Thank you to Leith Facilities for sponsoring the Fish Philosopher Award and showing their commitment to making every moment matter. You can find out more about them on their website.
Explore their website
Our annual leadership awards are a celebration of the people who truly make every moment and lead Consensus with compassion, care and innovation. This year, one of those people was Jo winner of the Fish Philosopher award which recognised a colleague who fully embraced the principles of the Fish Philosophy: Be there, play, make their day and choose your attitude.
One of their nominations said, “Jo has embraced the FISH philosophy from the beginning and has showcased this new approach with her new team which has helped with team building and integrating our new colleagues into the new service and their new company.”
The Princess of Positivity, Jo has been with us for almost four years now, after years in sales this was only her second role in social care but she fell in love with the values of the organisation, the ability to impact peoples lives and the people she got to work alongside. After joining us a team leader and moving onto deputy manager, she called her Area Director and asked for a new challenge – resulting in her launching and opening one of our brand new service, The Woodlands, doing everything from building the team to building the furniture.
Jo said one piece of advice that really stuck with her when she started this new chapter was during a conversation with our CEO Paula, she was told that building the right team is the most important thing, and by giving them the right foundation you can build something amazing together. When we asked the deputy manager of the Woodlands, Helen to describe Jo she said, “Honest, Supportive and so funny. She makes me belly laugh even when I don’t want to.”
It’s undeniable that Jo is the living embodiment of the Fish Philosophy so how does she embrace and excel at it’s principles?
Be There
“I keep an open door policy, I will never, ever be too busy for anyone who lives here or works here whether they have a problem with work or in their personal life. Another rule of mine is I don’t tell off, I talk – if there’s an issue, I’ll never be rude, mean or angry I’ll just talk about why this happened and this means people can feel safer coming to me when they need me.”
Play
“Honestly by giving yourself permission to be silly, to be a goofball. By realising that yes, we have important jobs but we spent a lot of time here so we should be able to enjoy the time we spent here. A few months back, one of the people we support really wanted to do karaoke so I got a machine and projector but everyone was super shy and didn’t want to be the first one so I just jumped right in and started belting out an Engelbert Humperdink song and everyone felt so much more comfortable after that.”
Make Their Day
“I want to make my team have a good day every day – I always make sure to compliment, recognise and value their achievements no matter how small or routine they might be and they’ve said how they appreciate it and feel seen because of it.
It’s also about making sure each person is reflected and respected, I had some of the team ask if we can do a Dawat, or a celebratory meal for Eid and I didn’t know much about it so I said yes, I’ll take you shopping and you can tell me all about it. It was absolutely brilliant, I got to experience a part of their lives and they got to be themselves.”
Choose Your Attitude
“Everyone has off days, but whenever I arrive at work I get a huge smile and a good morning from the people that we support and my team and that immediately makes me happy – I take that happy greeting with me throughout the day and hold on to every lovely thing someone says to me to make sure I’m keeping the energy high and hopefully that helps everyone else have a great attitude too!”
Thank you to Leith Facilities for sponsoring the Fish Philosopher Award and showing their commitment to making every moment matter. You can find out more about them on their website.
Explore their website
