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When it gets to the point where you stop enjoying your work, is it time to pack up and start again? A small business owner shares the innovative strategy he used in a similar situation.
Everyone has a take on the secret to finding happiness in your job, and Jacob Ohlson of Powernet IT Solutions and Cryo believes it involves shaking up your management.
Love is all you need
“The key to success is doing what you love doing,” Mr Ohlson said on REB's sister publication’s My Business Podcast.
“You can’t work crazy hours a day and just do stuff all the time and love doing it if you don’t have a passion.
“I was just very lucky, in that perspective, to find something that I have a passion [for], and I stuck with it.”
Mr Ohlson said businesses have a happiness cycle, where you go back and forth between loving and not loving your job.
“I have a real true belief you’ve got to love what you do and you’ve got to go to work and enjoy it,” he said.
“I’ve done radical changes where I’ve got to a point where I come to work and I don’t like it any more. I’ve had to change management because I just haven’t been happy with who I’ve been with and working with.”
Do you need to run the business when you own the business?
Mr Ohlson said that just because he is the founder, it doesn’t mean he has to do everything.
“I focus in the part of the business that I just love, and that’s building the business,” he said.
Instead of the usual approach of leading a business from the top, Mr Ohlson positioned himself as a worker within the business in the hands-on role he prefers, and holds a seat on the board to maintain an overall view of the company.
“I’ve got seven divisional managers, I’ve got a general manager, I’ve got another director. I actually report to one of the divisional managers in the division that helps build the business and I love it. They report to GM and the GM reports to the board, which is where I’m on.
“I sit in this way that I love doing what I do. I don’t like doing the HR stuff anymore. I don’t like dealing with managing people.”
Mr Ohlson believes that if business owners can get to the point where they can just do what they love doing, everything will fall into place.
“They’re … able to build relations and do the right thing, like grow it. That’s where I find my passion,” he said
“You’ve got to find systems and processes in place. It’s really important to do that. Then it just gets stronger.”
Positivity for one, positivity for all
Mr Ohlson’s approach to success and happiness is paying off, as the staff feedback he has received has been mainly positive.
“Every single job we do, we get their feedback on and we’re measuring every single one of those every week, and just sitting back and realising we’re getting all these improving figures.
“They’re all ... above what our expectations are or what our goals have been set for, and that’s just only been the last 12 months, but we’ve implemented all these new processes and systems.
“Happiness is as important as health.”
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