Today I’m celebrating 9 years with Grapevine. My 9th year started with the huge recognition we received at the Dorset Business Awards last Autumn and we rode the wave of that through into 2024. The 2nd half of the year has presented the question “what happens when you’ve finished telling everyone that your business is employee owned?”
The answer is, you get on with being employee owned.
It seems a bit cliche to refer to a ‘honeymoon period’ in any scenario, there is some truth to the analogy though in the change that you experience as time goes on. A break from reality eventually ends when you recognise your new norm.
For me, learning and understanding the nuances of employee ownership has been a bigger part of my working day, every day, than I’d perhaps expected a year ago. I was telling people “this makes things interesting again” when we made our public EO announcement in summer 2023 and I’ve more than got what I wished for with that statement.
Another line that’s often repeated in the EO community is “there is no rule book”. What does that look like in practice? – Taking a best guess at how to approach something and being fully prepared to have to revise your strategy, a year, month, week, perhaps even a day later.
I’m extremely grateful for the support that we, and I personally, have received from friends made within other EO businesses in this past year. In addition to this, there’s the You Are The Media family who continue to be the best cheerleading squad.
Last but not least, a thank you to my colleagues, particularly for the times you’ve taken a chance on ideas I wasn’t fully confident would work myself (and especially for the times they didn’t!).
I’m into my 10th rotation with this business now and the earlier years are beginning to blur. I feel like this past one will stand out for a long time though.
Liam Toms 