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The construction industry knows how to talk about the tangible—build your team; get off the tools; scale.
What gets less airtime is the internal work running underneath all of it — the identity shifts, the competing forces, the particular experience of the femme founder building alongside and within a male-dominated industry.
The Holistic Home Service Podcast is that conversation.
Energetics and strategy and everything in between for the women leading home service businesses.
As we rise, everything built around us does too.
I'm Edi Oduraa, and this is the Holistic Home Service Podcast. Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the Holistic Home Service Podcast.
Edi Oduraa:I am Edi Oduraa founder and CEO of Via di Oduraa where we help home service business owners with your operations and with talent placement. More in the links if you're interested. So we are on a journey talking about your journey, the heroine's journey. Please listen to episode one if you have not heard that already. But to recap, the industry talks a lot about the out of the truck, off the tools journey, which is absolutely, which absolutely includes women, but is a very male centric journey.
Edi Oduraa:Meanwhile, the conversation around the woman running the back office, AKA the COO, AKA head bitch in charge is often absent. And so what we're doing here in this series is illuminating that journey and giving you the tools you need to navigate that journey. The tools I wish I had when I was running a tree service business for five years with my then husband. So today we are talking about exposing the hidden org chart. So, let's dive right in.
Edi Oduraa:You've done the work. Tell me if this resonates. Okay? You've done the work, the books, the podcast, maybe even a coach. You've optimized, you've tried to get clear, try to figure out what you want.
Edi Oduraa:And something is still tight. You have a low grade friction you can't locate. What I'm going to propose to you today, my little thesis if you will, is that you may be fixing everything except the one thing that needs fixing. You may be trying to navigate the heroine's journey by handling everything but this key piece and it's not going to fall in place until you deal with this baby girl. Okay?
Edi Oduraa:So this is the hidden org chart. Every husband and wife home service business has two org charts. I have yet to engage with a business where there isn't some of this going on. If there is a husband and wife duo. And I'm speaking specifically to this because this is an experience that literally drives the construction industry.
Edi Oduraa:So many companies have the husband who started a business and kind of brings in his wife, girlfriend, partner to do the back office work, but we're not talking about it at all. So I want to talk about it here. So back to the org charts, okay? There's the one that people describe that rolls off the tongue that is public and then there's the one that actually runs the company. So to be clear, in case you don't know what I mean when I say org chart, I'm talking about an organizational chart.
Edi Oduraa:The chart that it's like, you've probably seen these before. It's a little like there's usually a box at the top that says CEO and then there's a line and then couple boxes underneath that that are like the VPs or the COO and then underneath that are the people who work underneath that person. Okay. So we have the standard org chart that we recognize and then the one that is actually happening. So for the hidden org chart, in the out let's do start with the public org chart.
Edi Oduraa:The public org chart, it's usually like, homie is the owner of the business. He might say his wife's the co owner, but he's the CEO. He's on the face of things. We are assuming he's making the decisions. He's calling the shots.
Edi Oduraa:He's running the show. And she's, you know, she's doing the books, right? She's doing a little accountant, dipping in a little bit of admin here and there, right? And this is the out in public org chart. In the true org chart, if we look at what is being handled, what is being driven, what is moving forward, she is often at the top.
Edi Oduraa:She is the one truly making the strategic decision. She's the one saying, maybe we need to handle the client in this way and oh, do we have contracts in place for this? She's often the one holding things together at the back on the back end without a title, often unnoticed and even unnoticed by herself. So the industry, the home service industry has built an entire ecosystem around helping the contractor get out of the truck, get off the ladder, get out of the whatever, like so many analogies, right? But what nobody is saying out loud is that someone is actually already doing that work.
Edi Oduraa:She has been doing that work, you have been doing that work and you are not in that conversation. So again, if we're going back to this tightness, this struggle as you are embarking on your heroine's journey and you are like, man, I want more, I want to be more strategic, I want to feel more expansive in this business, but I feel tight. It this hidden org chart is likely why? Because we're not even naming the thing, right? Because we are we've named that your man needs to get out of the truck, right?
Edi Oduraa:But we have not named that you are doing all the work that these programs are talking about him eventually stepping into the strategic thinking, the HR work, the growth, the employee building, etcetera, right? And you're absent from the conversation. And so this tightness, you know, it doesn't always feel like anger. It's the sense of something isn't quite right. And for me, I've noticed time and time again in my life that it emerges when there is not clarity, there isn't truth, there isn't reality being spoken in a situation.
Edi Oduraa:And if you go long enough, right, being the de facto CEO of your company without that recognition and sometimes without the authority, still feeling like your voice may not be heard fully or you may not be respected. There may be a little bit of vying and jockeying for who gets to make this decision within your partnership. It eventually builds resentment. So I want to be clear, this is not all blame. I'm not saying your man ain't shit, your husband sucks at all.
Edi Oduraa:Your partner oftentimes is genuinely not seeing it. Nothing in their environment has asked them to look. In episode one, I mentioned very briefly that in the industry and society as a whole, we depend heavily on women's unnamed and unpaid labor, right? This is well documented and this even in the most well meaning egalitarian of partnerships, this can seep in where in another role, in another space, someone would see the work you're doing, your partner may see the work somebody is doing in a different company and say, oh, that's yeah. They said they're actually running the show.
Edi Oduraa:They're a XYZ. But in the in your business, in his own business, it's harder to see. It's harder to see when it's at home. So I wanna be clear. This is not about blame.
Edi Oduraa:And my hope is that you do have a partner that as you embark on this journey and you yourself are getting clear about what you bring to the table, they're also so willing to navigate and shift and you know, fashion a business that honors your skills and honors your desires just as much as his. If you don't have that in your partnership, that's a whole other conversation. Maybe that'll be Holistic Home Service After Dark because boy, the stories we've got, but for now, we just want to talk about the dynamic and assume goodwill from all the parties. Another little side note I will say is, and I think I'm going to do a podcast on this, about internalizing. It can be so easy to look at the situation and say, okay, I need to be more bold.
Edi Oduraa:I needed to figure this, da da da da. And I'm gonna give you a lot of tips to help navigate through this. But I wanna be clear that this is an industry problem and a society problem, and you can't completely internalize this. If you do, you'll become paralyzed by this and you will not move in the self compassion that will be helpful in this. Remember, this is not just a, Oh, I haven't spoken up enough and so now I'm in this situation.
Edi Oduraa:This is also a, Oh, this has been centuries of this kind of dynamic and I am now navigating some of its tendrils in my relationship. So have grace with yourself as we go along this journey. Okay, so we've established all this. Now, what does it look like to begin to navigate the situation where your role is not fully outlined, what you're bringing to the table? You guys are kind of running on this dual org chart where you're actually handling all this shit on the back end, but you don't have the authority, the title, the heft, the recognition to go along with it and you're feeling that resentment.
Edi Oduraa:It really first starts with respecting your gifts first. Before your partner can recognize what you're carrying, you have to. You want to begin to own the potency of the work you're doing. And this can be real hard again, we're gonna the good girl, we're gonna talk about the good girl throughout this whole podcast because that programming runs so deep in so many of us and hinders us from so much. And we're going to call her directly.
Edi Oduraa:We're going to name her because when we speak and we name, things lose their power. So when somebody asks what you do at a networking event, don't say I help with the office stuff. I help with the office stuff. No ma'am. No ma'am.
Edi Oduraa:You are the operational architect of a growing company. Say I handle all the operations for a company. Matter of fact, own a title if you want to. I'm the COO of our company. I'm the operations manager of our company.
Edi Oduraa:I'm the growth strategist. I'm the HR, head of HR. It doesn't matter if it's just you and hubby and one subcontractor, you own the title, you own what you're doing. And then from that place of beginning to name what you're doing, you're going to begin to paint a picture of what you actually want. And not just, okay, I want not just relief, not just, I don't want this thing.
Edi Oduraa:I don't want to be stressed. I don't want to be ignored in conversations. I don't want be out of the loop in business stuff. But like, what do you actually want beyond that? What does it look like when your strategic capacity is fully utilized?
Edi Oduraa:What does it look like when your relational capacity is fully utilized? What does it look like when your creative capacity is fully utilized? Like, let's start dreaming, let's start thinking as we are anchoring in the present of like, I'm already doing all these things. And then what does this next level look like? So first, respect your gifts first, embody with clarity what you're bringing to the table and this, I mean, said than done.
Edi Oduraa:And I keep on saying later episodes, want to let you know that this podcast is going to be a really solid resource for you. We're going to talk about inner work. We're going to talk about identity shifting. We're going to talk about getting unstuck. But for now, just know that you need to begin the journey of respecting your gifts first.
Edi Oduraa:And if this is hard for you, pop into your favorite AI and I know we have a whole mixed relationship with AI, right? Pop into it and list out the things that you do and say, you know, I what what title would I have? You know, and what things am I missing? And AI will help you and reflect that back to you or go on Reddit if you would prefer to use people and, you know, ask around Google CEO of x y z company of, like, plumbing company, you know, COO, sales manager, like, Google some of these titles and you'll see that, oh, am doing all this shit. Right?
Edi Oduraa:Doing all this shit. Okay. Respect your gifts first. Two, get support. We talked about this in podcast one.
Edi Oduraa:As you're moving forward, as you're expanding, as you're moving from doer to director, you're moving out of secretary to strategist, you need support because somebody else needs to be doing all that doing stuff. Right? Get structural support. Someone who can carry the operational layer so you can step into the strategic one. So because baby girl, we are not about working harder inside the current dynamic.
Edi Oduraa:I don't want you to be like, oh, yes. I am the COO and the front office administrator and the and the and no. No ands. No ands. Cut those ands off.
Edi Oduraa:Right? This is not an invitation to work harder and double down. That's a good girl. And it it feels safer. Right?
Edi Oduraa:Because, okay, maybe I can have this. I can have my cake and eat it too. I can have this roll and do more here, but then I don't have to upset the order and I don't have to we are in our business, we don't have to invest more and I can just keep in, we can just do this and I don't have a like, I can just keep all this. No. No.
Edi Oduraa:No. No. No. No. No.
Edi Oduraa:This is about expansion. This is about abundance. We're gonna change the whole structure so that the dynamic shifts. This is, let's be clear, I'm not talking about cute little cosmetic changes. This is a structural reorientation of your business.
Edi Oduraa:Your business has been built on your unseen labor, unrecognized labor on tapping into your ability to execute and not tapped into your creativity, your intuition, your emotional intelligence, all these other pieces. It may have to a degree, but you're hungry for more, right? So this is a we're talking about structural changes that will require structural investments, getting support. Little plug here, this is what I'm all about. I exclusively serve home service companies and often specializing in husband and wife duos to get the wife of the partnership out of the back office.
Edi Oduraa:I have a twelve week process where we first clean up your key systems documenting, clean them up four weeks and then eight weeks of placing a trained virtual client manager to take on very specific tasks and processes that will get you out of the back office. So I'm not, I won't say any more on that, but there is link links below to take a look and get acquainted. Okay, so we're talking about respect. We've said you need to respect your gifts and then you need to get some support. Those are the two biggest steps.
Edi Oduraa:Now I want to speak to those of you who've already tried. If you've tried to have these conversations about stepping up, about shifting, about getting more support and it's gone sideways, right? He got defensive, you backed down, or you backed all the way up. And then you guys got tense and rigid and eventually just you tucked it away in a in a closet. And maybe when things got too stressful again and you just could not abide by remaining where you are, you brought up again and it was this cycle, right?
Edi Oduraa:I want to offer to you that it is that maybe it is about figuring out the words to say and how to say it, or this is what I'm offering to you, that it's not necessarily a you problem or a communication issue. Maybe this is an overarching issue of your dynamic. So this is a whole podcast. This is a whole podcast. And some of you are ready to hear it, some of you are not and that's okay.
Edi Oduraa:Perhaps this is a larger conversation about power, about love, about care. Because I know for me, if somebody comes to me that I love and care for and they are in pain or they are struggling, they're not feeling good and fulfilled and they're saying, I want to make a change. Just that alone will get me to move and shift and enter into conversation. But especially if on top of it, they're saying, I think the changes that we might make, might make us more money with less stress. I'll be like, baby, come over here, let's talk, right?
Edi Oduraa:But if you're finding that you are coming and expressing struggle and dissatisfaction and you're being met with stonewalling with circular conversations with deflection. This is a larger problem than just your business. This is a larger problem than just communication. Please don't let anybody gaslight you into thinking that like, if you start using more I statements instead of you statements and you say it in this perfect equation, that it will make it work. I've had rough conversations, very raw conversations with people I love, where we have been able to stay in the trenches, talk it out, sometimes duke it out a little bit and come out of it more connected.
Edi Oduraa:Why? Because they're not policing the tone. They don't need a perfect equation to hear it. They're doing their own inner work and their growth work and they care about me deeply. So much so that they're willing to, even when they feel defensive, even when they feel triggered to stay in the conversation or take some time to get grounded and more regulated and come to a solution.
Edi Oduraa:If somebody is not willing to do that with you repeatedly, this is a bigger conversation. So I wanna be clear about that because I don't want you to internalize the inability to reach a satisfactory conclusion as an internal failure. Some things truly are out of our control. Some people's responses are fundamentally out of our control. The industries, an industry wide problem is out of your control.
Edi Oduraa:We can make it better day by day incrementally as we step into our own power, right? As we step into place positions of authority in our businesses, as we start our own businesses, make our own tables, right? But we have to recognize that there are things externally, we don't need to internalize all this. So the heroine's journey doesn't happen in isolation. It happens in relationship to your partner, to your business, your own sense of worth.
Edi Oduraa:I hope that is so clear that what I'm inviting you into is a deeper conversation with not just the mechanics and the tactics and okay, change, tweak this and look at this metric spreadsheet and try this. No, This is about the connection to self, your inner self, the connection to your partner, the connection to your business and the community as a whole. The hidden org chart concept is where the abstract, what do I want meets the concrete, what am I currently doing? And is it the same thing? Right?
Edi Oduraa:We want to bridge that gap. We want to come, we want your business to be integrated. Integrated in the sense of whole, right? One. And right now, you are experiencing these split org charts, your business is fragmented between what is actually happening and what is being communicated.
Edi Oduraa:The conversations are happening about around what is being communicated meanwhile, this is reality. And when we are split like that, we're on shaky ground. As we integrate ourselves, right? Our desires, we align our lives with our desires and also integrate our business. It becomes as it becomes coherent.
Edi Oduraa:We thrive, our business thrives, those who work for us thrives. So, as I've mentioned before, I have a book just for you, free for you that I wish I had when I was navigating being the operational co owner of a tree service business for five years. It's called Which One Are You? Five archetypes of the spread thin woman, woman running a home service company and what she needs to navigate each one. This will take you deeper from our conversation into your specific archetype of what you're navigating and the simple steps you can start taking to shift your reality, to create a new reality for you and your business and life at large.
Edi Oduraa:You can find it in the show notes below. Thank you for being with me here today. I hope this has been supportive. As a reminder, you are not alone. You don't have to carry this alone.
Edi Oduraa:We are out here, a community of women who have walked this path and are walking this path. Feel free to connect more at viadiodora.com. Thank you. Until next time.