Cundall is launching a new campaign that shines a spotlight on the cultural experiences and inspirational stories of leaders across the globe. In a world where collaboration spans continents, time zones, and cultures, the ability to truly connect across cultural lines has never been more vital. The campaign, called Culture Talks, will feature a series of interviews with industry pioneers who have excelled within their field.
Full interview:
Olga: Welcome to Cundall Culture Talks, Alina. It's really nice to see you in Dubai. We are meeting all around the world. Can you please introduce yourself?
Alina: Hi Olga, happy to be here. Thank you for your invitation. Well, I'm Alina. I'm CEO of CUUB Studio. It's a global creative content agency and we're operating all over the world. But I'm originally from Ukraine, and at the moment I'm living in Poland in Europe, and have a lot of things to share about my cultural background and actually my cultural experience working with different, different areas and doing business there.
Olga: Alina, how would you describe your culture?
Alina: What is actually Ukrainian culture? I would describe it in three words. It's, first of all, adaptability — constant adaptability to the fast-changing environment, which we're facing now. The second thing is human connection, like really deep human support. I think our people are just amazing at that. And the third thing would be inner freedom, because we are all about freedom — freedom to think, freedom to speak. And that's what I really love in my culture, and that's what I'm trying to promote in my business. And that's actually become already a foundational core of CUUB Studio.
Olga: And Alina, I know your business is based in Europe, but you work with the Middle East and you work with Australia. Can you please tell us a little bit about cultural differences that you notice, and how you adapt to working with such different and far apart regions?
Alina: It's quite a different polar region, I would say. Well, first of all, I had the privilege to work with different types of nationalities even before I ended up in CUUB Studio, in the creative industry.
Olga: How is Australia different from the Middle East?
Alina: When I just joined CUUB Studio, actually, we worked only in Australia at the beginning. And what I love about the Australians — that's the first word how I would describe — they're loyal. They are loyal. You will not find anywhere in the world the loyalty to partnerships like that. Those people, at some point, it's very challenging to get along with them because they are living very far from, I would say, another world. They have this closed area and do business inside their country and everything. So it's hard to enter if you're not living there. But once you are there, you are there. You're there forever, because they love you. They appreciate all those partnerships that you've built. And this is the first thing.
The second thing — they really value honesty. If you want to build a business there, you need to be absolutely transparent in all the ways — like in communication, in emails, in providing the information and everything. So they also value that a lot. You need to show respect for their traditions and to their culture. This is all about your respect. And once you are here, it's obviously challenging to learn everything, because it's quite a different culture from my culture. But you need to learn, and probably you just need to first come here as a tourist to have just short small talks, small speeches with those local people to understand how they think and how they want to be treated.
Olga: Well, basically to experience, to localize yourself a little bit. Embed yourself in an environment.
Alina: Of course, of course. Because knowing the cultural difference, as I said, is essential. And sometimes when you don't know that, you can just harm yourself and you can harm other people. And obviously, we don't want that.
Olga: What does a good leader look like for you? And what is your leadership style?
Alina: Actually, I'm so happy that you used the word leader, because there is a common mistake of saying manager. And for me — for me personally — these are two very opposite things. Even though many people think that this is the same, it's not. And because for me, a manager, that's something, someone who is pointing to the result, and a leader is someone who is inspiring the team and who actually goes along together with the team and who makes a difference. So my style is leadership. It's obviously a leader. And that's what I choose.
And the second thing, what I also want to talk about is that I always try to inspire my team. And one of the most crucial things that I need to have in my team is people who care — who really care for this business, for this project as their own project. Because we don't create the culture where people just come and work fixed hours and just take the tasks and gohome. We're never going to build anything incredible with this approach.
So for me, it's important that I support, I'm open to listen, I'm open to mentor and open to inspire the team members for them to put their maximum input and maximum care into the things that we are doing.
Olga: Alina, as you mentioned, your leadership style is to inspire your team and to connect.
Alina: First of all, probably one of the base things — you need to be curious. You really need to be curious about the things that you're doing and for the things that you're not doing, because that's how you're going to build your vision and widen your vision. So if you are curious, you always need to keep constantly asking, or you need to ask the people who know and obviously learn from them.
Do not be scared of mistakes. Make mistakes. Do them a lot. That's perfect. But just learn from that. That's the most important. Just don't do them for nothing. You need to learn and take the experience from that.
And obviously, one of the other main things — to be a good leader of the future, you need to create a good team. As I said, the team is a crucial part. This is our main resource, which we have — that's the people. So if you want to have a good team, you need to grow as a professional. So if you want to grow professionals, you need to be open and you need to give support and you need to create a supportive environment where everyone will be open to share the experience, where everyone will be open to share the ideas, to guide those new specialists and provide great mentorship.
Mentorship is really important today. And I think we have a little bit of a lack of that because the leaders, they're so busy with their tasks, with their routine, which is absolutely understandable. But we need — if we want to get a good team in the future — we need to invest our knowledge and our time in that team. So that's very important.
Olga: Talking about mentorship, there are so many new young generations entering the workplace, and because our world is so globalised, multicultural environments are almost everywhere in every country. What advice would you give to someone young starting their career?
Alina: Probably the same advice as for the beginning. Gain the experience by travelling, by being open to this world, being open to the people, love people, love to speak, love to ask, be curious. The main thing, what I want to say is that the world actually is waiting for the energy, for the new vision, for the new thoughts. And the only thing young people can do — they just need to start. And that's all.
Olga: Amazing. Yes, they just need to start and be curious. Absolutely. Exploring this world and different cultures.
Alina: And of course, I mean, of course, everything is coming together with work, hard care and all of those important things.
Together: Believe in yourself, be curious and just start.