Making a change - a personal story

Andrew, one of our directors, tells us how he started on the journey that is now Qryztal.

Business is in my blood.  My mum and dad ran a thriving retail pharmacy business. It was literally what kept a roof over our heads, paid all the bills and allowed us to be comfortably well-off and got us safely through recessions.

I was about 21, I think, when I had a vivid dream of taking possession, along with a business partner, of a huge house in the country - which was going to be our new corporate headquarters. I remember waking up and feeling intensely disappointed that this was just a dream and that I couldn't see any way that it could become reality. I'd left home and didn't know anyone in business. I was at the very bottom of the civil service; prospects for survival were excellent, but prospects for prosperity seemed to be non-existent.

I was in a survival mindset and couldn't see any possibility of growth, let alone having a growth mindset. In fact such things were frowned-upon where I worked and among the people I knew.

So the dream was buried and forgotten, apart from the occasional wistful 'might have been' recollection. Life moved on and so did I.

In late 2000 I entered a phase of my career in which (with the benefit of hindsight) I seemed to be accumulating a variety of potentially useful experience. I picked up a lot of business knowledge through my work, whilst at the same time advocating on behalf of colleagues who'd found themselves in trouble with their employer. I also discovered and developed a talent for teaching adults, both in groups and in one-to-one situations. But something was still missing.

I had a busy year from the autumn of 2014 into 2015 learning how to facilitate continuous improvement in a work context and putting this into practice in a number of tough situations. As a result of this I felt I was now ready for a real challenge.

The incorporation of Qryztal Ltd was the point at which I - finally - said a big wholehearted 'yes!' to my dream of too many years previously. And here we are, steadfastly working towards the fulfilment of a bigger vision - which you'll hear more about in the near future.