To some, failure or what it means to fail will always have a negative connotation, but for Liza Zhang she believes feeling empowered to fail fast is the secret to success.
Liza is the Director of Chat Well Allied Health, and she joined Jake Spain on the ThirtyNiners podcast to discuss how her philosophy on empowerment is redefining the success of her staff and her patients.
Chat Well Allied Health is a speech pathology driven business that empowers children to not only communicate with others but provides their families with the confidence and skills to assist them on their journey.
“The point of difference that we have is empowering our parents. That’s really moving away from the medical model and looking into a more functional family centred model of speech pathology and therapy.
“Empowerment is one of our key values and that not only goes from myself as the Director but to the staff, so it’s really important to empower the staff because they then feel empowered to empower our Chat Well families”.
Feeling empowered can be a superpower in the modern workplace as it encourages employees to be unafraid to take risks and challenge the traditional methodologies of an industry. For Liza encouraging her staff to fail fast and then watch them learn and grow is the ultimate feeling of empowerment as a business owner.
”With every new person that I onboard, I give them an hour for a one-to-one chat, and the number one thing I tell them is, I want you to fail fast. Because I believe the more you fail, the more you learn and the quicker you learn.
“By breaking down that barrier first and foremost we let staff have free rein over their work, and they feel empowered. Then for me I feel empowered every time they succeed. I think there’s nothing more amazing than seeing your team thrive, seeing your team do new things that they haven’t done or never thought they could because of you — because you trusted them to take risks and learn from their mistakes”.
Liza is distinctly comfortable being uncomfortable if she is in an empowering environment, this clear life philosophy inevitably led to her intrigue in joining the ThirtyNiners.
“I think the ThirtyNiners are an amazing group of people who are so invested not only in their own businesses, but in each other and together as a collective.
“I was really intrigued because I think it goes back to the notion of empowerment again. We want to empower future leaders and we want to show future leaders in South Australia that just because we’re a smaller state doesn’t mean that it holds us back in any way.
“Actually, in fact, it gives us more scope to be able to grow and then show what South Australia has to offer to the world”.
To listen to the full conversation with Liza Zhang on the power of empowering yourself and others listen to the ThirtyNiners Podcast by the South Australian Business Chamber, search for it wherever you hear your podcasts.
