How we raise the bar at Treatwell

My name is Ana and I am the Head of Product Support at Treatwell, and the group’s DPO. I’ve been with the company since 2009. As a child, one of the concepts that fascinated and perplexed me the most was that of infinity. I really struggled to get my head around how something could be endless, boundless. Like a perpetually moving goal post; even if you reached it, you could always go beyond.

Adults explained to me, the universe is infinite, numbers are infinite, knowledge is infinite. But everywhere I looked and everything I touched appeared pretty limited.

I found it particularly conflicting when compared to what seemed to me like a stream of very finite events and steps through life, which eventually would lead to success, if taken in the right order. Even at the very top of something, like being the fastest, or the best, there was an implied finitude. How could these two opposites coexist? Reaching that limit, conquering that goal, would certainly mean the end of the journey and that prospect was simply depressing, not to mention demotivating.

Eventually I found solace in determining that something like “the best” walked hand in hand with another parameter: context. The best result to date, the best outcome given the constraints, the best solution for this customer. Suddenly, this opened up all the possibilities: best could be improved on. That equated hope, in my eyes.

I’m not talking about settling for good knowing that you can do better, I mean reaching for better each time only to try and build on that as soon as you get there. This idea of perpetual improvement is why “Raise the bar” is a Treatwell value that is very close to my heart. It is essentially my life mantra.

The beauty of it is that is also infinite in its applications. You can raise the bar as an individual, as a team, as a company, as an entire industry, as humanity.

Raise the bar — the behaviours

We aim high. We know what great looks like and we have the courage and drive to achieve it. We think differently and will never take the path of least resistance — always curious, always learning.

Working for a company where that is expected of you every day is the professional equivalent for me of being a kid in a candy shop.

So how do you get people to raise the bar? Quoting a dear colleague, Casey Anderson, “it’s all about being our best self, doing our best work, aiming high and then actually expecting more. Raising the bar requires courage and drive. We want to be proud of our legacy, of what we are leaving behind. It’s about everyone always striving to be better, being hungry for feedback to make it happen.”

This kind of mindset requires courage, trust, mutual respect and safety in order to thrive. The good news is that is is highly contagious (no pun intended). When those around you express these behaviours you feel compelled to also join in. It’s a beautiful flywheel.

Raising the bar from the ground up

When you set out to build something that hasn’t been done before, you are raising the bar. You’re taking that leap of faith into the unknown. The possibilities for making it work are endless, and we are actively encouraged to keep shifting that goal post perpetually further.

Don’t confuse this with recklessness. We know where we’re aiming and we have a pretty good idea of how to get there, the difference is that we don’t constrain ourselves by predefining that there’s only one road to reach the destination.

And sometimes you need to make a detour. Netflix didn’t start as a streaming service and content production machine, they originally offered a DVD mail rental service.

Treatwell didn’t start by offering a fully digital solution for hair and beauty businesses either, for over a year what was then called Wahanda sold physical vouchers that were posted to customers and could be redeemed at a salon. But the vision to disrupt and digitise this industry was there from the beginning.

We have come a long way, but there’s yet a long way to go. Remember, infinity. And that’s what makes it challenging and exciting. It doesn’t mean that we’ve got it all figured out, on the contrary. There is a permanent sense of questioning all decisions and finding the right balance between them.

Raising the bar in good times and bad times

Challenging and difficult times, like those we are currently living in during 2020, call for coming together. They also call for raising the bar. I feel like we have fully achieved this at Treatwell during the pandemic. I don’t think I have witnessed such coming together of teams, initiatives and efforts as during the last few months. Everyone stepped up during one of the most challenging times they have faced, both on a personal and professional level.

In Portuguese we have a saying, “a necessidade aguça o engenho”. It roughly translates as “scarcity sharpens design”. It is an interesting concept, that when exposed to lack of something, be it resources, money or time, the solutions that you will come up with are more ingenious and innovative than those born of abundance.

I can definitely see how scarcity drives innovation and progress, the challenge is how to sustain this level of creativity and output under less dire circumstances. At Treatwell we have achieved this by generating perceived scarcity in the sense that we are hungry to achieve greatness, a great example being the Blue Star Manifesto that the tech team have mandated, which guides and drives the ambition to be a truly exceptional team through a continuous improvement mindset. But that’s a post for another day.

Over the years I often asked myself why I have this obsession with learning, with growth, with exploration and change (other than my enamour with infinity). Then one day it dawned on me, it was all about connection. The more knowledge and know how you gain, the more you step out of your comfort zone and expose yourself to different environments and experiences, the more you can understand, empathise and connect with others. True and meaningful human connection is the ultimate reward.

When you raise the bar as a business, you will attain true and meaningful connection with your customers. And that’s how high we aim at Treatwell.