Episode Transcript
Lisa: So Lina, thank you for coming on the podcast. First of all, I’m looking forward to talking to you and kind of exploring your story a bit more.
Lina: Thank you for inviting. I’m excited as much and very looking forward to share.
Lisa: I was thinking maybe we could start by you sharing something about how your journey with kind of new ways of working began. What prompted you to start exploring this with your business unit?
Lina: Well, I was working for Technopolis, like in general, for eight years and first five, six years were very intense, because we in 2013 we have acquired small campus in Lithuania, and our target was to basically triple it, you know, in number of square meters. So we had a quite intense development plan, and I had to build up the team, to build up the office, and, you know, to build a project, basically.
So development has always been a passion of mine, because there’s a lot of creativity in that and, well, I consider myself a great person, and I need this constant, dynamic change in my work. And I consider myself curious person as well, and I noticed that even before I was like changing the jobs, when I found that it’s like becoming boring and trying to find something more interesting or more exciting for me, or more new to learn.
So there was a point, approximately after five or six years in the company, when I started realizing that I’m getting bored. And getting bored, not like there were huge projects ahead, another development ahead, but you know, it was another building, another contract, another, you know, so it like it got kind of routine. And it’s not that I had more time. But, you know, you can make time when you when you want it. And I thought that, you know, I need some change. I love the company, I love the product. I really believe in it, you know, but I need some change.
And by that time, our company was sold. Basically, there was a change in shareholder and we became owned by private equity fund. And there was a change in management. Basically the CEO changed, and there were the new CEO. We had very open discussion about it, and I said that I want something more. I want some more responsibilities, not necessarily position wise, but I want to do something extra to my current work, that can be anything in the group and any additional function in the group.
We had a very nice plan, actually. He actually suggested that I would go around business units, helping them to create this strategy, you know, based on, like our group strategy, but to have local strategies, because we, apparently, we were the only business unit at that time who prepared such a strategy for our well meant also to be successful in that sense.
And then in a few months, we had a meeting. I remember the management meeting in Finland, and he gave us two books to every manager, he gave two books as a present. And you know when you hear the stories, and there my journey started. So one of the books was Frederic Laloux, Reinventing Organizations. Another one was Brené Brown, Dare to Lead. So I knew about Brené Brown already by that time. But, you know, Laloux’s book, I started reading, and that was the answer, you know, what? What is my challenge?
So I would say first was that I was looking for some change at my current place, and I wanted something new, something more inspiring, and, you know, something to look forward to, to get motivated. Right? On the other hand, since I started in this position, maybe I can realize that long, long time ago, that I need always to have someone to replace me like that. I’m not here forever, whatever that means, you know. It can be an accident. It can be change in management. It can be anything, you know.
So I was always looking to find someone, or the way, not necessarily the person, to keep the organization functioning, successfully functioning if I’m not there, you know, naturally, first thing is the person. So I was looking for a perfect candidate for years, and for many reasons, I didn’t find one, I think, including also the reason that I am pretty strong manager, and it was very hard to challenge me, you know, as well admitting that, you know.
But also I always hired and wanted in my team, strong persons, you know, strong personalities. And I saw the potential in the team, that if they were not in cubicles, if they were not in the job descriptions, they could do more and I wanted to find a way to open them, to give them the tool to open.
Basically we had a lot of talks about engagement in the group, in the company, but, you know, engagement, this is a sound word, but the true engagement is not only a word, it’s also a feeling, you know. And as much as my colleagues were inspired and had a huge drive, because drive was one of our values, all the company values, so they had drive, but still, they didn’t have enough space, or this the space for showing their creativity, sharing their ideas. And I sensed that, you know, I need to change, and I need to create this space, because if I’m there, nobody dares to share ideas, nobody dares to challenge, nobody dares to decide without my approval and that’s something that I wanted to change.
Lisa: This was something that when we first met and had that copy, that that really stayed with me, that your intention from the beginning, that you would make yourself redundant, almost like, how can I set things up so that they aren’t dependent on me as a leader, which I think is such a good starting point, actually, rather than an afterthought, which succession often tends to be. So I’m curious then, so you get given these two books, and the Frederic Laloux book resonates with you, and it sounds like you already had some kind of gut instincts or principles that it matched with. So what happened next? How did you start to engage the team in these ideas?
Lina: First of all, right after I came to my CEO and I said, “Listen, I want to do this,” you know, because if you gave me the book, you know, there must be some reason like you are supporting it, you know, right. So I said, “I want to try and want this is something that we talk that I want to try, something on top or to expand our possibilities. So I want to try. I want to give me the opportunity to pioneer, to pilot this self management project in our business unit.”
And of course, you know, he warned me that shareholder might not be supporting this in the long run, and that maybe some of members of the management team, or the top management team might not be supporting that in the long run. But I said, you know, like, “I want to try anyway, to see basically how it works, if it works, and if it does, then you know, we will have maybe less doubtful people, you know, now we can show, you know, we can perform and serve, and we can see how people are performing, how business unit is performing, you know, and, and then it’s up to all of us to decide, you know, if we want this to multi, multiplicate, you know, in other business units or, it will be just our business unit, they perform this way.”
So he supported me in this idea, and we launched this pioneer, like pilot project. And, you know, I was there with a book. I knew I will not be able to do it alone. So I had a friend, my old time childhood friend, who was in the subject as well, like or was exploring the subject in general, like management tendencies in the world and different ways of working. And I called her up and I said, “Listen, I don’t know what I’m getting into here, but you know, I need help.”
I understood that there is no one inside the company to help me, or even if it would be, I think it is a good idea to have someone not in the company, external from a company, basically just to help you reflect as well. Help you to go through all this process, you know, not only the team, but you personally as well, because it’s a dramatical shift. It’s a dramatical transformation for the person. And knowing how controlling and demanding I was as the manager, I knew this is my journey. I mean, I knew I will have to change myself as much as team.
So in order to argument it myself, I have had so called annual interviews with all the team members, all 20. And when I asked them, “What do you lack at workplace,” 19 of 20 told me “creativity.” And I said, “Okay, you know, nice to hear, you know.” And then I had a meeting with them, and I said, “Listen, I have this idea to try another way of working and to try to give you more freedom to that would give you more freedom to create, to think, to decide.”
Well, first, they didn’t really know cost, you know, was the catch, okay, what’s next? They were suspicious. But, you know, I was very honest then, and I said, “Listen, I’m not an expert in this. I don’t know where it will take us. I don’t know what we will go through. I don’t know how and what will be the end result, but I invite you to experiment. I invite you for this experiment, this journey, that we will go together, and if we see that it’s not working for us as a team, we can always stop it, you know. We can always say this is not for us.”
So well, thank God and thank my team. I had quite a few people in the team who were independent enough, and, you know, they were supported enough, and said, “Yeah, let’s try.” You know, they were as eager to experiment and try something new. So there we started, and I’m happy I didn’t promise them anything, but I’m happy they believed me, you know, so, so that’s how we started our journey.
Lisa: I love that, because I think to have that level of self awareness from the very beginning. You know, you said that you knew you had a tendency to be controlling and so on and having this other person, actually, after we spoke that first time, I went and wrote a kind of Twitter thread about, you know, if you’re going to take your team on this kind of journey as a CEO or as a founder, these are the roles that you need to find in other people to help you along the way. Don’t travel alone.
And one of them, I said, was like a kind of a court jester, kind of role, someone that will challenge you and kind of play back and help you see your blind spots. Because I think that, yeah, it’s I think we all overestimate our ability to be empowering and coaching and all of that kind of stuff. So it’s so great that you anticipated that, and from the very beginning, had this person to kind of to coach you and guide you and make sense together with.
Lina: Yeah, well, I’m a very process driven person in general, and I also invited her to join us because I knew we will have psychological mental challenges on the way. And she is much better in that than I am, you know, and moreover, that I know that my team is very kind of, we have a special relation with the team, which is like a job relation, you know, and as external, she could be a supporter, not for the team and for myself only, but also for them directly.
And we had built also kind of sessions, separate sessions for key people in the team, you know, who needed this, or who had also teams of their own, small teams of their own. How to basically not be a manager anymore. You know, how to be a supporter and to a facilitator rather than the manager.
So I knew exactly what kind of person I need to support, and also she’s my friend, and she’s that kind of friend who can tell me straight forward, you know, like, if I’m I don’t say right or wrong. But if to challenge me and to say that, maybe this is not the way you see the thing, you know. Or maybe this is, this can be different, you know. So that was very important for me to have such a person next to me.
Lisa: Totally and I like as well, you described to me before the way that you involved the team. Also, it wasn’t you revealing a kind of master plan. So can you tell us about how, how you then, as a team, decided to start experimenting?
Lina: We made a dream day. We made a session, 4-5 hours, where we discussed, not only discussed, but dreamed actually. And discussed our dreams first of all, and then we outlined the key areas that we think we can tackle, or most important for us to tackle, when directing ourselves towards self management.
And here I would say, we did. I didn’t follow any methodology. You know, we it was so natural. It was so like I would say, we created the space with the flow, and we had the most brilliant ideas and most brilliant expressions of the dream. But also we heard the struggle areas, you know, that people would like to address in the future. So we try to define what struggles we have in our workplace today and what we would like to change, right.
And during that day, we defined four areas where we needed to define new rules of the game, new rules for the future, you know. And there were four areas. One, first one was decision making, actually. The second one was meetings, how we form the meetings. The third one was complaint handling, basically how we - it’s about feedback, it’s about conflicts, and it’s about stress as well. And the fourth was traditions, because apparently, for all the team, having traditions, having a sense of community and team in our organization was important.
So we had four areas defined. And then, you know, people just shared, like formed the teams, voluntarily formed the teams, and they created the proposals for the whole team how to define new rules. Basically they made proposals on the new rules of behavior in these certain areas.
Why only four? Why not more? Let’s say, why not the salaries? Why not more? Because there are, apart from those, there are much more, you know. But we understood, like in this environment, in this pilot project, we understood what we can impact and what we cannot eventually. You know, we saw that in the future, if we will go further beyond that, we will need to address also remuneration packages, etc., issues as well. But at this point, we couldn’t change the way, for example, with the top management.
The only thing what we could do is basically change the rules of the teamwork in our team and we re-designed our structure, you know, like from hierarchical structure. It was like a bubble structure. So we became bubbles, you know, meaning that, of course, we had clusters of bubbles, because we had teams inside the organization, but they were not referred to as the managers internally.
And afterwards, the teams presented their ideas or their suggested rules. For some areas, we needed more rounds, like people were commenting, and you know what they agree with, disagree with, and we came to some set of rules that we said, “Okay, as of today, we are living at workplace under these rules,” basically. So that was the start of the true journey.
Lisa: I wonder if you would share the story that you told me about what happened in the decision making group, and the kind of observation of how decisions have been made up till now.
Lina: That was just hit into my face. Splash, you know. Well, you know, as I said, I thought that I have very independent and strong people in the team. And I never felt that all decisions, you know, I make all decisions. I never felt that way.
But the decision making team, when they came to present their proposal, they put up the first slide, and it was written “Up till now, it was like this: Lina is making all decisions.” I was like, it was hit in the face, ouch, big ouch. I hope I was not pale at that time, but I smiled. I remember I smiled because then, you know, like, “Okay, you didn’t want to admit it. Here it is, like, very straightforward,” and I clapped them for this, really, I mean, I - it was the first step toward the very open communication. They dared to do that. And I was really, really happy about that, you know.
And then, you know, the next line was, “But from now on,” and there was a huge table with, you know what you do if you don’t, and what to do in this case and that case, they took scenarios. So it was very deep work they’d done thinking about all parts of organization, all parts of this decision making. And they dived very deep into that. And I was very, very happy about it.
Yeah, I had another very nice story about the group of conflict handling. Naturally, when you start such process in the company, there are people that are not supporting it. They might not be telling you that, but they would be very observant, and they would be very, I wouldn’t say negative about it, but, you know, sarcastic about it, I would say that.
So when they still had to choose the group, in the group of conflict handling - actually, we called it communication and conflict handling, because typically our conflicts were because of bad communication or lack of communication or lack of feedback. And so that was the group. And one guy came saying, “But you know, guys, I don’t know what we’re talking about. We don’t have conflicts. I mean, we’re not in conflict here.”
And then, you know, we had a conversation and they asked this consultant to join them, to help them, because from the first team meeting, you know, nothing was - they didn’t even move a step forward. Basically, they disagreed on many items.
And when they presented their piece - when they presented their rules or suggested the rules. This guy who said, “We have no conflicts,” he was presenting and he said he started with, “I thought that we don’t have conflicts. We don’t need rules for handling conflicts, you know. But then with the help of this teamwork, I realized that I was just the one who is avoiding conflict, and that having a conflict is not always a bad idea, that having a conflict is makes you clarify and makes you learn and makes you understand another person, rather than keeping everything to yourself to avoid the conflict, and that’s how you can learn and evolve and understand yourself and other people.”
And conflict doesn’t mean you’re fighting. You know, conflict can be just irritation that you have inside, and this is the conflict already. So apparently, they have learned from this process, and they have shared very openly, like and others, that, “Oh yeah, you’re right.” You know. “We’re not necessarily shouting here, you know, but we are still feeling tension sometimes,” and that’s how like we are going to address it and later, especially conflict handling, the rules helped us a lot.
Lisa: Can you say more about that? What did you learn, particularly from a conflict perspective?
Lina: Well, when people appear in this space where they feel more free to express themselves, and when they feel more free to share their ideas or share their disagreements, then this tension is rising naturally, and you need to be very aware that, basically, this is good. First of all, you know, this means that it was always there. It’s just hidden, you know. And now it’s like, suddenly everyone puts their cards on the table.
And naturally, there is a lot of dissatisfaction in that. There are people who cannot accept it. There are people who are avoiding it as well, and at some point, we even had to form the groups for solving conflict, not only between two personalities, but also like a team conflict, you know, like, “Okay, so is this a general problem that we have here, not only between two people?” Okay, maybe this part came from two people, but apparently it revealed a lot of underground waters and it opened up a lot of painful areas that you needed to address naturally.
Thanks to this friend of mine, we have built - knowing that that it will come - we have built sessions for giving them tools how to, for example, give feedback and receive feedback. We gave them the tools how to listen and to talk like, to present yourself, or to present the idea even like, or to be critical or not critical, actually, not to criticize another person when he or she presents the idea.
So we gave them a lot of additional tools how to live in this new world. Because it’s not - it’s very human, but you shouldn’t expect that people have them and they will cope with it with their own knowledge. You know, some people are naturals, but I would say only a minor group of people who are naturals and they can handle on their own, and they were very appreciative in receiving such knowledge, how to deal with each other, how to basically get into a debate or a conflict without taking it personally or even be sensible and be sensitive sometimes, and that it’s all right as well, you know, to show it and to respect that somebody is sensitive.
Lisa: Yeah, I’m just, I’m loving hearing this, because I think so many organizations struggle with this. That part of the side effect of exploring self management, I think, is that it reveals, as you said, it reveals a lot of things that are previously hidden or avoided or so it can sometimes feel like, “Oh, we’ve made things worse.”
Lina: It feels like that, yeah, and you know, just not to mislead the audience, naturally, all this is on top of like execution, right? So we still had the targets. We still had very ambitious targets and all like roles that we had up until launching this pilot project. But this was on top.
So what I heard a few months from my colleagues, as a feedback, which was also sweet as honey for me, that, you know, “We work more now, but we are more happy.” You know, “We work more hours, but we feel more engaged, we feel more listened, feel more happy.” And that was a good sign, no matter how many conflicts and tension we had. That was a good sign.
Lisa: I wonder if you can share some kind of milestones, or some things that you were really proud of when you really started to get a sense of, like, “Oh, wow, this is - we’re creating something special here.” Or, you know, “We’ve achieved something brilliant now.”
Lina: Well, I will, you know, life is building your path, basically. And what happened is that we launched this, and after a few months, COVID started. So we all got locked into our homes, we couldn’t meet. So we’ve been very creative, you know, we have used our largest conference rooms to have physical meetings from time to time, kept, I don’t know, five meter distances, and to just to have them or we had our sessions outside, you know. So we wanted this to keep going.
But, you know, during this time, you had to deal not only with the business and like self management, but also with the COVID related issues. Like a lot of people were quite a few people were scared, you know, and that was all right, that was normal. And, and basically, in that context, you still had to get them together, going, you know, and that was one challenge on the way.
However, in approximately nine months I left to Barcelona, and that was another good moment for the company, for the team, basically, because no matter what is your true wish as a manager to change, still people see you as the manager that you used to be. It doesn’t matter if you are present in the room and listening or not. They can still feel your presence and always like, stare at you, like, into your mouth. What are you going to say? You know?
And I think this was one of the best things that happened to this team, that they like, kicked me off and out from Vilnius, basically, and, and, yes, we have done a lot of sessions online. I was traveling from time to time, not so often as I wanted, because of COVID restrictions. But what happened is that they had to cope themselves.
And I felt that they were addressing much less issues - I was addressed with from the team members. I felt that they were helping each other outside of their actual job descriptions. They were cooperative much more, and they addressed issues very clearly, straightforward, and they came to me only when they couldn’t find the solution on their own, you know.
So I think this was a step to step out in some way. It was very good, and from both sides, you know, for me as well, to lose not to lose control, but to lose in control, to lose in me.
I mean, many people that I talk to about self management have an imagination that self management is a chaos. You know that if I will let everybody do what they want, you know, it will be a chaos, right? Well, you can look from that perspective too, but you know, I don’t think anybody of us wants to have chaos in the business.
So it is much more organized. You know, in companies, in typical hierarchical companies, we have job descriptions to organize the work. Here we have rules, common rules, not somebody’s defined rules, how you interrelate and communicate and work together. And there you can always say, “Listen, this is not what we had agreed. Why are you doing this? This is not what we have agreed.” And this, from time to time, was rising in the team, which I was very glad I was not the one raising that you know.
And so, so I think this was the big step for the team that I was not there in the office every day. I was reachable, but I was not there. I was always like, on in front of the screen, but I think it was the best moment.
Lisa: A good test for everyone.
Lina: For everyone, yes, for everyone. Because, you know, like, I think the biggest fear when you start losing control is that “Okay? I need somehow to secure that everything is still running, you know?”
And I remember my first question to myself, “How can I know that everything is going on the right way?” And then I remember thinking, “Why? Why I need to know this?” You know, “If I trust them, I mean they have the experience, they are in this company for many years now. And if they are not, somebody else will let them know, you know, just let them try. The machine is working. You know it will not stop.”
Just leave it alone and be more as an advisor, as the counselor for them, as a supporter for them, rather than a controller, yeah, or even a teacher. A teacher is very directive and and that’s why I had to give up my idea of myself as a teacher, you know, as the one who tells everybody what is the best way to do. And it was challenging for me too.
Lisa: What were some of the most challenging parts for you? Like, what have you learned personally as a leader through this process?
Lina: First of all, change is very painful, I knew that from before, but I am also the person who can push myself into change, and I can flip very quickly. Of course, you know, staying in the same organization or staying in the same space, but flipped, you know, it’s rather challenging, and there’s even more tension than you had before.
And you still have to prove to other people that you have changed really, you know. “Tell me what you think,” and then, you know, they stare at you. And then “No, no, no, but…” Like, it used to be very easy for me, you know, just, I just come ask for advice and I get it, you know, or ask for your decision actually, and get it.
And now I was asking a lot of whys, and I was asking a lot of whats, and some of them were critical, skeptical and couldn’t cope with it, you know, “Just tell me what to do, and I will do it.” And yes, for some people, this kind of working is not easy. It’s very challenging. And some have not adopted actually.
But for me personally, I think this was the game changer and I don’t know - I like this painful learning process, but entertaining, you know, painful but entertaining learning process. And I was very glad to have someone who can, like, reflect it to me very like a mirror, you know.
And I’m not there, you know, I still - let’s say if I would be back to organization right now, I would still face a lot of challenges, especially if the organization is not self managed. And so I think that much more lessons for me ahead, rather than back.
But I truly believe that that the start was the kickoff was very good. And I think that for the future organizations that I will be working for, I want to - this is new me, and, you know, I don’t want to be old me, you know, I don’t want to be very controlling.
So I think that now the perspective is much, much wider, you know, my perspective and my view into the world is like, enormously expanded. And I considered myself - I wouldn’t say people person, but I would - I considered myself a good manager in terms that I give feedback, I can listen, but now I see, and from the workshops that we had, I think that I still have a lot of things to work through, in that sense as well, and basically to withhold my ideas or my opinions before the others express theirs, to give advice only when they ask for it. I think there is a lot to learn.
Lisa: And do I remember correctly that you told me a story about - because you mentioned before the ambitious targets that you had, and that there was an accountant or someone who kind of created, had some creative ideas?
Lina: Actually, yes, it was - this was like another proof for me that it works. You know, it happens that you do mistakes, budgeting mistakes. And in this particular case, we had one service line with a specific budget, you know. And apparently there was a mistake entry, a mistake in the budget which was finally approved, contained double amount of sales to be achieved, not even sales - even EBITDA number for that particular service line.
And I remember beginning of the year, our conversation with the service line manager, and the service line manager talking like, “Okay, so we can forget about achieving this because, you know, it’s double like, even the single number was challenging, you know, this is double, like, very hard to achieve or even dream about it, you know.”
But I said, “Okay, we have to, I don’t know.” I was called sometimes that this is a “miracle lady,” because I was saying, “Listen, something will come up, you know, something will come up. I feel it will somehow turn around, you know.”
So this time, I didn’t say that because I thought it’s really, really challenging, but I said, “You know, we still have to do our best, and then, you know, we’ll see how it goes.” And as we were talking about this, also in the team meeting our chief accountant, she said, “Oh, but listen, I think you know, there are sometimes - we need to follow the invoices and we need to follow the numbers every month, because sometimes we know that we were losing invoices or losing sales, just not invoicing.” And there were these kind of mistakes, because they would build big volumes of service sales.
And she said, “Listen, I will help you every month. We will go through with you, you know, like one by one, sales by sales, client by client, and we will see if there are any errors in numbers. And maybe we’ll see. Maybe it will help, you know.”
So what happened is that this accountant, she was not only going through with this sales service line manager through the invoices and sales, but also suggesting, “Oh, but listen, they bought these sofas, but maybe they need a flower, or they need another desk,” you know, so she was giving ideas on the way for sales.
And I left the company in May and they finished the year. So I didn’t know what was the outcome. But then, when they finished, I was talking with service line manager, just on some other matter, and as, by the way, like, “How did it end? You know, this end of year,” she said, “You won’t believe it. We have exceeded that.”
And then I said, “Yes, this is the true power. Chief Accountant, who was buried in work - she helped her, like she devoted every month one hour for her to help her achieve a result and give her ideas.”
So that’s the power of equals, self management. You can call it any other names. You know, doesn’t matter which method you choose, but this is the true empowerment. You know how you give people freedom to act and decide on their own, how to use the best time and the best effort for the result and for the sake of the team and of the company, of course. So I think this is the most important thing.
Lisa: It’s a great story.
Lina: Yeah, it is. I was, you know, I’m happy I asked the question. I wouldn’t know.
Lisa: So what happened then, because you moved to Barcelona for personal reasons, and what happened in the team, like, how did this conclude?
Lina: So I moved to Barcelona, and I continued to work for nine months, and it was very challenging for me, I must say, challenging because, like, you had to spend all the time in front of computer or on the phone and rarely traveling, you know. So I felt I’m losing the touch with the team, although kind of I had, but I felt I needed more presence naturally.
And also, our operational activities are very hands-on, and that’s where really you need to be. You need to be present, not maybe daily, but you need to be more present. So I understood that very clearly. And I left the company, and I was replaced with a manager who was new to the company.
And meanwhile, while I was still working the CEO of the group changed, and basically when I left, they kind of didn’t follow the same New Way of Working for whatever reasons I don’t want to name here. It’s not my experience. But what happened in the team is that I felt that the team was already advanced in that.
So I believe that this, yes, there were tensions, and people didn’t want to get back to directive way of management and, and yet that was a new style, not a style of a new manager. And that’s was his choice and, and that’s fine.
So what happened is that a lot of people left. A lot of people left the company, because they tasted what it is to be working in a different environment, you know. And so I would say this was a change. This change was natural.
I wouldn’t call that this project, pilot project, has failed. I would say, you know, what is the most important or key is if you like to have a support, to have a support, first of all, from top management, if you do this, because without support, you know it’s very difficult to work different way.
Yet having said that, I would say that you should not withhold yourself from experimenting, even if you are a manager of the team of a small team, you still can have your own way of leading, and you can have your own way and your rules, how you deal with your team and you work with a team.
Not necessarily that you have a support from the outside and from the top managers or from the owners, but if you are allowed to organize yourself and you organize your team, you have freedom enough to decide with your team how you work and interrelate between each other, and that could be a very good example for others, and that could be a start with the wave.
So I really encourage anyone who feels that it is the way you would like to try, or you’re passionate about, you know, these ideas of new ways of working, and it’s not necessarily self management or holacracy or any other way, you know, just find your way. Experiment you know. Find what you do and just chase it, try it, you know.
Yes, I think from what we started, we on the way during the one year, we have already changed some things. And we said, “Okay, this does not work for us. But you know what, we need to have it in place. This role in place.” So we have reviewed our roles constantly, which is like in other organizations, you know.
So I think that there is always the way back. There is always the industry choice. It’s your choice where you want to live in this world. But keeping the space in self management is the most important. You have to as the leader - you have to keep the space and give people time, give people support and give people freedom to make mistakes, to experiment, to have successes and to celebrate them, and to give feedback and receive feedback, and all those nice things that you experience there.
Lisa: So what’s next for you then? What are your hopes? What’s kind of energizing you for the future?
Lina: I feel this is kind of my subject. And, you know, although I spent 20 years in the real estate business, I always felt that not bricks and mortar is my interest. Actually, I spent all those years in real estate development, and development is that part which interests me, because I always, when creating a new project, I was thinking of the people that are entering in the project, or the people that are entering in the office. Of the people who are entering in the shopping center, and this behavior and the human behavior was most important, and psychology was most important and appealing to me.
So now I found that this could be a new path for me. I know this is, as I said, I - this is only the start of the journey, and I still feel I need to work with myself a lot and to learn a lot, but I would like to continue developing myself as a coordinator, basically the person who can help and support teams in becoming in experimenting new ways of working.
Lisa: That’s the term that K2K Emocionando use for the person who helps kind of facilitate.
Lina: Yes. So basically, more like facilitator, you know, yeah, so I would like to develop myself as facilitator rather than a manager, you know. And I know, I’m not the, you can call it doctor type or consultant type, where I can write a recipe and this is like the way you should follow.
I am more type of the person who likes to dive into and as I said before, I’m a process person. And I know there’s a lot of processes you have to build in these kind of organizations, so I would love to be engaged with helping businesses to transform. And this is not one month or two months. It is a few years. And, you know, I would say it’s a non stop journey, but the beginning, at least takes a few years.
And I would be happy to develop myself and to work on this, in this area, in the future, no matter what is the sector. And for the moment we are soon launching a program dedicated for Lithuanian businesses - with a team of experts, basically to help and to lead companies who want to transform and basically to help them on the way, to support them on the way, to give them tools to create the space where they can share and they can be heard as well.
So it will be a nice experiment as well. It will be nice to see, or I’m curious to see how many companies are ready to do that in Lithuania. And yeah, it will be a kick start. So I wish myself luck.
Lisa: It’s exciting. I’ll have to get you back on the podcast in a couple years time, maybe when those experiments are on the way.
Lina: Yeah, we’d be happy to.
Lisa: So is there anything that you’d like to share with listeners in terms of advice, or words of wisdom, or anything that you think might help them in their journeys of exploring new ways of working?
Lina: I would say, first of all, if you feel tension, if you feel that something is to be done about the way you work, then there’s something to be done, and then it’s only about your choices, right?
If I would say, take the menu. Explore the options. You know, consult with people. Talk with people, because people in self management who are in this wave, they like to share. They’d like to share. And not as a paid service. But, you know, they like to share.
So go to the companies that that are already working, and there are quite a few companies. So not only worldwide, but even Lithuania, there are quite a few. So go there, you know, talk to them, talk to the leaders, talk to normal like simple employees or even workers, you know. And see how they feel.
And second, I would say that, I will repeat myself - I have listened to many of your podcasts, but I think I agree with the idea that experimenting is the most important. Don’t reject any moment and any opportunity that you can experiment, basically. And trial and error is the only way here.
You can read the book, you can apply, it doesn’t work. Throw the book out. Take the next book or method or rule, and try what works for you and your team. And as I said before, you don’t have to be an owner of the business or the top manager to start this, and if you feel that it’s right, you know, just ask your team. Would they be willing to help you in this journey of experimentation. That’s all.
And then it is, I think it’s contagious, you know, I think that when the level of happiness, or when the level of energy and the motivation rises in your team, the others will notice, you know, because it will be reflected not in the happiness, which, as one of my friends says, is not monetarized. You know, “Happiness - I don’t care, you know. I need, at the end of the day, I need profits.”
But you know, in this case we are not talking about non-profit organizations, right? So we are talking about profit organizations and the level of happiness and result - if you see that they are correlating and they are growing, people will notice and they will be curious to learn, what are you doing differently? Why your team suddenly becomes more efficient or becomes more profitable than before.
So I would say, if this is the way, then, you know, just look for an opportunity and chase it.
