Growth Hacking Culture

🚀 If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it - Peter Drucker Wellbeing at work remains a fresh topic and many organizations have embarked on the roll-out of well-being activities for the good of their people - but is it really bringing any good?. Unfortunately, the measurement of wellbeing is even more recent and often, it is confusing or unpractical.
At the end - is wellbeing really quantifiable? We asked Dr. Vishal Ghule, a researcher on Psychology & Psychometrics to give us his opinion on the link between wellbeing and performance.
In this episode of Learn with Bessern, we cover:
✅ The challenges of organizations to measure wellbeing
✅ Truths & Myths about measuring wellbeing at work
✅ Usual mistakes and good practices in organizations to measure wellbeing
✅ What to do with this data? Creating insights and actions for sustainable impact on wellbeing and performance
 
About Dr. Vishal Ghule:
I am an academic at heart and a product developer by mind! After spending over a decade in research, academics, and training in Psychology took a plunge into the corporate world. My strong background in research and human resource qualifications helped me lead a start-up in the area of Psychometric Assessments, Counselling, Training, e-learning, and Mental Health. Not only spearheaded the product development for the organization since 2015 but also lead the Business Development and Operations successfully. Over the years played a pivotal role in designing and developing 300+ Cognitive and Behavioral Assessments and 80+ e-learning programs in the areas mentioned above.Simultaneously headed Skill Development Department to implement On the Job Training (OJT) under National Employability Enhancement Mission (NEEM) for the sister concern - managed 9000+ trainees, lead business development strategies, onboarded 60+ clients, and contributed 50+ crores in revenue. From being an Intrapreneur in the area of Psychology and People Development I have now embarked on a journey of helping people and organizations to understand and boost their wellbeing. As a Co-Founder and Chief Research Officer at Joygraphy - I lead the development of Personal and Organizational wellbeing models and analytical tools. I am a practicing Existential Psychotherapist and aspire to help people discover their real selves and achieve self-actualization.
 
This episode is hosted by:
⏺️ Ivan Palomino – Founder of Bessern and Behavioral Strategist applied to Learning http://bessern.co/
If you like this episode make sure to subscribe to this podcast! 
 

In this episode of Learn with Bessern, Joe gives us great insights on what is mindset and how it can be explained from a psychological perspective. Human beings tend to have a programmed mindset due to external stimuli and other factors. In order to alter their programmed brain they have to push their limits and be open to learn new things.
Mindset is an established set of attitudes, opinions, philosophy or values embedded in a person.
About the speaker Joseph Templin:
 
 
 
Joseph is the author of Every Day Excellence, the Kindle #1 New Release in Professional Development. He believes in overcoming challenges and changing the current situation into something amazing. A few examples are the fact that he severely asthmatic and became a martial artist and ultradistance runner. He also had a speech impediment but built a career around communicating.
 
 
 
Key Takeaways from the Podcast:
 
About growth mindset Joseph said: As young children we are sponges, we are exploring our universe. We are pushing our limits. We are in complete and total growth mindset. However when we grow older we tend to curb this mindset. So we see someone who is impressive and doing something and we think that this person had it is the X factor that you had for forever. It's like genetics. But in reality its not. For instance, when we were babies, could we walk? No, we had to learn. Well, as a baby when you start to stand up and try to pull yourself along the couch or toggle along and you fall down on your bottom. You say that's it. I'm done. I'm not gonna try this not gonna do this. Of course not. Instead we try it over and over again till we eventually get it. This is the same as with growth mindset.
Why our brain is programmed: Essentially, when we become adults we reprogram so we have a set of beliefs that have been done by others, our parents telling us Oh, you're not that awesome. Our parents say you're a girl so you shouldn't be doing it in we tend to do to have this set of rules really anchored in our minds, and it's so difficult to get rid of it.
The tricks that we can follow in order to take the programming that has been done for years and years and remove it and replace it with new programming?: Joseph says that there is a way to upgrade our brain. So having a regular physical activity is one of the best ways to influence what goes on the brain. It doesn't have to be an intense 45 minutes in doing martial arts like I did. It could be a gentle walk, it could be calisthenics, kettlebells, it could be dancing, it could be swimming, whatever you enjoy doing.
The second trick is listening to music: Music overall it's very similar to exercise in the way that lights up the entire brain. If you look at EEG of somebody listening to music, everything is lit up everything both hemispheres, everything from the spinal cord, all the way forward, limbic system, neocortex, all of it. So use music to help enhance things and music is older than language back when we were banging rocks and so is also the closest thing that we can get to divinity is because it's the purest thing coming from heaven. And so we can use this to help change or set our moods to incite us to also help reinforce learning in a lot of ways as does physical activity.
On well-being Joseph said: Wellbeing is no small thing, but it's made up of little steps. You take full steps make the slightly better small decision, do the little things. Instead of just sitting there watching TV or sitting on your butt. Get up and you know, do a couple air squats while you're watching the TV, go do some push ups, run in place for a moment or turn the TV off and actually talk to the person that you care about. Just that's the better use of that 15 minutes than watching whatever's currently on.
Association between body function and mental health: It is something that can be backed up by science that the relationship between our body, our gods and how the brain functions, the necessity for movement, the necessity to bring connects to exercise connections in different parts of the brain so that we become more creative that we become more focused. If your body is messed up it's going to interfere with your mind and your spirit. In a lot of ways.
Three areas to have a prepared mindset: Firstly what happens if if the if the worst happened? What can I do? How can I prepare my mindset? Remember taking pictures with a regular camera and you had to send the film off. You had to learn to wait for a week. Or then we have these Polaroids need to get like three minutes as opposed to where we are now. And you can take 5000 pictures in two minutes. So what's happened is things have become so easy that we become used to if you live a life of comfort, you become soft. So there's something called desire difficulties, the occasional hardship when you don't have to do it choosing to suffer because it makes you tougher, and as the stoics said after you choose to suffer if you actually go through something natural and it's all there is. There's a reason why most major religions on the planet have fasting built in where we choose to go through hardship because it makes us appreciate what we do on the other side more and it makes us reflect and be stronger it builds our will. And so, before how do we prepare for when stuff happens is we need to put ourselves in a situation that is uncomfortable by choice on a regular basis. If you're not trying to do harder math problems. We're not going to build your mathematical skill. If you're not attempting more difficult musical pieces, you're not going to be able to grow as a performance artist. So why don't we you know, one, look at this and model this in other areas and consistently choose to do the difficult things so that we can build this resilience and this just overall mindset.
Motivation is a big factor: We have to find an alternative that does not depend on motivation, which is making it easier, whatever you want to achieve incremental discipline as opposed to operation because motivation is like the process to get you going in the morning, right? It's the cup of coffee. But can you drink coffee nonstop all day long in the library? Up until about three o'clock, but is that going to keep you going continuously? What happens is you build up a tolerance more and more and it ends up not working for you versus having discipline their processes. Discipline says you know I don't want to do this, but going to do it because I want the long term results.
Consistency: If there is the fact that we have a lot of beliefs in our brain comes for concept reputation from society, from our parents, from whoever. And if we need to reprogram our brain there needs to be like a consistent message that is sent every single day. Like I need to do something to do this micro action in a constant basis so that it becomes something like habit, something that reflects and reflects as your identity. So, do other topics that are quite relevant for today in terms of the mindset that we need to prepare is the one that saying, How do I become the best version of myself.
About Learn with Bessern
The Learn With Bessern Podcast is about exploring the science behind self-development, leadership and well-being. We demystify personal and organization growth. This podcast is hosted by Elena Agaragimova and Ivan Palomino.
 

In this episode of Learn with Bessern, we chatted with Brenden Kumarasamy - a communications authority. Elena Agaragimova and Brenden discussed about the importance of genuinely communicating in today's remote work environment, particularly on its impact on culture building and the role leaders play to create a company culture of psychological safety, connection, transparency, and collaboration.
The main question that we target in this episode is:
How can companies find more effective ways to communicate their culture post pandemic?
About our guest speaker Brenden Kumarasamy:
Brenden is the founder of MasterTalk, he coaches ambitious executives & entrepreneurs to become top 1% communicators in their industry. He also has a popular YouTube channel called MasterTalk, with the goal of providing free access to communication tools for everyone in the world.
Key Takeaways from the Podcast:
About the shift in workplace communication:
Brenden said - When compared to the real world the virtual world hinders communication to a great extent. When you are working in an actual office space you can have a conversation with somebody at the company and get to know each other and really get a feel with the people that you're working with. But those points don't exist in the online world. There's a lot more friction and this makes building the workplace culture even harder.
 
 
 
Differences in culture post pandemic:
 
From a communication perspective, the biggest challenge of all, is how can you recreate the same culture in a virtual world where before it used to be a lot easier to have those interactions and those touch points amongst employees at a company in person?
 
 
 
Example of a simple method to engage employees into the culture:
 
Brenden gives us an example of some companies who have adopted a different method during recruitment. He says "what they do is they interview employees of the organization on the podcast, and they use that as a talent sourcing strategy to send those links to prospective candidates so that they listen to the podcast and they say Oh, I really want to work here. I really agree with the culture the values here. So that's a couple of things that I've seen that companies are doing the stand up from the communication cultural perspective".
 
 
 
Leadership perspective and challenges:
 
He says that there's three pieces to being an effective leader from a communication perspective. Number one is setting the vision and clarity around the vision, where are we going, and why are we going there? So the first role of a leader is to reflect and strategize what is the vision what and this is what we call vision casting. Bringing us into our future into a better tomorrow.
 
 
 
Hiring Talent:
 
The second job of the leader is to hire exceptional talent that embodies the vision of the organization, people who believe what they believe, people who want to help permeate the culture who do a really great job of bringing the culture forward. One great example of this is the PayPal Mafia when when Peter Thiel and Elon used to run PayPal together, a lot of the people who were working for people at the time almost all of them went on to start billion dollar companies kind of wild. And the reason the culture was so tight is because they all believed in this new idea of money and currency and creating a better payment system for everybody.
 
 
 
Communication is Repetition and Refinement:
 
When the leader hires more people he/she must repeat the same vision over and over and over again, because there's always people who haven't yet heard the mission or if they did, it hasn't been reinforced.
 
 
 
Tactics for Small Businesses to improve communication:
 
First is taking notes of all your employees goals on a phone or a place where you can access them. So whenever you have feedback calls with them, you can proactively mentioned their goals. These are the little things that small business owners must do or else there's no way they can beat their bigger the bigger fish. Yeah, no, I think it's spot on. It's just literally just showing to the person that you're there to listen, you pay attention, you care about their development, and you're gonna keep them accountable because you remember what they're working on.
 
The other tactic, is sending video messages to the people that you manage at work: Brenden asked this all the time to my clients. I asked them this question. How long have you worked in corporate they might say 13 years, seven years. Five years? Somebody say 20 years? They say Okay, great. How many times in your career not today or this week? How many times in your career? Has your manager ever sent you a video message to just say, Hey, listen, I really like the work that you're doing. Love this and this about your work could be a wonderful day. Wish you a wonderful weekend. How many times has that happened? And all of them say zero.
 
 
 
Tips that companies must adopt to create opportunities to build relationships with people when they are onboarding them remotely:
 
Number one is have a buddy system, get people who around their age who are already working at the business that can be a liaison to other people.
 
Number two is intense note taking. Take a ton of notes. On the person your onboarding, especially if it's small team around their personal interests, so that when you send them an onboarding gift, you don't just send typical gear, you send them something that's more related to who they are.
 
Number three is if you have a virtual remote workplace, figure it employees who live in the area and make sure they meet each other in person. This goes a long way in building relationships and improving the workplace culture.
 
 
 
Creating a culture of feedback:
 
This is by far the most important step a leader can take to improve the workplace culture. When a leader gives regular feedback it becomes a lot more encouraging. Whereas when it becomes a pile dump of a bunch of things you got to work on. It's not encouraging. You don't actually want to work on yourself. You don't actually want to get better, versus if you give a couple of easy things that the employee works on. They actually do it and you celebrate those mailings. They get really confident in their job really quickly, especially the early stages of their employment, and the retention skyrockets, reverse whereas if they feel life is a night
About Learn with Bessern
The Learn With Bessern Podcast is about exploring the science behind self-development, leadership and well-being. We demystify personal and organization growth. This podcast is hosted by Elena Agaragimova and Ivan Palomino.
 
 
 
SHOW LESS
 
 

Human beings are naturally social creatures. And when you consider that we spend one-third of our lives at work, it's clear that good and genuine relationships with colleagues will make our jobs more enjoyable.
But this is not all, the more comfortable co-workers are around one other, the more confident they'll feel voicing opinions, brainstorming, and going along with new ideas.
Here is why you should start building genuine relationships at Work:
An optimal level of teamwork is essential to embrace change, create, and innovate. And when people see the successes of working together in this way, group morale and productivity soars.
Good work relationships also give you freedom. Instead of spending time and energy dealing with negative relationships, you can, instead, focus on opportunities – from winning new business to focusing on personal development. And having a strong professional circle will also help you to develop your career, opening up opportunities that otherwise might pass you by. A good work relationship requires trust, respect, self-awareness, inclusion, and open communication. This episode of Learn with Bessern will give you a deeper insight into each aspect but lets look at them briefly.
Trust:
when you trust your team members, you can be open and honest in your thoughts and actions. And you don't have to waste time or energy "watching your back."
Respect:
teams working together with mutual respect value one another's input, and find solutions based on collective insight, wisdom, and creativity.
Self-awareness:
this means taking responsibility for your words and actions, and not letting your own negative emotions impact the people around you.
Inclusion:
don't just accept diverse people and opinions, but welcome them! For instance, when your colleagues offer different opinions from yours, factor their insights and perspective – or "cultural add " – into your decision-making.
Open communication:
all good relationships depend on open, honest communication . Whether you're sending emails or IMs, or meeting face-to-face or on video calls, the more effectively you communicate with those around you, the better you'll connect.
 
This episode of Learn with Bessern is hosted by Elena Agaragimova and Ivan Palomino. You liked it - make sure to subscribe to our podcast.
🚀 Subscribe to our monthly 📧 newsletter https://bessern.substack.com/  and Get superpowered for your self-development: learn stuff that makes you proud of you, manage your wellbeing, have the mindset to make your life awesome.
 
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An extremely insightful conversation with Sebastien Cretegny who brings to us first hand experience on linking purpose with sustainability.
79% of business leaders believe that purpose is essential for success in business. Yet only 34% of leadership decisions are guided by organizational purpose.
A majority of the workforce comprising of Gen Z's want to find purpose in everything they do and prefer linking their values to their organizations goals. However according to McKinsey 85% of employees do not find purpose at work.
The main question we target in this video podcast is how to link the companies mission to each individuals aspirations while incorporating sustainability?
The key questions on Purpose and Sustainability in corporates
 
In this episode of Learn with Bessern, we cover the following questions:
How is sustainability related to purpose at work?
Is there any proof that purpose and sustainability is a competitive advantage at work?
Have any major companies started linking purpose and sustainability?
How to define sustainability?
What is the clear benefit for employees, customers and financials?
Do companies need a Chief Purpose Officer or Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) to drive change?
How can companies start injecting sustainability without big budgets?
 
 
About our guest Sebastien Cretegny:
 
Sebastien Cretegny has first hand experience in linking purpose with sustainability: He was a senior leader of the luxury industry thriving his way across the world. During this tenure he felt the urge of realigning himself with his inner values after which he moved on to become the an advocate of sustainability in corporations. He is the founder of Movo Partners in Switzerland. Today he is making sustainable luxury become a thing – Sebastien is helping organizations become purpose driven transforming cultures, mindset and product innovation through sustainability.
This interview is hosted by Ivan Palomino - Managing partner at Bessern 
 
🚀 Subscribe to our monthly 📧 newsletter https://bessern.substack.com/  and Get superpowered for your self-development: learn stuff that makes you proud of you, manage your wellbeing, have the mindset to make your life awesome.
 
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We live in a very demanding world where fast performance is required. With shorter deadlines every day, it’s often impossible to stay focused. We lose our focus and concentration  as in a way, we’re programmed to do so. Our brain is a toolbox and it has many defense mechanisms that can affect our concentration. Distractions can occur in any form. A small fly, a buzzing phone or even a conversation that is not related to you can make you loose focus on the task at hand. However it is essential for every human being to understand the root cause of their distractions in order to avoid it.
In this episode 🎙️ hosted by Elena Agaragimova and Ivan Palomino. we elaborate more on how distractions can be reduced using the famous Pomodoro technique and How to enter the state of FLOW.
Establish priorities: Choose what’s most important to you and what isn’t (your job, your family, etc.). Understand that distractions are necessary: We aren’t machines. Thus, we need to rest, eat, and socialize. Write down in your calendar the things you do for your entertainment. Some of these things may be going out with friends, reading a book, or watching TV. If you consider these things important, why aren’t they part of your agenda?
Unplug yourself: As we mentioned above, our virtual life challenges our physical one. Thus, you should set aside only a limited time for social media use. Do one task at a time: Multitasking isn’t a solution (our brain is NOT made for that).
Have realistic challenges: Don’t try to be someone you’re not. If you know that you aren’t capable of finishing a task in two hours, give yourself the time you truly need to complete it. 
Look for the purpose- You may find work hard to enjoy because you've lost sight of the reason you work. Consider why you are doing the specific tasks you perform, or even why you work at all. For example, think about why you are planning a particular meeting and what success would mean. Perhaps you are working on a project and need to remind yourself what the project will accomplish and why your participation matters.
The speed of performing a task reduces as your full focus is not on the task. Flow is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. Flow is characterized by the complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting transformation in one's sense of time.
 
 
🚀 Subscribe to our monthly 📧 newsletter https://bessern.substack.com/  and Get superpowered for your self-development: learn stuff that makes you proud of you, manage your wellbeing, have the mindset to make your life awesome.
 
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🌟 The Human Factor in Business Transformation 🌟 A great 🎙️ conversation with Zuleka Kaysan on the human side of business transformation: in the last two years, 60% of companies have embarked in major changes on their business models, efficiency through digital or simply rebuilding an organization culture that is more agile and entrepreneurial.🚀 A big part of the success of this transformation will come from the human factor created by a mindset and culture in the organization.🤷‍♀️ Despite investments in technology, trainings and organizational restructure – often the human factor will impact the most in times of change. But can we really measure the human factor in order to have control of the change?
In this episode of Learn with Bessern, we cover the following questions:
 
What are the signs that we have a business that are made to last and thrive despite competition and uncertainty?
What are the most common mistakes companies do when embarking in transformation?
What type of transformations?
How is the human factor affecting change in corporations?
What type of measurements (KPI’s) we should put in place to make things right during transformation?
What actions directed to people in organizations can help companies to make change happen
What is role of HR in these changes?
 
About our guest Zuleka Kaysan:
 
With over 15 years experience in strategy execution and business excellence, Zuleka has led the Business Excellence function for companies with portfolios extending to $20B, and in organisations that quadrupled in size in just 2 years. delivering results across multiple industries including Real Estate, Hospitality and Healthcare. Her experience spans across Europe and Middle East. She is the managing director of one of the most trending companies in MENA: The Cornerstone Advisory.
 
 
🎙️ This episode is hosted by Ivan Palomino.
 
🚀 Subscribe to our monthly 📧 newsletter https://bessern.substack.com/  and Get superpowered for your self-development: learn stuff that makes you proud of you, manage your wellbeing, have the mindset to make your life awesome.
 
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The feedback sandwich is one way to organize your feedback so it's more balanced and easier to deliver. But it is not always the most efficient approach to create new behaviors, It is time to be blunt about a practice that that is widely spread but not always the best.
By offering “keep behaviors,” or praise, at the same time you're offering “change behaviors,” or criticism, you demonstrate to employees that you see performance strengths as well as performance deficits.
But the question here is should we get rid of the feedback sandwich? Giving feedback – just like every management tool – is not one-size-fits-all.
Every employee has a different approach to productivity and emotional stability. Hence being direct about certain tasks and approaches will not only help employers understand their employees better but will also build strong and genuine relationships.
 
 
📖 Here is an interesting reading to complement this podcast on a better to get it right with Employee Engagementhttps://www.bessern.co/post/the-straightforward-approach-to-employee-engagement 
 
🎙️ This episode is hosted by Elena Agaragimova and Ivan Palomino.
 
🚀 Subscribe to our monthly 📧 newsletter https://bessern.substack.com/  and Get superpowered for your self-development: learn stuff that makes you proud of you, manage your wellbeing, have the mindset to make your life awesome.
 
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The term unmotivated means not having interest in or enthusiasm for something, and whenever an employee fails at any task, this term becomes the sole reason for an employees failure. But as a team leader, how far do you think this reason is true? People may be unmotivated due to several other factors such as misplaced organizational goals with personal goals, boredom or stress with task at hand, etc. Managers need to understand what’s on the way of their employees productivity rather than just simply trying to motivate them. But how can the managers really understand what’s going on with their employees and what can they do to rectify this?
📖 Here is an interesting reading to complement this podcast on 10 Steps To Motivate Your Employees
https://www.bessern.co/post/10-easy-steps-to-motivate-your-employees-in-2022 
 
 
🎙️ This episode is hosted by Elena Agaragimova and Ivan Palomino.
 
🚀 Subscribe to our monthly 📧 newsletter https://bessern.substack.com/  and Get superpowered for your self-development: learn stuff that makes you proud of you, manage your wellbeing, have the mindset to make your life awesome.
 
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Conversations are the most basic form of human interaction. Be it in a workspace or home, meaningful conversations play a major criterion in a person’s daily routine.
At work - coaching is essential in guiding and enabling change - but it is somehow difficult to implement as it requires time and skills. Should we consider other options?
Have you ever focused on what types of conversations you have with your team? Are these conversations strictly limited to work needs or sometimes they go beyond that; maybe having a conversation about personal lives or well-being. In the workplace, conversations between employees about work tasks, meeting, etc are essential to convey messages and get the job done but meaningful conversations between teams and managers help the employees keep their heads clear, increase their efficiency whilst fulfilling their social needs.
Do not wait to have all skills necessary to have a coaching conversation - instead start focusing on the practice of meaningful conversations. 
 
📖 Here is an interesting reading to complement this podcast on Using Behavioral Science for Coaching That Drives Changehttps://trainingindustry.com/articles/strategy-alignment-and-planning/leverage-behavioral-science-for-coaching-that-drives-change/ 
 
 
🎙️ This episode is hosted by Elena Agaragimova and Ivan Palomino.
 
🚀 Subscribe to our monthly 📧 newsletter https://bessern.substack.com/  and Get superpowered for your self-development: learn stuff that makes you proud of you, manage your wellbeing, have the mindset to make your life awesome.
 
🚀 Follow us on:
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bessern.co 
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/bessern 
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