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Jeanette Stevens | Episode 953
From a young age Jeanette Stevens’ infectious positivity and enthusiasm has been at the heart of both her career and personal life. Throw in Jeanette’s fascination with organisation and passion for all things creative, it’s no surprise her career path and hobbies have been varied! From Master baker & cake decorator to aerobics instructor & accountant, Jeanette’s heart settled in the fabulous world of bridal, as Managing Director of global business selling designer wedding dresses to bridal shops. Sometimes the best things in life are the unexpected. When 2021 brought intense challenges navigating a business through covid lockdowns, Jeanette received a surprise birthday gift from her husband of a potters wheel, where she discovered incredible calm & stress release in a hobby that had been on her bucket list since a child. Six lessons later and hours of Youtube binge watching and she is totally addicted and passionate about Clay. In two short years she has built a home studio and documented her journey on Instagram and You Tube, having the best time ever in her happy place.
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How would you define a system?
To me, when I am looking at a system I’ve got a starting point of something that is not working very efficiently. Or something that is…things keep falling over or there’s errors so you don’t fix something if it’s not broken to start off with so a system to me is your starting off with something that needs refining. And I’d be looking at strengths, weaknesses, and how can you have a streamlined process that is as simple as possible, that usually if you’ve got multiple departments, the system accommodates all of those departments. A system is usually part of a work flow of multiple areas.
Is the question always, Could this be better?
If you have the time for that, yes. But most of the time when you are in a business you are so head down and trying to sort things out you don’t have the time for that. What I have usually found is that I’ve got an area that could be done better but there are certain things that are causing me concern that we need to rectify because it could be slicker, it could be better. Or there could actually be benefits if we changed the system. I don’t change it for the sake of changing it, there has to be a benefit. What are you trying to achieve by that system?
How much more involvement do you get from other people around you?
Massively. So my approach, and I am not saying this is the right approach, but this is the way that I have always done things, to me the strength of any business or any organization is not one person leading it, it is the team within and every single member of that team has strengths. And they have knowledge of their roles and what they are doing so I would always get the input from as many people as possible, usually team leaders, if there is a large group of people, that would be a spokesperson and find out the whole process and get a few voices together, it doesn’t mean you are going to take on board everything they say but you are trying to find out what are the problems you are experiencing? What do you want to get from this? What are you not getting at the moment that you would like to get? And you gather that altogether from everybody and then, for me, it becomes a clear path.
You have a system for making. What kind of things did you do to be efficient in the studio?
Well I started off building my own home studio and it started off initially with the placement of the equipment and the work flow to make sure in the space that I’ve got available to me was practical. Everything has got multi uses. So depending on what stage of the process I am doing I’ve got the work surfaces, I’ve got the tools, I’ve got things to hand and I’ve slowly built various places where I can hang my tools within arms reach rather than all be stored in boxes. So first of all layout is part of my process, that I’ve got everything laid out very organized and I tidy away after every session, very clean. It’s organized, efficient, and everything has its place.
When you are not in the studio or in the store, what do you do for fun?
In my spare time when I am not doing this I will spend it with family because they mean the world to me, especially my two new granddaughters. One has just turned three and the other is seven weeks old. So family time is special to me. Making memories and having time with family.
Book
Louis on the Loose by Louis Pryce
Contact
Instagram: @farforestceramics