We All Write Our Own Story…

So for my last post of the year I thought I would release it on my birthday! Part reflection, but also focused on what lies ahead with a few lessons learned thrown in (or in my case revisited). In regard to Certus don’t worry I am not going anywhere in many ways we have only really just got started!!!

A Year's a Long Time

I often look back to where we as a company were a year ago and reflect upon our journey and the path travelled. I look at the people around me and smile contently that so many bought into our vision and that I have already been able to see them grow and develop professionally. This is a theme I know we will return to time and time again over the next year. Regardless of what happens in the future I strongly believe we have already had a significant impact on their careers to date and as much as they are now part of our story I think it is also true to stay we have equally been part of theirs! Joining an SME and being part of a developing company has its risks as well as rewards and I thank each and every-one of them for being brave, having confidence in the Certus Executive team (Tim, Richard, Ian, Rob, Mary - my thanks) and helping the company to be successful.

Equally for those outside the company that didn’t have faith in Certus  or me as an individual it’s a case of missed opportunity on their part and I point them to the Will Smith quote from the film “The Pursuit of Happyness” - “Don’t let ever someone tell you that you cannot do something. You got a dream, you gotta protect it. When people can’t do something themselves, they’re gonna tell you that you can’t do it. You want something, go get it. Period”. When someone or as in Certus, a group of people have this mindset; are totally committed; and can actually physically demonstrate success time and time again then my strongest advice is don’t bet against them when the stakes and the bar is raised.

You Write Your Own  Story

The biggest kick I ever get out of running Certus is developing our own talent. I say constantly to our people that they are ultimately responsible for their own career, not me or the company and they need to go and write their own story everyday. We provide the platform and every client interaction is an opportunity for them to excel and also to grow personally and professionally.

For some over time they will also move on to pastures new despite what we do as a company in terms of employee retention this is the natural cycle and order of things. However I believe the experience an individual gets from working with us will benefit them greatly in the future. The experience of working for a fast growing SME is worth its weight in gold.

It all becomes even more exciting when you undertake a client project and you leave a long lasting positive effect on your client’s own people – when you do this and create such a lasting legacy turning clients into customer advocates you really have gone to another level. Maintaining it unfortunately is always the constant challenge. As I have said many times positive customer experience and exceptional customer service delivery are the table-stakes in the Cloud game! If you can't do this, you don't even get to play.

It's Not Just About Work

More closely to home I look at my three children, Megan – 17 and now finding out what life outside of school is truly like; William – 10, whose intellectual capacity (and wit) is growing and expanding at such a rate I just cannot keep track of; and Joseph – 8, Joe will always be Joe, I get the feeling just like the famous “Frank” quote (as in Frank Sinatra), Joe lives in “Joe’s World, and we just all live in it” – a born leader if ever I saw one! (“The Force is Strong In This One” – had to get one Star Wars quote in as well). All are strong willed, highly competitive (wonder where they get that from?) and great kids that I am truly proud of. Another year passes and they begin to write their own story as they start to find their way in the world.

Positive Disruption

Always frustrating when you’re a small company and bound by so many non-disclosure agreements that there are so many good things you want to shout about but can’t, especially when you want your own people to be recognised for their successes. But I am looking forward to the things we can talk about in the early part of the new year and trust me when I say there are definitely more than a few “wow” moments in the news cycle that are going to make people sit up and take notice of us.

As our competitors now start to look to catchup  in the world of the Oracle Cloud, Certus itself will only look to set the bar even higher and "disrupt itself" to continuously move forward and differentiate. Something I know many companies would be to frightened to even consider, however for us this is natural.

Positive Disruption - Absolutely! I always wanted Certus to be a different type of partner in the Oracle Cloud space and it certainly is that. I experienced that first hand when I went to Oracle OpenWorld in California this year and was pleasantly surprised of how many people knew about us on a global scale and wanted to meet me. Not bad for a couple of boys from Guildford, Surrey – hey Tim?

Phoenix Rising

Finally to end the year off for me there was the return to help the Ministry of Justice and revisit where Certus began with the Phoenix Programme. When I go back and get involved in central government projects I go "hands-on" and love being back on the front line and in the thick of it with the Certus delivery teams. Going back to the front line also has the additional benefit of keeping your feet firmly on the ground even if your head is in the Clouds. It's about "keeping it real"!

On 30th October 2016 next year it will be 10 years ago since we sent what was then the HM Prison Service Phoenix Shared Services Centre live for HR and Payroll Service delivery all based then upon on-premise Oracle technology - which unfortunately is rather dated these days, and though now owned by Shared Services Connected Ltd (SSCL) and the story has moved on I will always look back on the original programme with massive affection and with a deep sense of regret, balanced against the knowledge of a truly wonderful project team I had the privilege of leading for 3 years comprising Civil Servants and multiple suppliers that came together and achieved what was considered by some at the time to be the impossible. (you know who you all are!)

All I will say about “Phoenixes” is they, of all mythical animals, symbolise rebirth and I am confident in time there are several more chapters to this story as well. I very much hope the Certus team, myself included, can be part of that story but naturally only time will tell. Inline with this post that will be up to me to write that chapter if the opportunity arises to do so.

However to progress I know you do have to let go of the past and keep moving forward. The only constant is that of change itself. Personally I have always found this extremely difficult especially as my personal and professional past seem to constantly draw me back into the past and consume me. A third of my professional career has been defined by Central Government and South Wales as a geographic location, something I never ever envisaged, and out of all of this Certus as a company was born. Ten years on, 21 Oracle ERP And HCM Cloud customers later, 50+ staff over two geographies and still I feel we have only got started!

Life is hard – fact! and Running a Business is even harder!

Sylvester Stallone says in Rocky Balboa “Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!”

Things no matter how well you plan them both personally and professionally never work out as you expect them too. And sheer will power does not always see you through! even though you hope it will. Things I continue to learn or revisit every single day include, but far from being limited to:

• Life is about compromise, finding that point and the associated balance is always the challenge; being able to constantly adapt is the secret
• Having patience is key, timing is everything and sometimes you just have to wait and cannot force the pace
• Nobody gives you anything, you have to go out there and make it happen
• You can only do your best, if your best isn’t good enough for some people, then that’s their problem – not yours, so don’t take it too personally
• Don't beat yourself up - It's the flaws in your character that make us who we are

I have taken great pleasure in posting for the first time from “A Can do Attitude”, “The Power of a Dream”, “Broken Hearts and How to Fall in Love Again” through to “Missed Opportunities” and “Part Time Working Mums”, with a few Elephants thrown in along the way! – I thank everyone who reads my posts, connects with me and all the positive feedback I have received. In some ways this only makes it more difficult in finding new and interesting things to write about, but I have a few ideas for 2016, and it won't surprise many of you there are a few controversial items on the agenda. (smile)

Looking Ahead

So 2016 is the year where for Certus “The Best Is Yet To Come” – so much still to be done and to be proved so be warned for those that follow us and myself it’s going to be a rollercoaster and I cannot wait to write the next chapter of the story. It’s time for disruption and for a Phoenix to rise…

My final words to everyone for 2016 - “Go make something positive happen and write your own story”. For now on a personal note I like to wish all our employees, associates, customers, business partners (Oracle – how could I forget you!), and those who just follow me on Linked in saying a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your families.

Part Time Working Mums – A Most Valued Contribution

Things are so busy at Certus I was going to put blogging on hold, albeit I have to admit I truly have got the bug these days. However I was totally engrossed in a post from a lady I have had the pleasure to meet a couple of times – Michelle Dawkins of Oracle and her writings https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/women-leadership-roles-does-part-time-work-michelle-dawkins?trk=hp-feed-article-title-comment so much so I felt compelled to write and put forward in support the perspective of what I believe is a vitally overlooked asset that is easily accessible to an employer of an Small Medium Enterprise (SME) business – “The Part Time Working Mum”. Also to give you a brief insight as to how we at Certus understand the demands of working mothers (and I should equally say fathers) but also making an acknowledgement that without our own working mothers’ contribution Certus would not be the company it is today!

In 2011 when Certus started to expand we immediately experienced the same basic challenges any growing SME experiences, “how do you win business, get the work done as cost effective as possible, maximising profit for onward investment to grow organically?” Well in the professional services field you need people, and to do a job well you need quality experienced people. Unfortunately quality and experience costs money and when you start out its money you don’t have.

A Pool of Untapped Talent

For me the answer to this problem became strikingly obvious as I stood in the school playground one morning dropping off my boys and looked around me. In that moment of deep thought I didn’t see a playground full of Mum’s dropping off their loved ones, but instead I suddenly saw Company Executives, Accountants, Solicitors, Doctors, IT Professionals, HR Professionals, and Executive PA’s. All around me there was a vast amount of intellectual talent. Some of which were heading off to work, others I knew had sacrificed their career temporarily (sometimes indefinitely) all because they had chosen to stay at home and bring up their children. 

It was from this point I realised that in order for Certus to grow that I needed to be creative in my talent pool. I could benefit from a flexible workforce, and this is what I saw. Flexibility, dedicated, highly skilled people.

In-fact I still see it everyday and all we seem to read on the internet is a constant stream of articles on Gen Y and Millennials, which at times I feel we are being told to pander too as they are different! - Well actually “No”, whilst we need Gen Y we actually have just a valuable under-utilised workforce all around us in “Mums”, who believe it or not the majority actually do want to work again. It still amazes me that this untapped talent pool is often tainted, completely unfairly, as difficult to incorporate into the demands of a modern business - which in my opinion is total nonsense. Consequently by some they are seen as an overhead, I argue differently.

Mums need flexibility, but so do businesses. So why not make it work? They are also the most organised individuals I have ever come across. Equally a growing business needs a relatively low cost quality labour force that is also flexible. It’s a win-win, often mums can’t work 5 days per week, 8 hours a day, and as an SME employer you don’t necessary want or have the funds to pay for a full time employee. This is not saying we pay them differently, but it’s just pro-rata on the number of hours worked, which is less than being full time. I have also found that my approach to recruitment methods is different, and more cost effective.  Our latest recruit, Dodie, I met at my sons school. I find that I don’t necessarily need to rely on just agencies, but instead receive recommendations from colleagues and friends, which just opens up a wider, diverse pool of talent. 

Making it Work?

So how do you make it actually work? The answer actually is very simple – good communication, including but not limited to:

1.    Understand the needs of the working Mum

2.    Come to an arrangement, where they clearly know your expectations

3.    Assign a workload that meets both yours and their needs, but also doesn’t necessary put a Mum under undue pressure around key times of their day i.e. don’t go book a meeting at 08:00 in the morning or 15:00 in the afternoon when the school run is on!

4.    Take advantage of technology to enable your teams to work collaboratively

5.    Don’t put part time working mothers directly in the front line and in highly demanding client situations nearing times when they need to be with their families, none of us need this pressure!

6.    When they are needed in the office and have a child care issue let them bring the kids into the office, or go to them!  

7.    Plan ahead give both of you plenty of notice of key events – from important business meetings that you do need them involved in, through to half term dates!

8.    Don’t under estimate the need for human interaction - Mum’s want to be in work for a few hours a day in the company with other adults! They want to be intellectually stretched and challenged and they get this from proper social adult interaction in the workplace

9.    Talk to them – things change over time!

Result: You will have a highly valued, dependable and loyal workforce. It also means they can still hold down key leadership and managerial positions – Charlene, my HR Manager is just about to go part time, but she is critical to our business operation and in supporting me. Her knowledge, advice and guidance around HR is critical for a growing company and she is also someone I lean on as my own corporate sounding board. Rachel is my Financial Controller and has been with me since day one. Certus as a company wouldn’t function without Rachel. She is a qualified Accountant and working mother to three young children and manages all our money. She is supposed to be part time, but I know at year end she works more hours in a month than I do! And Mary is our EVP of Quality and Testing Services – Mary is full time and holds an Exec position on our Operating Board, but she is also a working Mum with two young children.  I also have Caroline on maternity leave.  She’s just had twins!, but in another guise she is probably the most qualified Oracle Cloud technicians when it comes to data migration in the world (and I am not elaborating here!).

Intangible Value - Balance

More importantly they also offer us as an Exec team insight into a workforce that is 50% women, and yes we do bloody listen to them because if we didn’t we wouldn’t have an effective business operation. They are treated no different to anyone else, and if anyone did step out of line from graduate to CEO we would all find ourselves taking 5 minutes out on the “naughty step”!

So when there are those times you need them in the office and they have no child care, we let them bring the children in and get the kids involved where we can. When the kids turn up we let them use the internet or the older ones we get them to make a marketing poster for the company! One asked for something else to do, and then spent the day shredding documentation for us (under supervision of course) – they loved it.

Our Mum’s give great balance to the company and as the company expands it is something we want to maintain. Equally this is not us ignoring our male staff and of course we need people to work full time in front of house demanding consultancy roles. This is never going to go away as this is what we do. However I am proud to have working mum’s in our team, and I am proud to say that at one point I had more women than men working for me, most of which were working parents. At Certus we take pride in delivering high quality service, skill and expertise.  We do this by being creative and flexible, and this is a massive selling point for us!

So to all our Mum’s full time or part time, thank you for being part of our company! And for those who don’t get this more fool you – but the next time you are in the playground picking up your children just look around you, open your mind, and you just might see something different! 

… as for Gen Y, guess what? parenthood will happen to you at some point as well.   

Missed Opportunities

“Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back. That's part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads - at least that's where I imagine it - there's a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in awhile, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you'll live forever in your own private library.” ― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

Part of running a business is the constant trade off of opportunities through the  evaluation of the “opportunity cost”. Some get missed and some you consciously let pass you by, choosing others in return. However I would argue that the trade-off is even greater today as your business and personal life overlap, and more than often collide as they both compete for that most precious asset of all – “your time”.

In a 24x7 digital environment when your only a swipe away on your mobile device to contact someone and your brain is constantly engaged and therefore often distracted, striving for any kind of work-life balance is near dam impossible. I personally find this slightly ironic when you consider for me Certus spends every day from a client’s perspective making what seems the “impossible possible”.

The harsh reality is that you continually “drop the ball”, if it’s not at work then it’s at home and vice-versa. You are forever scrambling around trying to recover time and before anyone says anything, this isn’t about time management which to me is an outdated concept from an age where the internet and constant communication didn’t exist and the working day was a throwback to the 1970’s of Monday-Friday 9-5 when the world moved at a much slower pace.

Opportunities in both your professional and personal lives will come and go. Ice-Hockey star Wayne Gretzky quotes “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”. So the question is - Knowing that you cannot take all the shots which ones do you take?

Recently someone very close to me said “I have choices”, I said “yes you do, but choose nothing then the world just passes you by”. So what is your decision criteria? – the opportunity that yields the greatest financial return? or is the return on investment greater elsewhere in giving your time to others – family and friends and not necessarily for financial gain? This goes against the entrepreneurial mind-set of personal sacrifice as this is the dilemma faced in running a business that is all encompassing and time consuming.

Welcome to My World

Constantly winning new business; ensuring what you have won is delivered; keeping customers happy; keeping your employees happy; all whilst not running out cash plus the myriad of other things that come at you is an everyday occurrence. All too easily you can get swept away and forget about your personal and family life. Friends become distant as you don’t spend time with them, and even more importantly you can become detached from husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends and even your own children, not just physically but mentally as your mind constantly drifts. It really can be seen as life is passing you by and we all know that is not a good thing.

Yin and Yang - Does A Balance Really Exist?

This is the tricky part. At work you can at times feel indestructible and in the face of adversity you often reach new heights of performance you previously thought unattainable – this drives adrenalin and subsequently in my experience extreme behavioural change, again something that is not always positive.

I have never really believed in good and bad experience. I have however always said there is just experience and you learn as much, and probably more in defeat as you do in victory. You never stop learning in both your personal and professional lives. Putting that into practice however is the key to finding “balance” or finding ones “Yin and Yang” - something I would be the first to admit I am not good at and to be totally honest constantly still searching for the answer.

Running a Business - It’s Really Not for Everyone

I am the first to encourage anyone to have a go at starting and building a business, regardless whether if it’s as an independent freelancer; the sweet shop on the high street; a sexy internet startup trying to disrupt existing business models, or a world class dedicated Oracle Cloud Consultancy just wanting to take on the world because it can (big smile!).

However equally I would advise that first you fully understand the commitment involved. If your not 110% committed then don’t do it as you will not only fail, but you will also miss opportunities in your personal life something you can easily look back on with regret.

As with everything, there is always a price to pay and a sacrifice to be made.

Would I Personally Do It All Again?

Running my own business - Honestly, yes I would. Frank Sinatra famously sung “Regrets I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention”. So I do answer somewhat with a heavy heart, as I now know doing what I do today is fundamentally in my DNA, it has only taken 25 years for me to realise it!!!

Would I approach things differently? - Absolutely I always have said I made every mistake in the book and the cost has been extremely high, but even then I would still do it. I guess we all wish we all had the knowledge and experience we have amassed in our later lives when we were 18.

I was one told by a respected mentor “Mark, you’re the most unemployable person I know!” I guess when you have been running a business long enough either working as a contractor or heading up an international 50+ strong company, which Certus now is today then I don’t think I could go back to working for someone else. People like me are just “programmed” in a different way.

More importantly “Are there things that would make me stop?” – Of course there are!!! You only live once and your time is precious. If you are running a business purely as you are blinded by the idea you will make a financial fortune then you have got something seriously wrong.

F.Scott Fitzgerald said “our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss”, so on that note a final word of advice to anyone running a business or thinking of starting one up. Regardless how busy you always are, try and remember to stay in touch with your family and friends, most importantly remember to call Mum and Dad! In life these are the most important opportunities so don’t let these pass you by and become missed opportunities as these are the ones that always yield the greatest return.