Who Does Factotum Want To Be When We Grow Up?

What is our vision?

What is our mission?

What are our values and how do we know what that looks like in daily practice?

These are the big questions that we’ve been grappling with for a little while now, especially as the business grows and we try to articulate our special magic to new team members.

Having expert coach Olivia Hosie in town recently was the prompt we needed to finally work through these questions in a systematic way. Being able to take time out for reflection was so valuable and we enjoyed a wonderfully productive day, fuelled in equal parts by caffeine, excitement and sugar.

We kicked off with a practical exercise in systems thinking (which you can replicate yourself using these instructions). It was an utterly engaging way to be reminded that we all see the world differently and have different ways of completing the same task.

After laughing at some of our drawing (in)abilities, it was time to get to work.

Enter the Officeworks haul.

Using approximately 10 000 post-it notes and coloured markers, we each wrote down what we do, who we do it for, how we do it, the conditions we need, and what the experience is like for those we work with. We stuck these on the wall, under each category, and it was quickly obvious that strong themes were emerging. We grouped answers into these themes, discussed what they mean to each of us, and drilled down to the core messages.

It was an iterative process, but Liv kept us on track and we ended the day with Factotum’s mission statement, vision, values, behaviours and a plan to get us where we want to be. Watch this space!