Why a formula for life can help you succeed in business

I met Kate Keenan at a Federation of Small Business networking breakfast (which I can highly recommend – but that‘s another story). I was struck by her confidence and positive attitude – especially when she told me that she had just started up a brand new business – so I asked her to tell me all about it and what her new company can offer other small businesses and Risk Collective members.

What is Formulas4Life?

Formulas4Life provides mentoring and coaching for independent businesses. It offers professional life coaching and support for entrepreneurs.

For me, this is a new beginning, building on my previous knowledge and experience. For over 25 years I worked as an occupational psychologist, mainly carrying out staff surveys and delivering training programmes. During the course of this work, I learned that while people have aspirations about what they want to achieve and recognize problems they need to resolve, it is often not knowing where to begin that often causes them the most difficulties. Because they do not have a structure – or formula – to kick start them into action, they can end up just living with their problems or become utterly frustrated because they are unable to see any way of achieving their aims.

My work led me to realize that by and large, there is always some useful formula lurking around somewhere which can be applied to start the problem-solving process. It is just a matter of finding it and making it work – hence Formulas4Life.

How does it fit in with Keenan Research Limited?

Keenan Research Limited is my previous (now defunct) company and it did what it said on the tin – research. In my role as professional psychologist, I worked mainly within corporate companies and my principal activities focused on research and development, sometimes designing and analysing questionnaires, but, more often than not, conducting in-depth qualitative research projects. For example exploring staff attitudes towards stress through focus groups, or investigating individual training needs resulting in the design and delivery of relevant and enjoyable training programmes.

Who can benefit from your services? And how?

My mentoring service is mainly designed for independent businesses (I hate the term SME – surely, nobody really wants to be a small business?). I have built my business on the proposition that if the business owner or partners do not flourish, then neither does the business.

I tend to work mainly with business owners and partners, helping them develop skills to promote their business and optimize its performance. I also work with them to help them realize their personal potential, as well as playing a small part in helping them make their dreams come true. And, when business life become fraught, I also provide assistance in helping people manage their stress better and get things into perspective.

My new website is about to be launched in the very near future. You can find it at: www.formulas4life.com. A holding page is up and running, but I am hoping that we shall be ‘all singing and dancing’ by the beginning of December.

Can you give us examples of people you have helped and how?

Most people see the usefulness of having a business mentor or coach when they want to move on or do something different and are not sure where to start or what the process might entail. So an underpinning theme with several of my clients has been that of experiencing and managing change and ensuring that these transitions produce the desired results.

• Sally wanted to grow her business and needed extra staff to achieve this. So we worked on a mini-selection procedure, by defining the job and the type of person she was looking for. Then we did some work on how to go about carrying out interviews and finally made an appointment.

• Philip had developed a viable training course, which he was delivering quite successfully, but he wanted to take his training to more people. So we worked on transforming the training course into a robust learning product which could be delivered in a standard way by other people and so enable the training message to reach many more people and businesses.

Making changes can be quite daunting for a lot of people and having a neutral sounding board to test and check out their ideas can be very reassuring and supportive. They also often require some technical advice on how to go about managing their businesses, in terms of developing people skills and managing themselves better.

What inspired you to set up your own business?

I suppose the honest answer is that I am not a very easy person to manage – I have always been a bit of a maverick and like to things my way. But being your own boss does offer a huge range of challenges that you don’t often get in a large organisation and you have an opportunity to make a real difference.

What is the best thing about working for yourself? And the worst?

One of the best things about working for myself has been the opportunity to stretch myself in terms of knowledge and skills, as well as being able to take part in some of the more interesting and cutting edge activities.

The worst thing is working for me – as a boss I am very demanding. I like things to be done to highest standard possible, so nothing is ever quite good enough. However, I am learning to adopt a ‘good enough’ strategy – and my working life is become a little less demanding, though just a productive.

Do you just deal with stress in the workplace, or do you cover any other issues?

I got into researching into stress when we were asked to devise an ‘Alcohol and Drugs’ Policy and accompanying training package for a major transport organization where safety-critical issues were a priority. I realized during my research and training that people often tended to drink to much in an effort to reduce the stresses and worries of life – and indeed, every culture has its own substances for doing just this, it is just that in western societies, the chosen substance is alcohol. So stress is part and part of the human condition – it is not a medical condition – and life has always been difficult.

Stress is actually our basic reaction to threat. When we are threatened we either take ‘flight’ from the situation or, if we cannot escape, take a stand and ‘fight’. In a work situation, neither of these options is usually possible. Specifically in a work environment, stress is caused when people have very high work demands and the amount of control they have over their actions is very low. This typically leaves people feeling trapped, like hamsters running purposelessly on a treadmill, and often feeling helpless and despondent about life in general.

Why is tackling stress a good idea? Isn’t it just a normal symptom of the workplace?

We need to distinguish between stress and pressure. The Health and Safety Executive’s defines stress as ‘the natural reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them’.

Pressure is the positive motivation which gets us to produce good work and ensure that things are done on time, while stress is the natural reaction when this pressure becomes excessive. But stress is also a very personal reaction, because what might be excessive for me might be a piece of cake for you. Because of this, everybody can be prone to stress if they find themselves in a situation that is wrong for them, doing things that are a wrong match for their aptitudes.

Stress is also related to issue of mental health in the workplace. Just because it is not a medical condition does not mean that there are no health consequences. If stress is not recognised and tackled, people can end up suffering from serious anxiety and/or depression, both acknowledged mental health conditions which are detrimental to personal wellbeing and in the business world, productivity.
So no, this is not a normal symptom of the workplace – and I would argue that being at work should not make people ill.

How can managing stress make an individual/ company more effective?

Stress is an enormous time-waster. It prevents people from concentrating and getting on with their work. It can also be the cause of long-term absence, which no small business can afford. Being stressed can reduce morale and lower motivation, so the willingness to go the extra mile and put in that extra effort no longer figures in the company culture.

Poor management is usually the root cause for most people feeling stressed. So, in principle, managing stress effectively is relatively easy – all you have to do is manage people decently and supportively, ensuring they get the training and back-p they need to do a good job.

How to do this? Well that’s another interview topic, I would suggest.

How do you relax?

I like to cook, particularly using local produce and healthy foods, because I enjoy eating the results. I play the piano because it engages my whole attention, leaving no mental space for ruminating about things that get in the way of moving on. And I like to socialize, because meeting people is fun and research shows that the better your relationships, the happier you are likely to be and the more positive your psychological well-being.

Contact

Kate Keenan, Formulas4 Life, Tel: 01225 336569
Current email: kmkeenan@keenan-research.com
Current website: www.keenan-research.com

Tags: Inspirational Women, Self improvement & wellbeing, Women in business