Daria Rudnik
- They understand why you're doing that, what brings you here. And a lot of leaders I work with, they are in this crisis of meaning. This week on the Shameless podcast.
 The best team I ever worked with was a remote team. The worst team I ever worked with was a remote team. What is the difference? So many teams in company organizations, they're not even teams because of what they don't have. So the first thing to build trust on your team for any leader or team member: you need to... The biggest mistake is putting cultural labels on people. The era of heroic leadership is gone. You don't need to be a heroic leader. Micromanagement comes from various sources, like one of them is fear and the other one is ego. But the other very common source of micromanagement is lack of clarity. Technology is a good thing, but technology used on top of a bad process is a bad thing.
00:55 — What is that one small action that a distributed, remote, or hybrid team could do every day in order to maintain a level of connection?

Daria Rudnik
01:06 — Love it. Fun. Very simple thing.
01:30 Hello! Welcome to today's fabulous family. It's another Friday, and we share with Daria so much insight, I believe we're going to learn, and also so much fun. I hope we're going to have... Very welcome to the Shameless podcast.

Daria Rudnik
01:43 — Well, thanks. I mean, I'm excited to be here and talk about remote teams and whatever you plan for today.
01:48 — Oh, we don't plan! We just end up talking, and then it's going to unravel into something, right?
01:54 — First and foremost, for those of you who don't know me, my name is Dicken. I am the host of the Shameless podcast. Oh, no... So, first and foremost, I am a mining engineer. So the weird part about being a mining engineer and a host on the Shameless podcast is that I get to meet amazing people like Daria. The thing about this discussion today is we've all witnessed the change of how we all work. There was a moment where virtual meetings were a thing done by other people. And in this day and age, a virtual meeting or remote teams are actually integral towards the way we work. In fact, though some people out there are trying to roll the time back to that space and that age before COVID, we've all appreciated some of the advantages and disadvantages of doing this. And Daria, I would love, maybe, for you to introduce yourself as well as highlight how you've worked with teams across the world — from Zimbabwe, Japan, Europe, India, USA, Portugal, Australia... Did you say Antarctica? I don't know, but I just know that you have been from pillar to post working with remote teams, international teams of multiple cultures. And I'd love for maybe for you to introduce yourself before we jump straight into it.

Daria Rudnik
03:10 — Well, thank you so much. My name is Darya Rudnik. I'm a team architect and executive leadership coach. All my career I've worked... Like, my career started in Deloitte, and then I moved to Chief People Officer for tech and telecom companies. I've done lots of corporate stuff: mergers and acquisitions, setting up offices in other countries, cultural transformation, leading remote teams. Okay, they were not called remote teams, they were called distributed teams — teams across cultures — but we had that before COVID as well.
And for the last five years, I'm focusing on what I love doing best and what I can do best, which is helping leaders build amazing teams. And since we, after this pandemic, do realize that the workplace has changed and it's never going to be the same as it was pre-pandemic. People had this feeling of freedom and flexibility of being able to choose where they're working from, how they're working, when they're working, and they're working on these things, and they don't want to go back. Okay, at least to the full office week.
So I do work a lot with leaders, and some of them have half of the team in the U.S., half of the team in India, and like one person in Portugal. And okay, how do I make sure that all of those people actually work together as a team? How do we make sure that they are connected? How do we make sure that they're performing? What about time differences? And they have all of those questions that obviously do not make their work easier. But it does open... Like, this remote and hybrid work, it does open huge opportunities for finding talent wherever there is talent and, more importantly, giving people freedom to choose how they work and have this ownership and accountability of their own life. My employer doesn't tell me where I need to live my day.
04:54 — But you know, I love that idea of giving people the freedom of how to work. But have you found that as generations sort of evolve, that idea of freedom is taking a different version or is looking very different? And they also exercise that a little bit differently. And is that a bad thing? I mean, certainly, there are people who are like, "You know, you come to work, you work. This is not about how you feel and your freedoms and all this other stuff. It's an employment, you're contracted, and let's get moving." What's your take around that idea of freedom versus, you know, "you're here to do a task that you're contracted to do"?
05:40
Darya Rubnik Well, obviously, my parents, they worked for the same company all their life, and what to do? Job? That's just crazy.
— That's just crazy.
05:48
Darya Rubnik Yeah, that's just crazy. And they didn't have many feelings about that. They just go to work, they do their job, and they go back home. But even for them, I see this shift about "Why are we doing that?" Why are they going to work? Finding meaning in what they're doing. So it's not just a job; it's something meaningful that they're doing and they are aligning with that.
And now the complexity of the modern world in many areas is so much higher that you cannot tell a person, "Hey, do this task," because there is no task. There is a certain responsibility or area what you need to do, and you need to be innovative, you need to be creative, or you need to be accountable. I mean, there are lots of qualities that you need to have in order to perform this task well. You cannot tell a person to be that kind of person. So with this shift, we need to change the attitude to work. It's not just "you do the task and you go home," but it's the understanding of why you're doing that. Like, what brings you here? What makes you go to work every day and feel happy about it? And a lot of leaders I work with, they are in this crisis of meaning. What is the meaning of my work? Why am I here? And it's not that they're kind of desperate; they are looking, they're proactively searching for this meaning. And once they have it, they happily go to work and they need this flexibility. They need to be able to choose how they fulfill their personal mission within that company or with another company that can appreciate that.
07:23 — Okay. Wow. And you know, I really love that idea of how the changes within society and the complexity of what we do require more from us. And as they require more from us, therefore we need to find a deeper sense of meaning to be able to get that "more" out of us, because you can't just force me to be more and do more. So that is so insightful. But within your company — well, first and foremost, what's the name of your company?
07:52
Darya Rubnik
I mean, it's my name.
07:54 — Okay, fine. So, as you do the work that you do, what sort of people do you work with and on what sort of problems do you then also help people to become better?
08:09
Darya Rubnik — Well, most of the questions that leaders bring to me and to my team is "How can I be a better leader?" I mean, that means so many different things to different people. What I'm noticing — okay, I'm biased — I work with people who want to be good leaders, so I can't help every leader in this room. But I see a lot of good leaders. They don't come to me...
08:32 — I know they're like that! "We've got this, it's fine." And then they do a good job anyway. Anyway, yes, go for it.
08:38
Darya Rubnik But they generally want to be there for their team members. They want to build teams that feel well and perform well at work, and on this path, they face multiple challenges. One of them is, okay, distance: "How do I manage a remote team?" The other is motivation: "How do I motivate my people?" And then, their own personal well-being: "How can I be... I'm so overloaded, I'm so tired, I do so many things at the same time. How can I find more time to be there for my team?" And I mean, these are the questions from people who, again, are looking for me, who want to do some good job for them, for their team members, and for the organizations, but they're struggling with figuring out how to do that.
09:23 — Okay. Wow. And then my question to you then — and I'll start off with the distance portion — because I really struggle with the idea of having a sense of connection despite having a distance. And if I have never met somebody, and they're sitting all the way in Portugal, it's very impersonal — or it can be very impersonal. How do I build connection? How would you recommend — or maybe should I say, how would your book recommend — that different people are able to build a connection despite the distance? Because I think in any team, there has to be a level of connection. If you don't have that, then you don't really have a team.
10:06
Darya Rubnik — I'll start with my personal example, which is way before my book was published. My best team... the best team I ever worked with was a remote team. The worst team I ever worked with was a remote team. What is the difference between the best and the worst tips? So, what was it in this remote team that made this experience incredible?
So, it was back when my first child was born, it was 2013. I was out. I mean, I was not working; I was on my maternity leave. I felt that I needed to do something, I needed to do some more work rather than just taking care of a baby. And I wasn't alone. I met some other young moms who wanted to do something meaningful, which is helping moms get back to work after maternity, because it is a challenge. I mean, it is a challenge to have a baby, raise a baby, and then work and run a business and all that stuff.
So, we never met in person. It was an online community, and we were united with this idea of "Let's make something meaningful for young moms. Let's make something that we can do for them and for ourselves to make our careers more successful and to make our life and world more meaningful." And we were united with this purpose and this mission, and that drove us. We did meet after that, but the initial connection, the initial conversation, the mission of this community (which later led to conferences, online conferences, multiple events)... it started with a mission, and it started remotely.
So what I'm saying and what I'm talking to leaders is: "Okay, why are you together? What makes you a team? What is something bigger than each individual on your team that will actually drive them and make their eyes shine bright so that they want to do that, and they want to do that together?" Because they knew that they would not be able to achieve that just by summing up their individual contributions. Only by true collaboration can they create something together. And that's the first pillar from my book, which is called "Clear Purpose." So, always start with purpose.
12:25 — Wow. And I mean, clear purpose therefore then unites and builds that connection. And have you found... Hold on, you talked about the best. I want to hear the worst. I mean, we're here not only for the wonderful stories, but I also want to hear the sad and the tough stories. Because you gave me that little intro of like "it was the best and the worst." What is the worst experience that you had, which was also remote?
12:55 Darya Rubnik — It was a corporate environment, and it was such a mess. (You don't have to name any names, it's fine.) I'll tell you what it is. So, it was a team — I was on an executive team — and this team did everything wrong. Great example: again, "don't do it like that" for every pillar of my book.
So, the first thing: we didn't know the purpose. Well, there was some idea of providing great service for our clients, but what does it mean? We didn't know that. But the most frustrating part was that we didn't know who was actually on the team, because the team was like from five to thirty people depending on the question, or I don't know why. So, some meetings there were only five people involved; some meetings, the "directing team"; for some meetings, they were all 30 people. When we talk about an executive team, there was also a question: "Okay, executive team, but who is on this executive team?"
And when you don't have this clarity on who is on the team and who is not, you cannot collaborate, because you cannot rely on those people. You don't know whether they are working towards the same goal. You don't know whether they are part of your collaboration process, part of your work process. And that creates a lot of frustration. So, too many teams in companies and organizations, they're not even a team because what they don't have is purpose. Some teams don't have clear boundaries, and there is no interconnection. There's no "abundance" where you cannot, again, just sum up individual contributions to achieve the goal. You need to collaborate. Most teams don't collaborate.
14:33 — Wow. And I guess when you get remote working wrong, it goes really wrong, because when you don't have that trust, it's not even like you know the person and it's just a complete abstract. It's not that you're going to bump into that person at the coffee machine or anything like that. It is "I don't know you, I can't even build anything with you. There's no chance now." So that's actually very, very interesting. And then that leads to the next question around trust, because in any team, I personally believe trust is probably the most important thing. And the first question I have is: out of your five pillars, which one would you say reflects or talks to trust the most?
15:22
Darya Rubnik — Well, it's the second one. It's about "Linking Connections." So, how do you connect with your team members? And not only with your team members, you also need to have those connections — you need to build this trust — with team stakeholders: people who will be using the product that your team produces, whether it's your customers, your decision-makers, partners, anyone within the organization or outside of the organization. A team needs to have those connections.
And in most cases, it's the leader who takes the role of the connector: going out to talk to stakeholders, talking to decision-makers. And teams are just sitting behind, not involved in decisions, not involved in these communications, and being isolated. They don't have access to information. So, how do you build trust if you don't know this person, if you've never talked to them?
And in my book, I write about trust. It is actually not one thing; it has several layers. So the first thing to build trust on your team, for any leader or team member: you need to trust yourself. I mean, if you don't trust yourself... it all starts with self. You need to trust yourself, you need to trust that you can be trusted, you can be a good leader, you can be a good team member, you have qualities that are needed for this team. And that makes you grounded and calm and confident. And then you can move forward.
And then when you meet someone on the team, you build this interconnection, you build this level of trust when you just know, like, "I know your name, I know where you're coming from. I know that you are a decent human being." So that's the first level of trust: I say hi, we have normal conversations.
Then I start knowing about you as a professional. I know that you can do stuff, I know you have skills. I know that I can rely on you when you say, "I'll do the task." I know that I can call you to a meeting and have a meaningful conversation about my work-related projects.
But then comes the next stage, which is hard — and especially it's hard in remote settings — which is emotional connection. So, I'm not just talking to you about work, but I know something about your family, I know about your dog, I know about your kids. I know about the books or movies you like, and I can share my vulnerabilities with you. I can share my concerns with you. I can say, "I don't think that's going to work." I'm not afraid to say, "I don't understand that." And that is critical for teams to have that kind of emotional trust: being vulnerable, being open, being insecure, because that's where real conversations start. Real uncomfortable questions drive innovation, drive creativity, mitigate risks. That's critical. And then we have kind of this team synergy when everyone is trusting, people trust each other, and you have that seamless collaboration.
18:08 — And so, I mean, you talk about that vulnerability that you have to then be able to open up. And look, on my best days, I am not opening up to many people, but even more so if it's remote. Have you had any experiences where you've really had to break down those barriers to allow and to build a certain level of virtual safety? Because I hear and understand what is needed, and I'm thinking now: "How do I start? And then sort of, how do I build from that place?" And I do think that that ability to grow a safe space for people is probably extremely fundamental before you can start — or for you to be able to start — having meaningful conversations. And I'm really curious for you to break that up a little bit further as to how exactly.
19:04
Darya Rubnik — Well, first of all, this vulnerability part, it depends. I mean, you don't have to be extremely open on non-related things, but sharing concerns, sharing fears, depending on how you feel, is very important. I'll tell you an example.
I was working with a team. And again, you can both start having meaningful conversations and build trust. You build trust by having meaningful conversations, and you have meaningful conversations when you have trust. So it's kind of a mutual process. I was working with a team, a fully remote team, multiple people on the team. The manager is kind of the old-school manager — no negative connotations here — just he liked calling people on the phone. So he liked calling people on the phone. And he had some very young generation people there on the team. And one of them was freaking out: "Why is he calling me? Did I do something wrong?"
And he had no idea that was happening. He had no idea she was freaking out. So he kept calling her; she kept freaking out. And there was this tension between them. But once we started having a regular conversation about communication channels — "What communication channels are we using on our team? What communication channels do you use for what kind of purposes?" — and breaking it all down. And at some point, she did share that she doesn't like when he calls her on the phone because she doesn't know what it means. She feels anxious, she's scared, and she feels uncomfortable. And he said, "Wow, I didn't know that. I mean, sorry about that. How can we make it work?" Because it's definitely easier for him to call and then say something rather than just type it in a message. "If you just text me before and say there's nothing urgent, no crisis, I'm going to call you..." He did that. He accepted the call. Everyone was happy.
So these small things — it doesn't have to be big — just these kind of small things, they build trust and they build good relationships and radical collaboration.
21:06 — You know, the beauty about that exact example is that in the absence of being open or vulnerable, two people can be living two very different worlds where you think you're doing something right, but then the other side is there, feeling like they're being harassed, and you just have no idea. Therefore, you risk that rift only because you just haven't said, "Yo, I'm not comfortable with this," or you haven't given perspective and context, which I always feel is such an amazing thing.
And so then that also, I think, happens a lot more when you're dealing with different cultures. And so, you having worked in such a wide range of cultural spaces, including the North Pole and other places...
21:57
Darya Rubnik — Yeah, penguins are my best team.
22:00 — What would you say were some of the elements where you found people tend to struggle when they were communicating across different cultures? And how then did you break that barrier? Because I do think communication is a large part of building trust and of building connection. And if we're not able to communicate with each other, then it makes things difficult. So, across cultures, what were the things that you found people tend to struggle with the most?
22:32
Darya Rubnik — Well, the first and obvious thing is when they expect everyone to be the same. Obviously, it's not like that. Even within one culture, all people are different. Some people like phone calls, some people don't. But this difference might be even bigger across cultures.
The second biggest mistake is putting cultural labels on people. It's kind of, "Okay, I need to be aware that all cultures are like... I have these kind of cultures on my team. I'm going to read about that. I'm going to ask ChatGPT about how to deal with these cultures. I'm going to be culturally aware." And that kind of puts a label on the person. And this person might have gone to university in some other country. They might have parents of different cultures. Their personality traits might be totally different. So, again, don't do that.
What is really helpful — and it's pretty hard — is having an open mind. "I know nothing about this person. I know nothing about this culture. I want to learn about this person, about this human being in front of me. What they like, what they don't like, how they operate, how they prefer to work, how they communicate." I want to know this person. And I want other people on my team to know this person. I want everyone to know each other on an individual human level, not as some kind of representation of a culture or some other group.
So, it's hard to do because, again, that requires certain vulnerability. "I don't know something? What? How? I am a leader. I need to know everything. I need to lead my people. How would I lead them if I don't know them?" Но being brave enough to open your mind, put aside all your assumptions, biases, thoughts, everything you know, and just trying to know the person.
24:19 — And so the reason why that, to me, is very interesting is that I believe a lot of leaders feel a level of pressure to be the source of all information. But the reality is that... or maybe I should ask you: are leaders, or should leaders be, the source of all information?
24:34
Darya Rubnik — That is my fight! I'm telling you, the era of heroic leadership is gone. You don't need to be a heroic leader. The era of heroic leadership is gone. Leaders, they do not need to be heroes. When you talk about leaders, we see those ancient guys or warriors — someone alone on the hill, leading, and there were some kind of people behind.
24:58 — That's what I signed up for! That's what I've been hoping to be the whole time! It's just like, on the hill with my sword, like, "Yeah, we go!" But why would you say that the era of heroic leadership is gone?
25:11
Darya Rubnik — Again, we go back to this complexity. And the problems that the teams are solving now, no individual human being can solve on their own. The speed of change, the risk of errors, the feedback loops are getting shorter and shorter. You need to be able to work as a team when someone has more knowledge, someone has more experience in other areas. How you collaborate, when you come up with this... again, creativity, innovation happens when there is an interaction between different ideas, different minds. No leader can do it alone. So there's always going to be this interaction.
But there's another thing, the other side: is that when leaders are trying to save it all, to be those kind of pushing-forward heroes, they just can't handle it. Again, it's too much. The complexity is so high. There's this economy, there's this... they have these demands from the stakeholders, they have demands from the customers, they have demands from the team members: "Motivate me, engage me, set goals for me, give me feedback." Everyone wants something from one person, a leader. Why? Like, what's the point?
So what I'm saying is: leaders need to build self-sufficient teams that are more autonomous, more self-managed, that can solve complex tasks, that can communicate with decision-makers. And that will leave leaders time for, again, more strategic thinking, more strategic networking, better understanding. And the main role of a leader is to be a facilitator of those conversations, to facilitate and build team dynamics so that they are more sufficient. So that's why I'm saying the era of heroic leadership is gone. Now it's time for empowered teams.
26:52 — Wow. Then when you then take that heroic leader and micromanagement or self-sufficiency, I feel that a lot of leaders or a lot of business structures either force a leader to be a micromanager or leaders just are naturally micromanaging because technically, or for whatever reason, they find themselves in that hole. And it's such an interesting thing because earlier today I was talking to somebody and they were like, "You know, I believe to be a leader you need to be technically strong in that space that you're leading, because how do you lead a group of people if you don't know technically what they're delivering upon?" I'm like, "But that's the exact opposite of what you're supposed to be doing as a leader." So what is your take around accountability, micromanagement, and then building that self-sufficient team?
27:42
Darya Rubnik — Well, that's a great question. Micromanagement comes from various sources. Like, one of them is fear, and the other one is ego. But the other very common source of micromanagement is lack of clarity, which means people don't exactly understand what they're supposed to be doing. So instead of creating those structures for them and clarity, they set micromanagement. I'm saying there's no such thing as delegation. When you start talking about delegation, it means something is broken. You have a task, and then you have a task, and then you have a task. No, it's not going to be working this way. You need to build systems. So when any task comes to your team, it automatically goes to the team member who is responsible for that. And that is the third chapter of my book, which is called "Integrative Work." I love how you ask questions.
28:35 — It almost sounds like a listener in your book, right? It's just like these things are just flowing naturally. But anyway, I'm glad that it's all working out really well.
28:43 Darya Rubnik — So, "Integrative Work." It's about work norms and rules of how you work together, how you distribute your tasks. What is the role of each team member on your team? How do you hold your meetings? How do you check the results? How do you understand that the work is done? So when you have that, when there is this clarity, there's no need for micromanagement because things just get done.
29:08 — But you make it sound very easy. If you've got that clarity, there's something within an individual as well, surely, right? Because yes, you can create the structure, but if you don't... I guess maybe that fear or ego portion of it, I'm very curious as to how then does somebody fight against that, the inner workings of themselves? They set the systems, the processes, the environment — so they fix the external — but surely then there's that inner part, that fear and that ego that you talk about possibly even more. How do you build and fight that?
29:47
Darya Rubnik — Well, again, as I mentioned, you start with trust and building relationships. And when you work with those people, you start trusting those people. And you trust them by seeing that they're delivering on the tasks. And you trust them by seeing that they can solve problems on their own. It is a step. Yes, it is a kind of faith leap, but you've got to start with something. You're the leader. You're the brave one.
30:09 — Well, yeah, fair enough. I mean, that's the only way that you can be the hero is by actually being brave in those type of instances and spaces. And then when we then talk about tools that then can assist — or maybe I not use "tools," I go "technology" — how can technology then further assist us in that remote working space? I think there are many opportunities to really enhance the way that you lead teams, especially when you're working remotely through technology.
30:40 Darya Rubnik — Yeah. I mean, the first months of the pandemic taught us that too much technology can actually ruin things. Because, okay, what are we doing? I remember my pandemic days. Where should we host all our documents? Is it this platform or that platform? Where do we hold our meetings? Is it Webex? Is it Zoom? Is it Teams? There's so many different options to do that. So which one is the best? How do we send messages? Is it WhatsApp? Is it Slack? What is it? Technology is a good thing, but technology used on top of bad processes is a bad thing.
So first, you figure out how do you want to work together. Again, what's the goal of your... what's the purpose of your team? What kind of collaboration do you need to have in order to reach that goal? Depending on the nature of work, you might need a virtual board or you might need a Jira. What is it that you need, depending on your purpose and your goals? How do you want to work together? Do you need to do it synchronically or asynchronically? Are you talking to each other while you're working together, or are you just typing something? Again, depending on the nature of your work.
So for that, again, the team gets together and they start having a conversation. What is it we need? Like, what kind of communication channels do we need? What kind of working platforms do we need? How we track our tasks? You can do it in Excel or in Asana. I mean, whatever works for you. But first, decide on the process with the team all together and then implement technology.
32:20 — And you know that you talk always about that purpose, about that team as a foundation towards that direction. And I think it's not only is it sort of listed within the book that you put together, but it also does talk to one of the courses on the Transformation Leader T4L, which is the "Foundations of Leadership and Team Dynamics." What the things that you're really talking about is the foundation of a well-functioning team. And my next question to you then is: is it possible to skip some of these elements and still have a highly efficient team?
33:02
Darya Rubnik — And what do you call efficient? And what do you call a team? If you need to, I don't know, hammer some nails, you don't need all of that. You can get people together, you pay them for the nail, and then you got it. But if you have some complex task that requires creativity, innovation, collaboration, decision-making, risk management... I mean, you need to have that.
33:26 – And then would it also be fair to say that for the longevity of the team, so you might be able to do something over a short period of time, but if you have to go on for years on end with the same people, you'd struggle. And then absolutely curious then on, from your view, the idea of transformative teams, innovative teams. What are some elements where, you know... because I mean, we talk about a foundation, but really now, when we look from foundation to excellence, there's that little bit of a difference, that one to zero that you're really looking to really have in the team. Is there something that you then are able to... what are the next steps that get you from "I've got a good foundation" to "I want to level up and have a transformative team"?
34:15
Darya Rubnik — Well, the things that we haven't talked about, which is, I think it's probably again foundations: how you make decisions on the team. Because again, leaders tend to make all the decisions. But again, if we talk about a really creative and innovational team, everyone needs to be able to contribute to decision-making. Because again, there's no innovation when just one person is making a decision. There's no creativity. And again, there was a high risk of making a mistake because there's only one person who's making decisions.
But to your question on what takes the team to the next level: is how they learn together and how they evolve. So how they share knowledge, how they ask for feedback, like what's the feedback loop again within the team, how they give feedback to each other, do they give feedback to each other, how they request feedback from their stakeholders, decision makers, and clients. And that helps them, again, make sure that the purpose is correct and they still go into what's that. It's making sure that all the processes that they have in place are the right ones and they support their mission and they don't need to change anything. It gives them an understanding of: what's the level of trust on our team? Do we need to change anything? So there's a constant loops of feedback, not just on their work performance, but on how they work as a team, on their team dynamics. Looking back: okay, are we good as a team? How can we be better as a team?
35.33 And that's that idea of essentially feedback building, continuously developing and growing. So we have got a quickfire question. I've got one, maybe two quickfire questions. I'm going to keep it short. That's a lie. I always, always, always ask a question about the answer that you give, but I'm going to try hard not to. What is that one small action that a distributed or remote or hybrid team could do every day in order to maintain a level of connection?
36:06
Darya Rubnik — Love it. One very simple thing. At the start of each meeting, every meeting, whatever it is, start with... like, spend some time, five minutes, two minutes depending on the length of the meeting, to personal connection. Say: "How are you? How's the weather? How's the family? How's the dog again? How was the weekend?". Like, have some chitchat about something. Don't jump straight to work, and get to know people. And if you do that, by the end of the year, you'll know everyone and everything about everything you need to know — everything they're ready to share with you.
36:37 —- I hate that you brought that up because that's the one thing that I really struggle with: is that ability to be like, "So, let's have a quick chat." I get there and I'm in. I'm in on the conversation. Before I know it, I'm like, "I forgot to say hi." So that is a definite note for me to put on the sticky note. And for all those people who I've done that to, I'll do better next time.
36:57
Darya Rubnik —  It's just curiosity. Like, be curious about the other person, asking questions, being a podcast host.
37:07 — And so, you know, I've really enjoyed a lot of these elements that we've talked about. And so this brings us, for me, to the core of the episode. And through the multiple discussions and multiple points that you raised, the podcast, the core of the episode for me today is: "Life is never made unbearable by circumstance, but only by the lack of meaning and purpose." Life is never made unbearable by the circumstance, but only by the lack of meaning and purpose.
And the reason why I chose this quote is twofold. Because the lack of meaning and purpose can be from an individualistic point of view, or it can be from an external point of view where your leader provides you that meaning and purpose. And it's really inspired from your worst experience of working remotely, where the team was executing and there was no purpose, and you had no idea what was in the team. You couldn't build a collaboration, you couldn't... there was a lot of lack of direction and or meaning.
And really, when you look at it on the other side, when you then look at the best experiences: when you were on maternity leave in 2013, and you collectively, as a community really, without that leader, took it amongst yourselves to create that meaning and purpose. And you found, though you'd never met and though it was completely remote, that idea of meaning and purpose that you collectively identified, collectively surrounded and got around, and collectively built that connection off of, became that propeller as well as that fuel that drove all the different elements of, I guess, clear purpose, linking connection, collaborative decisions, language exchange. There's one more which I forgot, but there are five pillars and integrated work.
And essentially, there are those five pillars within the book "Picking" that you wrote. And again, that particular element of meaning and purpose really is the first portion of what you talk about. And even when you talk of the experiences that you have working in Zimbabwe, Japan, India, Portugal, USA, Latin America, Australia, Europe — I don't know, I probably forgot a few, the Penguins in the North Pole — I think the best and the most important thing that you highlighted, from my view, was that idea of identifying and appreciating people as individuals in a context. And as long as you have that appreciation for that, you are able to then find a connective string by which people can then find meaning and purpose.
And you said it at the beginning of the episode that one of the major passions that you have is leading and building teams. But more so than anything is: people's lives shouldn't be dreading Mondays. We shouldn't be going in going, "I hate my life." And your life becomes unbearable by the circumstances that you're in. And so the challenge that I feel that we've discussed really is: how are you as an individual (the listeners listening, the people reading the book, the people listening to T4L podcasts or T4L anything), how do you yourself on a personal basis build meaning and purpose? But if you're a leader in a space, how do you build that for your team? Because that provides a level of clarity that then can propel in multiple different things.
One of those things would then be in your ability to collaborate, to build trust. And I think one thing that post-pandemic that we did see is that the world has shifted and changed. And if we wanted to be stuck in the old ways where we've got the heroes of yesteryear, leaders trying to be on the top of the hill and lead everybody to the promised space, that world has passed and that era has passed. If anything, we need to appreciate the complexity of the world that we live in. And we need to acknowledge that we are a cog within a very complex system. And as long as we're a cog within the complex system, we need to be able to build teams — self-sustaining, self-sufficient teams, teams that can do more, do better.
And I love it when you said people need to find meaning in their work, so that when you call upon them to solve those complex problems, they're able to do it from a place of accountability, place of responsibility, and a place of meaning. And without clarity, the decisions that we make, the meaning then, the value that we have, the responsibility that we have to not only the business but to us and to ourselves, then gets lost and muddled within the lack of clarity, the lack of meaning, and the lack of purpose. And that is your worst experience right there; it is talking to exactly that. And even if you are worlds apart, you've never met, even if you are in different time zones, I think that when we start with that purpose, we're able to then build trust.
And that trust really links people and connects people together. And when we trust people, we are able to have a level of... to see who they are for what they are. And though at times we... which one comes first, the chicken or the egg? Sometimes you have to be vulnerable to build that trust, or you build that trust through vulnerability. I mean, it kind of works both ways. And I love when you talk about: trust yourself, know the person, build the relationship, know the professional version of them. Then you can appreciate their reliability, their dependability, their accountability. And then further to that is — and I think this is the hardest one for me — is that emotional connection, that deeper bond, that deeper level of being able to stand up and say, "I don't know this, I need help. I need you to be part of this solution." And then you can get to that team synergy.
For me, those are the things that really stood out when we talk about trust. And that example of communication channels, where the old man — sorry, old man — picked up the phone calling somebody, and that other person on the other line, multiple generations later, is like, "Why is he calling me? It's a text away. He could just send me a text, even a voice note." It's that thing where, though we can be so different and what we can view as very trusting and safe means of communication, the modes or channels of communication, how you view something does not necessarily translate to somebody else. And that can build to destroy trust if you don't simply ask the questions. And too many of the times we get caught up in that idea of treating somebody the way you want to be treated, without really appreciating what somebody else would like. And sometimes it is as simple as opening up and having a conversation with an individual.
And then that leads me to the last point. Whether it is micromanaging, whether it's because of fear or ego, the lack of clarity, whether it's through the environment or within yourself. I think that the tools that we have at our disposal need to be tailored for what we're trying to achieve, where we're trying to achieve it, and the end goal of where we're trying to go. Ensure now... ensure how you can be in a team and you can be very... not necessarily taking on all these pillars, these five pillars, you can still get the results done. But the reality is: if you're looking for continuity, if you're also working on very complex problems, the chances are that you're not going to go far, you're not going to go long. You can get one job done, one task done, few jobs done, but in a short space of time, we will quickly see that unravel.
And if you want to move from having a solid foundation to that sort of next level, that ability to give that feedback, to constantly evolve, to constantly be curious as to giving, to being better as a team, as a collective — that becomes the most critical and most foundational pillar. For that reason, I look forward to Monday because I don't want to be in a world where it is unbearable. But that's only because, for me, it is important to drive and have a certain purpose and have a certain meaning towards what I do. Without that, I think Mondays would be horrible. Probably even Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but you know, everybody hates Monday.
So, for me, I've really enjoyed this episode and that's why I feel that that quote really resonates. It's a constant reminder about building high-performance teams across boundaries and being able to give out that accountability, that ownership to teams, so that they can make decisions and you can manage from a distance in a way that empowers individuals. And you can design connection, you can build trust, and sometimes some people can do it alone. Fine. But what I heard you say at the beginning of it is that only people who want to be good leaders come to you. For anybody who hasn't seen Darya, that means you're a horrible leader and you're actually not doing your people good by any sense or any stretch of imagination. If you want to be a good leader, the honest answer is: visit Darya or T4L.com. One of those two, I don't know, you can choose. But if you're not on one of those, you're not a good leader.
And Darya, just as a parting message: number one, what would you like to say? But secondly, how can people get in touch with you?
46:46
Darya Rubnik — Well, first of all, thanks again. Amazing summing up of what I was talking about. That was a great conversation; I really enjoyed that. So for people listening and watching, that's my book. You can find it on Amazon. I'm very open to connecting on LinkedIn; send me a message, connect with me. And obviously, you can find me on my website, daryarutnik.com. Send me a message. I'd be happy to help you build your next amazing team.
47:13 — I love that. And again, in the links, you'll see everything that you're looking for in terms of being able to connect. And I really hope that if everybody takes the one action: if you're working in remote teams, even if you're working in sort of physical spaces, every day chitchat and build a connection before you get into the workspace. That does a world of a miracle for you to build connection. Well, to click... let's just leave it at that. There's a world of a difference to click. It's been an absolute pleasure having you today. And I really thank you for the insights and motivation that you did share today. And I hope, and I know, that every single one of our listeners today has really enjoyed it. I certainly have. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

47:59
Daria Rudnik — t was a great conversation. I really enjoyed that.