The years 2011 – 2012 was filled with abundance, excitement and growth at Chartered Wealth Solutions. We took a leap of faith and bought Chartered House in December 2011. John took on the project to renovate the building to create a warm, homely environment complete with parquet flooring. The house was a canvas just ready to be furnished and accesorised with all the WOW elements I learnt at Disney. All the personal little touches that is Chartered House today, such as the beautiful landscaped garden also suitable for meetings, the fresh scents permeating from various diffusers throughout the space, the daily cake and fresh flowers, contribute to create a happy and awesome environment in which to work. We finally moved into Chartered House on 16 March 2012.
My top strength from the Marcus Buckingham strengths finder personality assessment is learning and growing. Chartered Wealth Solutions now accommodated 60 staff (from a beginning of only 10 people) and my next personal goal was to read, learn and develop to ensure that our company grows but at the same time, keep delivering a consistently great service, a nurturing work environment and provide positive leadership.
I heard about Tony Shieh’s story during my Disney leadership experience and reading his book became my December holiday project. Tony shares his personal journey and details his career from concept phase, to establishing an online shoe shop and finally building a business employing over a thousand people. His secret to success? Taking time and effort to establish a positive, nurturing culture at Zappos that everyone can embrace and live freely.
The book inspired me to register for the Zappos Culture Camp in Las Vegas in 2014. Reading about successful companies is one thing, but to actually see it happen in person brings the message home with so much more clarity.
On returning home, we immediately implemented this new knowledge at Chartered House. We spent a day together as a team and everyone was tasked to list their top 5 values. We then painted our values on the Chartered House walls (we even made T-shirts with our core values) and these became part of our appraisal system which we call “navigating conversations.” In addition, our interviewing process for new staff became more focused, precise and on point. Now that we could clearly articulate our values as a company, it became easy for potential employees to decide if these were principles that they could embrace and work by.
Our Values at Chartered Wealth Solutions
- Inspire trust through excellence
- Contagious energy driven by passion
- Building life-long relationships through caring
- Challenge to think and live differently
- Anchored in humility.
Learning from Delivering Happiness
This book tells the story of Tony Hsieh and his company Zappos, detailing how long term thinking and following your passion first and foremost can lead to a successful business and a happy and fulfilled life. The central theme of the book is literally delivering happiness as a business, and by focusing on making the people around you happy, you can increase your own happiness. It’s about living a life of passion and purpose.