You’ve heard the horror stories of employees with terrible bosses, you’ve spent hours hoping you weren’t that boss and not knowing how to tell if you did something wrong. The truth is, it’s a lot more effective to focus on what you can do to make your employee’s lives better. So to help you do that, we created the Employee Diaries.

What They Are:

These are stories from Grow Disrupt employees, highlighting the things that Stephanie has done that made their lives easier as employees and helped them find ownership in their roles within the company.

This Week: Susannah Scheller, “How My Boss Transformed Me As An Employee.”

Everyone wants those “rockstar employees” who get stuff done in efficient ways without needing a ton of support. The kinds of people who understand that the company works together as a whole to support everyone and that their part has to run as smoothly as possible to promote business growth.

But often, it’s hard to find those employees. And it’s still harder to create them. So let me tell you how Stephanie took a self-absorbed 17 year old and turned her into the longest standing team member at Grow Disrupt and technology director for all Grow Disrupt events. (hint: that self-absorbed 17 year old was me!)

Back in 2018, Stephanie needed someone to run tech at the Grow Retreat.

At the time, I’d been working social media for the company but hadn’t done much else in the company. Her need for a tech-y came on the heels of me spending a semester immersed in an audio and visual technology class, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to keep the tech budget under control while also getting someone who knew what they were doing.

Little did she know that hiring me to run tech for the Grow Retreat would lead to several complete transformations in my life.

To help you understand why, I’ll have to give you a little insight into the world of running event tech.

Running An Event:

Running tech for an event is a very front and back-loaded job. There’s hours of set up and often hours of tear-down, and during the event your job is primarily to monitor the equipment and ensure music levels fade up properly and mics get muted when they aren’t in use. All in all, it’s a fairly laid-back job during the actual event (unless something goes wrong, in which case you’re scrambling to fix it during the event. Which happens!).

Which means that most tech people at events like the Grow Retreat (concerts are a different beast) actually get to listen to a decent amount of the content.

Back to the story…

When Stephanie first hired me for the Grow Retreat, I didn’t even know what revenue was. I’d never thought I’d need to pay attention to how companies worked or the way that people organized finances because, for some reason, I believed I’d never have to deal with that.

But the longer I worked the Grow Retreat, the more of the wisdom and incredible insight I soaked in from the speakers. Even the little moments that I caught between running around to fix tech issues made huge impacts on my life.

Ultimately? Spending so many years learning indirectly from the Grow Retreat speakers brought me to a new level of understanding regarding the company. Listening to people like Jeff Hoffman talk about how Rockstar employees make companies grow made ME want to be a rockstar employee.

Whether Stephanie realized it or not, having me work the Grow Retreat is a major part of why I’ve become the employee I am today.

So how does this apply to you? Simple:

If you want your team members to go from “Okay” to “Stellar”, start investing in their personal and professional growth. Find ways to bring them to phenomenal events where they will pick up on the positive attitudes and insight of incredible individuals, and eventually they will develop a taste for greatness that will propel your company forward.

About the Author:

Susannah Scheller is the Technology Director and Engagement Curator for Grow Disrupt, and was the first permanent hire made by Stephanie! She has spent countless hours studying the world of business under Stephanie, and has over 5 years of experience in content creation and Technology Execution. Having recently completed her Bachelor of Music, she has begun devoting her focus to the creation of content that helps to support small business owners’ company growth the world over.