Michael Foreman
00:15 —- Welcome back to Networking Unleashed, Building Profitable Connections. I'm your host, Michael Foreman. And today we're diving into something that separates good teams from game-changing ones. The best performing teams don't operate in a bubble. They're connected. They're connected to their clients, to the other teams, to strategic partners. And that connection is where the real magic and the real profit happens. My guest today knows this better than anyone. She believes external collaboration isn't just a nice to have, it's a business advantage. We're talking about how building bridges outside your organization can accelerate innovation, amplify influence, and open doors you didn't even know existed. So whether you're leading a team, building a business, or just trying to expand your impact, buckle up buttercup, because this conversation is to reshape how you think about connection, collaboration, and the power of what happens beyond your bubble. So let's get into it. I would like to welcome to the podcast today, Daria Rudnick. She is a professional in everything that I just read. Daria, welcome to the podcast and give us a little bit of your background and how you got here today.

Daria Rudnik
1:46 —-Thanks, Michael. First of all, it's great to be here. I'm happy to share my knowledge with your audience. So it's amazing. Thanks for having me here. A few words about myself and my background. My name is Daria Rudnik. I started my career in Deloitte and then I moved up, worked up to chief people officer for mostly tech and telecom companies. And during these times, I've done lots of corporate stuff like mergers and acquisitions, setting up offices in other countries, cultural transformations. And what I've seen through those experiences is how How crucial it is for businesses to have strong, empowered, well-connected teams. Because these teams can lead transformations while organizations that don't have that team, they fail those transformations. So that's why I focus my work on helping leaders build amazing, self-sufficient, high-performing teams that are well-connected within organizations that are connected between like within themselves and that can drive real organizational value.

Michael Foreman
2:47 —-Beautiful. That's beautiful. Okay. So I developed about 10 questions and I'm going to ask you and you answer them. And if we happen to stray a little bit, we stray a little bit. I have 10 questions for you. You say the best performing teams don't operate in a bubble. What are the biggest warning signs that a team is one is that a team is one and how a leaders can burst before its limits growth?

Daria Rudnik
3:18 —-I'll share a story with you and it's a story about, yeah, about the cybersecurity team in a cloud computing company. It was a very strong team. The employees, the team members were experts and the leader was very well intentional. She wanted to be a good leader. She wanted to support her team members. She wanted them to grow. She had regular one-to-ones. She had regular conversations with her team members, but she also wanted to protect them from 
troubles that the corporate world has. So what she did is she was the kind of the spokesperson and she was the main contact for all, like for all organization. And she was handling all the questions, all the requests, all the mistakes that her team might be making, everything. She was handling everything. And she was kind of, she thought she's protecting her team members from, from troubles. But what happened is during the engagement survey, we saw that team was disengaged. They were getting bored. They were becoming unmotivated and she didn't understand why. But once we figured out that she was the, like she was connected with everyone in the organizations while they were connected only to themselves and her and didn't have this kind of clear vision of what are they doing, how they work impacts organization. They were not connected to other team members that actually caused the disengagement and drop of motivation. 
And once she connected them, like proactively led them and introduced them to other stakeholders, people that actually used the results of their work, that brought the motivation and engagement back. That made teams stronger. That made them an accent of expertise for the whole organizations in cybersecurity. So that's the power of connections. Leaders always need to be connectors and connect their team members to organizations. rather than them being the spokesperson for the team.

Michael Foreman
5:19 —- That's true. And being a true leader, when you take all the questions, take all the problems all on yourself, on your own shoulders, A, that will bog you down from doing all of your work, but you don't give your people any responsibility, anything to connect with. And that's where I think her problem was. So once she let a little of that go, 
saw that there was a lot more interactivity between everybody and everybody wasn't as bored. So that was pretty good. Okay. So in your experience, what's the difference between networking for opportunity and collaborating for impact? Where do most professionals go wrong in that balance?

Daria Rudnik
6:05 —- That's a very interesting question. When you collaborate value you that's the opportunity you have. It's always networking for opportunity. And the question is like, what is there but what do you mean by opportunity? Is it something that you want to gain or something that you want to co-create? And when it's something you want to gain, it is always visible to others. They're not getting anything from you. But when it's something about co-creation and like bringing the real value that makes people want to join you in your journey. And again, same thing happens in the organizations when you go, when there's a lot of this 
silos in the organization where different departments compete with each other. So what they do, they reach out to senior leaders for networking, because it's like everybody says, you need to network with senior leaders. So they try to catch them for coffee. They ask for some questions that might not have any value for anyone. And that's visible. People see that. But when you go out to, again, to senior leaders and you network with your stakeholders, and you bring something that they need, you ask questions first, and then you bring something that they need, that's what help you in your career. That will make you connect in the organization. And that was recognized as, okay, this person wants to create impact. They ask questions because they want to know what I need, rather than just being, showing up their faces to be remembered.

Michael Foreman
7:30 —-And that's really what I'm all about, all the networking. But I always say, 
you have to network strategically. You can't just be like a shotgun shell and just go everywhere. We have to be strategic. And when you're meeting with somebody, you have to bring a certain amount of value with that meeting. Otherwise it's just a meeting and coffee and you have a good time and you say goodbye. So that strategic networking, I think is where collaborating for impact really comes in.

Daria Rudnik
8:02 —-  If I can just, jump in because what I write about, I like the strategic approach. And here is in my book, I have actually a chart that helps leaders create well connected teams based on the goal that they want to reach. So it's the first thing you want to try to understand the team purpose. So team purpose happens in the first. And when you know the team purpose, then you write down all the stakeholders and then you write down, okay, who on your team is connected or can easily be connected with stakeholders? 
And those team members reach out to the stakeholders. Not the senior person on the team goes to the senior stakeholder, but the ones who already have some sort of relationships or the one who can bring real value to those stakeholders. They are the ones that go and build those connections. So when we talk about team networking, again, it's a strategic, you actually need to map it out, map your team purpose, all the connections you already have, and who on your team can make what kind of connections with the stakeholders. And that's make it more effective.

Michael Foreman
9:05 —- Absolutely. Very good. Very good. And I'm glad you brought the chart out from your book. External collaboration sounds great in theory, but it often collides with ego control or corporate silos, what you just talked about. What's the most effective way to break those walls without breaking relationships?

Daria Rudnik
9:25 —- Well, breaking the walls, you're actually building those relations. When we say like external collaborations outside of your team, 
is actually going out there and trying to understand how I can create value for the other team. And it might sound strange at first because, okay, why would I create value for other team when I need to create value for my boss so that the boss, my boss sees me and gives me more budget, more benefits, promotion, and things like that. But when we look at the business perspective and what executives really want, they want to see collaboration. They want to see people connecting with each other. And when they see someone, who is not only bringing the solution and promoting themselves and promoting their teams, but when they see someone who can connect other departments and create value out of those connections, they recognize that as a main asset for the organization because this person is a connector and executives want to see connectors, more connectors on the organizations rather than those who can create something individually and bring it on to the top.

Michael Foreman
10:28 —- Yes, absolutely. 
The leaders look for that collaboration. Listen, they still want their individual employees to try to achieve more than what they've achieved last year, right? So they really want them to go out and do the best, but they also want them to collaborate because together they might be even stronger. So it's always there. So yes, very good. Can you share an example? where an unexpected partnership, maybe even one outside your industry, completely changed the trajectory of a project or business?

Daria Rudnik
11:11 —-  This wasn't exactly like outside of my industry, but I once was coaching a leader and he wanted to be a go-to person in AI implementation within the company. But the company is very silent in businesses they're running. So The thing is that the problem is, and the challenge that this person had is how he can reach out to all of those silent other organizations and be this go-to person for AI when he has no authority over that. No one introduced him to that. He's not a leader, like officially leader to do that. So what he did is he did networking. He just reached out to those people, asked them what they want. 
asked them like how they're solving their AI challenges right now, and started to build those connections, not only between like himself and this person, but he also started to connect those business units between each other so that they could share the benefits of how they use AI for their businesses. And again, as I mentioned, that was the reason and the thing that he brought to his leaders, sharing that I am the one who can connect all those team members. I can do, I'm the one who can connect those people. And I really want to be the AI leader for the whole organization because I am the connector. So it might be very challenging to reach out to someone like outside of your zone, of your comfort zone, outside of your network. But like making this step is actually what can bring the real value. So going out there, talking to people you don't know who are outside of your 
of your reach, even if you don't have official authority to do that. Just have a regular conversation. That works.

Michael Foreman
12:54 —-Yes. Networking is so important. I feel that networking is the base of all businesses and we're fusing because AI is like the buzzword, right? So AI and networking come together. I have actually a networking group that I fused the AI and networking together and I tell you how to reach out through AI, but you can't forget about your networking. But the way that this person had done it, he reached out networking-wise. It's all about AI, but he reached out networking, and he brought value to everybody he was reaching out to because he was answering their questions. So unofficially, he was the leader. And so when he went to the bosses, say, look, I'm not the leader. 
but they all count on me to be. So when I give me the title that type of thing, but yes, very good. Okay. What do you think is the new currency of collaboration in business today? Is it information access trust or something else?

Daria Rudnik
14:05 —- Oh, I love the question. I would say it's emotions. We need, we need emotions. We need emotional connections. With again, bringing this AI topic that like, yeah, it's burning now. It's a burning question, but again, receiving an email, you read it and say, what? It was written by AI. I recognize the patterns. I see those kind of the structure of the sentences AI uses. We don't want that. We want this rough with some mistakes, but human connection, human, we want this emotion that there's someone there who cares about me. 
So I would say it's emotions and emotional connection.

Michael Foreman
14:50 —- And I would absolutely 100% agree with you because the emotion, the AI will never have the emotion that a human being will have. Even, look, like you and I are talking via Zoom, right? But you have to realize that on the other side of the camera, there's a person who laughs, giggles, smiles, cries, and everything else. The emotion is there. So that I feel is a very important part of it. Very good of you to bring it up. When two teams or organizations collaborate, culture clash is almost inevitable. What's one strategy that helps align cultures without losing each other's side's identity?

Daria Rudnik
15:33 — It's a great question, especially when we now work in this remote hybrid world, when even within one team, we can have people with different cultures. 
And again, I write this in my book is how you discuss and agree on how you work together. And that's the first step. Whenever any collaboration starts, like the, our conversations, how it started, you mentioned here is how it goes. Here are the sort of the rules on the norms of our conversation. We'll start with this. We'll do that. You'll have 10 questions and then we'll move forward. So every collaboration starts with rules of engagement. Every team needs to have an agree on how do we work together? What are the team norms? And when two teams collaborate with each other, they need to, at some point, sit down and agree. Here is how we send emails. Here is how quickly we respond to them. Here is the topics that we want to have meetings for. And here is what we can just have emails. Here is how we can say hello. Here is how we can say goodbye. How we give feedback. Here is like our feedback can be more direct or less direct. 
depending on the teams that are together. So having those norms is a critical element of any successful collaboration.

Michael Foreman
16:48 —- Very good. Yes, I agree 100%. How do you measure the ROI of relationships, not just revenue of referrals, but the long-term value of external connections?

Daria Rudnik
17:02 —-I can tell you, I can tell you in, in, in money, I mean, it costs, the ROI is millions and millions of dollars. And I'll tell you a story. And the story is when of a company with great culture, it was telecom company, and they had amazing culture. And the CEO were always talking about, it was very transparent about the purpose of the organization. And he collected the team that's, that shares that purpose. And it was, the company was going through hard times and they needed to cut costs, like really needed to cut costs. And what traditional organizations do, they lay off people, they cut off some processes. They say, here is the new way of working. What he did was different. When they had those connections, when they had those relationships, he came to the contact center team and he said, I knew how, how, like how you care about our customers. I know how you can build. 
great relationships with our clients and provide amazing service and they value you for that and we value you for that. But every minute of your conversation costs us lots of money and i'm not going to tell i'm not going to tell you you need to cut the time of your conversations because i knew how important it is to serve clients. But I want to ask you, I want you to be mindful about the time of your conversations and make them as short as possible to keep the great service you provide So he didn't tell them to cut the conversations to one minute time. But in reality, they listened, they heard, and they cut the time of the conversations. Not all the conversations were short. But overall, they managed to save millions of dollars because they shortened the time of the conversation. That's the ROI of great relationships.

Michael Foreman
18:53 —-Wow, that was great. That was a great story. Thank you for that. Okay, staying on AI a little bit. 
In a world of AI and automation, how do you see the human element of collaborating evolving? And are we at risk of outsourcing too much of our connection?

Daria Rudnik
19:14 —- AI does have a tendency, we do have a tendency to outsource our thinking to AI and using AI as a second brain, which is not. And I was once working with a team and it was, again, it was a customer support team. And at some point they were using AI a lot. And at some point the leader, the managers saw that they were losing, they were becoming more disengaged. And like, we didn't understand why, but it happened that what they did, the processes, they had a conversation with the client, they had a transcript, they uploaded to AI, they got some insights, the kind of main bullet points from AI. 
They uploaded it to the CRM without thinking, without processing information, without this emotional connection that we talked about before, without mentally processing the information. And since they delegated too much to AI, they became disengaged. They were like, they felt like the operators of AI rather than people serving their customers. So what we did instead is we brought that communication connection back through having kind of short team sessions of like discussing the output of the conversations, discussing the client customer's problems, using AI as a second, like as a second layer of conversation, not the first layer. The first, they shared their insights and thoughts and emotions. Then they took what AI gave them and again, mentally processed and critically evaluated the outcome of AI. So it is very important to include that part of critical evaluation and like 
discussing AI outputs into the work process, because otherwise you'll just delegate too much and stop thinking, critically evaluating what AI gives you.

Michael Foreman
21:00 —- Yes, and it's all right to use what comes out of the AI, but you have to mix it with yourself. You have to put your own take on it and you have to change it a little bit. You can't just go straight and just bring it out. Otherwise, you're going to be like a robot and nobody wants to talk to you. but that you have to include yourself. Okay. What advice would you give to leaders who are great at managing internally, but struggle to build bridges externally?

Daria Rudnik
21:32 —-- That is a great question. I coach a lot of leaders who say, I'm an introvert. Like I care of my team. I don't want to go out there. I don't want to share anything. The main thing that they all say is that I want to create value. I don't want to be the loudest person in the room. 
What I try and help them realize is without going out there and sharing successes of your team or like your strengths, they actually limiting other people. They prevent them from getting value from you. They don't know they can reach out to you and get something that they need. So the reason you go out there and talk about your team, about your successes, about your strengths. is not to boast about them. It's to share the information. It's to make sure your stakeholders feel confident that they are in the good hands and you can handle any situation they're facing. And I also had another conversation with a researcher on networking and negotiation. And she said, most people don't go out there because they feel like they're not interesting enough and people don't want to talk to them, which is not true. People want to... 
Be connected to other people. So go out there, talk about your strengths, make sure people know that, and they will reach out to you when they need you.

Michael Foreman
22:56 —- I absolutely agree. And when I do a workshop or I coach one-on-one with the employees, that's one thing, but I have to coach the C-suite executives on how to lead them because if they do the same thing, then everything I just did was for naught. Right? So you have to point them in the right direction. I'm sure you go a lot further than that, but that's what I do. All right, let's bring this podcast full circle. If you could redesign the way companies think about networking and collaboration from the ground up, what would the new model look like?

Daria Rudnik
23:36 —-Yeah. That's a tough question. That's why it's last. I really wish 
people were more open in what they want and what they need. And by being more open in what they want and what they need and what they can provide for others. Because there are a lot of situations when we think something, assume something which is not true. And if leaders are more transparent in the state of their organization right now, even if it's a time of uncertainty, they can go out and say, hey, we don't know What's the next step will be. We're doing this and that to figure it out. That's transparency. And that kind of transparency creates the same, like creates trust so that employees can reach out and say, hey, I made this mistake. Here is how I'm going to fix it. So when we have that kind of transparency from the top, from the bottom, like sharing resources, sharing information, that will bring the collaboration and networking in organizations to the next level. 

Michael Foreman
24:45 —- Outstanding, Daria. Listen, this is so good. And you have so much knowledge to share with somebody. If anybody would like to contact you, either to be coached or ask you a question, how could they contact you?

Daria Rudnik
25:01 —- Thanks for the question. I'm very open to connecting on LinkedIn, send me a DM, send me a message. You can also find me on my website, DariaRudnik.com. And of course, if you read my book, you probably will not need to reach me because lots of things, practical tools and exercises you can do with your tier, it's all there in this book, clicking.

Michael Foreman
25:23 —- Very good. All right. Powerful stuff right here. Remember, your next breakthrough might not come from inside your team, but the connections you build outside it. Collaboration isn't just communication, it's currency. And when you spend it wisely
profits follow. If today's episode sparked an idea or challenge, how you think about teamwork and connection, share it with someone who needs to hear it. I'm Michael Foreman, and this is Networking Unleashed, where we turn connections into profit, and I'll see you next time. Daria, thank you very much for your time, and I look forward to speaking with you soon.


Daria Rudnik
26:04 —-  Thank you, Michael. I loved your questions. They're tough and very challenging. Thank you.

Michael Foreman
26:09 —- Good. Thank you. Hold on, folks. Don't go anywhere. Let's hear from our sponsors. David Neal, co-founder, Revved Up Kids. Revved Up Kids is on a mission to protect children and teens from sexual abuse, exploitation, and trafficking. They provide prevention training programs for children, teens, and adults. To learn more, go to revvedupkids.org. Henry Kaplan, Century 21. 
When it comes to making the biggest financial decision of your life, leave it in the hands of a proven professional, Henry Kaplan. Henry is a global real estate agent with Century 21, celebrating his 41st year in business. No matter where you're moving, Henry has the right connections for you. You can contact Henry at 561-427-4888. All right, folks. A huge thank you to our guests for sharing such incredible insights today. And of course, a big shout out to you, our amazing listeners, for tuning in and spending your time with us. If you're interested in my digital courses, being coached or having me come and talk to your company, just go to Michael and fill out the request form. Remember, networking isn't about being perfect. It's about being present. So take what you've learned today, get out there 
and make some meaningful connections. If you've enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review, and share it with someone who could use a little networking inspiration. Let's keep the conversation going. You can find me on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or my website, foreman.com slash podcasts.