Unconventional Leadership with Vlad Zely

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most of them insist on full office or at least hybrid and being able to design my life and my work schedule around my habits and my natural Rhythm true real creativity only happens in an offline space where you are together in the room and for some people flexibility means also being able to go to the office or choose an office by default every second matters it's so expensive and so rare [Applause] [Music] hello hi everyone hello today we have an um maybe a new kind of episode because we have a guest here um it's leli who we

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are excited um for him to join us in this podcast vlot used to be head of design at Meo and is now I think head of design at zo if I remember things correctly but maybe I'll give him a chance to introduce himself um better because perhaps like I'm not sure if these are the most important highlights of his narrative so how do you how do you describe yourself these days super thank you Kaa and thanks for having me I mean I recently been rewriting actually the narrative about myself because it's

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always an interesting exercise you know so yeah technically right I've been heading design at Mira and this days MVP of design at Zoe this is a science and nutrition startup from the UK and I tell the story about myself as about design executive who also help others to do things through coaching Consulting and sometimes advising so basically creating product experiences and teams and everything in between yeah very cool uh between product experiences teams and people like what's the most important

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for if you were to choose one that's a great one I think it starts with people because without them the rest doesn't really work so and you guys do know even better than me how important is that right great great great okay yeah we're going to talk about the range of topics today and actually I don't even know like what would be the best segree to the first one um but uh we were thinking like I think CL you had an very interesting Journey as a leader and uh you probably experienced I would imagine

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Transformations on the journey um so you started like in the office you we were just talking before the podcast you reminded me that you changed uh cities um while on this journey and then remote happened so uh what do you feel like what what did it teach you um what are like the key takeaways from this journey right I think it starts with the fact that there's no right or wrong way to do things there is a way which is relevant for you and for the company you work for so because I started as you say in the

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office so back in the days Mira had an office in a different city and I decided to move to join the company it was still a startup of 50 people over like five years we scaled to multiple countries multiple offices a few thousands of people and then the co has happened you know so I started full in office then it became Co when we've been getting out of Co we start started hybrid like kind of not mandatory yet but more like optional so some people have been going to the office giving all the health regulations

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and things but most of the things been running like in a remote first setting because you have meetings you have all the communications and things and right after it we transitioned to more like full uh hybrid thing but I wasn't quite sure how does hybrid serves me because still have a lot of meetings because my team is distributed so the fact that I have to commute and join you know the office to have my zoom course was kind of concerning for me so I was wondering can I do it fully remotely and hence I

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joined Zoe which is like a fully remote company which also became a remote company during the covid I think Co taught us that actually some companies which does not like require physical proximity to perform some task like if it's not manufacturing for instance could be done fully online but the online setting impose some other challenges as in like how do you nurture the culture how do you promote belonging how do you make sure people communicate in a similar manner so you should be very intentional about designing those

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things to make it a success yeah that's totally right and um was it your choice like to select only a fully remote employer or it was just their offer that's that's actually an evolution for me because I do love flexibility sometimes in the morning I'm the most productive so I really want to wake up and create and make some stuff write documents design things and if I have to commute and especially because I'm based in Amsterdam it's raining sometimes miserable outside it's not the

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start of the day I wish for myself so and being able to design my life and my work schedule around my habits in my natural Rhythm I think is a huge benefit and employers who can leverage that really I think leading from the perspective of creating the workplace for people according to their needs and I think the more we go into this future work where people work pretty much everywhere for any company I think the more we see the benefits of it because I want to treat my team and I want to be treated as an adult which means we have

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some work to do but I don't have to be told do I work from 3: to 4 or 5 to 7 or 7 to8 whatever and to me it was important to be able to design the schedule for myself in a way what accomodates my needs and create the best possible outcome for the company because I do know when I'm productive and how do I want to run my life I think flexibility was an important aspect and because I'm based in Amsterdam these days I was like un unwilling maybe to move at this stage of life because I've

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been moving already a couple of times and I want to see how this city can serve me you know so for now I was mostly looking for a remote or something within Amsterdam but with a good chunk of flexibility I'm glad we're recording this in the morning um for dedicating your most productive hours to us and it's very unusual for me actually also to be productive during the morning time but that's okay um I was going to like still um Reef on this remote thing um here's a hot take uh I'm

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curious what you what you guys think about it um there just my idea random idea that came to mind yesterday that if you work remotely you are the first to be replaced by AI uh what what do you think I had the joke about it which kind of not a joke of I say there are three types of people I've been saying designers because designers must have been asking me this question the first type would be replaced by AI the second type would be leveraging AI to do their work better and the third type would be designing AI

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so they at the Forefront of what AI is and I'm willing and wanting to think what I'm somewhere in between two and three because like a few of my previous companies in hustles been like AI first and in this realm I think it doesn't really matter are you sitting in the office or you're sitting somewhere in a kind of Village in the mountains in Switzerland or like in Netherlands but it depends on the value you create for the organization and for your team and if your job requires some creativity and

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problem solving I think I would rather Embrace this change which is happening because you kind of cannot resist the progress to the degree for sure it should be ethical we should be concerned about the consumption of resources how do we approach it how to make it sustainable those are all relevant and valid questions and we kind of as a society not so prepared to tackle them yet and I think good degree of alertness around the topic is important so it's not just techno optimism it's about like

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how do we create conditions for Humanity to ensure the better labor across the board like ensure the more responsible cons consumption of the resources so I think all those things should be there but still AI is here like you know the future is here it's just not equally distributed and our job partially to make sure to use it responsibly and ethically and I think this is still a big part of the equation but it's not the question if AI here is about to stay or not it is here so the question is how do you leverage

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it yeah sry I wanted to say before we go to this uh like really interesting topic of AI in our lives let's get back a little bit about the working models and I got so many signals from our uh candidates that they definitely prefer fully remote or hybrid uh less hybrid of course but our clients especially um really rapidly grow in startups uh they most of them insist on full office or at least hybrid why do you think they warned that I mean the first thing I think is to highlight the disconnect and my question would be what

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are the what are the values or what are the requirements or needs or fears actually we are acting on I'm not an expert in the topic I just have my lived experience in some conversation going on around which I've been part of I feel that the old traditional managerial models exercise control over trust and it's somehow hard for people who who used to one way of seeing their stuff doing things like physically like you know almost like a conveyor just to let go of this idea that they don't have

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that much control over people anymore that's one hot take and another take is about the cost of communication so to give you an example if we're sitting in the same room on one side we can say yeah can just tap you over the shoulder and we kind of just talk which is true but I've been in this setup you know if I'm doing my focus work and wearing my headphones as in like don't touch me but someone still touching me it kind of interrupts me it interrupts my flow it creates the disruption of the work I'm

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creating and the tax for this communication is actually increasing so to answer the question like why employers prioritize one thing while uh folks who are looking for a job want in flexibility I think it's partially explained by what I just shared I do know how I work the best and it's not necessarily how 800 people work right and in the office to a degree I can incorporate and accommodate for some of my requirements and conditions but still I would be molded in the reality of an office building commute what's possible

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what's not possible are we having access 24/7 is it just from some certain time what's the lunch time for instance I don't have a breakfast and I can run without food till like very late it's not maybe super healthy for some other people and I'm also trying not to do that but I don't want to be interrupted because lunch is from 1 to 2 you know so my lunch could be later or earlier so I think to me as like a creative person it's important to be able to design my way of living my life and I think I can

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understand especially for you folks specializing in like teag creative product recruitment because all those jobs are very creative so you might experience the uptake of people who are looking for more flexibility and I think remote and covid experience taught us that we actually can do our jobs without um being in the same building and one controversial take maybe you've heard about Google's research Aristotle which was a research about productivity Within the workpace so they discovered 10 years

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ago or something like eight years ago that physical proximity Is Not A predictive uh element of productivity which means you don't need to sit together to be able to produce results so Google discovered it like years ago before pandemic before all that stuff so by being intentional with how do you design the way how people work how people come together communicate and things like that you can achieve very same or even better level of productivity because you have access to different type of talent which I think

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is amazing and that's what I personally would rather advocate for interesting but I guess like productivity is one thing and like like I haven't looked into this research to to whatever think about it but let me play devil's advocate for a second or maybe business advocate in in that sense uh the way I hear people describe why they would want everyone in the office and by the way these are like I think very modern creative company is uh building Innovative products um they they say typically about two things first is

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actually creativity so there is a belief and I'm not sure like to what degree is it right or wrong because again I didn't see any research but there's a belief at least that true real creativity only happens in an offline space where you are together in the room and maybe this are just two three hours maybe it's an isolated Workshop or whatever but it's typic like it feels like it's better to have this Workshop offline so I'm curious what you think about it and second thing they talk about is

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onboarding like especially if you're early on in your career um to get like properly onboarded into the company and learn about their values learning about ways of working uh learning from more experienced colleagues it's much easier to do in the office oh I have something to add I have something to add like the third point because especially in the start of your career when you work in an office you see many other teams when you work remotely you mostly connect with your teammate and you have no idea what

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kind of people work in finance or I don't know HR and I think that that's really important experience for beginners right I'm looking for a man in finance blue that's exactly what started happening in my head so three point Workshop AKA creativity on boarding and exposure to other teams and disciplines let's start with creativity so I think linear is one of the products which make waves in the market like level of craft commitment to culture like this Forward Thinking mentality and also the product

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itself right so a lot of Enterprises just move into linear because it's cool and people want to work uh there and the funny thing they're fully remote and they're relatively tiny and they create the product which is competing with like giants like Jero of the worlds and they quite creative they founder is a designer so you see like I think that's kind of very interesting take on like how to be intentional about designing the company in a way that would be efficient for the business and also

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inclusive to the people and I think that's how the future work look like it's not like just this or just that it's like how can you make sure that you're attracting the best talent and create conditions for them to thrive so because creativity is a result of environment which is nurturing for a creative Talent imagine the situation in the extreme if creatives unionized across the world and say we're not meant for an office work for instance and then employers just have to create conditions

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to accommodate for the different type of work and I think modern companies especially design L design Focus trying to take human aspect into equation right also drawbox is going through this big transformation I think around this kind of culture I'm not sure if they are remote but during the co I remember they've been doing a lot of f leadership about this remote stuff and how do they move towards it and I'm not entirely sure but I also think that atlan during the co been also pioneering remote work

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stuff and they still have something like work from anywhere type of a thing so I think it is possible tldr to ensure creativity with the workspace speaking about onboarding learnings and Al so sorry can I just like to to add to this um I think it's important though that they do some like use some deliberate practices um in order to do creative work and especially linear I think like they are having offsides and actually bringing the whole team together if I not mistaken like once a quarter or a few times a year and U so

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so I think it's not just remote like know just it's not just everyone sits at home it's actually some uh deliberate efforts um in order for that to oh absolutely and I think having iners time if possible is really good and not even necessarily from a perspective of let's lock ourselves in the room for seven days and then come up with new prototype but from the perspective of learning about each other what's your working style maybe I look a bit grumpy on video but I'm actually funny and I'm not so

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kind of hard to be around and I think it creates this Bond because we are relational beings and it's important for us to form bonds form relationships with people and forming relationships over the zoom call or like video chat requires a lot of interpersonal skills emotional intelligence and actually communication skills to be able to express your emotions because the channel is so tiny you do not see the full body expression you just see a bit of a face and I think in this realm it does require some level of of maturity

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to be able to perhaps be successful and thrive in this environment speaking about the second layer is in on boarding and learnings and things once I've been on boarding to Zoe I've been just fascinated by how well things are documented you know because people are intentional like how do we communicate I really loved once I join the company and I've been reading through the notion the fact that there is an article about don't say just hello say what you need and I was like oh my gosh I I Feel Home

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you know because I sometimes taught people that it's completely fine to skip hello or use hello and ask me what you need from me because if I'm doing something and I have a minute and I'm opening the SL and it's just hello how are you I cannot be helpful I kind of need to do this small talk first and then jump to the thing and and the cycle could extend to a day or something because I already spend some time answering this SL and like it's not helpful for you and and you know then

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intention exactly and then you I mean I think it's it's important like because if you build relationship outside of the slack message which I actually suggest then you can just directly ping me and say hey BL like I'm looking forward for this thing do you know where to find it and I think it's it's respectful it's respectful to your time and to my time and because we have a in person or on air time is having a call I'm happy to chat for instance in my team we St in the week with sharing

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how we spend actually the weekend like what's school has happened in our lives and then we moving towards the um planning of the week like what I'm working on what's important what's not so I think it is very intentional how do you communicate and what's the appropriate medium in format for some sort of conversation because I don't want to deepen my connection with someone over an extensive slack message if I can just talk to them or if I can meet them in person so in this realm I'm

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fine with the realm of having a transactional short concise communication over slack when I need to unblock you or you need something from me and I think it's always it's a good balance between being human and respectful sometimes people and I'm including myself writing this little cute things like which are relevant in context U kind of uh relevant in the in the context like you know we had a chat about something and you just follow up using the same wording or the same internal joke so it

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is human but it is also respectful so tldr un boarding is possible and I think learning is possible if it's properly organized and people put effort into this so it's not good by default I think that's what's important so by default there's no knowledge sharing there's there's nothing available there's no material or anything to look at so you should design it and last but not least this exposure to other teams I think it's to good degree true that you have less exposure to finance for instance if

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you're working in design but then maybe my question would be to you when you design the culture how do you create this open and inclusive environment in a way that there are no artificial barriers so if I need to learn something about like how our accountant run the payroll it can reach out to them and they wouldn't think when I'm absolutely like crazy designer who shouldn't talk to them about it I think that's how it work and and then for instance at zo we do have offsides we're trying to do them

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quarterly and also once twice a year we have more like social Gatherings which are completely related to just getting to know each other having some shared experiences because at the end of day it does affect productivity and team efficiency and happiness because you do feel belonging within the workspace where were the last two offsites which locations actually often London so we just had one in London and uh yeah we also would have another one as like winter party so it's less in offsite but it's more like a winter

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party and it would be I think for Fox in the US it would be in the US for Fox in Europe and UK it would be in the UK oh and they never meet I mean folks from uh the us and we we no we met during the September one September one was more like kind of companywide and parties are just like kind of more like social Gathering so it's not maybe necessarily um yeah it requires the over cross Atlantic sort of a transatlantic flight so sometimes people can hang out just like in their local community I want to

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say I don't know how to explain it I have no solid arguments but I would love to live in the same city with Costa and work together from Office more often I don't know I I don't know why sometimes when we meet uh like once a quarter maybe sometimes more often we feel so happy and we like uh articulate this that wow we wish we would work together like at least once a week but can I ask you a question maybe like would it be fair to say that you plan for the time and you are very intentional about how

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you want to spend this time and you know that time is precious so you are [Music] very much aware of that fact because if you would be seeing each other like for a year each day I don't think the quality or intensity or the depth of the connection would remain exactly in the same level because it would become more ordinary don't you um but it would it would remove this anxiety because actually what it creates is it creates a lot of stress anxiety and like high expectation that oh that's this valuable time like every

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second matters uh it's so expensive and so rare for us to be working together in person that we need to like get the most out of it and that actually creates pressure um that I personally am not enjoying that much so I would much rather relax knowing that we have this luxury and we don't necessarily need to be I know obsessing over each minute of it uh rather than feeling the pressure in the end I think like the first time we did it yeah it was it was careful plant and we had I know some activities

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and stuff second time we relaxed it and almost went into the Other Extreme where it was like I we don't want that pressure anymore let's let's just work and see how things go and probably like the uh more like Ideal Balance would be somewhere in the middle I guess because maybe like it was too loose the last time um but still super valuable and like I was actually going to say the same thing as Mariam like yeah like as being remote um almost all of the time um it feels so amazing to be to be able to work in person I

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mean I'm glad to hear that you're iterating and finding your groove I think that's how it goes maybe next time you calling me from the same conference room or vice versa You' completely abandon this IDE and you're like you know what we're running it remote we don't need to stress out about getting together I don't know so I'm curious what your journey should we move on to the topic of leadership because I think like yeah we stayed on this remote which is actually fascinating and I can I can

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talk about this one forever um but I'm also curious of lot like we already touched on this idea of I know more traditional uh managerial style and control and things like that and a more let's say modern um uh I I wouldn't use the word relaxed but maybe more Humane uh way of leading so I'm curious what what did you discover um in your own journey and observing different leaders um like what what are the trends what the modern leader looks like right so I think there's no one definition but because

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I've been curious myself how to lead better I had a hypothesis at the beginning or actually at the end of 2022 perhaps early 23 that people who experienced um marginalization themselves they are more aware about how they show up in the workplace and they could practice some other managerial tool and practices to lead people within the workplace so what what do you mean by uh marginalization super yeah thank you for asking that so basically we are living in society which not quite the same in terms of lived experience and

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majority versus minority so there are a number of minor communities and it could be coming from the ethnicity skin color sexual orientation lifestyle religious etc etc so people who come in from this more like margin of the society rather than from the center and especially if those communities are discriminated against actively so I thought that I would love to draw from the lived experience of queer people who work in tuch and I've been particularly curious how does it connect to the co and postco

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reality where we learn that leadership might take different shapes and forms and I've been interviewing different people trying to find some patterns and commonalities and how they do that and it's boiled down to very simple thing which kind of universal and doesn't require you to come from a certain region or background it's was about empathy and it was about making people feel seen and heard and actually acting on that because sometimes there is The Superficial disconnect and you kind of

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running all the surveys tracking NPS and people telling you all the time exactly the same thing like we're over stretched too many focuses too many priorities blah blah blah blah we cannot do this we need to focus better and nothing is changing so this is a bad example of listening right because there's no action there's no follow up to that so and I think when you are thinking about what we just discussed like flexibility versus rigid structure you are very vocal about people one flexibility and

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for some people flexibility means also being able to go to the office or choose an office by default because for instance they live with their extended family or they have kids and they cannot work at home so super leged so I'm not saying there is right or wrong way but I think matching the you know request like demand for certain type of recommendations with Supply I think that's what basically recruitment is about like what do I need and what can you provide and getting back to the leadership I think within the workplace

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I experience different type of managerial style some people have been primarily focused on me executing my tasks and maybe at the beginning of my career it's all right but also at the beginning of my career I wanted mentorship I wanted the role model to look to look up at and say oh wow I want to be this kind of design director creative director eventually and I've been also on the other side of the spectrum when some people have been deeply invested into Who I Am What do I do how can they support me and that

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created this experience then I saw when my manager is asking me more like personal questions which I'm comfortable sharing um about and uh by drawing from this lived experience I actually created a framework or a game if you wish to create a practice uh between a manager and their report I called it human 10 one and it's a word play from one onone which is managerial meeting and 101 is a basic course for something this game is not still public but you can reach out if you want to try it out

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and the idea was to create a set of questions across different dimensions like well-being for instance or growth or personality and identity and give people some tools and levels for instance light Brave and deep and you can moderate how much you want to go into this dynamic because what I've discovered by knowing each other better as like humans without this inherit hierarchy like you above and below whatever and just by being able to engage in this personal level you create the sense of belonging which we started

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with and through belonging you can feel more safe and you can also at the end perform better because you're less afraid of a punishment and you are more yourself because there's this conversation about bringing your whole self to work which is also happening for a number of years and sometimes it's simply not safe you I've been in an environment there people have been vocally discriminating against other people without knowing that those people are in the room and it's not so good you

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know and by creating environments where people can be more themselves and it could be more safe for them which I think is a leadership responsibility at the end of the day we can create better work work places where people can show up and bring their best self and feel valued and seen I think um this Humane approach is um if I understand it correctly it's mostly about learning more about your uh Team speaking more friendly frankly to people and especially learning about their personal lives which is not uh which traditional

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management does not really implies but um this is an open question for me how deep should you go like um switching to personal life uh topics with your team because um I think a few weeks ago I literally asked qua how should I react because I know about a really big personal problem of uh um person and uh but I at the same time I needed really high performance at that time so should I be empathetic and say just take a break but I will die and take this task to myself or should I find a way to make

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this person like do their job so it was horrible I still did not know the correct answer yeah I think that's that's the reality right sometimes we do not have an answer and I think the best thing we can do is to communicate and and by learning how to communicate in a way where it's again respectful and supportive and inviting we can yeah create this dialogue where we can find a solution speaking about not knowing if it's appropriate or not I've heard once a scale I don't remember the full

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definition but it was public personal and private you know there is a private stuff which is not available to you and you should have know about but personal stuff you some somehow exposed to right someone got a baby or someone has a relative who's sick you if you know about it and it's personal you can say hey I've heard or I knew that this is what's happening if feel comfortable to talk about it I want to understand how I can support you better or what I can do as a manager to help you in this period

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of time and if person is willing to lean into this personal topic then I think there's no problem with that but they also can say hey thank you I appreciate it but I better cope by myself and it's also a solution but instead inad of guessing do you uh need to adjust your managerial style or whatever I would prefer to find a way to engage on the matter from a place of curiosity and again care and I think that requires some interpersonal skills to be able to approach the conversation this way but

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if you can and people feel again safe around you I I experience it myself they will open up to the degree which is comfortable for them and it's degree might be hey I'm actually overwhelmed and I just want to take like shorter day or I need like extra day off and that's absolutely within the work and context possible for you to arrange as a manager while they can keep their emotional um part to themselves for instance or they can say hey thank you just for opening up by being heard and

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seeing I already feel like better and like I'm I'm I'm recovering and I'm doing better so I think yeah finding ways to talk about it and this and the second thing is role modeling you know we cannot demand nor ask for this if we're not doing it ourselves and I think this is super important if you are never talking about how you spend the weekend or what's happening in your life and you're only talking about tasks and goals and no cares and kpis you would appear as a very closed person to your

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team and again there's the scale right public personal private so keep private to yourself but maybe highlight what you're doing like how how how your life look like a bit outside of work so I think just creating this environment could be a good condition to have those hard and tough conversations once it's time um I wanted to keep playing Devil's Advocate in a way because all of that resonates uh and like this perspective of a fantastic Humane manager that is actually caring about people is

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obviously amazing but uh let me for a second again like um wear my business hat and imagine you're like busy founder um you're in the tough market conditions uh you know I don't know whatever you're like VC World um you have some Runway you know that you need to use the money efficiently or you'll be never able to raise again perhaps or it's going to be very difficult and you want maximum efficiency and you're hearing things like founder mode um and high performance culture and we're not family

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we're a team of Olympic team everyone needs to perform at their best all the time time and everyday counts and all things like that and that's on the one hand and then on the other hand you have those um managers with ponies and unicorns and I don't know nice uh culture uh which are maybe so disconnected and then like you also see examples of um like brutal managers whatever like Elon Musk um uh that can whatever optimize efficiency of their company let's put it this way um so I'm

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curious like again what's the right balance uh both maybe both things that I described are sort of extremes maybe not so I'm curious like how do you find the balance how to find the balance between like high performance and actually keeping people accountable and productive and at the same time being like open and personal enough and building this like human connection allowing for for some slack even if it's needed right I think if it would have been one size fits all answer then we

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would be living in a different world right I I never treated team as a family and I've been against this sad where the family because you cannot fire your family overnight and I more way more inclined towards this metaphor of like Olympic team or team because we are a team we it's it's by the choice we are here and I assume we believe in Mission and we have shared set of goals because just being in the same room or in the same company doesn't make you necessarily a team so what are we

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working towards what are what are shared core beliefs we are having as this crew so I think this is starting point and startups are tough startups are not fun sometimes especially during the current market condition then you need to find your way to if not profitability to sustainability right how to sustain your business like how to perform well how to improve your operations it's always a part of the equation my take would be that if your people are not happy then to make it real is way harder

00:40:01 - 00:41:06

and by making happy I'm not necessarily saying that everyone needs to be listening to very attentively each day no they I mean we are adults right so that's like also another premise I'm acting on so if you need support I as a manager would love to create condition where you can ask me for what you need so and it's not like I'm ask daily like 24/7 like what what people struggling with or like where we need my support but if they need they can show up and I think that's the kind of ground stake

00:40:33 - 00:41:44

for me but speaking about productivity I still demand a lot honestly and that's why people love to work with me if I have to describe my leadership style I say challenging yet supportive and that's how I see the balance because you need to know where to apply a bit of a pressure but kind of gently so the person won break the project W just like completely you know fall apart but sometimes you need to hold yourself back by understanding that current condition maybe is not the best to doing some things and if um if you're

00:41:09 - 00:42:12

thinking about people first then basically hiring and making sure you have a right team for the state of the business for the type of the company you're having is crucial because speaking about motivation like in like internal external if the person has no like you know self-sufficient drug to kind of move forward for their life for their career it might be a bit hard to carry them within the startup World it might be safe in some old school very slow Enterprise their person just do like a thing a day and it's all right

00:41:41 - 00:42:37

but in the start of word if you do not perform it's visible it's visible very fast like you know within the month you can say oh wow this person is failing their probation we need to talk and we have this conversation and unfortunately it's not necessarily a conversation with the positive outcome is and like person is happy and staying in the company sometimes person is not so happy but they putting effort to stay within the company and then they happy because they achieve it and you as a manager I think

00:42:09 - 00:43:09

is responsible to have this conversation is in like hey we hired you because of this and this we believe you are great at those things those things are not working for now and they're not necessarily wouldn't work in the future but to be able to stick around and be a part of the team valuable team player I really need you to work on these things and I'm happy to support through this and that let's discuss what would be feasible for you and achievable in this period of time and that's how we would

00:42:39 - 00:43:32

tell if you are succeeding within the role I think it's a very real conversation but when you're approaching it from this place of like I have high expectations of you and I also believe that you can deliver on that and I'm here to help then it creates a very healthy Dynamic I think I would prefer to know what's expected from very clearly from the GetGo and then to work against it and receive feedback and sometimes feedback is tough right sometimes feedback is like I see you put

00:43:06 - 00:44:22

in effort but we're not getting the outcome we need so what would we do differently do you see how I can help you here and I think those conversation also very important so I wouldn't sign to live in a world of pony and unicorns there everyone just like soft and fluffy and not having a real talk so I think it's not EX inclusive I think I want to have both I'm so happy we're recording this I will have your quote I will use it on daily basis really uh you touched on Recruitment and I want to go into

00:43:44 - 00:44:56

this but before there's just one more thing that I want to ask on the leadership side uh I think you you you hinted on this quote um how dating makes you a better manager and I can't resist asking like what's what's there uh can you tell us a story there's a lot of stories but I'll keep it personal and professional not private right super um sure I think what's actually very interesting is how much of an overlap there is between management and dating because it's about creating expectations like

00:44:20 - 00:45:41

setting expectations for the other person and yourself being able to talk through those topics aligning in the goals aligning vision for yourself and for the other person and how do you pursue things as a team so actually the the amount of books I read about communication about psychology within the dating field is quite transferable towards management you know and that's that's quite cool because I for like years F that my emotional side like me as a human is not welcomed within the workpace that I should just perform my

00:45:00 - 00:45:57

tasks and do whatever it takes to just get us some outcomes and no one really cares about how I feel and what do I do and stuff like that and once I allowed myself to actually say hey like today I'm having a bit of a harsh day so I'll take it slowly I'll be available over slack but I would be doing this and this like more like you know kind of on the side and being able to talk about your feelings again in the safe container which is not necessarily over sharing but just saying hey this is what's

00:45:29 - 00:46:28

happening to me so today I would be in the different maybe working mode and being clear about it and being proactive with sharing with the team so they don't have to guess why you look this way or why you're responding in certain ways so I think this is one example of how being able to align and like your emotional state and being able to communicate your feelings really made me a better manager so because before I've been holding back on that thinking that it's maybe not super like relevant you know know so

00:45:58 - 00:47:09

that was one thing another thing dating is pretty much a lot of screening and you need to know what are your questions you know what are you screening against like and I think in this realm when you can very clearly articulate what you're looking for within the dating scene and within the recruitment process it's it's a drastic change because my interviews in recent years they are slightly more edgy and dorky simultaneously you know and people really appreciate it I'm like sitting on the call with someone I'm

00:46:34 - 00:47:28

saying hey yeah I I read your CV those things are clear those things which are not clear so I want to talk to you about that so I already know all this good stuff like but this this is a bit of a mismatch or this is a bit of a thing I really cannot get my head around let's talk about this and you know people are very willing to do that because I'm not just having an hour conversation which is basic what are your skills what you've done tell me an example of this project of that project because I saw it

00:47:00 - 00:48:04

already my question might be um along the lines let me let me think about my recent hire so I've been uh hiring a Content design lead for zoy to basic ly content design and work with many teams and I'm like hey it's a bit messy like in a way of like no perfect process some people do not know what content design is how comfortable are you with really holding the space for people to learn about the discipline while moving the project forward because project would not be necessarily prioritized you would

00:47:33 - 00:48:35

have conflict in priorities how does it make you feel like what was your previous experience with navigating different stakeholders opinions wanting different things from you and it's a very real question you know and by building conversation along these lines I think I've learned way more about the person how they respond to things and the same with the dating so as ask what you want to know I don't want to know necessarily how's your day and how are you so I want to know something else

00:48:04 - 00:49:20

perhaps so by being able to fine-tune and refine your Communications and your questions you're getting way more out of it so that's how dating life enhanc my professional one that's amazing I was actually thinking about uh this overlap and uh the uh comparison between uh teamwork and dating while we were discussing remote vs uh hybrid because uh if it's like dating you actually want to see this person you are dating oh like remote dating yes that that's a good but real that's a

00:48:44 - 00:49:39

good one I think it starts with an intention what are you dating for what's your idea of dating you know living in Amsterdam and being exposed to different communities I've learned so many ideas about dating so many ideas about ship like what does it mean for you to have a partner what does it mean for you to have multiple partners how do you differentiate between those Partners what are the set of needs for this partner versus for that partner how do you go about fulfilling your needs are you putting

00:49:11 - 00:50:21

all the needs within one person or like you're Distributing them around so there are so many ways and once you are open to it I do have very close friendships of mine which are fully remote and we see each other very rarely and when we travel and we're really trying to make time but our chats are just given you know it's life it's like your daily reflections and things little cute moments because I think this connection and this intimacy could be uh nurtured via digital channels and during the

00:49:46 - 00:50:55

covid I've been helping some researchers to put together a state of relationship during Co because a lot of Partners been kind of split apart and living in different places and not having physical proximity so they've been exploring the topic of uh digital intimacy as well so how it's established how it's nurtured and it's fascinating so I think there's more life to this things we thought fully figured out and for sure if like uh physical Central experience is a part of what you're looking for in the

00:50:20 - 00:51:20

connection for sure you need to find ways to connect but sometimes it could be platonic and emotional and it is still possible to maintain it through chats and calls and and little cute circles and videos and all these things so there is there is more to it I [Applause] think uh so it's actually this parallel with dating is super interesting I actually never thought about it this way uh and I probably should have because there are many many learnings both ways um but I'm curious in general if you

00:50:50 - 00:51:45

were to describe your approach to recruitment uh you told me once that you have some unconventional style and people were actually very happy happy and like you heard from candidates that they they were like super happy to be treated that way so can you tell like what what's your approach that's really you know this answer depends I hate it but it's kind of it so what I'm doing actually I'm trying to understand what's the good profile for the role if I can hire pretty much anyone like what would

00:51:17 - 00:52:09

be the ideal candidate so I'm starting with that like who's kind of fit in the brief sometimes I'm doing research by really looking through some existing profiles people in the market thinking okay I like this I like that I like that so I think it's important to have a vision because if you do not know who are you hiring then it's really hard to say if it's the right person or not so again setting up expectations for both sides then being able to communicate so actually right on this topic like when

00:51:43 - 00:52:47

when you say ideal profile what does it look like for you is it a combination of skills values traits is it more like the type of experience they had uh like what I want it all but this I think real like we have a bch of skills to be able to perform the role just on a technical level if it's a let's use the content design lead example right so being able to lead the function from the get-go because it's a team of one at the moment I wanted this person to have some leadership experience but still being an

00:52:15 - 00:53:23

i and if needed kind of could have scaled the team because it's still of their interest but they're not hunting for this role as a manager for instance very specific things so having leadership abilities but being happy in the IC role cool first starting point second uh I knew that content design at Zoe is immature close to non-existent because we had a strong contractor before and she put some pieces and Frameworks in place but still a lot of people wouldn't differentiate copyrighting and content design right so

00:52:49 - 00:53:47

what's the difference and you need to be very confident and comfortable having this conversation because if you come in from the wellestablished or of 75 content designers and you've been leading one team in certain domain this more like startup is way of working then people just slacking you and saying hey like we need to release it tomorrow like how would you navigate it because it's a part of the role and you might like it you might not like it but I would not pretend what you will schedule the

00:53:18 - 00:54:21

content design office hour and it would be enough and you know by saying that out loud it would confront people because some would say oh my gosh it's so hectic I don't want it and some people say oh wow it's so cool I can structure it in a way I want and I want people who are willing to those types of challenges being able to say okay it's a bit messy but I kind of want it this way because I'm tired maybe of all well set up processes when I need to have three reviews before putting a text in a

00:53:49 - 00:55:01

button for instance so that's that's this part and then speaking about the so basically we discussed the approach attitude towards the job like so skills than attitude and the third thing is cultural relevance you can say cultural fit you can say something else what cultural relevance for me is about being able to integrate because if you're coming from a Enterprise world where things are slow where you're not necessarily happy maybe with processes but you are not doing something about it

00:54:25 - 00:55:32

and you communicate in a very different manner because for instance within Zoe we do have value of transparency and it's very specific where transparent especially when it's hard so I would be curious how do you bring up topics which are challenging how do you navigate disagreement what is disagreement for you and things like that and you know when I'm asking those questions very specifically within the container of the role and trying to understand you as a person people feel that I want to know

00:54:59 - 00:56:08

why this is of your interest what's maybe uncertain still for you what are your concerns so what what you unsure about within this role what's not clear and I talk through this so my outcome or my goal of the interview is to create Clarity for both of us because I don't need to hire you like this particular candidate I need to make sure I'm hiring a person who would be successful in a role and would be able to uh enjoy it actually at the end of the day to the degree which is reasonable and I'm

00:55:34 - 00:56:37

sometimes saying like hey I hear you but it feels like it's it's not necessarily the role you you are describing like this is a different role like you know like I see this mismatch like how does it sound to you and it's a good conversation because then everyone knows where they stand yeah I really love this idea of clarity and creating clarity for both sides uh and I think like a lot of what we do like uh in I know the design work is also about creating Clarity and like you can argue that actually the

00:56:05 - 00:57:08

essence of content design work is is creating Clarity uh so it only it only make sense then to to yeah to be doing it in recruitment um do you do like in terms of like certain practices okay so I understand that like you have a vision of a candidate you structure your interviews in certain way to get signals on like specific values is there anything you do Beyond interviews like what's your approach to whatever I don't know um exerc take home exercises um maybe some probation periods reference

00:56:36 - 00:57:48

checks uh other ways of uh understanding something about the candidate right um a few things what I've learned from the founder of Mira is actually exceptional Talent requires exceptional treatment you know and I think in this realm if if you really see this is a perfect candidate for the role I'll go extra mile I'll follow up I'll make sure it's all clear if they have questions I'm happy to jump on the call um back and forth with recruiter to make sure we have super tied feedback loop I'll go

00:57:12 - 00:58:14

chase my team to submit feedback today so we can back get back to the person like in a day or two so I'm really tightening the feedback loop and I'm really making sure the person is having the best candidate experience and I've heard heard it like I I mean I'm proud to say that a number of my hirers said that's was the best hiring process they ever experienced and that's was exactly the case with one of my recent hires she said like you've been so present your style your combs like I felt seen and I

00:57:43 - 00:58:56

felt really kind of wanted for this role and it set apart the company by far so I think really if you identify this is a talent of your choice go for it like do your best also it it it's easy to say but it's sometimes hard to do especially within the startup budget try to get a very decent comp base ratio in terms of being able to attract that type of a talent for sure we always operate within some boundaries and we don't have infinite amount of money but try to meet the person where they are because for

00:58:20 - 00:59:30

instance if their base salary is like 20% lower than what you have maybe start proactively negotiating both with them and internally how can we meet maybe at 90% or something like you know what are the benefits how we can make it a deal so I think this is sort of a back office part and speaking about reference check maybe controversial take I never had a I think I've done maybe slightly less than 100 back like reference checks back in the day especially with in mirror and I never get like a strong Insight or signal from

00:58:55 - 01:00:00

the person who was kind of submitted as a reference because it's much likely someone who will speak highly about you because you kind of ask them to do so right it's kind of the context for sure some people are more honest and more brutal and I kind of like it this way but it's very rare so most of the time I do not find it helpful what I do find helpful is to find someone within your network with whom you can do a back Channel hey tell me more about time working with this person how was it are they nice are they

00:59:28 - 01:00:29

a bit of a jerk like why so like what's cool about them what are the key deliverables have you seen their impact blah blah blah for sure it's not possible sometimes because like I don't have network of like everyone working in Tech but sometimes you can approximate and I think that's that's more insightful for me and I'm also trying to look at some weak signals for instance if it's a Content designer how do they present their work AK themselves and their words online because some people

00:59:58 - 01:00:59

just do have a different level of attention to details which I cannot fix because then you're reviewing content designers you can clearly tell if people do care about layout typography the hierarchy of information or people more like copywriters as in like they focus on meanings and words and text first and foremost and then the rest and because I've been looking for designers who design with words it's important what's the size of the word where it's located and I think that was my thinking you

01:00:29 - 01:01:26

know when I'm assessing the portfolio I'm taking a look at the structure the navigation at the hierarchy I also wanted someone who worked with more complex Information Systems they are familiar with information architecture as a concept it's not like an alien for them and they can engage in this topic so by sourcing all this like you know signals from many different sources at the end of the interview process most of the time you have a decent picture if that's the right person or not so

01:00:57 - 01:01:55

and also I think it requires skills but sometimes I can hire a first or second person from the BD because I know what I'm looking for and I don't need to wait for like two more months to finish process because if you're hiring manager I would really encourage you to have God to say that's the person I want and they can do the work and I'll move forward because the worst experience is then you put in someone on hold for three weeks and then the other person for instance reject or decline and you have have to

01:01:26 - 01:02:30

go back to this initial kind of contender and you know that they're not so good but then why you decided to hire them at the first place you know so I think it's kind of a skill as well and requires some practice but I would really encourage hiring managers and companies to be certain about what they're looking for and don't put people in hold Recruiters in zo must be so happy to have you as hiring manager I've heard good feedback from them yeah We wish all hiring managers are like this

01:01:58 - 01:03:03

find a candidate that fits and hire them right away and not ask for but show me 10 other profiles just I want to compare yeah I think it comes actually from sometimes lack of maybe experience or um fear to make a mistake because it's very expensive mistake so I can understand so the question would be how can we der risk this decision what are the missing data points you need to make this decision now and sometimes maybe it's a reference check sometimes maybe it's yet another talk to a person or someone else

01:02:31 - 01:03:44

I don't know but I think my question would be what what's preventing us from making decision right right [Applause] now because what do you say uh this approach demands so much energy like caring about other people being so attentive it demands enormous amounts of energy and inspiration how do you get it how do you care about yourself to have this I love this question it's literally what I chatted briefly with Quest about before we started recording I say I just started my substack and it's called

01:03:07 - 01:04:22

unnoticed. today and I wanted to write about things which I L talked about and my first take was about the leadership art of Being undone because I realized most of the time as a leader you need to hold space for things which are in progress things which are not perfect coping with your own emotions and supporting others through some Harsh Times especially recently and it really requires you to have this resource and the second thing I'm thinking to write about is um uh the idea of practicing

01:03:45 - 01:04:57

rest within the capitalistic Realms because we are not talking much about it how do you self sustain how do you get energy what brings you energy to start with because you know when I was like a junior designer I've been looking at all these crazy Burning Man guys Tantra corses and all this we pass meditations and whatsoever and I kind now this guy myself like applying for his four with pass like you know this like 10 days kind of in silence meditation course and also doing a lot really just to support myself I realize

01:04:21 - 01:05:20

for me the best uh relaxation from the intellectual work is physical surprise so I started really prioritizing going to the gym because initially it was so boring to me and so uneventful but I realized what I also like to dance so right now I'm listening to some cool like you know SoundCloud mixes of like kind of techn diges and stuff like that while I'm doing my incline Mountain walk which kind of gives me this of almost like kind of stent party you know and this is one thing another thing I

01:04:51 - 01:05:54

realized I want to have like some massages or Spas like here and there and you know because like my body needs a bit more like kind of rest and the other very simple very accessible practice to all of us just go outside like try to be on the nature bit like have a walk like live some life outside of your computer so really creating this movement within yourself like physically helps and there are a lot of studies like listen to huberman Listen to someone else so just wake up go get some sunline just move a

01:05:23 - 01:06:26

bit like it's literally what I've done before recording this podcast so it's not just like kind of a nice story practicing What You Preach because otherwise I would be slightly more sleepy slightly less energized and think especially for leaders when you're showing up on your codes when you're showing up to your team like meetings like what type of energy you bring in with yourself is that something light is it something energetic are you just like super serious and talking like that and

01:05:54 - 01:07:01

then like people really like thinking What's Happening Here you see that's a big change in the dynamic and I think as a leader you need to be aware of it you need to be able to manage yourself because in a way you are performing on a call not like in a way of being fake but in a way of giving some energy to the room which is like room of you know in my real I'm just being by myself but I think it it shows up like and answering your question I think it's super essential to understand what gives you

01:06:28 - 01:07:40

energy and what drains your energy and how do you balance it out because I had another conversation with a person who gave me a very controversial take which I love as usual he said well I just don't do or like I I feel that the work I do gives me energy and if it doesn't give me energy it's not the right work and I'm like wow so because for me I know that for instance I can do operations I can do admin stuff but it's kind of not my best uh in terms of energy consumption SL energy creation so

01:07:04 - 01:07:55

that's why my mornings I'm trying to keep for doing stuff working writing designing and at the end of the day I can easily feel spreadsheets move calendar meetings but if I'll start with that I'll deplete my kind of you know mental energy very easily and just being aware of what's your Dynamic maybe you're creative during the night time super so like organize your schedule around it and it's again getting back to to this flexibility aspect knowing how to support yourself and organizing your

01:07:30 - 01:08:28

day to be your best version for your team I think it's super crucial it is it feels like the whole other skill like not only to have skills to do the work but also have a skill of actually knowing what works for you and organ being able to organize your lifestyle especially with so many external constraints which you might see from whatever like the family the type of place you live in absolutely and I think that's crucial and the more senior you are the more it's crucial because because if you cannot do or cannot

01:07:59 - 01:09:06

exercise the best version of yourself then I do not think you're doing a service to the team and to the company because you're always busy or always tired or always something somewhere else you know what's your like number one favorite uh practice to literally just go for a walk like and if you have a gym nearby go for the 15 degree incline like a few kilometers per hour walk because it will make you sweat a bit and I think Dr Peter ATA described it as an activity then you can talk still with someone

01:08:32 - 01:09:33

that's the level of kind intensity but you do not want to so it's kind of hard but mildly hard so you can do this thing and I realize it's really good for me because like I'm doing it for like 40 minutes to an hour and it really clears up my mind that's like physical practice and if you're into mindfulness which may be a good thing to consider if you're not yet to do do some sort of a self-observation you can call it meditation but you can just literally observe your breath Sensations in your

01:09:03 - 01:10:00

body it's quite accessible so it's not necessarily a long course try head space to start with so I think like balancing your mental and balancing your physical health is essential for you to be able to perform so walks and a bit of a self-reflection and observation AKA mindfulness might be a good starting point if you're not having this yeah it's not not often that people from Amsterdam are happy about walks but I think maybe actually play play back on it because it's so important I

01:09:32 - 01:10:35

think it's about the mindset right and I say there's no bad weather there's wrong gear and if that's your mindset then you just put in your raincoat or taking your umbrella because I think that's so important as in like reframing within again dating within managing within your work environment because you can be just stuck with the false Narrative of like oh wow weather is so bad we cannot really enjoy outside and then it's your reality but my reality I'm getting my rain cat and enjoying the rain because

01:10:04 - 01:11:21

like another quote from Bob Marley which is super relevant here some people uh just get wet the other feel rain and like how do you learn how to feel rain you know and that's so powerful I think because the weather is still the same but my perception of the weather is shaping my reactions and respond to the reality and I think by learning how to manage it better you are gaining the control and authorship over your own life and I think it's per it is yeah and thank you so much I just want

01:10:43 - 01:11:42

to like super quickly react uh because yeah living in Ireland also with like sometimes pretty harsh conditions I had all like similar kind of thoughts I can choose to focus on how miserable it is or I can choose to focus on Amazing Beauty nature which is actually available here and many many other fantastic positives but it's it's your choice and then you like actually end up living in the reality of your choice which is fascinating yeah's chose thank you so much Vlad it was a pleasure to talk to

01:11:12 - 01:11:39

you this morning and we covered so many important and interesting topics um so thank you so much for joining us super thank you CA thank you Miriam it was a pleasure thank you thank you see you