The People Powered Business Podcast

Hello and welcome to Episode 344 of The People Powered Business Podcast.If you walked away from your business tomorrow for a whole month, with no phone, no email and no checking in, what would you come back to? For a lot of business owners with a solid team, the honest answer is "a mess", or "I'd never even try". You've hired good people, you've got roles and an org chart, and yet the business still leans on you for almost everything.Here's the thing: hiring a team doesn't automatically give you freedom from your business. Freedom is one of my own values, and it's what I want for every business owner I work with. But so often we build teams and structures that still depend on us completely. Most of us have had the week-long break where we work flat out beforehand to get ready, the team hangs on until we're back, and we return to a pile of questions, decisions and unfinished work. The business didn't run without us that week. It just waited. That's why a month is the real test. It's long enough that client problems, resignations and big proposals can't sit there until you get back.In this episode I walk you through a simple test you can run today, without booking anything. Picture your first week away and write down who would contact you, what about, and why you'd need to be involved. Then add everything that would sit in the "wait till you're back" pile. I guarantee the list will be longer than you expect, and that's okay. This isn't about judging yourself.Then I show you how to read that list. Look for patterns rather than individual tasks, and you'll usually find three:things only you can decide, because the structure doesn't let anyone else decide themthings your team could do but don't, because they know you'll swoop inthings you can't put anyone's name next to, because there's a genuine skills gap on your teamOnly some of that is a delegation issue. Handing over more tasks won't fix a structure problem, a leadership habit or a team gap, and that's where the real work starts.I'd love to hear what comes up for you when you run this. Is it the length of the list, a gap you hadn't noticed, or how many decisions still land on your desk? Email me and let me know, and tell me where you'll go for that first proper break.In this episode we cover:Why a week off doesn't tell you whether your business can run without you, and why a month doesA simple test to map who would contact you, what about, and what would be waiting when you got backHow to spot the three patterns behind being the bottleneck: structure, leadership habits and team skills gapsWhy delegating more tasks won't fix most of what's on your listWhat to fix first, before you run the test again over a month and book the break Links & Resources:💬 DM Kristy-Lee on Instagram @kristy.lee.billettConnect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristyleebillett/Email me at [email protected] a 15-minute clarity call: https://calendly.com/kristyleebillett/chat What this episode coversMany small business owners with a team of 10 to 20 people still can't take a proper break without calls, emails and a backlog waiting for them. This episode gives business owners a practical test to find out how far they are from being able to step away for a month, and how to work out what's really keeping the business dependent on them.Key insight from this episodeA business that gets through a week without its owner hasn't proven it can run without them. It has usually just waited. Most of what keeps an owner tied to the business isn't a delegation problem. It comes from unclear decision-making structure, leadership habits like stepping in when things go wrong, and genuine skills gaps on the team. What you'll take awayA simple test to see which people and decisions would still come to you during a breakHow to separate the tasks you can fully delegate from the issues delegation won't fixHow to find structural gaps where no one else has the authority to make a decisionHow to recognise the leadership habits that teach your team to wait for youHow to spot skills gaps by checking which responsibilities you can't put anyone's name next to

Hello and welcome to Episode 343 of The People Powered Business Podcast.Have you ever sat in a team meeting, watched everyone go round in circles on the same problem, and thought, why can't they just see it the way I do? You can jump from the numbers to the client to the team to the tech in the space of an hour without blinking. Your team often can't, and that's one more reason so much ends up back on your desk.I see this all the time with the business owners I work with. Most of you are wired to switch between different ways of thinking. It's second nature. But we can't expect our team to think like us, because they're not wired the same way. So that's why I've invited Dr Ken Hudson on to chat about his new book, Switch Thinking.Ken spent around 15 years in marketing with large companies, including as head of marketing at American Express in Australia, completed his doctorate in organisational creativity, and has spent the last 20 years helping business owners and leaders solve problems and think differently.Ken shares where the idea came from (watching a colleague move effortlessly between Mandarin and English at a conference in Singapore) and why he believes switching your thinking is a skill you can learn and teach, not a personality trait. We talk about why the word "switch" gets a much better reaction from a team than the word "change", and why a switch doesn't have to be permanent. Ken explains his box mode and ball mode approach. Box mode is structure, goals and decisions. Ball mode is play and experimenting with ideas. Neither one is better than the other, and the real value comes from moving between the two. We also get into AI, including how Ken has trained ChatGPT to respond in both modes so it adds to his thinking rather than replacing it.Here's the part that surprised me most: giving people less time often gets you better ideas. When there are only two minutes on the clock, there's no room for the voice asking "what if I'm wrong?" or "what if I look silly?", so people stop filtering and start creating.If you're the one in your business who always seems to find a way through, this conversation gives you simple language and tools to help your team do more of that thinking for themselves.In this episode we cover:• Why switching between ways of thinking is a skill your team can learn, and how one word can get it started• Why "switch" lands better than "change" with a team, and why two minutes is the sweet spot for thinking differently• Box mode and ball mode, and how Ken moved a team from 30 ideas to three they could test in 30 days• How to use AI to extend your own thinking instead of handing it over• A simple pause, switch and play approach for when a situation or conversation isn't going the way you expectedYou can connect with Ken via: https://drkenhudson.comOr grab your copy of the book: https://drkenhudson.com/books-videos/switch-thinking-the-book/Links & Resources:💬 DM Kristy-Lee on Instagram @kristy.lee.billettConnect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristyleebillett/Email me at [email protected] a 15-minute clarity call: https://calendly.com/kristyleebillett/chatWhat this episode coversBusiness owners tend to move between different ways of thinking without noticing, but their teams often don't, which leaves problems and decisions sitting with the owner. Dr Ken Hudson, author of Switch Thinking, explains why switching your thinking is a learnable skill and shares practical tools leaders can use themselves and teach to their teams. Listeners will come away understanding the difference between box mode and ball mode, why two-minute thinking bursts work, and how to use AI to add to human thinking rather than replace it.Key insight from this episodeThe biggest barrier to fresh thinking is usually a person's own internal filter: the worry about being wrong, making a mistake or looking silly. Short two-minute bursts leave no time for that filter to kick in, which is why tight time limits often produce better ideas than hour-long brainstorming sessions. Switching back to structured "box mode" then turns those ideas into clear priorities and decisions.What you'll take away• Use the word "switch" with your team to invite a different perspective without the resistance the word "change" tends to bring• Run a two-minute thinking burst in a meeting to get past overthinking and generate new ideas quickly• Recognise whether a situation calls for box mode (structure and decisions) or ball mode (play and ideas), and move between them deliberately• Take a long list of ideas and narrow it to a few worth testing in the next 30 days• Prompt AI tools to respond in both modes while keeping control of the thinking and the final call

Hello and welcome to Episode 342 of The People Powered Business Podcast.Someone on your team hands you a piece of work. It's about 80% right. You know it'll take you ten minutes to fix and thirty to explain, so you fix it yourself and move on. If that's happened to you more than once, you're not alone, and it's exactly why delegation hasn't fixed the bottleneck.I've taught delegation for years, and I've run a business for twenty years, so I've had to get good at it myself. I'm not here to tell you delegation doesn't matter. But if delegating better was the whole answer, you wouldn't still be the bottleneck. So this week I want to look at why smart, capable business owners keep ending up back in that spot, even after they've genuinely tried to hand things off.I get into why it actually is faster to do it yourself, at least the first few times, and why that instinct isn't wrong. I talk about what your team learns every time you swoop in and finish the last 20% for them, and why "leave it with me" quietly trains people to bring you every problem instead of a solution. The most useful shift I share is a single question that starts turning that around. And I explain why doing more delegating, on its own, doesn't fix the bottleneck at all.In this episode we cover:Why it's genuinely faster to do it yourself right now, and what that's costing you laterWhat your team actually learns when you finish off unfinished workWhy "leave it with me" builds the exact bottleneck you're trying to escapeA simple reframe to start training your team to bring solutions, not problemsWhy SOPs and handover notes stop working and what's really going on underneathLinks & Resources:💬 DM Kristy-Lee on Instagram @kristy.lee.billettConnect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristyleebillett/Email me at [email protected] a 15-minute clarity call: https://calendly.com/kristyleebillett/chatWhat this episode covers This episode breaks down why business owners who have already tried to delegate still end up as the bottleneck in their own business. It looks at the moment work comes back unfinished, the habits that quietly retrain a team to do less rather than more, and why adding more delegation tools doesn't fix the underlying problem.Key insight from this episode The bottleneck isn't created by a lack of delegation. It's created by what happens when delegated work comes back incomplete or a problem lands back on the business owner's desk. Fixing it quietly, without addressing why it came back, teaches the team that the current standard is good enough.What you'll take awayUnderstand why doing tasks yourself feels faster and what it's actually costing your business over timeRecognise the signal you send your team every time you finish off unfinished workReplace "leave it with me" with a question that shifts problem-solving back to your teamIdentify why SOPs and handover processes lose their effectiveness over timeStart noticing the specific moments that are creating your bottleneck, not just the tasks you haven't delegated

Hello and welcome to Episode 341 of The People Powered Business Podcast.If you employ health professionals under the Health Professionals and Support Services Award, whether that's physios, OTs, psychologists or anyone else on that award's long list, you are only weeks away from the biggest change this award has seen in over twenty years. If you have been putting off looking at it, hoping it might quietly sort itself out, this episode is your sign to stop.I'm recording this the same week the Fair Work Commission handed down its final confirmation of the new rates, so this has genuinely been years in the making and it is now locked in for the 1st of October 2026. This is part of the Commission's gender undervaluation review, which looked at a handful of modern awards covering historically female dominated professions and found this one had been undervalued for years compared with equivalent male dominated industries. The fix is a complete overhaul of how health professionals get classified, moving away from the old system, which leaned heavily on time served and some pretty vague guidance, to a structure built on actual qualifications under the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) and years of experience in the profession itself.This is not a pay rate tweak. Every single health professional you employ, even if you already pay above award and even if you only have three staff members, needs to be mapped against this new structure before the deadline. I walk you through the five steps to do that properly in this episode: build your staff list, confirm everyone's qualification and AQF level, calculate their actual years of experience in the profession (not years with your business), map each person to their correct new classification, and have the conversation with your team before the change lands, not after. I'll also flag the one thing that catches almost everyone out. Plenty of people currently sitting at level two are about to become a level one under the new structure, through no fault or change of their own, and there are protections in place so nobody's pay can go backwards.If you would rather have this handled properly rather than figuring it out alone, there are three ways I can help. 1) I'm running a live implementation workshop on the 24th of September to walk you through all five steps hands on. Register here: www.peoplepoweredbusiness.com.au/hpssworkshop2) You can join our People Powered HR community for ongoing access to the reclassification tool and support, all of the details are here: www.peoplepoweredbusiness.com.au/pphr 3) Or you can email me directly for one on one help if you want someone to just take it off your plate. Just email me at [email protected] In this episode we cover:Why the Fair Work Commission has completely rewritten the health professionals classification structure, and why nowThe five steps to reclassify every health professional in your business before 1 OctoberWhy years of experience in the profession, not years with your business, now drives classificationWhat happens to someone's pay if their new classification would otherwise mean a step downWhere to get support, from a hands-on implementation workshop to one on one helpLinks & Resources:💬 DM Kristy-Lee on Instagram @kristy.lee.billettConnect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristyleebillett/Email me at [email protected] a 15-minute clarity call: https://calendly.com/kristyleebillett/chatWhat this episode covers This episode breaks down the new classification structure for health professionals under the Health Professionals and Support Services Award, effective 1 October 2026. It explains why the Fair Work Commission made the change, what it means for employers of physios, occupational therapists, psychologists and other allied health professionals, and the practical steps required to reclassify a team correctly before the deadline.Key insight from this episode Under the new classification structure, many employees currently sitting at level two will move to level one, not because their role, performance or pay has changed, but because the qualification and experience based system, built on the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF), replaces years of service as the primary classification factor. Existing pay cannot be reduced as a result of reclassification, which makes clear communication with affected team members essential.What you'll take awayHow to confirm each health professional's AQF qualification level under the updated awardWhy years of experience in the profession, not years of service with the business, now determines classificationThe five step process for mapping a team to the new classification structure before 1 October 2026What protections apply if a reclassification would otherwise reduce an employee's payWhere to access further support, including a hands on implementation workshop and ongoing membership resources

Hello and welcome to Episode 340 of The People Powered Business Podcast.You know the conversation. It's been sitting on your list for weeks, maybe longer. You've rehearsed it in the shower, in the car, at 3am when you should be asleep, and every day you don't have it, you tell yourself tomorrow. If that's you right now, this episode was made for you.I keep coming back to this topic because it's the one thing I see stopping business owners more than anything else. Not a lack of skill, not a lack of care, just the simple fact that nobody ever taught us how to have a hard conversation with someone on our team. We learn how to run the business, sell the thing, manage the money, and then we're expected to just know how to tell someone their work isn't good enough, without any training at all.Today I'm talking with Jennifer Bicknell, an employment lawyer who's spent over a decade running her own firm and now spends most of her time teaching people how to have exactly this kind of conversation before it turns into something that needs a lawyer. She's identified the three real reasons people avoid these conversations, and she walks through a simple framework she calls the six Ws, something you can genuinely run through in about five minutes before you pick up the phone or walk into the room. My favourite part of this chat is her point about what you're actually teaching your team every time you let something slide. It changed how I think about the small stuff I let go.In this episode we cover:The three real reasons people avoid difficult conversations, and how to work out which one is driving youA simple five-minute framework for planning a conversation so you walk in with confidence instead of dreadWhy naming the outcome you want before you open your mouth changes the entire conversationWhat you're silently teaching your team every time you let something go unaddressedHow to reframe a hard conversation as an opportunity instead of something to surviveLinks & Resources:To connect with Jennifer:Website: https://jenniferbicknell.com.au/about/Newsletter: https://jenniferbicknell.com.au/jens-workplace-news-2-0/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-bicknell-lawyer-coach-speaker/💬 DM Kristy-Lee on Instagram @kristy.lee.billettConnect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristyleebillett/Email me at [email protected] a 15-minute clarity call: https://calendly.com/kristyleebillett/chatWhat this episode coversThis episode breaks down why business owners avoid difficult conversations with their team, and gives a practical, repeatable framework for having them well. Employment lawyer Jennifer Bicknell shares the three underlying reasons people stay silent on issues that need addressing, and a simple planning tool for approaching any hard conversation with clarity instead of anxiety. It's built for business owners who lead a team and want to deal with issues early, before they escalate into something more serious.Key insight from this episodeEvery time a leader lets a problem go unaddressed, they are teaching their team that the behaviour is acceptable. Silence is not neutral. It's a message, and the longer an issue goes unaddressed, the more disproportionate the eventual reaction tends to be, which damages trust more than raising the issue early ever would.What you'll take awayIdentify which of the three core reasons (not knowing what to say, wanting to be liked, or fear) is driving your own avoidance of a specific conversationUse a simple framework to plan a difficult conversation in under five minutesName the outcome you want before starting a conversation, so the discussion stays focusedRecognise the cost of letting small issues slide, and why early conversations are easier than delayed onesApproach team conversations as a tool for building trust and performance, rather than something to be feared