around Crows Nest, Sydney with Mum Liz and one-year-old son Samuel in the pram stuffing flyers for North Shore Drama and Symes Consulting under office doors, in letterboxes and unopened coffee shops.
This was before I had uncovered my passion for supporting women in leadership, before I had uncovered what my purpose in life was and well before I felt that it was all going to work.
At this stage I was in survival mode, I needed people in my drama classes and I needed them fast. Leap forward nine years in and what a different position I found myself to be in. Now with a thriving leadership consultancy, a busy acting school, and a woman in leadership movement that was
starting to gain serious momentum – plus a great venue to hold it all. To the outside world I had made it. And of course I had. I was doing what lots of people dream about – running my own consultancy firm – I was no longer a volunteer in my own organisation (which often entrepreneurs are), and most importantly I had staff –passionate, talented and qualified staff who had the skills and capability to take my place in training and sessions. It was all a dream come true.
And yet I had sensed for a long time that what I had to offer our clients was beyond what they were asking for. I was frustrated by the training model – putting 15-16 people in a room and teaching principles and methods of effective leadership.
Continued next page
" ...learning theory from a slide show in a training room was the last way any form of behaviour change could take place."
Jessica Symes
... is this
the end?
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