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"Clients do not come first.

Employees come first.

If you take care of your employees

they will take care of the clients."

- ​Richard Branson 

Behind The Scenes

Last Updated July 2026

Have fun...

The Founder Improving Team Performance Through People-First Leadership

Kia ora

I'm a huge fan of comedy and laughter, but I'm dead serious about workplace environments and whether they are good for us.

This space is evolving to shed light on people-first leadership.

When I found out that only an estimated 30% of organisations across the world believe that culture is their defining edge; I knew that my own struggles with painful structure or office-politics could actually become my purpose. And...

I was part of a magical team turnaround !

Like any good work story, to get here today, mine had a beginning, a weird middle (during COVID) and I'm still working on the ending 😏

I needed tools quickly to work out what was happening in a team without knowing them, their work or the business.

 

I didn't have a degree, a mentor, a pathway. I had experience, a passion for people, belief that people have to come first and an instruction...

 

'See what you can do'.

'What's that mean?'

'Just do something'.

'Like what?'

'Like. You'll work it out'.

 

In a new team, the top two had resigned within weeks of each other. Can you imagine the impact? I had no idea if I wanted to stay, what was I missing? How could the current management team allow that to happen?  I had fallen for the people, the way they rallied and got the work done.

 

A seriously committed group of women who just wanted to have a good day at work. I wanted to hear from everyone.

 

I gathered what I could, put myself out there and began a journey to my best workdays ever, with team members I'll always be grateful for. 

My ideas and methods were different. But I was given grace and the results were extraordinary.

 

A team that needed to be heard. Were critical to business functionality. Had ideas, opinions, who knew their work inside and out. A workload unmeasured and not knowing how good they were actually doing (the business was booming). Operationally, it was impressive how they were coping. But, there was dysfunction.

Around six months later, a team united. Clear values, a shared vision and energy pointing in the right direction. We got ahead of the business and started to be prepared and proactive. It was ridiculous how much we achieved in all the best ways 🥳

 

People were recommending family and friends. Salespeople and contractors emailing to ask if we had vacancies. 

 

At our first review meetings with our senior, every single team member said they had never experienced a team vibe like it. The respect, the co-operation and the acceptance of people as individuals was inspiring.

Not to mention the productivity gains, the resilience to change, the ability to pivot quickly, the creativity, increased engagement and solutions. 

 

The turnaround kings. In this case, queens.

Change happened quickly. It wasn't perfect. I definitely wasn't perfect and made mistakes. But it was evidence in my mind -  YES! absolutely people-first.

 

Simple concepts that seemed outside-the-box made a real difference. To us, as people. 

 

I have refined and replicated the system and offer it as:

The Olive Tree Method™  

 

The Olive Tree Method, is the framework to reveal the conditions around your team and provide real data on what can be changed to improve culture, understanding and a pathway forward to better workdays, more clarity and help with the vision that can power you and your team forward, together.

 

It will continue to evolve but right now its all here, ready to be picked up, adjusted to your environment and implemented. Step by step. 

 

It is practitioner-built, not academic, although the data and research back up the success that each of the frameworks tools reveals for your team. This came from inside a real team, under real pressure and it worked. 

 

I'm so excited to offer this to any leader, owner, CEO, founder, that wants to find out what's happening for each team member in your environment to build a real picture of what needs work.

When we know that there are people around us, that care, and are interested in helping us work as seamlessly as possible, with the right tools, information and colleagues that support us; we are happy, engaged and the business benefits in loyalty, performance, resilience and creative solutions to problems, you might not even know exist.

​​

Jump to the podcast to start hearing me talk (talk talk) about how to bring your workplace to life. It's designed to accompany The Olive Tree Method, by supporting leaders into observing and strengthening behaviours, that could be pulling people all down. People-first leadership, it is a proven way to steward people and have epic business success.

I'm so passionate about this topic. About people connecting and living well in the place they work 9, 10, 12 hours a day. People spending hours in a place that drains them, that's not inevitable. It's fixable.

It's so important as a leader to frame your responsibility well, and focus in a way that brings out the best in who you look after.

 

You can't get there on your own. People-first allows everyone to evolve and rise in their own ways.

 

You learn together how to look after yourselves and each other in a way that feels truly magical and the way it should be.

Start with the Leadership Self-Assessment and see what's possible.

Or read more about the method, and whether it could be the solution for you.  For me, the leadership techniques are an outstanding way to grow, however you can't fix, what you don't know is broken.

 

The foundation and clarity is found in knowing what's going on around, and for your team.

To your best workday ever. Ciao.

Josey

Team Condition Strategist | Lead Cheerleader 
The Living Workplace Podcast Improving Employee Engagement
The Olive Tree Method™ 
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