Allison O'Neill launched her first business at age three selling soaps for 20 cents at the end of her driveway. Her next business venture age seven was a family newsletter (birth notices, horoscopes - the works!).

When she entered the workforce she spent 5 years within a corporate where senior management pretended to really listen, but they never actually did. This drove the workers mad!

So she started her own staff survey company. She was determined to show managers why they desperately needed to listen to their people. During this time, she saw inside many workplaces, uncovered all kinds of workplace nasties and helped fix them.

Allison has since put everything she learnt while running her staff survey company into a book called 'The Boss Benchmark'. She hopes the secrets of a staff surveyor will deeply impact bosses. She believes that those who action the 35 points in The Boss Benchmark will become exceptional - and loved by their workers.

She is passionate about the future of workplaces. She believes it is time to 'unleash and inspire' and say goodbye to the very old school 'command and control'. She admires the "Results Only Work Environment" work of Cali and Jody who are leading the charge in modernising our work life. She highly recommends their book "Why work sucks and how to fix it".

She blogs regularly at www.thebossbenchmark.blogspot.com about how to be an amazing boss. You can find her on Linkedin at www.linkedin.com/in/allisononeill and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bossbenchmark .

On the weekend she burns off energy striding up Canterbury's many hill tracks with her husband to contra her other hobbies of drinking beautiful wine, eating lemon cheesecake and doing good old fashioned home baking! Her reading pile would be a serious hazard in an earthquake as she constantly reading and is addicted to learning check out her recommendations. Here are some of Allison's favourite inspirational quotes...

"Lead, follow or get out of the way" Ted Turner

“If its worth doing its worth overdoing!” Unknown

"A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between he does what he wants to do." Bob Dylan

“Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

Harold Thurman Whitman