265 - The Best Practices for Leading a Remote Workforce in the Creative Industry with TheSoul Publishing's Aleksandra Sulimko

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started. Alexander Solymko, you are the chief operating officer of a company called Visol Publishing. You're based out of Cyprus, but all over the world. And the website address is, I'm gonna go very slowly on this, it's id.thesoul.io. And you can also Google The Soul Publishing Company, which I did, and it will come up. You guys are involved in massive digital content creation. I think that's the sense that I get. And you have been very successful at it. Welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit about your backstory.

Yes, with a pleasure. Hi Doug, and thank you for having me here. And The Soul Publishing, we are at the center of creative economy and actually We are winning award digital studio, and I think you might know us for our projects, 5-Minute Crafts. This is number one do-it-yourself channel. Also 123 Go, Avocado Couple, Baby Zoo, many other interesting projects. And we, together with Underscore Talent, which we acquired, and Shorthand Studio, provide actually creator landscape for our creators. And also we invest a lot in music and highly believe this is potential direction for us. And I can say that you can find our content in 180 platforms in OTT, VOD, and FAST. And I think this number is already very impressive, but at the same time, I can add that we have more than 2 billion followers and our viewership is about 25 million monthly. So we are, I think, definitely one of the creative powerhouses now.

How do you get into this business?

Oh, my story is actually very interesting because I have a degree in engineering fields and unexpectedly I joined to HR team at oil and gas company and I understood that it's really interesting to work with people and help actually to business to perform better through the people development. And after that I joined to a global international company J&J ATI, and I learned a lot about multicultural relationship there. And when I delivered my daughter, I decided to make significant changes in my career and move to consulting field. And there I led a lot of HR projects and change management projects. And I really love changes, and that is why I decided to move to Cyprus and I joined Exnes company. This is the one of, I believe, winners and the best fintech company currently. And there I helped them to establish development ecosystem. And next, I joined The Soul in 2020. And actually, I think this is the best place for me because I really love changes. I hate routine. I like to work in dynamic business. And this is why I think our atmosphere truly fit me Much.

So you started out when you came to Visio Publishing, you came in as their senior HR executive.

Yes, I joined as HR executive.

In December, you were promoted to Chief Operating Officer. What's that been like?

I can start from my first day at Visio. I met Unicor at cafeteria queue and I was really impressed. So when they understand the culture of the company, so like the people around me, they are open-minded, they are beautiful mindset, and I I decided to do my best for this company in the HR role. And I'm a very curious person, so I want to understand, maybe because I'm an engineer, I don't know. I want to understand actually how things work, and I love to make things done. So I went deeper into our production processes, into operations, and we started to grow rapidly. So we hired a lot of people, we invented a lot of processes how to onboard globally employees, and actually We at that period of time, it was a need to hire people for the roles which even don't exist. I still don't know any college or university who can train ready-made YouTube artist, for example, or voiceover. So you need to implement, you need to create and to design even in operational functions. And I think based on my curiosity, and I always receive from my team this feedback that I'm really the person who can make things done. I think this why I'm now responsible for operating processes in the company and project framework and performance as well.

What is it that you, you've only been in your COO role for a little while, but what is it that gets you up in the morning and gets you excited to go to work?

Changes again. So the same answer I can say, because I never know what to expect every morning when I start and open my laptop, because the industry we work is quite dynamic. For example, I can give you a really interesting story. That we work remotely many years ago, and it was before COVID so it was before pandemic. And in 2020, then many people, they start to put their focus on hygiene factors, how to arrange this remote work. We already were step ahead, so we focused on developing people and how to provide user-friendly project management framework. And this is the reason it's every year I work in a different environment and I can say in a different company. And currently we change and shape our processes and I believe this is the core of our success that we are not old-fashioned bureaucratic company. We can change it. And when I come at work, coming back to your question, I understand that it really will be a cool day for me because I can learn a lot. I can implement new things. I can work with beautiful teams around me. And it's really support me when I get up in the morning, let's say.

I think I read somewhere that you have employees in 45 different countries around the world.

70, actually, more than 70.

70? How do you do remote? You've been doing remote work since—

Yes.

You were one of the first major companies to do this long before the pandemic. How? What have you learned about managing remote people?

Yes, so I can tell you more. So we were a remote-first company and it always was like our philosophy. I, and at the same time, we made an experiment last year with remote production and it works good. And we decided to dare and to change our production processes and move them as remote too. And we have already processes in terms of task tracking. We use written communication mostly. So we have zero meeting policy. And at the same time, I think it's really important still to have one-to-one meetings with your employees. And it does not matter. So probably your employee in Brazil and you based in Cyprus. Yeah. So you are in the different time zones. Yes. So you usually connect through the Slack or Asana, which we use, but at the same time, when you need to communicate changes. News, or maybe future of the company, what we are going to do, it's better to do one-to-one because people, they need people. So yes, we're a remote company. We have the same startup mindset and actually it affects our recruitment processes as well because we need to have the same way of people, let's say, in the company. Yeah. So you need to be creative, of course, and find out of the box solution. But at the same time, you need to be process-oriented. Yes, because we're a content factory and we need to produce a lot of original content for our audience.

It seems to me that— I'm not just guessing, but it seems to me that you must have a project management system in place that allows you to keep track of all the different things you're doing and what people are working on and what their deliverables are and what their schedules are. And then you've got management teams that are managing the project managers to make sure that everything gets done efficiently and on time. Would that be correct?

Yes, yes. So I think one of the lovely benefits of our company, we offer high level of autonomy to our employees. So you don't need to come, let's say, and start your work from 9 till 6, have lunch at the same time. So no, you can do your work when you want to do it. You can have really good work-life balance. So when you have, let's say, peak of performance, you can start to work and make your projects. Of course, we support it with the system. Yes. So we have clear deadlines. Yes. And you need to produce content or different type of services for us. But at the same time, it's up to you when you are going to do it. And this is actually make us very, very efficient, I can say, based on our experience many years.

So you must have in place a lot of different kinds of platforms that you utilize for creating content, managing content, managing projects, communicating, that sort of thing.

Yes, I can add that we are actually media tech company. So we are not only media. So we have different systems. And for example, our production system, we created by ourselves with our internal resources. And actually, the length and cycle of production is very fast because we are really a fan of AI and we implemented AI tools many years ago and we're trying to invest a lot how to, how to produce with the high quality, but at the same time with the tech tools with the high pace.

So that raises an interesting question. How is AI going to affect your business going forward?

It's my favorite conversation and I usually add at the beginning, like it's still I am, it's not any AI created my appearance. Yes. So I'm still a person, but I believe nobody knows what will be next. Of course, we implemented a lot of AI tools for our production to help us to create scripts, for example, yeah, to, for editors and for many functions. And actually we reskilled our employees because for example, translators, yes, they are number one in this dangerous and unsafe environment. And we moved our translators into new roles. And as we have the SOL Academy with more than 800 courses inside, so actually we can internally provide to them opportunities to reskill. And I think so, I am here at the SOL more than 5 years. I don't remember and I don't know any single person who was at the same position in 2020 and still have the same role currently in 2024. So we provide a lot of opportunities for our employees. So if you are our employee, we will find the best solution for you. To continue career within the company.

So that's pretty amazing that in the last 5 years, nobody has the same job that they had 5 years ago.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Great.

So people grow, they're growing into new jobs, new capabilities, new technology, and they continually redefine themselves. And I imagine the company redefines itself too every couple of years because in content creation, everything's changing all the time. Like you said, change, everything's changing all the time.

Yes, we need to reassemble our processes. And internally we say no change equals failure. You need to change always. Yes, you need to adapt to the market. You need to find new solutions. You always need to impress your audience.

Yes, absolutely. What is it, Aleksandra, that's unique about you that you bring to the table that has made you so successful?

I am from doctor's family, so I grew up, I can say, in hospital, and I know a lot inside processes. And when I was a child, I observed my parents, and they were doctors. Currently, they are directors in the hospital, both of them. And I saw how clear were their heads in critical situations and how they combined empathetic approach at the same time in this critical situation. So they need to make decision very fast and they need to explain at the same time to the patient why they making this decision. Yeah. And explain solution, explain outcome. Now I understand how difficult it is. When I was a child, for me, it was like a normal, I can say. And I think it affected to me a lot. And I still believe that Empathy with the good balance of resilience, these are key factors of success for executive leaders. And I receive feedback from my teams like on a regular basis, of course, because I want always to increase my self-awareness. And as I mentioned before, so they said that I am a person, I can do person. So you can ask me to do different projects because I like to challenge old-fashioned processes. I like to find new things which never exist in the market and all together with the team we can create something. And of course I'm a big fan of changes. Yes. As you already understand. Yes. But at the same time, I think I can organize proper communication, how to manage these changes because always changes, they're in hands of employees, actually in their people hands. And you need to understand. Every single detail, understand why we are going there. Actually, at the Sol Publishing, we like reinvent our company, I think, every year. And our employees, they expect communication, they expect support, they expect this from our leaders. And I believe this, let's say, achievers mindset in the good combination of communication skills, I think these are my unique skills.

I, I would suspect that you are a very good listener. How did you learn how to listen?

I want to tell you like my personal story. Do you know kids? Yes, they ask a lot of questions. And when I bought my daughter, she was 3 years old, we came home back after kindergarten. I was starting to cook dinner and she was in the kitchen and I was cutting something and she decided to share with me news. From kindergarten. It's very important for kids, yes, in the evening to share with their parents about their insights and situations. And I was cutting and listening, and I was turned back to her, and she started conversation and immediately stopped. And she said, Mommy, I want you to listen to me with your eyes.

Wow.

I think, I think it was one of the best leadership lessons I ever received in my life. And for me, it means that you need to be now and here when you listen to other person. And we usually face a lot of barriers, yes. So we have selective listening, we always try to predict what other person will say to us, yes. We feel more our feelings because we are egoistic, yes. So it's again human nature. And maybe we are dreaming about our vacations which will start tomorrow, and we be like during the meeting, like physically in the meeting, but our mind maybe already on sunbed with cocktail at the beach. Yes. And at that period of time, I was at the psychological education course, and actually I think I connected this example from my daughter with the theoretical part, and I understood how important it is. And I still receive a lot of answers like Why you, like an adult, decided to go to psychological education in the institute with a lot of practice? You invest a lot of time. And I, my answer is usually the same. I invested more than 3 years of my life only to understand how to listen to other people. And I think this skill is very critical in corporate career, in business, and of course in private life as well. So you need just Again, to be in the connect with other person. It's easy to say, but it's really difficult for most of people to do. And I can give more examples here if you want. So one of our employees came to me and asked for advice how to receive more feedback. So I want to receive more feedback. I understand that it's really important for development. And we discussed a lot this issue and he told me, Like people, they don't have time to give me feedback. And I asked him, do you want I give it right now to you? And of course his answer was yes. And I shared like a couple of things, one of them like you need to follow deadlines because you're a role model for your team. And what was his reaction? What do you think? He started to find different reasons why he didn't do it instead of just listen to feedback and understand the message. Yes. So yes, you're trying to protect Connect yourself. And actually, if you really want to listen to other people, and especially when they provide to you maybe constructive feedback, maybe negative news, just close your mouth, open your eyes, and listen to the person. And I think it can bring you to a different level of success in your career.

I teach people how to listen, but I teach them how to ignore words and listen to emotions. And I call that listening other people into existence. And when, when, when you learn how to listen to emotions rather than listening to words, everything changes because your focus is no longer on you as the listener. My focus is on you, the speaker, because I'm paying attention to what you're emotionally experiencing right now, and that forces me to pay attention to you, just exactly what you're talking about. And it has the magical quality of calming any angry person down in less than 90 seconds if I listen to and reflect your emotional experience, which is what I teach today as a lawyer turned peacemaker. So what you're saying is absolutely correct and it's powerful. I'm curious, in, in a large remote organization such as Soul Publishing, how do you create in the culture a value around listening to other people from that other people's, from the speaker's perspective, the speaker's point of view? How do you create that culture of listening?

I can start, I think, with the typical answer that we have different courses, we do have different trainings which we provide for our employees, but I think we actually a bit different from maybe other companies because we prefer to, to learn and to train other people based on role models. If we are as executive team good listeners and every single day our teammates and peers, they come at work furious, frustrated with— they may be lost money on the project, or maybe they had conflict, yeah, and we do not provide by the role model how to react in this situation, I don't believe any training or course can train your company or organization in terms of listening skills. So we work with like ourselves, and this is, I believe, is very difficult, yeah, because you usually, what do we want as managers? We want to take an employee and like with car to put into the garage, usually people growth team. Could you please do anything with my employee? He, he or she has actually very poor listening skills. Yes. And that's all. Okay. And your job as a manager, let's say, finish here. So we try to work a bit differently from different perspective. So start from ourselves.

I think you have to be right. To the degree that you, you as an executive team model good listening skills or other behaviors that you want people to emulate, they will, they will absolutely emulate them. And modeling is how we learn. And people look to the leaders for guidance on how am I to behave in this organization, what is important. And they're not going to listen to the words, they're going to watch and listen to the emotions and behaviors. Even though they don't know that's what's doing. And to your point, if you've got a manager who parks an employee in a garage and doesn't give them feedback and doesn't model good listening or good management skills, you're going to have a crummy employee because the employee is going to do exactly what the manager does. So it sounds like you invest a fair amount of time and effort into helping your leadership people develop the skills that you want, that the company wants modeled out to the rank and file employees. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Sure.

A lot of time in training.

Yes. Yes. We invest a lot. Yes. Because our talents, they are core of the business.

That's right. And you got the further challenge of having people in 70 countries around the world. And so communication becomes critical. And if people don't know how to communicate, particularly they don't know how to listen, then that's chaos.

Yeah. And I can give you examples what else we do in the company. So as we work in this environment in different time zones, so we have different Slack channels and we call them like break room. So you can find a person in the same country, ask any question, maybe just share anything. So we provide them platforms actually to connect informally because you know what usually people do during meetings. Yeah, it's a significant part, just social connection during the meetings and Zoom calls. And if you arrange environment for employees, they can close their, let's say, demand on informal connection. You can survive without meetings, and the Soul does, and it works. Yes.

Wow, I'm impressed. And I'm impressed One, you love what you're doing and you're super passionate about your work. It gives you great joy and happiness and satisfaction. And it— you— I feel like you've grown into a place that really makes you happy and you've done well with it. That's good. Good for you. One more question. One more question, Alexandra, and I'll let you go. What's one thing about yourself that we would never know about unless you revealed it to us.

Mm-hmm. Good question. I like modern art.

Modern art? Oh, okay.

Yes, yes. And I plan my personal trips based on modern art events.

So you'll go to museums and events?

Yes, and different performance, because I think modern artists, they are more researchers. And they are more scientists because the, the distance between the idea they get and the final product is huge because they observe a lot. They see forms from different perspective. They see people, events, news from different perspective. And at the end, they have lovely, sometimes maybe ugly. Maybe unpredictable products, and you can come and observe. And at the same time, I think it's similar to the Soul Publishing culture because many people think that we are here as creative company, we have a lot of fun, we don't have processes, yes, so we just enjoy the life. No, we are content factory. We need to produce volume of original content to make our audience happy, yeah, and to shift where are, when they come after work and watch our movies, read our Bright Side articles, for example, and listen to our music, to see our animation projects. It's important for us. And we have the same idea. You need to find script, you need to find right team to do it, you need to find, uh, right editor to make your content nice. And I think this is exactly the same what we're doing here. So observation skills They are critical for us. And when I joined this company, I understood during my first trip, oh my God, it's like the same what modern arts, it's the same. So we create here not maybe the company, we create history of media. And I truly believe in many years it will be book or movie or something. Which can say like the Soul Publishing, we are super cool with startup mindset, super flexible, unique culture, the best people. They experimented a lot because we do experiments a lot. This is part of our culture. And I believe that we are at the Soul, we are modern artists.

Thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule, especially at the end of your day in Cyprus, for talking with us today. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Wanna know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.