KATH BLACKHAM CEO AT VERSA
T
onight feels strange. I love my work family to bits and when we all left work tonight, we weren’t sure when we would see each other in person again. From now until some time in the future, we will see each other online but not in person. It feels wrong. I didn’t make the decision easily but I think it’s super important for business owners to do their bit to slow down the rate of progress of Coronavirus. If I had waited, then we almost certainly would have all got sick together and this would be devastating for our business, our healthcare system and the individual. Anyway I am sure I will adjust but I miss them all already. #flattenthecurve That was almost 10 weeks ago and I can still remember the feeling I had that night like it was yesterday. What I didn’t say then was how scared, possibly even terrified, I was for the business and, as an extension of that, for my family who were relying on me keeping the business afloat in what was probably going to be the hardest period we had ever been through. One of the biggest challenges as a CEO is that everyone is looking at you. If you’re good, they’re good but if you show just how worried you are then they get worried. So no matter how bad things are, the only thing you have to do is show up, put a smile on your face and push through. It’s sometimes not as easy as it sounds. Ten weeks in and I am happy to report that we are doing better than we ever thought possible. We pivoted in a pretty major way in early March into building bots and AI solutions for companies, organisations and governments who were inundated by people wanting to talk to them.
We had already been doing a lot of work in that space but we doubled down on it, hiring more sales staff and quickly building up a reputation for quick, high quality work. So it’s good, for now. I think there will always be a voice in my head telling me that disaster could be just around the corner. That the good times might be temporary. For now, I’m just grateful that our team culture is as good as it’s ever been. We’ve adapted to going 100% digital so well that we will never go back to how it was. Instead we’ll take the best of both worlds and come up with new and better ways to collaborate. Today I am grateful to be in business and to be healthy. I am one of the lucky ones.
