Viktória Pikovská, a professional photographer and art business owner, tells us her personal leadership story.

Viktória’s journey brought her from Slovakia, where she captured human emotion in photography, to the art scene in Rotterdam, where she started her own art business.

Starting a business that connects to her purpose, and providing a human-centred work environment for her own team, has proven as important as the purpose of the business itself:

Finding just the right piece of art for their clients that brings a positive, energising impulse to the people in the space.

Viktoria’s start-up Victory Art works with underrepresented artists from Eastern Europe to help them develop their voice and find a place on the global art market: they look for unique, powerful art where other people aren’t looking.

“This is what drives me forward,” Viktoria explains.

Because art creates connection between people. When people feel connected, they feel closer to each other, to work as a team and create something amazing.

It goes far beyond what hangs on your wall, it connects your whole team and builds your vision.

At all times. Particularly now. It is going to get better, but in the meantime:

Resilience.

There are a million and one things our minds are trying to solve. Our brains are in overdrive trying to solve problems that are, at the moment, largely unsolvable.

Ask your brain to slow down. Give yourself permission to say, right now, for a few moments, I’m not trying to solve anything.

Your brain needs a break.

And a dash of gratitude. About anything big or small that you appreciate today.

Bringing in the gratitude and stopping all of the other thoughts. Just for a few moments. It’s in the small things and brief moments that are so easy to take for granted, and in the brief moments. They are important.

This time is really about reinventing new routines, new patterns of behaviour. Redesigning the structures of how you recharge. Get really conscious about what it is that you need.

Because you need to recharge to be able to do the things that you find important – and to do them effectively.

Turning them into habit is a part of the key. Recharge, connect, rebuild structures, make a conscious choice.

Be brave, reach out. You don’t need to have to figure everything out on your own, not even this. Reconnect - to yourself and to the bigger world. And keep going.

With everything that’s going on in the world right now, how do you and your organisation show up? The clearer you get on that, the stronger and more beneficial it gets for your bottom line, for your people, for yourself.

The current levels and arenas of crisis impact everyone and they come with a lot of rigidity, divisiveness, tenseness. We can guarantee your customers, your employees, your business are all impacted.

It’s a lot, right?

So how do you continue as an organisation, as a professional, with all of this flying around? What do you do when, no matter what you do as a business, someone will point a finger?

Take a birds’ eye view.

Consider what you want to be telling your grandchildren, or your great-grandchildren, about how you showed up in 2020 and onward.

Surf the waves knowing that you did what you intended to do, what you find important, with conscious and deliberate choices.

Getting to choose how you show up is the biggest gift. This is the real opportunity in the crisis.

Make your business one of the things that people can feel good about.

Listen to this new episode and hear more about how this works and what it will bring you.

Did you realise? It’s always in the room. Unwritten expectations that influence and guide the day-to-day actions and decisions in your organisation. You see it in how people show up, in how they interact.

This episode looks at systemic thinking and specifically at how a systems perspective can help us diminish racism in work environments – even where you hadn’t noticed the impact of it before.

What are the things that are said and done, or maybe not said and done, in your workplace?

This is how we do, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

This episode invites you to consciously choose what you want to contribute to.

We offer some suggestions and welcome your additions. 

What are the things you can start doing? And keep doing?

Can you support people that contribute to improvement and that speak up; can you listen?

And can you start holding people accountable for their KPIs, goals, behaviour?

You are not the whole system. You’re not responsible for the whole thing, but you can play your part.

Your part in building workplaces where we *all* can grow.

Ijeoma Oluo, Facebook Live video (July 23, 2020) https://www.facebook.com/ijeoma.oluo/videos/10157146382972676/ 

Talking personal leadership: kind, funny, outspoken, courageous. That’s what Laura Khalil brings in her work and to this episode. In all of her initiatives, Laura Khalil helps ambitious women and allies live well and lead well.

We talked with Laura about taking charge of the things we can control in our lives, recognising the things we can’t and moving forward with a lot of grace.

Honestly asking ourselves: what is the role I’m playing in my working life and how is that serving me?

And: How good can it get?

That’s when you start to write your own story.

The follow-up step Laura presents is to reframe how other people think about you. When someone sees you as less than, as a stereotype, a woman, a minority, misjudging one part of your identity, instead of valuing all you bring to the table.

Bringing awareness to what they’re saying, with empathy, is her powerful way to open up that conversation.

Holding space for them to respond, with courage and a sense of humour.

“Let’s have a conversation about what’s really going on here.”

You can find out more about Laura and her work here: https://www.bravebydesign.net

Diversity & inclusion is a journey. Strengthening it in your work environment is, as Vivian Acquah sees it, like a dish that requires marinating and developing flavour.

Vivian is the Workplace Wellness advocate who contributes to keeping your employees happy, healthy and safe.

She recently published an article with actionable advice on how to dismantle racism in the workplace.

When you realise that this is something you want to contribute to, where do you start?

- Addressing racism in your organisation starts with providing a safe environment for people to speak up.

- Remind people you’re a company of diversity and inclusion, inside and outside the organisation.

- There’s room for leaders to be on this journey.

“I would rather feel valued in a company that is doing their best to raise awareness,” Vivian says, “to bring leaders towards listening and learning”.

We’d love to see you walking. Taking more than just one step, one checklist, procedure or training.

One-time initiatives such as awareness or bias training can be fun, but they don’t work. That’s simply because one training will not make the permanent positive change happen that you’re looking for – more on this in our next episode, subscribe if you’d like to hear.

This is about listening to people’s experiences and learning, nudging your co-workers to do so too.

“Changing the day-to-day to making more space for people to actually get to know one another as human beings and build real connections.”

Keeping those conversations going.

And share your recipes! :)

Referenced:

https://thriveglobal.com/stories/5-ways-to-dismantle-racism-in-the-workplace/

5 Ways To Dismantle Racism In The Workplace

The world of work is hard enough as it is, so why is it that we laugh so little in the work place? And why might laughter be important? 

In this episode of HR Matters, we explore the value and importance of laughter, comedy and what our guest Chris Tabish calls Comediology. In fact he found it so valuable he wrote a whole book about it by this very name. 

As Chris says, there’s this thing called “ourselves” we forget about having in business. It’s so easy to get caught up in benchmarking, reporting, analysis and what everybody else thinks we forget that we actually have an opinion - in fact we even have an authority inside ourselves. 

Hear how Chris learned in his journey that the tools we learned in comedy actually helped him in business. By connecting better with people, learning not to take himself and others so seriously a whole new layer emerged, a more effective self - that could have fun while getting stuff done too! 

Learn to embrace who you are, embrace your version of funny. You are magical and special exactly as you are and most importantly….. Be yourself because everybody else is taken.

You can probably hear it in our voices... this is a topic that really matters to us: systemic racism and the journey towards diversity, equity and inclusion.

We are two white, cis, middle class, international women – which informs our perspective.

We have a very deep commitment to inclusion.

We know the value of inclusion: it unleashes innovation and allows any kind of organisation to thrive. Making your business stronger and to make humans welcome – that’s the heart of inclusion.

Inclusion for all people, regardless of what skin tone they happen to have.

Thanks to the speed and force of recent developments, conversation and actions can no longer be pushed back on the agenda.

This is about how you and your business show up in the world, today and tomorrow. This is your call to courage.

We want this to be a marathon of conversations and actions. We want us all to keep this up long-term. Because we can’t fix this in an instant. It’s intricate and takes time to understand.

And it isn’t a marathon you can run on your own.

Find people to have these conversations with and connect with. We’d be happy to talk and connect, ourselves.

How do you know your worth?

Part of this is investing in yourself.

On the newest HR Matters Podcast episode, we talk with Denise Liebetrau about making sense of compensation and benefits, both from a business perspective as well as for individuals.

We talk about individual human perspectives and conversations on comp and ben. Your own comp and ben. This is about knowing what you deliver that is of value, and how to articulate that.

“If you can get really clear on who you are, what your skills are and what you deliver that’s of value, you can gain a level of confidence in yourself.”

Then, it’s time to listen to the words used most in your organisation.

“Every company has its own language and definition of success.”

Get clear on what you are delivering that is of value, in the words and metrics of your organisation. Incorporate that and gently but clearly articulate that story. Build the reputation that allows people around you to recognise the value you bring. Then your story will be incredibly powerful.

The real goal is: when you know your worth internally, it matters much less what the external opinions are about you. That’s where the real power comes in.

What is your definition of success?

Referenced: https://prosperconsultingllc.com/ to contact Denise and receive her free 5-step process on the collaborative approach to difficult conversations.

Diversity and Inclusion consultant Toby Mildon enables D&I in culture and business systems, and he just published a book called Inclusive Growth.

In this episode we talk with Toby about the wide range of diversity: race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, physical and neurodiversity, and more.

With his background in tech, he points us to the importance of culture combined with the power of technology – as well as the importance of diversity & inclusion in the tech sector itself.

“How do people arrive to work in the morning, feeling like they belong in the organisation – that they want to stick around, that they can do their best work. That’s where we need to take the conversation to.”

To a way of behaving, a way of being with people.

Culture is the sum of all small to big behaviours in the workplace.

Toby highlights his approach of championing and supporting people at the top of organisations to really lead the way and demonstrate inclusive behaviours.

“Inclusive leaders are bold and they’re not afraid to rock the boat.”

They’re comfortable with uncomfortable conversations.

They’re open to new information.