Managing Culture and Organisational Change With Kasia Kondas | ProActive Podcast #132
Kasia is the founder and director of Mindful Energy, who are specialists in defining or refining an organisation's vision, strategy and goals, aligning team members and business to deliver on strategic objectives.
In this podcast, Kasia and MeMedia Founder Chris Hogan discuss culture, strategy, authenticity, leadership and brand - amongst many other side topics.
Video Transcript:
- Welcome to the Proactive Podcast. Brought to you by Memedia.
- Good Day, world, Chris Hogan coming to you from Memedia studio here at Burleigh Heads for episode 132 of the Proactive Podcast. And today I have with me, Kasia Kondas, who is the Founder and Director of Mindful Energy, who are basically helping people, performance, and change occur in organisations all over Australia. Thanks for joining us, joining me, Kasia.
- Thank you for having me, Chris. It's awesome to finally be here and do this. Yeah, just a bit of background if you like, you know, I started in this sort of field, yeah, I guess pretty much as a graduate, you know, in Perth where I'm from, where I grew up. And I, the reason I fell into this field actually is because I was involved in sport quite heavily, competitive sport. So I was interested in sport psychology and then realised, you know, there's not that many opportunities for a graduate as a sport psych. So let me do something aligned to that, similar to that. And that was organisational psychology and that's how I fell into this field that I'm in currently. And Mindful Energy, yes, is my business that I founded five, six years ago now. Consulting in that space of people, performance, change, and culture with organisations around Australia, yeah, as you said, yeah.
- Yeah. Great, great.
- Yeah. Yeah, so sports, definitely a great foundation because there's so much, I guess, definitely performance, but also change that needs to occur for athletes and individuals in and around, I guess, managing their motivation, potential injuries they might have. Yeah.
- Yeah. And culture is a big one too right now. You might hear on the news the issues that are currently. So yes, even in that context and, you know, as org psychs, we work at three levels. The culture of the whole organisation, the team and its performance, and then the leader. So it's sort of at the three onion levels, if you like, which is fun.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah. Beautiful, beautiful. If you will like, you do have your sunnys on your head.
- Oh. Sure.
- Cool. So I guess the reason why, I guess we engaged, you know, from the first time we met is because Memedia has a place in the whole, you know, development of culture and workplaces as well. And sometimes this is often when we get involved with a client, it's the first time they've even looked at this, you know. So while that statement culture is strategy has been around for, you know, decades, it's still playing out in workplaces and organisations and it is becoming a really big deal. And like you said, there's news articles out now around sporting organisations that really need to improve their culture. So when we get involved with our clients, it is, you know, from a marketing perspective, but really what I've come to find is it doesn't matter what perspective or motivation that drives the leader to improve or change their culture. It doesn't matter where that comes from or what their, I guess their ultimate goal is for doing that. It just matters that I think that they started.
- So true, you know, so often people think, oh, culture, you know, who's gonna do it. Is it HR? Is it some external consultant? But actually it starts at the very top with the leader, with the top leader and the leadership team as a whole, you know, so we definitely, you know, start and work closely with often actually with marketing slash a communications agencies in that we partner together in building internal brand first, which then should exude and make it easier for the external brand to be communicated and marketed.
- Of course.
- Yeah. But definitely the starting point is leadership at the very top and then their leadership team. So often we start the work up there and then trickle it down and then part, you know, and then at the same time partnering with external agencies too.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah. What, and something you said there, is it about, you know, internal brand versus external brand. What we've discovered is basically, you know, authenticity is super important because if you, if you're not walking the walk and it's just all about talk, then the first people that are gonna notice is your internal team, right, is your employees, your contractors. And so they're gonna call you out on it or if they don't want to, you know, have that conflict with the leadership team, then they're just gonna walk.
- And this is the issue right now. One of the key challenges businesses are facing is they're losing talent. There's a shortage of talent, as you may know around the country. And that's part of its, you know, not connecting and engaging teams and people in a meaningful, purposeful way internally through some sort of internal brand building work that one would do. Yeah. And, yeah. Retention is becoming a bit of an issue there. Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah, great. And we spoke off camera just earlier about an experience that I had with an engineering client of ours, who we embarked on this journey to, you know, improve their values or, and improve their purpose of the organisation and we tapped into a lot of things, especially how important mental health was to the organisation and, you know, through working with them on branding and marketing assets. It took around six months for them to actually adjust to the whole idea and the concept of, hey, we need to work on things internally. I don't, I believe they were there from the get go because otherwise they wouldn't let us move forward, the marketing side of things. But I think it was that internal resources who's going to do it, you know, that was the-
- Yeah.
- I guess the barrier for them to move forward. So having someone like yourself available to an organisation like that, how much do they lean on you? What is it that you actually do?
- Yeah, good question. We are like the enablers, basically. We don't do it for organisations.
- No, no one can, right?
- Exactly. It's, that's right. It's the work of the leadership team, but we work with the leadership team and the broader team in general at a number of levels when it comes to culture, you know, from, obviously starting from strategy and values, and behaviours, but also around systems, processes, even technology, to some extent, it all has to line up and align with what you're tryna achieve. So yeah, we come in, do an initial assessment, usually a baseline assessment of culture, and then look at strategically, okay, where do you wanna be? What's the gap? And then put in a number of programmes and systems, and processes that help the organisation move towards that. And a lot of it's working with teams, and leaders and teams, and helping to shape those things together rather than imposing things on people, you actually getting them to co-create what it is that we're doing. And then you get a lot more skin in the game and uptake. And in that change process that you're tryna enact, you know, if that's what it is or bring in those new values.
- Sure. So what's sort of driving this change of culture or, you know, I think importance placed on culture at the moment. What do you think that is?
- Well, if I look at it at a board level, it's sort of corporate governance aspect, for sure, you know, it's becoming more and more, I think, you know, I think businesses understand what a bad culture can do to an organisation. So it's a sort of coming from the top end always. But why focus on culture well? I guess what I've always worked on through culture programmes is to improve performance for the business, the team, the individual. I mean, that's the real kind of, you know, ticket that you can get out of doing work on culture, that you can build a high performance culture, you can build a safe culture, you can build a healthy and effective culture through working on these aspects and these programmes to help align with your strategy and achieve your business goals quicker, faster, with the right intent, and, you know, mindfully, purposefully. Yeah.
- Yeah, it is. You're absolutely right that governance is super important. And I'm a member of the AICD and I refer to them in my book just around how I was pleasantly surprised that a organisation like the AICD would actually go out and create guidelines for governance around culture for the board. And I was really stoked to hear that. It was very passionate about values, purpose, culture, and when I heard it, I was truly amazed. So, you know, I completely agree with you there. The performance side of things, it covers so many different aspects, isn't it? It's not about, for me, it's not about, I guess, quantity, it's about quality, you know. So for example, you know, now we're talking about, well, we've had to deal a lot with, you know, remote working situations. And then, you know, now we're talking about, a lot of people talking about four day work weeks, so having almost less-
- True.
- On your plate, enabling you to be less busy and more mindful can help increase productivity as well. So where are we sitting on that based on your experience, is that becoming popular where people are actually dialling back the amount of time in the office? Like for example, four day work weeks, remote working must be just normal now, right? And then even just, I guess, strategic thinking time, like, you know, just, I guess not meetings because that's still not time to think, you know, is that.
- Yeah.
- So first of all, can we go through those?
- Yep.
- So four day work weeks, remote working, and just strategic time out.
- Sure. Yeah. Look with the clients I'm working with at the moment, which range from large engineering firms to not for profits even, not so much in government, to be honest, but connected in that way and definitely seeing, well, everybody right now in Queensland is working from home quite a number, not everybody, shouldn't say that, but probably half of the clients I have are currently taking this month and maybe more to work from home. So they're well and truly set up now, because last year we repositioned, we pivoted towards working more this way anyway, and it's sort of now quick and easy to switch back and forth as needed. I haven't seen the four day week so much yet in my client circles, but I definitely see kind of more focused times that are being created virtually, you know, to work on specific projects or thought processes or innovations that might be on the cards. And what I'm definitely noticing is a lot of retreats, what I call retreats. They're not necessarily physical, but it can be, where they take a half a day or a day out to work on strategy.
- Yeah.
- Yeah. Yeah. And that's like dedicated time just to think ahead and forward rather than in the weeds of the day to day. So I'm facilitating a lot of those kind of workshops for clients as well for those away days. Yeah.
- We're certainly seeing it as a normal practise for people to have workshops with us to develop their strategy. Half days, full days. But sometimes it's, you know, you got the blinkers on, you're not sure if that's just you or everybody. So that's really interesting.
- Yeah.
- Yeah. Are you finding that they're becoming a little bit more regular, like as in more, you know, there were days when we used to develop five year strategies.
- Oh.
- Yeah. Finding that, you know, it's an annual, at least an annual kind of review that we do with clients. Is that similar to what you're finding? Oh, easily annual. Yeah. Easily. I mean last year was quite a, quite an interesting year and that we felt like at the beginning of the year, you know, it was like, hey, Australia, go, we're all good, we got no issues. In fact, we got so few issues with our economy that the federal, you know, Reserve Bank of Australia was basically going to up interest rates because we're gonna, you know, we're gonna achieve our payment of debt off earlier than expected and all this sort of stuff. And then all of a sudden, you know, cases rose and more lockdowns occurred and across, you know, multiple states. And so we've got a few clients in Sydney. So we were working with them. Queensland was relatively unscathed for most of 2021. So yeah, that pivot in the middle of the year was, yeah, there was a lot of time to talk about, okay, look, what assets are we creating? Oh. For example, you know, we don't know how long we're gonna be in this for, what do we do? And so, well, the first thing was, you know, we had 2020 to sort of warm up to this stuff. So we were, and we were pretty, relatively unscathed in 2020, funnily enough, 2021 was the hardest year out of the two. Go figure. But. Yeah, the strategy didn't so much, I think change because we had a really sound strategy. It was more so, I think the individual assets inside that, or those individual projects inside of that, some of them got pulled forward.
- Yes.
- And, you know, it was like, oh, we're gonna do that, you know, in three months time, but hang on a minute. No, we need it. We need it sort of this month. And my client likened this whole process to the American bison. And, in, basically in times of storms, cattle will run away from the storm, try and outrun the storm. Horses will often just stand there with their arse into the rain or the storm, and just stand there,-
- Yeah.
- you know, with some shelter normally,. But they, and cows will do that when they're out in they're open too. They'll actually just stand with their bums into the rain often. But bison do neither of the above, they will run head first into the storm, therefore getting through it quicker.
- Interesting.
- So we said, we're just like the American bison.
- Yeah.
- We're getting head down and just run through the storm.
- Proactively, kind of. Yeah.
- And being proactive is your methodology. And absolutely. So we were proactive being, saying that, okay, we're gonna come out of this one day. What do we want to come out of it with?
- With. Yep.
- Those projects that we had on the sideline, we're gonna pull those forward and essentially what then occurred was when we came out, it was like a release of, you know, all of this, I think. Customers pent up energy 'cause we've been just like e-bashing them, Facebook, Instagram,-
- Right.
- Email, you name it. And basically saying, hey, you need this, you love this, there's ways you can do business with us now. Or there's ways you can do business with us when we come out. Most people chose the latter.
- Yep.
- And our client just, you know, several of our clients just got absolutely into the, inundated with work based on all of that preparation that we did.
- Exactly. And I think you're right. It's about what they did in the middle of the year or that year, at some point, whether there was some, you know, some opportunity and whether they took the opportunity more importantly to pivot or reinvent themselves, or take up those new opportunities that were presenting themselves in the digital space, for example. And actually being prepared for when you know, things, well, normalise a little yeah. If we could say that even.
- Yeah.
- This year. So yeah, that definitely, and some of the work we do is also, in terms of change is to do with organisational restructures. So redesigning the organisational model.
- Yeah, right. And also, the organisational structure that sits below that, aligned to the strategy and where that strategic directions going, obviously.
- Yeah.
- So that was what we did a lot of work with last year with clients to position them, like you said, for this next wave of, next situation. 'Cause it's an ongoing thing, you know.
- Of course. Yeah.
- And definitely one of the pitfalls for some organisations has been to stay static and not take those opportunities and not reinvent and not pivot, not, you know, not do those things and let alone, you know, build, continue to build their leadership capability, which is the other piece that's found to be, as we come really come to the, for this year.
- Super.
- Yeah. Yeah. Because we're seeing that as COVID hits here as, here in Queensland, you know, a lot of people stepping out, needing to step out and there's not enough leadership capability within the business to step up and lead. So it's a real kind of quandary that businesses are in, those who haven't sort of proactively thought about investing in their people and leadership capability. Yeah. And that's, you know, some of the work we're doing currently because actually we've just come across some interesting funding that allows businesses to do this without too much cost. And yeah, so it's actually a really beautiful little sweet spot right now to do it if you haven't been already.
- Yeah.
- And get that investment happening in that space 'cause that starts with the leader, as we say, in terms of culture.
- Aye. We all need to work on ourselves. You know, I take a huge interest in the personal growth of my team, but sometimes, you know, that's to the detriment of my own growth, you know. So I understand the importance of, you know, investing in my own growth as well as the team. And, yeah, leadership is absolutely, you know, a hot topic right now. Fish rots from the head is the common saying, so. And with these extra stresses that sort of been placed upon us, it's so important to, you know, understand how to just manage your stress levels and all of that wellness stuff. Not, and I'm not underplaying it, but by calling it stuff.
- No.
- You know, it's super important. But then you know, that communication, you know, leadership, in leadership is even more important now. So especially when we have, you know, remote teams. So, then that may mean that the leaders need to adopt new technology, you know, to ensure that they're keeping up the communication levels. And I found, we're going on so many tangents here.
- Tell us. Okay.
- But what's really interesting is with all of the screen time, you know, that's been increased during the last two years. You know, I'm no stranger to screens. And I do know that, you know, I've gotta up my energy when I'm on screen. Right. It's, you know, you call it, I call it the 110% rule, you know, like. And I've watched things back and go, hang on a minute, mate, you were a bit dull there. So I pick it up. I've, also do the same thing on screens. Yeah, because, oh, sorry, on zoom meetings and alike, because I know that, you know, if I'm just going at a hundred percent, then that's not really enough translate.
- Its not quite enough . Yeah.
- Yeah. So, leaders are getting worn out, they've gotta adopt this technology and then they do it and they're absolutely buggered when they go home and then they're going, well, I don't really like that. It's ruining me for the rest of the week. So my question to you is, are you actually helping leaders adopt technology to help, you know, communicate within their teams? Or is that something that they have to still do on their own?
- Well, good question. Yeah. It's definitely been the, that sort of focus for the last year or so. And I've noticed that obviously, the uptake of things like teams and Zoom and so on, hugely, in these lockdown periods in particular. So yeah, I think it's, we've gone a huge way forward with just capability in that space. I don't personally do that kind of capability development other than encouraging them to use the platforms and do our programmes through this. So some of the programmes have been blended in-person where we could, and then some virtually through teams and a few other useful platforms-
- Yeah, fair enough.
- that are out there.
- Yeah. It's probably in that different department.
- Yeah. No, but that's okay. Because what I was gonna say, what is relevant there around leadership development is, you know, because in our leadership programmes that we run over six or 12 months, is there's a definitely a piece around resilience building and wellness and I was gonna come back to that point, resilience and wellbeing, which is such an important part through these times of change to build that capability. It's a muscle, resilience is a muscle, just like any other muscles, you can build it if you work on it and have the particular techniques and processes you can use every time, you know, to help build that resilience. So we definitely incorporate that aspect. And yes, our programmes are hybrid so they can be digital or they can be in-person, you know, if that makes sense. Because yes, clients, definitely teams has been a big one, I've noticed, Zoom too, but probably more teams I've noticed it has been.
- Yeah, depends on the-
- Yeah, it depends on the-
- Organisation.
- An organisation. Yeah, either way. Doesn't matter. They're all quite good these days. They've been quite honed through this last, little recent time to become quite effective, not the same, it's still not the same. And, you know, that's why those down times and physical in-person retreats and things are really helpful to break it up a bit 'cause yes, leaders are getting tired of just looking at the screen.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, it's, when we first had to go into lockdown in March, 2020, to be honest, I felt like I was in my comfort zone.
- Right.
- I think, you know, going through the GFC, when you've been in business for a really long time, you know, you've certainly come to know lot different, I guess, economic fluctuations, you know, challenges and whatnot. And one of those for us was the GFC, you know, we got hit really hard back then. And I was just like, oh, this is just GFC 2.0, we know exactly what to do.
- Right.
- Needless to say it had its own, you know, flavour of twists and turns. But, you know, that was, I was, I had the resilience from the GFC to know, right, I know what I've gotta do, albeit you know, and I was about to say, albeit, I had to increase my physical exercise or focus on my physical self-
- Yeah, right. Yep.
- Because I knew how taxing it was going to be, you know, being at a 110% on cameras for sustained periods of time. So.
- Right.
- So yeah, I increased my exercise during that time, which is exactly, was the advice from all the healthy people and culture of people out there. But I just knew that really well. So I felt like I was in my zone, you know.
- Yeah. Yeah.
- And somewhat lucky to be there
- Yes. Yes.
- Yeah. So when it came time to direct our clients in their marketing, which is exactly what we do, we are effectively the marketing direction, you know, directors for our clients, then it was just like, oh, this is what we do. No problems. And have the methodology-
- Yeah, you could lead the way, right.
- To back it up. Yes.
- You can actually role model it because you've been there. Whereas a lot of clients, not everybody has, you know, had that experience, you know.
- No, that's right.
- Particularly in their own business and all the extra things that come with that.
- Yeah.
- Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.
- So, what are some of the biggest problems that you're facing with regards to implementing, you know, these cultural shifts? Could you elaborate?
- Cultural shifts?
- Well, even just.
- Culture programmes.
- Organisations, yeah, implementing cultural programmes.
- Yep. Okay. Well, I think the challenges, the biggest challenges, you know, the biggest challenges are usually, you know, making sure the leadership team is fully engaged and on board with what we're trying to do strategically, but also with that, the programme that's built and with their skin in the game. So I usually only draught things in order for the team to get involved in finalising the programme so that they've got that, you know, import that skin in the game around what's gonna be done 'cause that is a charge.
- Like stakeholder engagement. Is that sort of what you're talking about?
- Yeah. Internally. Yep. Internally.
- Yeah, yes.
- Which in an organisation be the leadership team. Yep, the CEO leadership team.
- Yeah. So I imagine there'd be, well, once upon a time there would've been a lot of pushback towards all this cultural stuff.
- Yeah.
- Is that changed now? Are people like on board?
- A little bit more just the definition of culture is better understood. And there's more examples and case studies of where it's gone wrong. So yes, a little bit, but it's still, I feel like on its own, I don't, you know, it doesn't have as much merit as when you link it to the strategy.
- Yes.
- So I always start actually with some strategy pieces, how does that then play out in terms of the values, how you gonna, so strategies where you're going, the values is how you're gonna get there. Right. And so when you put those two together, I find it's a perfect sort of a combo to get clients on board because it's gotta be the what and the how to me, you know, always. Yeah. So that's, I think that's been a, so that challenge, I think, yeah, if you can get them involved is a way to sort of help that process. The rest it's a long term game, culture change and culture building is not a overnight exercise over a few months. It's a year, it's a two years. And so commitment to, you know, measuring I find is really important. So doing a baseline measurement of culture, when you start to have intangible picture of what it looks like, and also then designing the ideal culture that they are looking for. Picture and then looking, okay, this is the gap and these are the strategies to help close the gap over a longer period of time 'cause it's not gonna happen even one year if it's a significant shift, it's it to sustained effort. So commitment to a sustained change, which means commitment to the resources and the involvement, you know, it doesn't have to be huge on resources 'cause we, you know, we enable a lot of that, but to be involved in a programme that runs over, you know, six to 12 months at least, it gives you more return on investment for sure. And that sometimes isn't, people think it's a quick fix and it sure ain't.
- Yeah, no, I totally agree.
- Yeah
- And you know,-
- Yeah. we've had cultural shifts here that have had to occur and yeah, they take a long time, you know, they.
- To embed, right, to initially, you feel like, okay, we've done it, but then you've gotta actually stick it down and gotta reinforce it, reinforce it, reinforce it. Yeah.
- The reinforcing process and then just, you know, acknowledging areas where, you know, you can improve and go, okay, now we need to focus on that, but don't let the other stuff fall by the wayside.
- Yeah.
- So yeah, I think it's just a constant, it's a constant battle. And, but it's one that I know has a huge payoff because, well, I know that with regards to marketing, for example, it pays off very well. It is important for organisations to tell the entire organisation what they're up to. You know, so where we were talking about stakeholder engagement, we want engagement from the entire organisation and we want them to have a voice if they see something that doesn't really resonate or they see a way that they think, you know, things could be improved in line with that cultural shift. So, you know, so our marketing will basically go in, values is where we start, absolutely, but values, purpose, and then the strategy on top of that. And then we start to go, right, okay, how is this gonna play out? You know, in the marketing sense, visually, website, you know, social media, so on, so forth. You know, where are we gonna show evidence of this shift occurring and then recording that. And yes, we distribute it externally, but more importantly, all of the internal stakeholders end up following all of, everything that's on, you know, the social, on social media and on the website that's being said about this, you know, new programmes in place for this cultural shift and they get to come along for the ride.
- Yeah.
- Come along for the ride.
- Well, they are on the ship, they're doing the rowing essentially. But you know, it's important that they believe in doing the rowing, you know. If they don't believe in the destination, then they're just gonna stop rowing.
- Exactly. And it starts on that inside because I mean the internal cultural brand, I kind of use them synonymously because they, to me the same thing.
- Yes.
- You're building an internal brand for those values, which, you know, if you get that bit right, it exudes itself externally anyway, so much easier to market that and actually align your brand values externally with what's happening inside naturally.
- Yeah.
- You know, I always come back to this example of Harley Davidson, you know, and their brand values are so strong that even if you ask the sweeper of the floor at the workshop, he'll tell you exactly, not what it, you know, what it means to be, you know, working and living the culture of, and the values of that particular brand. So, you know, and, you know, so that person goes outside and meets someone externally a client, anyone externally they'll know that it's consistent, it's aligned, the brand, the values, the behaviours are aligned, you know, it's not two separate things. So yeah, it, they've gotta believe it internally first.
- Yes.
- For it to naturally flow out and then, you know, make that so much easier for the marketing to happen.
- It seems to be a, very popular in the Western cultures, Western countries, that culture is, you know, really risen to the surfaces, a very important thing to focus on. I don't engage with a lot of Asian cultures. I spent a fair bit of time in Asia. Read, read a lot about, you know, what got, goes on in Asia, specifically Japan. But, I think that book, Ikigai, have you ever indulged in that at all?
- Oh. Just.
- Basically people are just happy be doing, you know, and grateful to be doing what they're doing. And they, you know, focus all their energy on doing it and have pure and utter joy, and gratitude towards doing whatever it is they're assigned to do.
- Being in the moment, kind of present with it. Yeah.
- Present. Right. And you know, you can see it in sushi, for example, that's a great example because, you know, they make works of art out of piece of fish and rice. Right.
- That's so true.
- So in the Western cultures, it seems to be that it's very important to focus on culture more, which I find really strange. I know in Japan, you know, it's a very obedient sort of.
- Can be yeah, yeah.
- Yeah. Tow the line, just do what you're told kind of.
- Compliance sort of.
- Yeah, yeah. Yeah, a little. But whereas in America, it's, you know, freedom, free your mind, do whatever you want, just be passionate about it. So have you found this like that, well, where is this hype? I call it hype, but where is this trend sort of coming from? Are we getting it a lot from America? Are we following what America's doing in this case? Like, 'cause you referred to Harley Davidson. I mean, we refer to Patagonia a lot. In my book, I wrote a lot about Patagonia.
- Yep, right brand.
- Oh my God.
- What a great brand.
- Yep.
- Oh. Yvon Chouinard, amazing guy. And you know, like, is there anything coming out of the UK or is it mostly, are we mostly following what America's doing here?
- You know, I think our definitions of, it depends on the maturity of the brand.
- Yeah. Right.
- Yeah. I feel those. And also obviously who's leading at the top end.
- Yes. Yeah. Fair enough.
- Of course. Look, we, having, I've worked mainly in Europe, only a little bit in Asia, but, and certainly there like Diamler, Chrysler, and Mitsubishi was one of my key clients there. And the Germans do a brand well, you know, when it comes to manufacturing and that sort of thing.
- They do, actually. Yep. We, and certainly there, that's where I actually worked very much hand in hand with marketing and coms people and building, I did the internal brand building and together with the marketing and coms people, we built a brand full stop, you know, in and out. And they were very proactive and very forward looking and thinking about brand and culture.
- Yes.
- If you think about it like that.
- Yeah, I was just sort of wondering, so where is it stemming from, who, like, is there a country in the world that's sort of leading the way here and I see what you're saying about global brands, you know, the biggest global brands are mostly in America.
- The culture you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, specific of.
- Yes. Well.
- So, so the biggest brands is where we learn that, how they've embedded culture. So, of course Apple and Pixar and then, and Google and you know,-
- Yep. Yep.
- And their are all American. I did work in the UK. So yes, I saw cultural stuff happen there, but that was quite a while ago. So that wasn't a huge buzzword then.
- Yeah. I mean, I do use a tool, a specific tool that I, for measuring culture and it's actually out of the New Zealand of all places.
- Amazing.
- And it's been put together 25 years ago by a bunch of psychologists and it's a very reliable tool that's used in MBA programmes and in big corporates all over the world now, to this day, but actually comes from New Zealand and you know, it is actually a really useful.
- Is that the circumplex?
- Yes. The circumplex. Correct. Yes, the circumplex. And it talks about culture in terms of style. So there's 12 different styles, cultural styles, one an organisation can express and there's some very strong correlations between certain styles and performance, organisational performance, health, safety, effectiveness, and a bunch of other, you know, it's the data that correlate with a particular style or styles that bring you all the things that most organisations are after performance, you know, in terms of achieving and hitting, and smashing their goals, but doing it in a mindful way that develops people along the way, doesn't do it aggressively. 'Cause it's often a bit of a misunderstanding between an aggressive culture being a high performance culture and it's actually not necessarily at all that.
- No, aggressive is not a good value to uphold. I actually did come across a client that had aggressive as one of their values.
- Yeah.
- And I explained to them that probably wasn't a good idea. So.
- Yeah.
- That's really interesting. So it's coming out of the New Zealand.
- Yeah.
- That's really cool. So circumplex psych and that's, is that specifically for leadership or is it?
- It's at three levels. That's why I love it so much.
- Right.
- Because you can do it at the individual leader level, because we said, like we said earlier, a leader sets the tone for the culture of the organisation. So you can do it at that level. You can do it at a group level that's like a business unit or one team and organisation wide. So when you're talking about input from staff about what they like, don't like, through these surveys, they actually get to have their say and we get to see that in the circumplex results. To say, okay, well, this is where we are currently and we're trying to get to here, how are we getting, how are we tracking towards there?
- Fantastic.
- And that feedback is, you know, through the entire organisation. So yeah. So it's actually really helpful.
- Yeah. Feedback's super important. We call it market research. Yep.
- So, you know, it's, too many people go out and create a product or a business or a service for a market that they've just made up in their head.
- With little to no research,-
- True.
- Right? So feedbacks are important.
- Same, same, but different.
- Yeah. So, it's an internal market, I guess.
- Yeah.
- That's really great. So, one of the, I guess the areas that we, I was asking about before, like what are some of the barriers to creating change, organisational change and something that had occurred to me was that, budget cuts seem to hit the hardest in, you know, and you can correct me if I'm wrong. They seem to hit hardest in obviously people and performance, yeah, and marketing.
- True. So often times stereo like traditionally people would go, right, cut the marketing budget and cut all training. Do you find the same?
- Yep, when the going gets tough, those organisations that aren't really committed to these things, that's the first thing that does get cut. You're right. It's both. And you know, it doesn't need to be that way because yes, I understand the pressures on things. However, you know, there's some very smart things available now, the government is providing a lot of funding, grants, all sorts of things that really have been helpful throughout this whole period already and create basically a training budget for the organisation to use for developing and growing their people internally, externally, possibly too, I'm not sure, but certainly for capability building, there's plenty of resources out there that one can tap into, even if, you know, the budget does get shaved a little or cut. You know, that there are ways around these things. And that's quite fortunate that we've got that sort of time in space right now where that's available.
- That's great.
- Yeah. So I think that's helpful.
- Purpose. Obviously. That's a huge thing in mind and I think it's been around for decades as well, aeons probably. Has that, does that come up for you? Like do people go, we don't understand our purpose and is that work hand in hand with that word culture as well in your.
- So interesting. Yeah, it does because a lot of the work we do around strategic alignment is around something I call a team charter. And, you know, and that includes a vision and a purpose that we co-create. And without that purpose, we find that the engagement and the connection that people build around purpose, as you know, is so important that if you don't have it, and if you don't work on that, you know, that you have implications as in people being disengaged and then potentially leaving as well, of course. Because it is super important and it's part of the work we do, not so much the, yeah, part of culture work, but definitely part of strategic alignment as well, aligning the team to the strategy, which includes purpose.
- And how far do you take it? 'Cause you're, like you said, you're working organizationally, you're working with leadership, and you're working with individual teams often.
- Yep.
- So, does that purpose have to say, hey, here's their overarching purpose, here's the individual team's purpose, here's is your all purpose?
- Yeah.
- How far does it go?
- Yeah. Yeah. It can vary, you know, it's, different organisations played this out differently. We definitely do one at the organisational level of course, as part of the strategy and. And then we kind of like, we cascade that down. And in a team workshop, we might take those words and either go, yep, that we'll just run with that if they feel connected enough to it. But sometimes they go, oh, I don't know what that means. So using, unpacking it, and we might distil it and just make it a little bit more crispy for that team. Still in line but sometimes it is slightly, yeah, it's distilled to make it more meaningful for that, you know, that audience.
- Yeah.
- Yeah. So yeah, it varies. Some literally just take and go, yep, that sounds great, we'll just use it here. Others just need that little bit of extra granularity or interpretation that connects. Yeah. Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yep.
- No, I think that's fantastic 'cause a lot of people, you know, need a purpose to get outta bed. Right? Other than, I guess what's put in front of them maybe, you know, like their family and whatnot, you know.
- Yeah.
- And, now look, that's, I explain that in my book, I actually went through a midlife crisis without the fast cars, the fast women and a divorce and so, oh, look at me laughing about it now. You know, it was actually a struggle. Right. And, you know, finding that purpose, my own purpose was really important. And I guess, that is the reason why that book exists. So, you know, helping individuals with their own purpose is a huge passion of mine and then obviously,-
- Right.
- You know, I've just wondered, like with those huge organisations, how far does that go? Like, you know, and how granular does it get for those teams and you sort of said, yeah, okay, it can be distilled down and made crispy like that for certain teams. And that is important. So. Sorry, I had to reframe that just for myself, but, thank you.
- No. That's awesome. Thanks Chris. Yeah, no, but yeah, at the individual level, it's, you know, at the end of the day, that's what matters, you know, it, and sometimes can do that through coaching which.
- Yeah, absolutely. And so, that's all, that people performance sort of thing for you. Do you also then sometimes engage, you know, individual team members for.
- Yes. One-on-One coaching.
- One-on-One.
- Yes, definitely.
- Yeah.
- Yeah. Yep. So I work at those three levels. Yeah, definitely, one-on-one type coaching or programmes and then that team, building team alignment, team performance, team engagement, and then the culture at a broader level usually and organisational change at a broader level. Yeah. Yeah.
- Yeah.
- So it's kind of three layers.
- Cool.
- Yeah.
- So, you know, our methodologies called proactive, it's called the Proactive Podcast. Where do you think that you are most proactive in your life and how does that actually benefit you?
- Oh. Good question. Knew you were gonna ask me that. Should've known you'd done that. Yeah, look, I, and I guess it comes back to why I started this business called Mindful Energy, purposefully. It had multiple meanings to me, but also hopefully out there too, because I think sometimes when we're working in corporates in particular, you get a bit lost in the whole big machine and things get a little bit askew if in terms of, you know, your own purpose. And so I, health and wellness, as you know, is one of my key values in life. I feel like it's a foundation to be able to perform at your best, came from my sport, sporting background, but also mentally, physically, emotionally in all of those ways. So I think, you know, I'm really proactive in that space and I think it flows out to how I do my business too, because mindful energy people, performance and change do actually incorporate and integrate a lot of wellness components into each one of these things that I do, you know, not as a separate standalone thing, but rather as part of the change, culture, team alignment, anything that I'm doing is actually got a flavour of a wellbeing and health in it that's deliberate.
- Yeah, so for you, in order for you to show up as your best self, you need to be proactive. Right?
- Yeah. Yeah.
- And, so yoga's one of your practises as well, isn't it?
- Yep. It sure is. Yeah. So I've been teaching yoga for about 20 years now.
- Yep. Oh, isn't it horrible when you start saying that-
- It sounds like a really long time.
- That put a two in front of everything.
- But a long time. And any case. And I've always, people always asked me, oh, do you wanna get out of corporate and just do yoga or the other way around and that sort of thing. I was like, no, that, I need that deliberately in, I've put that deliberately in my life so I can integrate myself and be, you know, balanced in how I live my life and do my corporate work that I do it mindfully and with purpose and with intention and, you know, and with health and wellness intact, not burnt out and stressed out.
- Yes.
- Like a lot of executives can be.
- Absolutely.
- So that's. Yeah.
- And so, you said integrated there, has yoga been integrated into any of the work you've done with your clients?
- I have.
- Yeah. Right.
- Yeah, I have for some programmes, retreats and things, not necessarily me running it, but I'm having, 'cause I'm running.
- Yeah, that's what I was wondering.
- Yeah.
- You running it.
- Yeah, not necessarily, occasionally, but not usually because I'm running the day, the facilitation of the day, it's hard to sort of wear multi hats in one day.
- I was just wondering how the workshop sort of play out, okay, everybody, come in. and we're gonna be.
- Oh, but yes, you know what, but in the workshops, in terms of what I do do is definitely, a little mindfulness exercise before we start, we might do some stretches, not the entire yoga practise. Obviously, but yeah, aspects of it, yeah
- Some downward dogs in your suit.
- Well, not quiet, but a few little stretches that really challenged the suit. Yeah. But doable, you know, and they work.
- Yeah, wear your comfy pants when you do a workshop with Kasia. Exactly. You might be standing on your head. No.
- Beautiful. Kasia. What's going on for you right now? Is there anything exciting happening for you that maybe is different from what we discussed?
- Right. I'm really super excited right now because I've found this funding that's available to all these businesses-
- Okay.
- And I just, I'm excited to offer a bunch of things that they may or may not have previously been able to access, you know, at this moment in time. So I'm really, you know, mindful that not all businesses are, some are struggling, some are doing well, so great if you are doing well, but some aren't, so it's good to have that option to provide clients with and yeah doing more leadership development culture work is always exciting to me. I'm always enthus at the start of the year as I set my goals and I'm super pumped to continue to work with some clients that I do have already and also some new ones that I'm chatting to and will be chatting to. So, yep. Yep. It's sounding like an interesting year ahead.
- Yeah, great, great. So Mindful Energy. Is that just .com.au?
- Yep.
- Great. Is there any other socials that people can follow you personally? Or the brand?
- Just on LinkedIn, I guess for the corporate side, but yeah, in the wellness side, the same business that is Mindful Energy Yoga, health and wellness is on Instagram and Facebook. Yeah.
- You're doing a lot of stretches. A lot.
- Yeah.
- And on the side of pools and buildings and.
- Yeah, all sorts of things.
- Yeah. So if you scared of heights, maybe just be careful with that one.
- Yeah.
- Thanks so much Kasia. So that's. Sorry for the audience. How do we spell that?
- Kasia spelled K-A-S-I-A.
- There you go.
- Yep.
- Kondas.
- K-O-N-D-A-S. And of course mindfulenergy.com.au and check out their socials. I'm sure you'll be entertained and maybe even educated. Thanks so much for watching guys. Thanks so much for coming Kasia. We love having guests like you on board, full of energy and basically helping us too, you know, think about how we can be more proactive just like you guys. Keep watching. It's all over Apple. The podcast is on Apple. It's on YouTube and it's on Spotify. And we hosted on our website as well memedia.com.au Thanks guys. And see you soon.
