I
think today you will I hope that you
will remember what I'm going to talk
about forever I found an answer and how
can we have better universities and
workplaces now to do this talk in the
walls of an actual university is quite
nerve-wracking to say the least but I
promised my mom who is also a university
professor that she won't be ashamed by
her daughter I
come from a very from a very small town
in the western Ukraine with the wrong
name Ivana from tips and to give you an
idea on what kind of town it is it's
actually everyone says hi to each other
on the streets even if you don't know
the people they will just say hi to you
and in fact I just returned a few years
a few days where I spent and everyone
was still saying hi to each other my
neighbors would come and greet me for my
birthday this feeling of her very
close-knit community was with me
throughout my entire life
times past and I moved cities and I live
right now in Kuala Lumpur and
honestly to be very honest with you the
feeling of community
diminished and become became smaller and
it's no wonder because the most recent
research on the cities on especially big
cities confirms that the idea of home
becomes less permanent and more
transient we no longer think of our
homes as self-expression we look for
this feeling somewhere else maybe it's
our university like we are all here
today or maybe these are all workplaces
they say that in the past the jobs were
about the muscles right now they're
about the brains in the future they will
be about the heart and because this has
been said by the director of the London
School of Economics it gives me a lot of
hope that we are on the right path to
reach that
if you visit any of the bookstore in KL
you will see that every second book on
relationship is about belonging
loneliness and passing the social
connection is the number one solve for
the trauma for the pain for the hurt
that we experience
yet our universities don't talk about
love they don't talk about belonging
they don't talk about empathy
instead they teach us to be perfect to
reach high scores to to be the best and
at the end to learn the perfect career
today I believe we have all have the
right and the opportunity to change it
and
maybe it's going to be here that we will
have to celebrate on the same level as
we are celebrating high performance and
achievements and innovation we should be
celebrating love caring and empathy the
same as we are celebrating the high
achievers we should be celebrating the
healthy team's business shouldn't be
only I shouldn't be a zero sum game it
should be a community some game and I
believe and it's been already my mission
for so many years to make sure that
people are the same at their workplaces
as they are at their homes in fact they
would bring their hearts too whenever
they are or maybe any other institutions
I
became fascinated by the work of this
man does anyone know who he is
no one knows and this is the name of
this man is Martin Novick he is the
famous biologist and evolutionist all
his life he dedicated to studying on
what is actually causing the evolution
is the fact that we have been told but
only the strongest survive is it true
she
manages to confirm that not only the
strongest are the driving force of the
evolution and not mutation as well in
his study he confirms that corporation
is the driving force of the evolution in
his words as he says the
nicest guy finished first
this also causes me to think about my
own story
because I'm standing here today is
actually a hard work as I think and as I
find of a generation of a Ukrainian
family who survived many many hard
things in fact just two generations ago
there was a World War two in Ukraine and
there was the most horrible famine that
we could experience yet my family
managed to survive it and actually
appeared to be quite well after that and
when I asked my grandma what is what is
that help them what is the reason in her
words she calls it the help and support
and the love of her friends family
neighbors
or in other words is cooperation so me
being a true HR professional and I like
to create different guides I take her
words I take her advice and turn it into
playbook the one that I want to share
with you all today and the first page of
this playbook will be trust
spend spending the spending the my
summer holidays in with my grandma in my
village I noticed that people
don't close the doors to their houses
and
it was a very common thing for me until
I realized recently that people have
such a big level of trust that they
never close their houses so whenever if
you need and any may be an instrument
that you don't have and you walk on the
ball of it from your neighbor you can
work in borrow it and return it or maybe
you don't have an ingredient to your
soup you can go to your neighbor your
house pick it use it and return it back
again that's how they live the feeling
of trust in that community is so
overwhelming that you even stop noticing
it if you arrive at 6:00 a.m. to my
hometown there will be only a few places
where you can eat a really good food and
one of them is called urban space where
besides having a good food it's
well-known to the fact that it was
started by 1,000 active citizens who
each collected one thousand dollars and
created and built a public restaurant
and now 80% of its profit goes into
community back beat educational musical
arts educational or any other projects
that the community thinks the city needs
at this point of time this idea became
very very popular to the point that it's
now being opening in Germany in the u.s.
it's also now in the capital
trust is something that requires a lot
of ulnar ability from all of us it
requires vulnerability from the
organization's it also requires
vulnerability and permission and
responsibility from all of us I
would like us to experience today the
trust by doing this little experiment I
would like each of you to take a phone
out of your pocket can I have my phone
please
take your phone take out of your pocket
unlock it
and pass it to the person on your left
how does it feel
if you strange right someone is holding
the most precious data i/o your SMS all
your whatsapp messages your notes are
there right
it's a very vulnerable moment now think
about to the person who is holding the
phone you actually feel most of you will
feel have a very high level of
responsibility for the things that you
are holding in your hands
I'll believe that the trust became such
an important currency nowadays but it
drives economy think of Airbnb
think of Airbnb and how they built their
business model okay you can now return
back guys okay I feel that it's very
very awkward but you did it that's great
but think about Airbnb
if you are a host you are allowing
someone to enter your house and you
actually showing some of the most
vulnerable parts of your house you show
in your bedroom you showing your
bathroom think about it and you will
play with that and someone is entering
your space and living there this is the
level of trust that is actually driving
right now our world and our economy and
we all should be celebrating that
this how this moves moves me to the
second page of the playbook and that is
rich culture and traditions I
think I was able to
to connect to as many countries and
nationalities as possible because I can
identify myself with my own culture very
well
five years ago we at MindValley where I
work in fact this 55/45 nationalities at
the moment we created something that we
call call the code of Awesomeness in the
regular company it's the code of conduct
think of it and usually an HR department
would create it sign it and hide it
somewhere so no one sees it we decided
to go completely different paths it's
not only was co-created by the team
entire team contributed to each line
here it also used everywhere it's public
everyone can question it everyone can
rewrite it in fact when the time has
come to rewrite it again we saw people
coming to us and crying as I please
don't change it
so I urge you today to ask in your
organization's how do you operate how do
you define your culture what are the
rules that you created that are so well
known and written and passed through the
generations I was lucky to be a part of
this organization quote I spec for many
years and and
it's such a unique organization its own
way it already exists for around 80
years and
the very interesting thing about them is
that every year it changes leadership on
every level international national local
can you imagine any organization that
changes their managers every year I
didn't meet any such before I met Isaac
and they do change it and they are able
to do it only because they have a very
strong culture and rituals that are
passed through generations
over and over again
culture matters because you will come
back to it when times are tough and
there are good times and rituals Rome
will be something that will make the
community to come back to it over and
over again
this leads me to the to the third and
final page of the playbook and that is
capitalism is a teamwork
when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989
my family's finances collapsed with it I
remember the times when there was no
electricity because we couldn't we
didn't have money to pay for the
electricity and we would be sitting in
the kitchen floor of us my sister me and
my parents and the only luxury that we
would be sharing would be a piece of
dark of chocolate that we would be just
didn't want to finish because it was the
only thing luxurious thing that we would
eat at the time but there were so many
stories there were so many connections
made on those most difficult times
that was the help of my neighbors and
friends and family my family managed
again as same as my grandma they managed
to come well off and crushed these hard
times
if you were in trouble
would your company come to support you
think of it if you were in trouble would
do you know that your company would come
and support you in those difficult times
and would you do the same if you were in
trouble would you do the same for your
company or for your university
for the employees of the company
LinkedIn Electric the answer is
absolutely yes for already 70 years of
its existence it has never ate of any
single employee
because when times are tough everyone
gets to work to share the burden be it a
CEO starting actually in fact from the
CEO and ending with someone at the
entry-level position
you
we must think of the community as the
way to to experience the teamwork that
we might not experience in our
universities of workplaces
because when times are tough
the only thing that will give a strength
back is our community I
argue today to come back to go back to
your workplaces to go back to your
universities and start emphasizing the
trust start implementing the culture
that is reach of traditions and rituals
and some things that are only unique to
you and lastly act as a team
I'll stand here today as the product of
a past generation of Ukrainians who ran
things in their lives through love and
care and support I
truly feel that I stand on the shoulders
of the Giants and
because of that mindset because of this
belief that I have in me I've come to
realize that
actually it helped me to get an amazing
education to travel the world just to be
an Isaac I work in business right now
all this have shaped me who I am and
helped me to become Who I am and
so can you I ask you today to start
thinking of your workplaces and
universities as healthy communities and
I believe was that we can change so much
and it's not going to be only for you
it's not going to be for individual but
also for collective
with that thank you very much