Olesia Skibinska: Growing people in a world without clear paths

Pauline Bertry 0:13

Hi Alessa, welcome to the den!

Olesia 0:14

Hi, Pauline. Hi, thanks for having me.

Pauline Bertry 0:18

Thank you so much for finding time to join. How are you?

Olesia 0:22

I'm very good. It's early here in Prague, but had my first coffee so ready to talk.

Pauline Bertry 0:28

Very nice, very nice.

Olesia 0:29

Ha ha.

Pauline Bertry 0:30

Look, think, I mean, we've known together for a while now, but I like starting those podcasts with asking people to tell me a little bit about their journey and their story. So I think it would be only fair if that's our starting point. What's your story? The past, the present and the future.

Olesia 0:48

Sure. the story has been intense, let's put it this way, but in a nutshell. Olesia based in Prague. Originally I'm Ukrainian. I moved here when I was around eighteen, I guess. I decided I decided to just switch the whole thing, moved from learning languages and literature to studying finance and economics and then moving to tech apparently. So it's been a journey. in terms of my in terms of my career, I started first in the big corporate world. So you name it Procter and Gamble Finance, Ernst Young advisory, then moved to IBM. And actually there I was introduced to technology and all the innovation transformation world, which was a great learning. Since then, launch startups. close startups and for the past six years I've been with Andrian partners. We are based in Prague. We are a smaller boutique consultancy focusing on tech, innovation and everything digital and everything complicated. So and I've been a partner there for the last three years also in the company I take care of growth and learning of people because I do believe that people are our main asset. Asset is a Wrong word, I guess. It's it's the pinnacle of the whole thing, because in the end, without people, we are nothing. So that's me. I have a dog, Maggie. She's adorable and she's usually joining all my meetings. She's not here today though, so it's only me.

Pauline Bertry 2:27

So I'm not gonna meet her, I'm sorry.

Olesia 2:30

I'll ask her for insights later.

Pauline Bertry 2:32

Yes, please do. And we can put Maggie as well in the thumbnail of the video so that she feels included. good.

Olesia 2:38

Absolutely. She would be flattered.

Pauline Bertry 2:41

So true. But I mean, you are kind of hanging me the next question, so I just cannot not ask it. like you take care of like learning and growth in Inriyain for some time now. you are in the industry that feels very strange right now with all the changes happening,

Olesia 2:59

Mm.

Pauline Bertry 3:00

with all the like AI, of course, generational shifts, remote, hybrid, et cetera. So what's your view on like how historically you have seen learning can grow like, let's say five years ago and How do you see it now? Like what changed? What are the things that stayed the same? What are the things that are done differently now in this period of time that you are in your current role?

Olesia 3:30

Mm, of course. so first of all, of course, fair to say that my experience is also defined looking backwards at this by the stage of my career where I was at.

Pauline Bertry 3:39

Of course.

Olesia 3:40

Because in the beginning, of course, it's more about you being very you still have to be always humble, but you know, you're more open to what things are given to you, but you have to still go get your opportunities. And now being able to shape it and and actually lead

Pauline Bertry 3:56

No.

Olesia 3:56

the growth is a bit of a different thing. But if I conceptually look back five years ago, ten years ago, I think we are moving, of course, we are fueling the growth and we are fuel fueling the learning with technology and the world is becoming more and more volatile and faster and more unpredictable, which is of course challenging for people to actually even define what is my growth path. 'Cause before that I remember ten years ago or like fifteen years ago when I was in the university, I had a feeling that growth paths were much more clear and more defined compared to

Pauline Bertry 4:35

Mm-hmm.

Olesia 4:35

now. of course, now for the last two years, three years we have Gen AI, which is meddling with things even more. but overall, I guess it it was much more institutionalized.

Pauline Bertry 4:49

Mm-hmm.

Olesia 4:50

in the previous years and now it's much more open and actually there are many avenues that you can take with learning and growth and development

Pauline Bertry 4:58

Yum.

Olesia 4:59

rather than before that you I remember like in the corporate world you just have of course there are still growth paths etc etc etc but it was much more black and white here and there and now it's a very different world overall. And I believe that we are shifting quite a bit in terms of how much, if I call them soft skills, matter versus expertise.

Pauline Bertry 5:23

Mm-hmm.

Olesia 5:24

Expertise still matters and will matter, it will never disappear. but now again, with Gen AI and everything in the world, how it's changing, I believe we are entering the age where such skills as critical thinking, problem solving, creativity. etc will become even more prominent and needed and maybe valued more because before that we used to value more if you have certificates or if you have certain tip expertise.

Pauline Bertry 5:55

There is actually some research on it. don't remember the numbers, but that like 80 something percent of employers consider critical thinking one of the key skills and only 53 percent of employees consider it as such. So

Olesia 6:13

Mm.

Pauline Bertry 6:14

this is one angle. I mean, again, I don't remember the exact data, but the switch from being recognized for certifications or being recognized for specific skills and soft skills becoming more important. This is also the projection, at least in Europe, by one of the institutions who are studying how, the needs of the upskilling and reskilling in Europe. And there is

Olesia 6:46

Yeah.

Pauline Bertry 6:46

a very visible trend towards softer skills except for data and AI in the next 10 years. I think data is supporting your feeling.

Olesia 7:03

great. By the way, I really do not like the distinction soft skills and hard skills, because

Pauline Bertry 7:09

Okay.

Olesia 7:09

it almost creates a bad rep for soft skills, as if it's either something that

Pauline Bertry 7:13

Yeah.

Olesia 7:14

is inherently yours. You're either a good communicator or not. And it's something like hard skills feels very robust and very serious, and soft skills like fluffy. But you know, you have

Pauline Bertry 7:23

Yeah. Yeah.

Olesia 7:25

structured problem solving. You can learn structured communication. And also we are seeing it now with clients is that they're asking us, but who do I hire? And it's very interesting

Pauline Bertry 7:35

Hmm.

Olesia 7:36

what you said, that there's a bit of a discrepancy between how employees value and see, for example, critical thinking as something too that is important versus

Pauline Bertry 7:47

No.

Olesia 7:47

employers, because now they're very confused and they don't know.

Pauline Bertry 7:52

Yeah, and I think that that's very true because... I've heard from someone in my past life a sentence that I really liked. They said, you generally get what you measure. And I think the challenge with what you are mentioning is that hard skills are much easier to measure. So you can

Olesia 8:11

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Pauline Bertry 8:13

measure whether the person can do a logo design or not. Maybe sometimes you can judge the quality, but you can have a binary yes, no kind of situation. For the soft skills, it's never a yes or no, it's always a spectrum. So

Olesia 8:29

Yes.

Pauline Bertry 8:30

it's very difficult to measure, which leads to the fact that it's not, and then this is a missing piece of the puzzle.

Olesia 8:40

Yeah, absolutely. It's it's possible but very difficult. Very not straightforward, let's put it this way.

Pauline Bertry 8:46

I agree. And on the growth and learning topic, there is one specific area where I wanted to ask for your insights, because when I was preparing for our conversation, I did look at numbers. And if I'm not mistaken, the average tenure of a person in Enriyen is around five years and four months, which is almost twice the industry benchmark. And

Olesia 9:16

Mm-hmm.

Pauline Bertry 9:16

I think it's like such a unique situation. think I've mostly never seen companies at the size you are with such a such a good tenure. So this means that people are staying, they are growing, they are like spending a very significant part of their career inside the organization. And I wanted to ask you to tell me a little bit about how is the, from your perspective, how is

Olesia 9:52

Yeah.

Pauline Bertry 9:54

the growth and the culture in the organization connected to what the numbers are telling us?

Olesia 10:03

the to the tenure. Yes, I think we were actually discussing it at one of the last all hands it's closer to six so very high number very

Pauline Bertry 10:11

Okay.

Olesia 10:12

true especially now in the industry and overall I think there is a bigger tendency of people rotating more in our case so we've been on the market for eleven years now. Sli in in November it will be twelve years I believe. And Originally the cr the the company was created out of passion. And I think that's a very important starting point. So the the founder that or the founders that created the company, they were not looking just for a new gig startup that they can, you know, sell and exit or to earn all the money in the world. So the company had a purpose and it was created as a space where they can actually build something that they could not find in either big three consulting companies or you know big corporations. So I think there was even maybe it was not explicitly said, but there was a very clear intention that we want this place to be a place where we want to come back and be. And

Pauline Bertry 11:10

Hmm

Olesia 11:11

based on this, we were also looking for people and we were hiring people and we were hiring also characters, but there were certain values and certain things that connected all of that all of us. We ended up being together. So I think there's this just very clear foundation based on values. And in the company, we do have very clear values that we communicate and we try to propagate. Of course, it's always based on the context, etc. But like there's something that is very important for us, which is joy, care, transparency, and Those things actually, you know, when we connect, when we hire with people, they stay longer with us. so this is one aspect in terms of values and in terms of overall approach to people, we have a very humane approach. And we just want to hire someone that we like being around. I have a question actually that I ask myself and I ask to when I, you know, maybe brief someone before the interview, just Great, ask about all the things in the world, all the hard skills. But the last question after you close the interview, ask yourself, do I want to spend at least eight hours per day with this person? Either in the office or in the project. If my answer is yes, good sign. If my answer is like, I'm not sure, we will have to look into it because it's very important that we have there people that we like. So this is one aspect, just overall the company foundations. And then there is other aspect I believe that we are trying to give to our people that creates also value for them. So we have this approach, I call it responsible freedom, in a sense that we absolutely do not care where you work, what times you work, what's your location, what's your times on anything. As long as your job is done. We do not micromanage you, we do not tell you what to do, we do not tell you and we do not calculate the exact days of vacation that you can take. we treat everyone as an adult in the room that they can make their sound decisions and we trust them. Of course, unless sometimes people prove you wrong and then you have to take measures, but overall it's very based on trust. And people appreciate it because they don't feel controlled and surveilled. and of course it comes with the responsibility. And so this is this is one aspect, and then I think it's overall also fun. We we also give people interesting opportunities, we try to learn and grow a lot, meaning now, for example, with Gen AI, they can play with whatever tool they want. Just come and ask, and we can ensure that you can you have access. We pay for the subscription. Our engineers are creating some unimaginable workflows with Gen AI and agents because they love it. And we love to play and we love to create. And I think we gathered people around us that are on the same page. We were having, given that it originated as a small, unruled agency. We did do quite a bit of effort in the past few years to also focus more intentionally on growth and learning. That was primarily on my side and the team, just to ensure that we provide the feedback, we get the feedback, and also we can help people articulate their aspirations and help them grow. with different options on the table that they can pick up and actually do it. ask.

Pauline Bertry 14:55

Okay, let me go back to one of the points that you shared and then I'll follow up on another one. So I also, I really liked the concept of responsible freedom that you shared. And I'm super curious on how does this apply to personal growth and learning because I know that there are some interesting things going on in the end about how people learn. So I would love to hear a bit from you on like how you came up with this model where people are like owning their own growth and what have been the learning so far. Like what are the things you tried

Olesia 15:42

I mean

Pauline Bertry 15:42

that worked? What are the things that you tried that didn't and so on and so on.

Olesia 15:47

I guess it the concept and this approach stems partly from my own personality, because I believe

Pauline Bertry 15:53

Hmm

Olesia 15:54

you should be the owner of your growth. I don't believe in something should be given to you because it's a very immature position in life, in career. You have to actually own your growth. It's important that we create an environment and we create a framework, an opportunity for the person to actually be able to leverage anything that they want. It might be the course, it might be the placement on the project, it might be some maybe even additional activity within the company that they want to explore. So we give the opportunity, we give the context. In the company, just if I briefly Describe the mechanics that what we've introduced, that every person, so we have six partners in the company taking care of the management and overall strategic direction. And every partner has assigned person in the company where they have this one-on-one, more intimate professional relationship where they discuss the person's context. we have also we call it a skill wheel, which is basically A set of skills that we believe are the most important ones in our context for the company and for people. They have all all the technical hardware skills and all the behavioral skills. we have the person assigned to a partner where they can discuss their growth aspirations, where they can discuss their growth plans, and then agree on the next steps. Partner is a very important piece in this. schema in a sense that then it's my job as a partner to ensure that maybe the person gets the placement on the project where the person can grow. It doesn't work if one of the parties are not involved, of course.

Pauline Bertry 17:47

Mm.

Olesia 17:48

here it's important that people also initiate the conversations and actually proactively approach that, meaning asking for feedback, asking for the sessions actually vocalizing what they want. What I've observed in many cases people don't know and they're waiting for the direction to be told to them. So of course sometimes it doesn't work, but overall this has proven to be very beneficial for for a couple of cases for sure for many people.

Pauline Bertry 18:21

I want to ask you one thing. So that's a question I think like a lot of people are kind of going through in their hands. Like where is the balance between kind of creating the opportunity and almost like the spoon feeding,

Olesia 18:40

Mm-hmm.

Pauline Bertry 18:41

the the growth to people. And at the same time, I know that naturally there are some people that are more vocal than others just by their personality, et cetera. like depending on the seniority and the maturity that you were mentioning, it might come with a different level of easiness for people to ask for.

Olesia 19:06

Plus.

Pauline Bertry 19:07

learning opportunities, etc. And I mean, by fact, I know that you are very good at balancing both because we work together. But I want to ask you how you think about finding this balance for someone who is maybe not experienced in this or someone who is managing the team for the first time. So How do I find the balance between helping my people and at the same time not spoon feeding them, but making sure I give the space and the opportunity for them to learn and to

Olesia 19:47

Mm-hmm.

Pauline Bertry 19:47

grow? Am I making sense?

Olesia 19:49

Yes, absolutely. maybe one important thing in terms of growth in any context, especially our context, is there a two to tango in a sense that there are needs and aspirations from the individual where they want to grow, where they want to develop themselves, their skill set. We do not forget that they're also companies' needs.

Pauline Bertry 20:12

companies.

Olesia 20:13

based on what our clients need, where do we see our strategy going? Where do we want to evolve? And the growth framework is actually when you meet the po like the two. It's never

Pauline Bertry 20:25

Mm-hmm.

Olesia 20:25

just about one side or the other side, because then you create a symmetry that is not healthy and one side is very unhappy. So that's just what we are aspiring for it to is ex exactly having this balance. In terms of learning and how to give the opportunity and find this balance bef between you spoon feed the person and then or you just let the person drown or hope that the person will not drown. here it comes the seniority of I don't want to say adult in the room but someone who is overseeing either the team or or the individual. My personal approach that works Well, for me, I hope, is I need to really understand what's the drive and motivation of the person and what's the personality where they're standing. So I need to really know my people. That's I need to connect to them. And then you know it's sometimes I have this comparison, it's like you're in a room with many, many doors, and you f you need to find the right key. So your team

Pauline Bertry 21:29

And then.

Olesia 21:30

is usually the room with many doors, and different person has a different key that you need to find and kind of know what works. Usually broadly, I believe that you learn by doing and making mistakes that do not carry too much weight. That's how you get the sense of agency, ownership, and at the same time you you are given the space to actually sit, be uncomfortable, try to find the solution and try it out. Nevertheless, here it's important thing to understand what's the person's level. So I know where I can push the person and just let her or him be, explore. And then I prefer to outline the direction, the where to go. Then the person can thinker and think, come back to me and we can problem solve together. What are the options? Where do we go? What do we do? Get the feedback and reiterate. Ideally, in ideal circumstances, that would be the way. But Sometimes it's just you you also fail and you don't know. Sometimes you, for example, give this direction and then you see that the person is overwhelmed. So you need to rewind and maybe to step in more and support more. Comes with different levels of seniority and different levels of expertise within a s certain area. So there's no one recipe. It's more it's very individual.

Pauline Bertry 22:55

Yeah, I agree. now that again, you are a very nice person to interview, Alessa. You are giving me all the possibilities. Thank you so much.

Olesia 23:05

You're welcome.

Pauline Bertry 23:08

But I want to also go a little bit into the skill veil that you mentioned you've built. So how did you came up with an idea of having such a tool internally? What was the motivation? What are the things that you kind of learned while creating it? And how do you use it now?

Olesia 23:36

Hmm. so how do how did we decide to start even working on it? It was gosh four years ago or three years ago. And we didn't want to focus only on performance feedbacks, you know, connected to salaries. It's not necessarily the pattern that we want to enforce that your performance or how are you how you are you are as a professional always i is connected to your salary. So we still we are running yearly feedbacks, calibration on all the salary reviews, etc. But we wanted to really shift the focus more on growth and learning. And but the first step was just to understand what are the main areas that matter to us, to people, what what you know It was easier to imagine it in a wheel because it's something like a shape. So, what are all the segments that we in our context, in the context of our company, we feel are important? And if you can imagine a wheel, roughly half was about behavioral skills. We are not calling them soft skills, but behavioral skills. And that's communication, innovation, creativity, and many, many other things. teamwork, etc., etc. And then there were hard skills in our context as we are working in innovation, tech, back in the day, more digitization, creating digital products. It was technical skills, meaning coding, DevOps, all of that. Then there were like product skills as a product owner, delivery lead skills because we are also delivering the solutions, UX, UI, etc. So it was very Segmented. And then, of course, there were different layers and different levels of seniority on underneath each. So it was huge exercise. Now looking back, being very being more in a reflective self-reflection mode, I think we went too far. It was too complicated.

Pauline Bertry 25:32

Mm.

Olesia 25:33

Because you it was the whole thing that you need to Fill in where you are now. So the person would fill in the self-assessment. Then we would gather the feedback from the peers and from maybe project like leads on the leadership, etc. etc. And it was huge exercise, super important because we had to agree on the language, on the expectations, people finally knew what we are looking into when we are, you know, giving the reviews, etc. etc. But First of all, super complex, very time consuming. I guess growth doesn't have to be difficult, like doesn't have to be hard. And it's essentially about a couple of very, very important things, but not so much and so so complex. And now I can actually not throw away but scrap half of it because of Gen AI and what we see as a shift in terms of the profiles.

Pauline Bertry 26:32

Mm-hmm.

Olesia 26:33

and that's connected to what I was telling in the beginning that we used to have more of a distinction. you are this, you work as an engineer, you are back and front end, you're UX designer.

Pauline Bertry 26:43

Yeah, like a profile.

Olesia 26:45

Very, very profiled. with of course we had a few generalists more like me that I can do almost everything. but now we are moving into more of unified full stack builder almost.

Pauline Bertry 26:59

product builder.

Olesia 27:01

yes. it's still I feel that the world outs out there is not super stable at the moment. So we I'm expecting more changes to come. But let's say for now and for the foreseeable future, meaning what, 12 months, I would say that we would stay within this builder mindset. It's not been codified, so it's now kind of floating in the air.

Pauline Bertry 27:23

Yeah.

Olesia 27:24

but yeah. I guess that's the more of a direction for moving forward.

Pauline Bertry 27:30

Very nice. when you were running those, the process, et cetera, so you said you would scrap half of it. So what are the elements you would definitely keep both in

Olesia 27:44

Mm-hmm.

Pauline Bertry 27:45

the skill wheel and the process? And what are the elements

Olesia 27:51

Mm-hmm.

Pauline Bertry 27:52

you would kind of think are maybe too much?

Olesia 27:57

Well, for sure, in terms of the scale wheel, I I would simplify much more areas where we went really very granular in terms of expertise, UX, development, etc. etc.

Pauline Bertry 28:10

Mm.

Olesia 28:11

I think it can be boiled down to a couple of main things and that's it. I would for sure leave the behavioral skills as I was mentioning. We were also giving

Pauline Bertry 28:22

Mm.

Olesia 28:22

different weights, but and I was mentioning it in the beginning that as for me, what we really should focus more moving forward is the critical thinking, is the problem solving, is the creativity. we still communication for sure, for sure teamwork because now as Gen AI, it depends of course on the industry and on the specific kind of job. But when you outside so much of a legwork and mechanics to claude or to chat GPT, or whatever is your choice, then actually what you as an individual have to do, you have to do for them and after they do the work. Exactly the problem solving, exactly the thinking. And It's something that can be learned as well. So it's not something that you just wake up and you have or not.

Pauline Bertry 29:17

No.

Olesia 29:18

but we should deliberately work on that. So for sure, in terms of the scale wheel, I would simplify it and just expertise is very important. we don't have to overengineer it. And in terms of the process, we we had an attempt of Having more rigid cycle in a sense, you have a yearly review with your partner, then you have quarterly check-ins. what I've learned is that in the agencies like ours, it's very difficult to keep this cadence and keep the process in place just because of the nature of our work and client first attitude and also the the personalities of people that we are not super process oriented, some more, some less. so there I think it would make sense to keep the framework, but la then leave on individuals the responsibility and agency of their growth for their growth more.

Pauline Bertry 30:22

And I mean, this leads me very nicely to the one of the topics we also discussed in our pre-call about feedback as the right and as the responsibility as we defined it. So, I mean, I know you are very passionate about the feedback topic. So maybe we could go a little bit in there. And I would love to specifically learn like How are you thinking about this

Olesia 30:47

Mm.

Pauline Bertry 30:48

concept of like, yes, it's your right, but it's also your responsibility?

Olesia 30:54

yes, I'm very passionate about feedback. Here, very important to say that what I'm gonna say is with an assumption that we are talking about the safe environment, meaning that the person

Pauline Bertry 31:07

Mm-hmm.

Olesia 31:07

is in the safe environment where there is a possibility to ask for feedback and receive feedback in a manner that I do not feel threatened or etc. etc. Because I do understand that in some contexts it might be tricky because of the nature of the company or the nature of the leadership, etc. etc. So just keep that in mind that it's in in the context that I feel safe.

Pauline Bertry 31:30

Yeah, that's already a huge assumption.

Olesia 31:34

Yes. So it's nevertheless, looking back, I've and that's purely based on also my experience. And I've come from various backgrounds. So we talk super big corporations like IBM where it's all processed. It's like a huge machine to a really very small startup with five people core team running the business for a couple of countries. At the same time,

Pauline Bertry 32:00

Yeah.

Olesia 32:00

I believe so in terms of the feedback, I guess that's some people approach it as it's my right. to get the feedback and they sit and they wait for it. which is again coming back to the point that I mentioned in the beginning of our podcast is it's a bit of an immature attitude to life and your professional personal life whatever is the person is responsible for their own growth within the company outside of the company. So Before you ask for the feedback, you need to be aware why do you do this? Why do you need to ask for feedback? Do you ask for feedback to get the race? Do you ask for feedback to get pat on the shoulder? Do you ask for feedback because you want to grow? Because that really defines when you ask for feedback. If you ask for feedback, and whom do you ask for feedback? So some people can take the avenue of I need this. And that's very valid, by the way, as well. I need appreciation and I need validation because that's how I know that I'm doing well, and that has a right to be in the feedback. It's feedback is not only as we Slavics love to do. Like, don't tell me where I'm good at, just tell me what to improve and where I suck. And then I know that I need to focus on this. No, feedback is both. It's also what are your strengths and where you need to still like keep building on. so it's for sure. The right in the sense that in a good company, you expect the company also be actually interested in you and have the space and have the environment where feedback can be given. Because you know, we get busy, we we get other priorities, and sometimes people just it's not that they don't want to give you the feedback, they just it's not on their priority list. So for sure there is this I feel obligation from the company to create a space and environment. And tools to ask and receive feedback. But then at the same time, from the perspective of the person, we expect you to also ask for it because that's how you grow. And because that opens the whole set of opportunities and ability to discuss how we can help you grow. And here I would be very transparent is even and you know because we've had this conversation also in the company that. We do this annual learning survey where we ask people how they're are they happy with learning? And we always have the question: do you feel that you receive enough feedback or what's your what's your feeling around that? And we receive usually people, of course, feedback feedback on feedback that we don't feel that we receive enough feedback. Me, as a leader on more projects, more engagements. Then I ask myself, how many times people reached out to me to ask for feedback? Or you know

Pauline Bertry 34:52

Yeah.

Olesia 34:52

how many times they reached out to their peers to ask for feedback, to their other so and it's not very common. So I'm wondering whether it's fair I can create all the opportunities in the world for you, I can create the growth cycle, I can create everything, but it's also it should also come from the person. And looking back in my career as well, usually the best conversations and almost shifts, or those important moments happened when I was very humble and open and asked either for help or for feedback, or I just was very transparent with what's going on. So

Pauline Bertry 35:36

You

Olesia 35:36

here for me, it's again two to tango. And it's not only the right, it's also the responsibility.

Pauline Bertry 35:43

Yeah, I very much agree. And I think for me personally, I've been trying to soften a bit my kind of view on that because it was very much like you want it, you go get it. And like

Olesia 35:59

Mm.

Pauline Bertry 35:59

as I was growing, that was also something that I needed to balance. And I think where I landed, at least in my thinking, is that as a company or like as a leadership team, my responsibility is to create this safe environment that you were talking about in the beginning.

Olesia 36:19

Yes.

Pauline Bertry 36:19

And in some cases, especially with like more, specifically more junior profiles, meaning less tenured, not necessarily less mature. So I specifically mean who haven't been in the role or in the company or in the position for very long time, which might impact the fact that they don't feel very safe. So with them, I will also create a platform for those discussions. So I will generally try to have a scheduled cadence or

Olesia 36:53

Yes.

Pauline Bertry 36:53

at least something blocked in the calendar. And then if we don't need it, we cancel. the senior the person becomes, the more I agree with the view

Olesia 37:01

Mm.

Pauline Bertry 37:02

that you were sharing. Because at least, and again from my experience, I noticed that when I would say to people, just come and ask to me for feedback, a lot of younger and more junior profiles, didn't necessarily knew how to approach it or felt safe doing it. Like I got coached to create a moment for them to have this conversation with me. But then more senior the person becomes, more this is becoming the responsibility than it is the right. That's

Olesia 37:34

Absolutely.

Pauline Bertry 37:35

how I think about it.

Olesia 37:37

That's a very, very good point. I absolutely agree. I forgot to mention also one thing. One thing is a safe space. Another thing is you need to ensure that you teach the person or people the language how to

Pauline Bertry 37:50

Mm-hmm.

Olesia 37:50

actually ask for feedback and how to give feedback. And of course, there's another even aspect is that there are different personalities. And

Pauline Bertry 37:59

Yeah.

Olesia 38:00

here that's more of a I acknowledge that maybe I am a bit of a different personality in terms of, you know, how com I communicate, how I approach things. So something that would work better for me would not necessarily work for another person. And especially as you say, when there are younger people in the beginning of their careers, they do not have the the language and the skill set actually how to give and receive feedback. And that's then the responsibility of the company to give them that.

Pauline Bertry 38:37

And what have been your experience on teaching people those skills? Because I think that's often, at least from what I hear in a lot of companies, one of the hugest challenges is that when people become managers or leaders, or they become senior, Often they don't have the skill set to be a manager

Olesia 39:00

Hmm.

Pauline Bertry 39:00

or to be a leader. So how did you approach growing these capabilities internally for the entire organization? And at the same time, how do you approach creating this? How do you approach helping people to learn those skills when they're in more junior roles?

Olesia 39:20

I remember one of the key moments in my career was when I was in that startup in our GM back then, he organized one day training for us on giving and receiving feedback. And it was I must say that for the team back then It was just not learning the skills, it was more also like a therapy session for the whole team because suddenly you can discuss things. Before that, you didn't know how to articulate what you want to say. So that was one of the moments when I was like, my god, this really works. That's great. I can now give and receive feedback all the time. So it was you know it was interesting and funny how then after

Pauline Bertry 39:56

Hahaha

Olesia 39:58

that one day, suddenly, you know, we were receiving messages on Slack. Can we have a coffee, please? I need to talk to you. We're my God, we opened the Pedora

Pauline Bertry 40:06

Bye!

Olesia 40:07

box. Yeah, that was great. But that really cleaned up the air so much because we were working so much together. And of course, you have things that are unsaid, things that are, you know, brushed under the rug, etc. So that was one moment when I realized that there is a skill to learn. And for us in in Enrique, we Try to ensure that all of our people get a training on giving and receiving feedback. We have Bara, who's our learning expert, so she she runs those sessions usually and she gives you know structured learning on how to receive, what is the feedback, how then they practice. It's also about finding the fine balance because really and I will be very transparent. Some people do not bother that much with feedback.

Pauline Bertry 40:57

about...

Olesia 40:58

they're not so much into look, we have half of the company that are engineers. Making an engineer

Pauline Bertry 41:04

and

Olesia 41:04

talk, good luck. That's You know, their biggest nightmare is to have a retrospective and turn on the camera. I love them to the moon and back, but sometimes it's very difficult to get any kind of verbal response from some people,

Pauline Bertry 41:19

Bye

Olesia 41:20

which is again, it's respecting the personality and respecting the the priorities of the person. That's fine. but we ensure that all our people and all the newcomers get this session on the feedback. We tend to run it once a year, twice a year, depending on what's the influx, etc. etc. sometimes as a refresher, we have sessions, just you know, like one positive feedback a day. it's again, it's a very fine line. It also it very de it really depends on the cultural context, on the preferences of people. Some even some nationalities prefer it less, some people prefer it l more. So it's fair. We are a company of more than 20 nationalities. You can imagine how many

Pauline Bertry 42:04

Yes.

Olesia 42:05

discrepancies and how difficult is it to navigate when you have a Czech, an Italian, a Ukrainian, and maybe I don't know, a Vietnamese in the room. Tough. and that comes also with the feedback, how they talk, etc. but overall, we just

Pauline Bertry 42:20

Definitely.

Olesia 42:21

we just ensure that we have proper proper training and then we incorporate it in the yearly now we will be running a yearly feedback for everyone. So and then of course everyone is pretty much encouraged to talk during retros if we run them or just talk one on one but that's more that's more again on the responsibility of the teams and client leads or individuals.

Pauline Bertry 42:48

I like it. I think I have the last question on the feedback. There are very different views, as you were saying, like different culture, different backgrounds, et cetera. But generally, what's your view on like on three things? One is like on the spot versus planned and structured feedback discussions. And second one around the day-to-day kind of the working feedback versus the end of year kind of summary

Olesia 43:20

Mm-hmm.

Pauline Bertry 43:21

performance feedback as you were mentioning. what is, like again, how do you find the balance? What are the elements that should be included in one or in another? And how do you generally kind of create a healthy environment where at a meat-size company, it's helpful for people. It's also not overwhelming for the entire organization.

Olesia 43:49

Mm-hmm. one thing that I feel we sometimes forget that thank you is also a feedback and we underuse it. So feedback it's not only end of year big feedback cycle where I sit with you for an hour and then we talk and we discuss everything. It's almost 8/20 in a sense that the feedback culture is what we do every day.

Pauline Bertry 44:13

Mm-hmm.

Olesia 44:13

And here we tend to say Thank you and appreciate things really not as often as we should. Meaning when you notice that the colleague did something great, just say thank you. When you are on a meeting, just in the highlight that, that's great, by the way, which is really, really important. And actually that covers a big chunk of this feedback culture. And then when you were asking about giving the feedback on the spot or after some time, it's et cetera. So here I think it's trickier with the negative feedback in a sense that we need to ensure that we are not acting out of impulse and emotion in the moment when we are frustrated, when we are very angry, or when we are upset. So just let it ferment and then talk to the person and give the transparent feedback in a day-to-day life. makes sense to have. More of a structured team sessions. But again, I would be very transparent. I feel that it's very individual in a sense of you need to know what your team dynamics are, what are the personalities. And for some teams, for exact for example, retros work wonders. It's great. For some teams, I know that it will not fly because

Pauline Bertry 45:39

Yeah.

Olesia 45:39

I have a set of people that They open up only when it's maximum three people in the room. How can I

Pauline Bertry 45:45

Yeah.

Olesia 45:46

ask them for to speak up in front of 15? It's like of course they will be there and nothing, so it will not bring any value. So here it's again, it's very individual and there where comes this balance that it's good to have a framework and process at least high level in place where you have those checkpoints

Pauline Bertry 46:06

Mm-hmm.

Olesia 46:07

where you have to like yearly feedbacks. but then in the context of us as a small boutique a agency, it's for the leader to be aware of their circumstances on the project with the team and then finding almost like a tailored solution for this.

Pauline Bertry 46:27

I mean, first of all, I'm one of those people who are like, I'm not a huge fan of retros. Like, I mean, of course I did run them as a manager because I know that's part

Olesia 46:37

Yes.

Pauline Bertry 46:38

of the process, that's part of the retrial, but I'd rather have a conversation one-on-one with someone and both like when I need to give feedback or when I want to receive feedback so that I can also clarify the context, the situation, the implications, et cetera.

Olesia 46:56

Yes, yes.

Pauline Bertry 46:57

So I totally relate to what you are saying. as a final inspirational close note for our conversation, there were one thing that I absolutely loved in Mackenzie. Every year at some point of time, I don't remember the exact dates, they had what is called a thank you a ton. campaign.

Olesia 47:29

Mm-hmm.

Pauline Bertry 47:29

And you had like this virtual wall where you could join with your email and profile and you can tag someone in the organization and write them like a nice thank you message. And then this will appear on the wall and everyone in the organization could see it. And it was so good to see all of the different like

Olesia 47:58

Mm.

Pauline Bertry 47:59

stories and like moments of someone's career like someone learning something new someone have given support to someone when they struggled and and so on and so on so to kind of to support the points that you were making on the fact that, yes, thank you is a feedback and often we forget about giving one.

Olesia 48:20

This is a very good idea. Maybe I'll think if we can incorporate this somehow. We we do have the celebrations on our all hands.

Pauline Bertry 48:29

Yes.

Olesia 48:29

also the opportunity to say thank you to the teams, etc. but this is a very good yeah, this is actually a very good idea. So that it's like all thank yous in the world is on are on one pay side place.

Pauline Bertry 48:40

Yes. Well, I would love to see it when you build it.

Olesia 48:48

now with lovable we can build anything.

Pauline Bertry 48:51

Yes, so true. All right, Alessa. Thank you so much. It was great chat. Thank you. It was a pleasure. Thank you so much. Bye

Olesia 48:56

Thank you. It was a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Thanks. Ciao.