Positive Leadership Academy Podcast
Trust or Control: What Daria Rudnik Taught Me About Culture That Survives a Crisis
A submersible imploded on its way to the Titanic wreck, and buried in the investigation was one line: toxic culture was a contributing cause. That story opens this conversation with Daria Rudnik, executive leadership coach and author of Clicking, about why culture only proves itself under pressure, what it costs a company to fake trust, and the one question she says every leader should ask their team this week.
Javier Lierena and I explore what toxic culture looks like under pressure—and why trust, psychological safety, and honest feedback matter most when things start to go wrong.
- Culture reveals itself under pressure, not when everything is going well
- Fake trust creates hidden costs in communication, decision-making, and performance
- Leaders need to create space for people to speak up before small problems become serious ones
- Psychological safety depends on what leaders do with uncomfortable feedback
- The right question can reveal whether a team truly trusts its leadership or is simply staying quiet
(00:16-00:45) Javier Llerena
Hello and welcome to the Positive Leadership Academy podcast. I am so honored to have Daria here with me. I was laughing just two minutes before I hit record because I thought she was in the United States for some reason and she's in Israel. So a lot of pressure here. She's being with us in late hours on a Friday. So I really appreciate you being here with us and really providing a lot of value to our audience.
(00:46-00:52) Daria Rudnik
Thanks for having me. I mean, the show is great. I love listening to your show. And it's great to be here as a guest now.
(00:52-01:22) Javier Llerena
Right, thank you. Thank you. You capture my attention because you talk about a lot of topics that mean a lot, especially in this hurry and worry society that we live in where go, go, go, let's perform, let's do better. And there's a lot of things that you point out and I will get into your book later on. But one of the things is really having a very strong culture. It's a real business driver.
(01:22-01:44) Javier Llerena
for companies and organizations. The way I see it is it's a living system. And when I say a living system, they're like, what do you mean? I say, well, we humans, are we? So we are living together in a system that we are supporting with doing something, right? Can you explain the importance of having a strong culture in an organization?
(01:44-02:02) Daria Rudnik
Well, it is absolutely critical. I've seen examples of culture when there was a company, like the operation suspended. And the only way they survived is because they had this strong culture and no one left. And everyone supported the companies to go through those hard times and survived.
(02:02-02:27) Daria Rudnik
The other example, which is, I'm sorry to say, but it's a deadly example. There was a submersive Titan that went down to Titanic wreck. And unfortunately, there was a tragedy. It exploded, killed five people. And there was an investigation, like a very thorough investigation of why that happened. And in the lots of pages of technical details, there was a paragraph that
(02:27-02:46) Daria Rudnik
Toxic culture was one of the reasons that happened because this culture did not support questions. People could not say something and show their concerns that there's a risk over there. And because of that, they didn't see those risks coming and it killed people.
(02:46-03:09) Daria Rudnik
People. So culture is critical. And one of the recent examples, my personal examples is when I was working with the CEO and he called me and because they had this team and the team was great. I mean, they wanted the company to survive, but they had a lot of conflicts and they were not business-like. They were not moving forward fast enough. They had plans, but they were very slow in executing them.
(03:09-03:38) Daria Rudnik
And it's only by changing this team's culture that eventually was going into the organizations by being very clear on what is accepted and what is not accepted on this team, by creating the rules of here is how we want to operate. These are the rules. This is what kind of culture we want to see. And that's what we don't tolerate. They kind of created this list of keep it up behaviors and cut it out behaviors that I described in my book, Clicking. So once they did that and started to follow those rules,
(03:38-04:05) Daria Rudnik
They opened an office in Europe. They expanded their distribution channel. They got more market share because they were united. And this culture helps people unite and move towards the shared goal. Yes. And when you were describing that, especially kind of creating kind of like what I call the community rules of the rules of the company. I remember when I was incorporating, I was hiring individuals.
(04:06-04:34) Javier Llerena
I remember very clearly, I used to work in a company that had several floors and people will come in through the lobby in the first floor and I will tell the receptionist, keep them there. I'm going to walk downstairs and greet them. And my strategy was to ask them, hey, what was the highlight of your weekend? Or kind of like a personal question before we jump into the meeting room and have the interview. And I remember saying, hey, if people don't answer me
(04:35-04:53) Javier Llerena
in a way that symbolized their family, their life, personal life, because that matter. If they're very dry and just basically say it was fine, most likely you won't get hired because the culture that I wanted to create was people that have a family,
(04:53-05:11) Javier Llerena
that we were going to be comfortable if someone needed to go earlier because, you know, kids, you know, a lot of situations happen. So things like that. And I remember creating that environment. And I remember the CEO of the company say, hey, you're letting an MBA from Stanford go.
(05:11-05:33) Javier Llerena
And I'm thinking, yeah, but at the same time, you like you said, you bring someone toxic or someone who has completely different values. Don't get me wrong. And then what will happen is you have a disruption in the team. The question that I have for you, because I think COVID and somebody asked me that question, how your business changed because of COVID and what was new.
(05:33-05:57) Javier Llerena
that was born through COVID. I remember during COVID, there was a lot of companies that had great culture, but they didn't really do anything. They waited for something to happen, a miracle to happen. But how is creating a good culture going to help your team through these hard transitions that they're about to happen? Like, for example, right now we have the AI team
(05:58-06:16) Javier Llerena
you know, hey, what do we do with AI, right? And now companies are saying, oh, we spend too much money in AI. Don't use AI. You're using all the tokens. Don't do that. But how would you, what would you say for a company? Okay, I have a good culture. Is that going to help me transition the heart
(06:16-06:39) Daria Rudnik
The hard times? I love the question because like the real thing is that when you have a strong culture, only when it's proved by going through hard times. You cannot say what kind of culture you have when everything is fine. Like people, there's no challenges. Everything is kind of slow moving forward. I know the market is friendly to you. The situation is good.
(06:40-07:06) Daria Rudnik
Everyone's happy. That's fine. That's okay. There are no kind of challenges. You don't need to have difficult conversations. But once you have the challenge of going through difficult times, whether it's launching a new ambitious product or going through mergers and acquisitions, COVID, AI, setting up offices in other countries, something that really is disrupting the way you used to operate, that's when you see that whether you have this culture or not.
(07:06-07:30) Daria Rudnik
And I used to work with the CEO. Well, unfortunately, that was not a successful case for me because, I mean, they didn't see it. They said they thought that they have a great culture because through many years they were thriving. I mean, it was a good market. Everything was good. But once they were acquired by another company and this company wanted to keep this culture of serving their customers and being there.
(07:30-07:55) Daria Rudnik
But the pace was changing. New people started to come. Environment around them was also changing. And they did not survive that because they didn't change. Because their culture was built on, hey, we're here as a family. We're friendly. Let's not talk about difficult and hard things. That's not a strong culture. Strong culture is when you can have difficult conversations respectfully with each other. And that's a skill that you have.
(07:56-08:16) Daria Rudnik
You need to learn. You need to do that, even if everything is fine, which I don't know where this happy place is right now. But having those difficult conversations as a team, being respectful to each other, sharing the same values is what helps you go through disruptions, transitions and difficult times.
(08:16-08:35) Javier Llerena
Absolutely. And I work with organizations and it's kind of interesting as a site consultant, they listen to you because they're paying you. So they're looking for, okay, what is the value you're going to bring me? But as soon as you start pointing out things that you kind of rocking the boat or you're kind of saying, hey,
(08:35-08:52) Javier Llerena
especially towards the leadership team, that's when people get offended, right? And they don't want to talk about it. And that is to me, I mean, it has to be a common goal, but at the same time, we all have to navigate in the same direction. And I agree with you 100%. If you're not willing to have
(08:52-09:18) Javier Llerena
difficult conversations, courageous conversations, also conversations of failure that can turn into a learning experience, then most likely you're not going to be able to survive completely. I agree 100% on that. Question I have for you, I'm curious. When I work with executives on the executive coaching level, one question that I ask them when they start telling me about their struggles,
(09:18-09:33) Javier Llerena
their challenges, this is what I want to do, I'm stuck, blah, blah, blah. One of the things that I ask them to, I say, hey, is that okay if you share with me your calendar? Because when they share the calendar, I don't care if it's a personal or is a
(09:34-09:59) Javier Llerena
is your work calendar, it tells me how you're investing your time to move forward wherever you want to go, right? And when I see a calendar that perhaps is very work-oriented, then there is something missing out there. So I know that I keep saying, hey, what I see, what I'm observing, if you keep going this route, those challenges are not going to disappear. These obstacles are not going to go away.
(10:00-10:25) Javier Llerena
From a company perspective, from an organization perspective, how do you see, what are the early signs that you see for a company like they're about to shut down? Obviously, yeah, you can go the route of sales, but obviously sales is a portion of that. Well, honestly, like the cases that I've seen where the company is really going out of business, we're not accepted because
(10:25-10:51) Daria Rudnik
like everything was fine until it's not and in a strong culture when everything's fine and then something's happened companies with strong culture survive that and they can save money just by going out to people and say hey guys we need to kind of be more cautious about our spendings no pressure but please keep it in mind and they do they really do there's no kpi there was no punishment there was no goal but they do that
(10:51-11:18) Daria Rudnik
But when the same thing happens, when a company does not have that strong culture, I mean, they just go out of business. Like this company that was dissolved in this acquisition. And there's another case where the CEO talking to me and they wanted to hire me. I really declined this client because what they told me is that we value trust. Like trust is our value. Okay. How does it show up?
(11:18-11:41) Daria Rudnik
Well, and they were telling me some things that they trust their clients and they want their clients to trust them. But at some point, they said that they're not paying their employees enough money because they're saving money on employees and they're not really paying all of the taxes that they're supposed to pay. I said, I mean, how can you talk about trust when your employees cannot trust you, government cannot trust you?
(11:41-12:07) Daria Rudnik
And he just said, well, you don't know how to run a business. It's so hard to run a business. Okay, no problem. I understand that. Just don't say that trust is your value. And I declined. I didn't work with them. But in the news, six months later, I saw a certain news that this company was shut down because their clients were poisoned because of the food they delivered to them. And the reason they delivered them poisonous food is because their employees didn't check something.
(12:07-12:26) Daria Rudnik
So either you have trust and your people trust you and you trust your people and you deliver great service or you don't have that trust. And then please make sure you have control because you cannot have either. It's either trust or control. And if you're not honest with yourself, if you're not honest with your clients, again, some people might get hurt.
(12:26-12:56) Daria Rudnik
It was all right. No one really hurt badly, but it was very, very unpleasant situation. The company, again, was out of business because of this misalignment in the culture. So it is really important to be, well, first of all, honest with yourself. Absolutely. Honest with yourself. As you were talking, a client came to mind. I did a workshop for them. It was an accounting firm, and they wanted me to do a workshop so they can create more connection, better communication.
(12:57-13:24) Javier Llerena
And I did an assessment. We did a workshop. And I can tell, I'm thinking, hold on a second. The team is really connecting, communicating very well. The issue was their leaders. They have two owners in that accounting firm, which they don't really connect with each other. They don't really communicate with each other. So I told them, I said, hey, I think it's better if we do some coaching here.
(13:25-13:51) Javier Llerena
Because I see it. If you're not able to communicate with your business partner, how you want your team to be able to connect and collaborate efficiency. And that reminds me of that, right? You start, I always said, you start with your inner self first before you lead. You cannot be burned out and tell your team, hey, we're doing a wellness day and you're working from home 24-7.
(13:51-13:56) Javier Llerena
Let's talk about your book. I'm always excited. I'm coming out with my second book in September.
(13:57-14:25) Javier Llerena
it's funny that the other day my barber say, oh my God, you always like to live in the edge. I said, I don't know if I like to live in the edge. I just, I just put ideas out there and I'm like, man, they look pretty good. Let's go for it and let's build it and, and, and do something. And I think any author, I think to be an author is, is, is tough. It's very, because you have to deal with, is this going to stick out there? Am I making sense? And then you have your inner critic that say, what, what, why in the world are you doing this? And,
(14:25-14:46) Javier Llerena
And it's just a whole a whole show there. But let's talk about your book clicking. I want to know what inspired you to write a book. What led to the process? Tell us more. Just tell us enough so people can buy your book as soon as we're done talking. They're going to click on the show notes that I'm going to pull below so they can buy your book.
(14:46-15:06) Daria Rudnik
Well, thanks. That's a great thing. Well, that's my book, Click In. I wrote it. I published it. It was published last August. I wanted to write a book for quite a while. The main reason is that I work with teams. I work with leaders. But I'm also a self-learner. I mean, I like to read something and try it out. And I know there are people out there who can either, cannot...
(15:06-15:21) Daria Rudnik
like work with me for, I don't know, whatever reason, distance, price, whatever it is, or they just want to do it themselves and they can do it themselves. So I wanted to give something really, really practical for leaders so that they can take it, read it and go for it and implement that. And I was
(15:21-15:42) Daria Rudnik
kind of thinking about it. And I wrote a book for leaders who feel that they carry too much, that they know that the team is capable to do more, but they just don't know how to make it happen because, again, they care for their team. Lots of leaders I work with, they do care for their team. They want them to succeed. They just
(15:42-16:02) Daria Rudnik
Don't know how to do that. And this book is about that. So I write about how to create this clarity in shared purpose, how to make sure that everyone is aligned. What kind of connections you need to build on your team? Like you mentioned remote team. In the office, you can have those informal connections. How do you do that with remote team?
(16:02-16:21) Daria Rudnik
I wrote about why it's so important for team to go out there and talk to their stakeholders and really be connected for the board organizations and take their feedback. Sometimes it's negative feedback, sometimes it's positive feedback, but be connected with the board organization. What it's like to create team norms and team rules.
(16:21-16:40) Daria Rudnik
That's the easiest thing you can do. Create some team norms and team rules and you'll see how less anxious people will be because they know, okay, they know what expected of me. They know when you expect my answer. They know what good looks like. It removes friction and it makes life easier for them.
(16:41-17:06) Daria Rudnik
When people know how to make decisions, what decisions belong to the leader, what decisions belong to individual contributors, what decisions they want to make together. Again, there is no uncertainty in, okay, should I make this decision? Is it going to my manager? Is it me making this decision? Should I escalate it further? Once they know that, it becomes easier for them to work and deliver. And finally, how you work, learn, and grow together as a team. So when you have
(17:06-17:21) Javier Llerena
clear purpose, linking connections, integrated work, collaborative decisions and knowledge sharing, your team will click. That was great. That was a great teaser for people to click on the link that I'm going to put below. I know in your book, you mentioned a lot about hybrid.
(17:21-17:48) Javier Llerena
Right. That's something that I experienced as well. During the pandemic, we were coaching leaders without knowing what the pandemic is all about. There were so many factors there, I think, that came out for leaders. But one of the things that I have seen is obviously there's leaders that have a hybrid team. There's leaders that have a completely virtual team. I've seen leaders that they have
(17:48-18:11) Javier Llerena
each of the team members in different countries or different time zones, right? So that's something so brand new in regards to leadership as well. How would you, with your experience, how would you really create that culture of this different, you know, environments that we have?
(18:12-18:33) Daria Rudnik
It is an amazing question because, again, I work with leaders who want to be good for their teams. I mean, I'm biased. They come to me because they want to be good leaders. And when they do that, they spend a lot of time on one-to-ones, having individual conversations with their team members, trying to support them, help them grow, help them feel better. What happens is that leaders are overloaded.
(18:33-18:57) Daria Rudnik
They have connections. They have pretty strong connections with their team members, but their team members, they are connected to only one person in the organization, their leader. So their connection is limited. Their relationships are limited. So instead of doing many one-to-ones, leaders, especially leaders in remote teams, they need to make sure that people on the team are connected to each other.
(18:57-19:26) Daria Rudnik
So you have meetings two to one. And then after you have this meeting two to one, you make sure those people work together. Whether it's mentoring, reverse mentoring, buddy project, buddy groups, small projects, anything that helps them talk to each other, communicate to each other in small mini groups and build those meaningful connections with multiple team members. They don't see each other in the office. They need to have a reason to connect and use leader,
(19:26-19:50) Daria Rudnik
Your role is not to have one-to-ones with each member every week or how often you think it's needed. But your main role is to connect them with each other and connect them with the board organization as well so that they have more relationships, they understand the company better, they know where to go for help, they know how to look for resources, and they feel better and perform better.
(19:50-20:07) Javier Llerena
That's great. Yeah. Great insight there because there are so many. I mean, I don't know the percentage. I know a lot of companies decided to bring people back, but there's a large percentage of leaders that they have their teams everywhere. And micromanagement doesn't work as well when you have a hybrid team.
(20:07-20:30) Javier Llerena
We are navigating so many uncertain needs as leaders out there and business owners and leaders that have large teams. What is one thing that you will advise leaders to do? I believe in action. You don't take action. Nothing happens. But is one action that they can do to navigate the unknown that we live in this time?
(20:30-20:53) Daria Rudnik
It is a very important question because again, so many things changing, the speed of change is so high. It's both action and the change of mindset. So the change of mindset is that leaders need to stop being heroes and trying to solve it all. It's not that you as a leader need to figure out how to build strong teams. It's not that you'd need to create the culture that's great for your organization.
(20:53-21:15) Daria Rudnik
Your role is not to lead and show direction. Your role now, when everything is changing so fast, when there's so much uncertainty, your role now as a leader is to facilitate conversations. So if we talk about actions, the first thing I advise you to go and do is go to your team and ask them one question.
(21:15-21:32) Daria Rudnik
What do you think we should change to make us a better team? What's one thing we should change now so that we become a better team? And wait and listen what they're going to say. They might say something. They might say nothing if they're not used to this kind of conversation.
(21:32-21:59) Daria Rudnik
But that's a start. And it's like you said, culture is living. Organization is living. And this conversation is ongoing. And keep asking this question. Keep changing your team one step at a time. And that's how you build amazing culture that can survive uncertainty and destruction. Absolutely. That's such a powerful question is to build that psychological safety and get those ideas. All right. Last question.
(22:00-22:22) Javier Llerena
Let's get personal here. If you don't want to answer, that's fine. You only have 24 hours to live. What would you do? I mean, I'd be with my family. That's a pretty easy answer. 24 hours. Okay. Anything in particular that you will do is special? I don't know. Do you think it feels like hugging time? Great. Excellent. I need to put that in the book. Where can people find you?
(22:23-22:49) Daria Rudnik
Well, I'm very open to connections on LinkedIn. Please reach out to me, find me, connect with me, send me a message. Let's keep this conversation going. And of course, you can find me on my website, thatairwoodning.com, where you can find all information about my book. And you can also download resources for your team building, like checklists or templates for team sessions. Go check it out. Download, try it yourself. Don't put it, don't keep it on your desktop. Try it yourself with your team.
(22:50-23:01) Javier Llerena
That's right. You know, no action, nothing is going to happen. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for being part of the Positive Leadership Academy podcast. Love your energy. Love what you're doing. We're changing the world.
Hello and welcome to the Positive Leadership Academy podcast. I am so honored to have Daria here with me. I was laughing just two minutes before I hit record because I thought she was in the United States for some reason and she's in Israel. So a lot of pressure here. She's being with us in late hours on a Friday. So I really appreciate you being here with us and really providing a lot of value to our audience.
(00:46-00:52) Daria Rudnik
Thanks for having me. I mean, the show is great. I love listening to your show. And it's great to be here as a guest now.
(00:52-01:22) Javier Llerena
Right, thank you. Thank you. You capture my attention because you talk about a lot of topics that mean a lot, especially in this hurry and worry society that we live in where go, go, go, let's perform, let's do better. And there's a lot of things that you point out and I will get into your book later on. But one of the things is really having a very strong culture. It's a real business driver.
(01:22-01:44) Javier Llerena
for companies and organizations. The way I see it is it's a living system. And when I say a living system, they're like, what do you mean? I say, well, we humans, are we? So we are living together in a system that we are supporting with doing something, right? Can you explain the importance of having a strong culture in an organization?
(01:44-02:02) Daria Rudnik
Well, it is absolutely critical. I've seen examples of culture when there was a company, like the operation suspended. And the only way they survived is because they had this strong culture and no one left. And everyone supported the companies to go through those hard times and survived.
(02:02-02:27) Daria Rudnik
The other example, which is, I'm sorry to say, but it's a deadly example. There was a submersive Titan that went down to Titanic wreck. And unfortunately, there was a tragedy. It exploded, killed five people. And there was an investigation, like a very thorough investigation of why that happened. And in the lots of pages of technical details, there was a paragraph that
(02:27-02:46) Daria Rudnik
Toxic culture was one of the reasons that happened because this culture did not support questions. People could not say something and show their concerns that there's a risk over there. And because of that, they didn't see those risks coming and it killed people.
(02:46-03:09) Daria Rudnik
People. So culture is critical. And one of the recent examples, my personal examples is when I was working with the CEO and he called me and because they had this team and the team was great. I mean, they wanted the company to survive, but they had a lot of conflicts and they were not business-like. They were not moving forward fast enough. They had plans, but they were very slow in executing them.
(03:09-03:38) Daria Rudnik
And it's only by changing this team's culture that eventually was going into the organizations by being very clear on what is accepted and what is not accepted on this team, by creating the rules of here is how we want to operate. These are the rules. This is what kind of culture we want to see. And that's what we don't tolerate. They kind of created this list of keep it up behaviors and cut it out behaviors that I described in my book, Clicking. So once they did that and started to follow those rules,
(03:38-04:05) Daria Rudnik
They opened an office in Europe. They expanded their distribution channel. They got more market share because they were united. And this culture helps people unite and move towards the shared goal. Yes. And when you were describing that, especially kind of creating kind of like what I call the community rules of the rules of the company. I remember when I was incorporating, I was hiring individuals.
(04:06-04:34) Javier Llerena
I remember very clearly, I used to work in a company that had several floors and people will come in through the lobby in the first floor and I will tell the receptionist, keep them there. I'm going to walk downstairs and greet them. And my strategy was to ask them, hey, what was the highlight of your weekend? Or kind of like a personal question before we jump into the meeting room and have the interview. And I remember saying, hey, if people don't answer me
(04:35-04:53) Javier Llerena
in a way that symbolized their family, their life, personal life, because that matter. If they're very dry and just basically say it was fine, most likely you won't get hired because the culture that I wanted to create was people that have a family,
(04:53-05:11) Javier Llerena
that we were going to be comfortable if someone needed to go earlier because, you know, kids, you know, a lot of situations happen. So things like that. And I remember creating that environment. And I remember the CEO of the company say, hey, you're letting an MBA from Stanford go.
(05:11-05:33) Javier Llerena
And I'm thinking, yeah, but at the same time, you like you said, you bring someone toxic or someone who has completely different values. Don't get me wrong. And then what will happen is you have a disruption in the team. The question that I have for you, because I think COVID and somebody asked me that question, how your business changed because of COVID and what was new.
(05:33-05:57) Javier Llerena
that was born through COVID. I remember during COVID, there was a lot of companies that had great culture, but they didn't really do anything. They waited for something to happen, a miracle to happen. But how is creating a good culture going to help your team through these hard transitions that they're about to happen? Like, for example, right now we have the AI team
(05:58-06:16) Javier Llerena
you know, hey, what do we do with AI, right? And now companies are saying, oh, we spend too much money in AI. Don't use AI. You're using all the tokens. Don't do that. But how would you, what would you say for a company? Okay, I have a good culture. Is that going to help me transition the heart
(06:16-06:39) Daria Rudnik
The hard times? I love the question because like the real thing is that when you have a strong culture, only when it's proved by going through hard times. You cannot say what kind of culture you have when everything is fine. Like people, there's no challenges. Everything is kind of slow moving forward. I know the market is friendly to you. The situation is good.
(06:40-07:06) Daria Rudnik
Everyone's happy. That's fine. That's okay. There are no kind of challenges. You don't need to have difficult conversations. But once you have the challenge of going through difficult times, whether it's launching a new ambitious product or going through mergers and acquisitions, COVID, AI, setting up offices in other countries, something that really is disrupting the way you used to operate, that's when you see that whether you have this culture or not.
(07:06-07:30) Daria Rudnik
And I used to work with the CEO. Well, unfortunately, that was not a successful case for me because, I mean, they didn't see it. They said they thought that they have a great culture because through many years they were thriving. I mean, it was a good market. Everything was good. But once they were acquired by another company and this company wanted to keep this culture of serving their customers and being there.
(07:30-07:55) Daria Rudnik
But the pace was changing. New people started to come. Environment around them was also changing. And they did not survive that because they didn't change. Because their culture was built on, hey, we're here as a family. We're friendly. Let's not talk about difficult and hard things. That's not a strong culture. Strong culture is when you can have difficult conversations respectfully with each other. And that's a skill that you have.
(07:56-08:16) Daria Rudnik
You need to learn. You need to do that, even if everything is fine, which I don't know where this happy place is right now. But having those difficult conversations as a team, being respectful to each other, sharing the same values is what helps you go through disruptions, transitions and difficult times.
(08:16-08:35) Javier Llerena
Absolutely. And I work with organizations and it's kind of interesting as a site consultant, they listen to you because they're paying you. So they're looking for, okay, what is the value you're going to bring me? But as soon as you start pointing out things that you kind of rocking the boat or you're kind of saying, hey,
(08:35-08:52) Javier Llerena
especially towards the leadership team, that's when people get offended, right? And they don't want to talk about it. And that is to me, I mean, it has to be a common goal, but at the same time, we all have to navigate in the same direction. And I agree with you 100%. If you're not willing to have
(08:52-09:18) Javier Llerena
difficult conversations, courageous conversations, also conversations of failure that can turn into a learning experience, then most likely you're not going to be able to survive completely. I agree 100% on that. Question I have for you, I'm curious. When I work with executives on the executive coaching level, one question that I ask them when they start telling me about their struggles,
(09:18-09:33) Javier Llerena
their challenges, this is what I want to do, I'm stuck, blah, blah, blah. One of the things that I ask them to, I say, hey, is that okay if you share with me your calendar? Because when they share the calendar, I don't care if it's a personal or is a
(09:34-09:59) Javier Llerena
is your work calendar, it tells me how you're investing your time to move forward wherever you want to go, right? And when I see a calendar that perhaps is very work-oriented, then there is something missing out there. So I know that I keep saying, hey, what I see, what I'm observing, if you keep going this route, those challenges are not going to disappear. These obstacles are not going to go away.
(10:00-10:25) Javier Llerena
From a company perspective, from an organization perspective, how do you see, what are the early signs that you see for a company like they're about to shut down? Obviously, yeah, you can go the route of sales, but obviously sales is a portion of that. Well, honestly, like the cases that I've seen where the company is really going out of business, we're not accepted because
(10:25-10:51) Daria Rudnik
like everything was fine until it's not and in a strong culture when everything's fine and then something's happened companies with strong culture survive that and they can save money just by going out to people and say hey guys we need to kind of be more cautious about our spendings no pressure but please keep it in mind and they do they really do there's no kpi there was no punishment there was no goal but they do that
(10:51-11:18) Daria Rudnik
But when the same thing happens, when a company does not have that strong culture, I mean, they just go out of business. Like this company that was dissolved in this acquisition. And there's another case where the CEO talking to me and they wanted to hire me. I really declined this client because what they told me is that we value trust. Like trust is our value. Okay. How does it show up?
(11:18-11:41) Daria Rudnik
Well, and they were telling me some things that they trust their clients and they want their clients to trust them. But at some point, they said that they're not paying their employees enough money because they're saving money on employees and they're not really paying all of the taxes that they're supposed to pay. I said, I mean, how can you talk about trust when your employees cannot trust you, government cannot trust you?
(11:41-12:07) Daria Rudnik
And he just said, well, you don't know how to run a business. It's so hard to run a business. Okay, no problem. I understand that. Just don't say that trust is your value. And I declined. I didn't work with them. But in the news, six months later, I saw a certain news that this company was shut down because their clients were poisoned because of the food they delivered to them. And the reason they delivered them poisonous food is because their employees didn't check something.
(12:07-12:26) Daria Rudnik
So either you have trust and your people trust you and you trust your people and you deliver great service or you don't have that trust. And then please make sure you have control because you cannot have either. It's either trust or control. And if you're not honest with yourself, if you're not honest with your clients, again, some people might get hurt.
(12:26-12:56) Daria Rudnik
It was all right. No one really hurt badly, but it was very, very unpleasant situation. The company, again, was out of business because of this misalignment in the culture. So it is really important to be, well, first of all, honest with yourself. Absolutely. Honest with yourself. As you were talking, a client came to mind. I did a workshop for them. It was an accounting firm, and they wanted me to do a workshop so they can create more connection, better communication.
(12:57-13:24) Javier Llerena
And I did an assessment. We did a workshop. And I can tell, I'm thinking, hold on a second. The team is really connecting, communicating very well. The issue was their leaders. They have two owners in that accounting firm, which they don't really connect with each other. They don't really communicate with each other. So I told them, I said, hey, I think it's better if we do some coaching here.
(13:25-13:51) Javier Llerena
Because I see it. If you're not able to communicate with your business partner, how you want your team to be able to connect and collaborate efficiency. And that reminds me of that, right? You start, I always said, you start with your inner self first before you lead. You cannot be burned out and tell your team, hey, we're doing a wellness day and you're working from home 24-7.
(13:51-13:56) Javier Llerena
Let's talk about your book. I'm always excited. I'm coming out with my second book in September.
(13:57-14:25) Javier Llerena
it's funny that the other day my barber say, oh my God, you always like to live in the edge. I said, I don't know if I like to live in the edge. I just, I just put ideas out there and I'm like, man, they look pretty good. Let's go for it and let's build it and, and, and do something. And I think any author, I think to be an author is, is, is tough. It's very, because you have to deal with, is this going to stick out there? Am I making sense? And then you have your inner critic that say, what, what, why in the world are you doing this? And,
(14:25-14:46) Javier Llerena
And it's just a whole a whole show there. But let's talk about your book clicking. I want to know what inspired you to write a book. What led to the process? Tell us more. Just tell us enough so people can buy your book as soon as we're done talking. They're going to click on the show notes that I'm going to pull below so they can buy your book.
(14:46-15:06) Daria Rudnik
Well, thanks. That's a great thing. Well, that's my book, Click In. I wrote it. I published it. It was published last August. I wanted to write a book for quite a while. The main reason is that I work with teams. I work with leaders. But I'm also a self-learner. I mean, I like to read something and try it out. And I know there are people out there who can either, cannot...
(15:06-15:21) Daria Rudnik
like work with me for, I don't know, whatever reason, distance, price, whatever it is, or they just want to do it themselves and they can do it themselves. So I wanted to give something really, really practical for leaders so that they can take it, read it and go for it and implement that. And I was
(15:21-15:42) Daria Rudnik
kind of thinking about it. And I wrote a book for leaders who feel that they carry too much, that they know that the team is capable to do more, but they just don't know how to make it happen because, again, they care for their team. Lots of leaders I work with, they do care for their team. They want them to succeed. They just
(15:42-16:02) Daria Rudnik
Don't know how to do that. And this book is about that. So I write about how to create this clarity in shared purpose, how to make sure that everyone is aligned. What kind of connections you need to build on your team? Like you mentioned remote team. In the office, you can have those informal connections. How do you do that with remote team?
(16:02-16:21) Daria Rudnik
I wrote about why it's so important for team to go out there and talk to their stakeholders and really be connected for the board organizations and take their feedback. Sometimes it's negative feedback, sometimes it's positive feedback, but be connected with the board organization. What it's like to create team norms and team rules.
(16:21-16:40) Daria Rudnik
That's the easiest thing you can do. Create some team norms and team rules and you'll see how less anxious people will be because they know, okay, they know what expected of me. They know when you expect my answer. They know what good looks like. It removes friction and it makes life easier for them.
(16:41-17:06) Daria Rudnik
When people know how to make decisions, what decisions belong to the leader, what decisions belong to individual contributors, what decisions they want to make together. Again, there is no uncertainty in, okay, should I make this decision? Is it going to my manager? Is it me making this decision? Should I escalate it further? Once they know that, it becomes easier for them to work and deliver. And finally, how you work, learn, and grow together as a team. So when you have
(17:06-17:21) Javier Llerena
clear purpose, linking connections, integrated work, collaborative decisions and knowledge sharing, your team will click. That was great. That was a great teaser for people to click on the link that I'm going to put below. I know in your book, you mentioned a lot about hybrid.
(17:21-17:48) Javier Llerena
Right. That's something that I experienced as well. During the pandemic, we were coaching leaders without knowing what the pandemic is all about. There were so many factors there, I think, that came out for leaders. But one of the things that I have seen is obviously there's leaders that have a hybrid team. There's leaders that have a completely virtual team. I've seen leaders that they have
(17:48-18:11) Javier Llerena
each of the team members in different countries or different time zones, right? So that's something so brand new in regards to leadership as well. How would you, with your experience, how would you really create that culture of this different, you know, environments that we have?
(18:12-18:33) Daria Rudnik
It is an amazing question because, again, I work with leaders who want to be good for their teams. I mean, I'm biased. They come to me because they want to be good leaders. And when they do that, they spend a lot of time on one-to-ones, having individual conversations with their team members, trying to support them, help them grow, help them feel better. What happens is that leaders are overloaded.
(18:33-18:57) Daria Rudnik
They have connections. They have pretty strong connections with their team members, but their team members, they are connected to only one person in the organization, their leader. So their connection is limited. Their relationships are limited. So instead of doing many one-to-ones, leaders, especially leaders in remote teams, they need to make sure that people on the team are connected to each other.
(18:57-19:26) Daria Rudnik
So you have meetings two to one. And then after you have this meeting two to one, you make sure those people work together. Whether it's mentoring, reverse mentoring, buddy project, buddy groups, small projects, anything that helps them talk to each other, communicate to each other in small mini groups and build those meaningful connections with multiple team members. They don't see each other in the office. They need to have a reason to connect and use leader,
(19:26-19:50) Daria Rudnik
Your role is not to have one-to-ones with each member every week or how often you think it's needed. But your main role is to connect them with each other and connect them with the board organization as well so that they have more relationships, they understand the company better, they know where to go for help, they know how to look for resources, and they feel better and perform better.
(19:50-20:07) Javier Llerena
That's great. Yeah. Great insight there because there are so many. I mean, I don't know the percentage. I know a lot of companies decided to bring people back, but there's a large percentage of leaders that they have their teams everywhere. And micromanagement doesn't work as well when you have a hybrid team.
(20:07-20:30) Javier Llerena
We are navigating so many uncertain needs as leaders out there and business owners and leaders that have large teams. What is one thing that you will advise leaders to do? I believe in action. You don't take action. Nothing happens. But is one action that they can do to navigate the unknown that we live in this time?
(20:30-20:53) Daria Rudnik
It is a very important question because again, so many things changing, the speed of change is so high. It's both action and the change of mindset. So the change of mindset is that leaders need to stop being heroes and trying to solve it all. It's not that you as a leader need to figure out how to build strong teams. It's not that you'd need to create the culture that's great for your organization.
(20:53-21:15) Daria Rudnik
Your role is not to lead and show direction. Your role now, when everything is changing so fast, when there's so much uncertainty, your role now as a leader is to facilitate conversations. So if we talk about actions, the first thing I advise you to go and do is go to your team and ask them one question.
(21:15-21:32) Daria Rudnik
What do you think we should change to make us a better team? What's one thing we should change now so that we become a better team? And wait and listen what they're going to say. They might say something. They might say nothing if they're not used to this kind of conversation.
(21:32-21:59) Daria Rudnik
But that's a start. And it's like you said, culture is living. Organization is living. And this conversation is ongoing. And keep asking this question. Keep changing your team one step at a time. And that's how you build amazing culture that can survive uncertainty and destruction. Absolutely. That's such a powerful question is to build that psychological safety and get those ideas. All right. Last question.
(22:00-22:22) Javier Llerena
Let's get personal here. If you don't want to answer, that's fine. You only have 24 hours to live. What would you do? I mean, I'd be with my family. That's a pretty easy answer. 24 hours. Okay. Anything in particular that you will do is special? I don't know. Do you think it feels like hugging time? Great. Excellent. I need to put that in the book. Where can people find you?
(22:23-22:49) Daria Rudnik
Well, I'm very open to connections on LinkedIn. Please reach out to me, find me, connect with me, send me a message. Let's keep this conversation going. And of course, you can find me on my website, thatairwoodning.com, where you can find all information about my book. And you can also download resources for your team building, like checklists or templates for team sessions. Go check it out. Download, try it yourself. Don't put it, don't keep it on your desktop. Try it yourself with your team.
(22:50-23:01) Javier Llerena
That's right. You know, no action, nothing is going to happen. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for being part of the Positive Leadership Academy podcast. Love your energy. Love what you're doing. We're changing the world.