Why is it important to put employees first and customers second?
In our fourth podcast episode, we focus on employee satisfaction. Our hosts, Svitlana and Hanne talk to Kostas Nebis, CEO of T-Hrvatski Telekom, about the leadership that puts the employee in the first place to increase customer satisfaction and leads to sustainable business growth.
What did they discuss regarding employee satisfaction?
Hanne Lindbæk
Okay, I am so excited about this one. So Svitlana, we met Kostas, who is the CEO of T-Hrvatski Telekom in Croatia.
Svitlana Bielushkina
Yeah. It’s one of our operations of Deutsche Telekom in Croatia. Kostas Nebis, became a CEO in April 2019. And he joins Croatia from the Greece site. I was blown off? Yeah.
Hanne Lindbæk
And what a peak moment when he describes how, during COVID, they had managed to have like the highest employees’ satisfaction measurement, like ever.
Svitlana Bielushkina
And it’s all required a standard formula of employee first, then customer, then business productivity and performance. And the conclusion of Kostas was that it actually works; and it works faster. It works faster than expected.
Hanne Lindbæk
It’s a bit like, listen up everyone else out there, because this is the guy who actually proves that over this human centricity, like making sure that transparency, empathy, care inclusion is at the heart of the business strategy. Furthermore, it actually works.
Svitlana Bielushkina
So here we are in our human centric universe. Welcome. This is the human centric podcast and this is time for us to slow down and have a conversation. What do we actually mean behind all the things we say here in the corporate world? And when I listen, and it’s a fantastic to have an opportunity to slow down, and to really discuss with key experts, key leaders and thought leaders, what they actually think, yeah, and what meaning they have put behind their words. I think it’s just fascinating.
Hanne Lindbæk
I so agree. And what I also love about this idea between us with Lana is taking this conversation also out of the four walls of the Deutsche Telekom home and trying to share it with a larger community. So having seen so many companies from the inside in the last few years is one of the things that I’ve been really thinking would just benefit everyone right now is to try to open up and have conversations about the challenges that we share and about the ways in which the workplace is becoming so important for actually developing us as humans, right.
Svitlana Bielushkina
Absolutely. And today, I’m very happy and quite thrilled to have Kostas Nebis with us. I know him for quite some years now in Deutsche Telekom courses. He comes from Greece, and now he’s the CEO of one of our operating companies of Deutsche Telekom, T-Hrvatski Telekom. I think he is one of the leaders who really believes that “employee first and then customer second” in a way they use as all people in the company will actually produce the something great and good for the benefits of the company. Kostas, how are you?
Kostas Nebis
Hello, it’s nice to be here!
I’m alright. Firstly, I have to admit that I’m a bit humbled with your delightful introduction, your charming words and impressed with your Croatian accent.
Svitlana Bielushkina
Haha, thank you! Yeah, of course, have you been always like that, putting employees first.
Kostas Nebis
Not really, not really, I had to grow in my career. I mean, it didn’t come naturally. But progressively it build it up. So the fact that they spent more than 20 years now in commercial organizations in consumer organizations have helped me develop and evolve into this space. And effectively, I managed to put together my own kind of formula. One of my passions is math, and I always strive to find the right formula in either personal or business life. So in business, the formula that I kind of worked out is that if you manage to have satisfied and engaged employees, this is a great prerequisite for you to deliver great customer satisfaction, which in turn, for me to complete the formula is one of the biggest levers for sustainable growth into the future. So the formula starts from employees goes into customer satisfaction, and effectively you’re creating the foundation for sustainable growth into the future.
Hanne Lindbæk
So we’re going to stop right here. That’s so interesting. So the idea that humans well, it’s exactly the same as we’re saying isn’t it are at the core of commercial success, say more about that.
Kostas Nebis
In order to connect with your customers, you have to inspire and connect with your people. I mean, we have our people taking care of their customers both proactively and reactively, in all the frontline fronts. So in order to deliver good service to your customers, you have to empathize with your people in them to empathize with the customer. So it is a human interaction. And at the end of the day, if you manage to get your employees to think, proactively and properly address the customers in the front end, this is a great lever for you to deliver great satisfaction. And then if customers feel appreciated and respected, they will stay with you, they will spend more of their money with the services that you provide as long as they have value for them. And this is a prerequisite for you to have sustainable growth into the future.
Hanne Lindbæk
I love how you just start us off right at the deep end and take us to the core of where we want to spend today’s conversation. We want to explore with you clusters, the ideas of culture, and how you can create a culture in the workplace that fosters, you know, talent, which is this basic word that we’re exploring throughout the whole season here. And we also want to look at how leadership and leadership styles and skills will, and it won’t naturally changes and influence how parents feel about themselves and feel about their work and feel about achieving and achieving greatness in the workplace. But Svetlana, you had some questions for him first, where did you want to take him?
Svitlana Bielushkina
I wanted to connect that formula, which was Kostas, as you just mentioned, to us employees first, then customer satisfaction, then business productivity into your transformational journey instead of ASCII telecom. So you came 2019 I’m April, you have to also get a business turnaround. Yeah. So you really had to transform the company from inside. And the moment you start really doing it, then a pandemic hits? Yeah. Then you have, you know, Corona and COVID situation, and it puts more pressure on you. So how did you really manage to sustain that smell of the place that’s, you know, philosophy which you have, in terms of employees, customers, business productivity, this via all these months of journey? I want to just get out there?
Hanne Lindbæk
Can I barge in straightaway and just kind of go if we are an outside listener listening in for a second, just explain me very, very quickly? The facts and figures of ASCII telecom. How many people? Where is it? What is it? Yeah,
Kostas Nebis
it’s in Croatia, we have slightly more than 4000 people in a country of a population of 4 million inhabitants, just the ballpark figures. But going back to Switzerland last question. COVID was a pro exercise for everybody, testing a number of different things as well as resilience and internal strengths. But for me, the fact that we started our journey, you mentioned 19. So we started the journey back in April 2018. By setting employee satisfaction as a number one priority on a team level and across the entire management team has helped us immensely during Corona, I can tell you one of the things that I’m extremely proud of is that we have managed to move from the bottom positions of Deutsche Telekom as a company when it comes to employee satisfaction to the top three, in slightly more than a year’s time. And I can tell you this was extremely important during the COVID times because this was exactly the culture that we have managed to inculcate within the organization that made us take good care of our people during Corona actually accelerating the satisfaction improvement. And at the same time, it made the people not only think about our colleagues, our employees, but at the same time support our customers with the digital services that we provide, which effectively lead to better satisfaction result, but going a step further to take care of the Creation society, including stakeholders, as well as the public state like governments, strengthening our relationship as their digitization partner to cut the long story short, despite the number of challenges that COVID has caused to all of us. For us in reverse key telecom it has acted like an accelerator in a transformation journey across all the main focus pillars, I would say of our strategy.
Hanne Lindbæk
Wow. So you are saying that employee satisfaction has gone up during COVID?
Kostas Nebis
Yes, historic high levels in the history of this company? We’ve got to celebrate that.
Hanne Lindbæk
That’s amazing. How did you do that Kostas?
Kostas Nebis
I mean, it’s not rocket science dealing with people, you just have to empathize with them. You just have to put it in the right context and assign it the right priority. So we’re effectively what we did when we started the transformation journey, starting from the management board. And going across all management layers, we spend a lot of time understanding our employees, talking to them, understanding their worries, that concerns what they expect from us, and they’re not getting. And then all these we put together into an action plan, an action plan, that was an honest action plan, because some of the challenges that we’re facing, we could not address overnight, but we were open and transparent to them. We were communicating very regularly. And we were delivering progressively on their expectations. And I can tell you, that appreciation was building up faster than initially, we expected despite the fact that we have not managed to short out or the, you know, long pending issues that they were facing, as a result of neglection to a great extent in the last few years.
Hanne Lindbæk
So I’m already so in love with what you’re saying this is the basic idea of listening in. That’s what you’re saying, listening in and tuning in to what people were actually feeling. And then creating what you’re calling that. So great. An honest action plan is not an over ambitious, but an honest and like down to earth, let’s get real about it action plan. And then transparency, in terms of delivery,
Kostas Nebis
some of the things that we could not address overnight. I mean, we had a number of structural issues, from salary gaps, for example, in some parts of the organization or some buildings that were not properly looked after. Things that you know, you need to make your coach you need to put priorities, but being honest and transparent and telling your people that this is where I’m going to start first. And this is when I go and go next. And bear with me, you get a lot of support and appreciation at the same time. And it works, I can tell you in less than one and a half years, we have managed to completely transform the picture of the company internally. And we have now started moving also externally. Because you know, if you don’t have the right engagement level for your employees, it is impossible that you become an attractive employer in the country you operate, and competition is building up higher. So if you do not manage to build within your company appreciation, and what we call employee attractiveness, you have no future. visa vie all the telco or ICT competition in the local markets. And gratiae is not a huge market that you can, you know, get tons of people. So you have to be extremely competitive on the value proposition on what you have to offer to the young talent that you would like to attract or keep in your company.
Svitlana Bielushkina
You know, I’m just listening, and I’m thrilled to hear your story from within. And it sounds so easy, right? So you have your pure human Centricity first, and then you produce business results, I understand how difficult you know, it might feel inside as well to drive the transformation Kostas going in more into the leadership and go behind that human Centricity and putting people first, I understand the action plan that you just mentioned, some concrete actions, buildings, maybe salary, which had to be fixed, and you’re very, super brutal and honest about it, and you were open to fix it. But what about the softer parts, which sometimes are as fundamental as the hard facts, and what I mean, you know, the leadership style, the way we really live and breathe your philosophy it comes starts from you as the CEO, but how to really cascades it, and how to make sure the whole company embraces that. Can you say something more about that part?
Kostas Nebis
Of course, and as you said, I mean, you can address some of the hard elements in a certain period of time. But if you do not address the soft elements, which could act as an accelerate or to buy you some time, until all the elements are properly addressed, you have missed out a huge opportunity. Yes, one of the things that we had to address in SK Telecom was the distance in between the management in particular the management board theme, and that is organization. So we were operating in some kind of two isolated worlds. So that was something that I could easily pick up through my first interactions across different parts of the organization. And I try to address leading by example, so spending time with our people starting from the frontline, but going around the organization having board session as compared to having them in the boardroom having them in the places where our employees are living, connecting with them listening to them. This has helped a lot in order for us to start presenting the management of this company, you know, far more empathetic, I would say and open to listen and act upon employees expectations.
Svitlana Bielushkina
So what you’re saying is a transparency, breaking maybe stereotypes being very big people, by people are being available for discussion. And it starts with the management team to lead by example, in a way,
Kostas Nebis
exactly 100%, you have to be the role model. And it starts from the CEO of the company, for sure. But the CEO of the company is not good enough, the CEO of the company, we have to inspire and motivate the management team, and then the management per team to bring up the entire management team, I would say, to adjust into a far more human centric management profile.
Hanne Lindbæk
I have a question because I was listening into this. I’m like, Yes. And it sounds, you make it sound easy, actually, Kostas, which is very fascinating in itself. You also make it sound kind of self explanatory, which I know for a fact that to a lot of people out there, it totally isn’t. So I’m, I’m again, fascinated by this opening question from Svitlana asking you have you always been like this? And I’m also I have a second question for you. This is a cluster question. Like, when does it actually get difficult? Where are the pain points, you know, to try and have a real conversation about this? Yeah. When does it become hard for a CEO to be a role model,
Kostas Nebis
I would say in the beginning, because we have chosen to go the difficult the patient way. So for you to first transform, employee engagement, hoping that things will transform, customer satisfaction and eventually lead to meet long term sustainable growth, it is a choice, a strategic choice to make, and you need to be patient, because the result normally takes some time to see them being translated with the business result. And this is the biggest challenge that you face, when you step into a new role, how quickly I can turn around things, how quickly I can have an impact in the organization. So this was, I would say, the biggest challenge in the beginning to set a right time frame within which you are going to be tackling one thing at a time, I can tell you employee satisfaction that around first, now, we have started seeing that being translated into improving customer satisfaction. And it’s not by coincidence that what you have seen in the last month, also business getting back to growth, as a result of customers feeling better with us, and spending more with us. But it took it took some time to get that and you have to be patient, and also you have the support of your shareholders, they have to believe into this journey, as compared to you know, trying to deliver results in any way sooner rather than later. So it is a trade off that you have to do.
Hanne Lindbæk
There is a trade off for sure. So we wanted to talk a little bit about like soft skills and hard skills. Didn’t we say Svitlana?
Svitlana Bielushkina
Yeah. And I have just one question on my mind, Kostas, if you allow me, I’ll just throw it out with you. When you had the transformation I am driving is in her basket telecom and question there. How have you done and to be the team that you had when you joined as the CEO? Or did you bring some new talents and boards and promoted some people from within the organization to be a part of the journey along with you? And of course, in our leading talent in Deutsche Telekom from the HR perspective, I’m also quite interested to know your opinion behind that. How did you go around that challenge? Did you bring some new people on board along with you?
Kostas Nebis
Yeah, for sure. I would say a combination of a number of different things. Yes, I brought in some people from outside the organization. But I also helped a couple of people within the organization by making some structural changes to grow and become part of the management team. But I also work with the people that I found within the organization, because what I realized is that the same individuals under completely different leadership mindset can really be fundamental in transforming the culture in the company. So a combination I would say of external, internal moving up some people that did not have the opportunity so far, but also working with the people within the organization. The other thing that we did, going beyond the management level, is along with my direct reports, we gave the opportunity to to a few people talents, as we used to call them within the organization to shine, shine in a sense of trusting them, providing them with more accountabilities also restructuring our teams moving more to Agile principles that would help these people take over more things work functionally. So I can name at least three or four different cases in the last one and a half years. We have young people that were really given the opportunity to help us accelerate the transformation of the company.
Svitlana Bielushkina
You know, I think you’re conveying every The interesting message clusters, which I also truly believe in, that we as individuals fundamentally don’t change very quickly. But when we have different surroundings, we behave differently when you are in a forest, and it’s plus 10, and you want to run and jog and you have the energy. And when you’re in Kolkata in India, and it’s super hot, it’s plus 14, humans, you are tired, you know, and very often you have this environment in our corporations and organizations, but people are tired, you know. And when you change the environment, if you change the context, you re energize the workforce, and people want to run and go for. So I think the message I got from you is to really fundamentally change the ecosystem, the culture, and let the talent shine and make an impact.
Kostas Nebis
I couldn’t agree with you more. And this, for me, is the biggest challenge of every single leader, how to convince people to voluntarily support the team to deliver against the purpose, this is the biggest challenge. But you need to start by giving the people around you an opportunity to you know, obtain support in this journey. Not all of them will be there, not all of them will be willing to make the extra I don’t know step or to transform themselves. But for sure, you need to start by giving an opportunity to the people that are willing to join with us.
Hanne Lindbæk
And what I also love about what you’ve been saying so far, Kostas is you are also telling us that by trusting Yep, that people kind of will show up and we’ll deliver. And then having the patience to kind of wait for it to happen. That in itself leads to the change,
Kostas Nebis
Hey, we’re talking about teams, we rely on teams, I’m a strong believer of teams being in a position to change things to have impact, and especially in such big organization as ours, and to build a team to have to start by establishing trust based relationship. So this is a precondition for you to transform an organization opening up yourself, allow them the others to do that. becoming vulnerable. These are all things that are collectively create a trust based foundation. And once trust is there, then the team start accelerating that transformation journey.
Hanne Lindbæk
But can you actually give me an example of how you can establish trust? Do you have a story?
Kostas Nebis
Yeah, I mean, some things, as I said, are more on a human level. So I really believe that to establish trust, you have to allow others to open up to you. And you allow that by you doing that first. So one of the things for example, that we did when we started this journey, when I came into Croatia, we as a team went off for a couple of days, discussing about ourselves, trying to find you know, the common connection points, building together ourselves vision on a team level, the vision that would motivate us and inspire us to go forward. But for this to be delivered, we needed to create some kind of trust based framework, trust. As a result, as I said, of opening up ourselves showing our vulnerabilities, these are critical, I would say enablers of this trust based relationship.
Hanne Lindbæk
So you went to you’re saying you went for a kind of retreat together with your gang, and you sat down and you shared
Kostas Nebis
Yes, team alignment session, we called it spending a couple of days, opening up ourselves, getting to know each other, started trusting ourselves trust cannot be acquainted from one day to the other, but starting the journey. And of course, building up on that.
Hanne Lindbæk
And what you are mentioning, of course, and it’s so it just rings so true, doesn’t it? The idea that the best way to create vulnerability is to dare to go there first, yes, to say something embarrassing, or tell other people about how you tripped up or, or say something that is even challenging to master or something that you find difficult.
Kostas Nebis
Exactly. That’s why I believe that one of the strongest attributes of a leader is humbleness. And this is what leaders sometimes challenge, how to balance how to be humble, but at the same time being confident, but without humbleness, you are missing out a lot of things, you are missing out people, you’re missing out opportunities to learn and to grow bigger. And for sure, you cannot establish a trust base environment if you are always the one who blows your own horn the loudest if you know what I mean.
Hanne Lindbæk
Okay, can I just share with you my just very, very unfiltered reflection here now? Because you are indeed Greek, aren’t you clusters? Yes. And here you are. I’m so sorry to be the stereotypical but you’re a male. You’re Greek, and you’re from a certain corporate culture. And here you are talking about humility, and you’re talking about vulnerability and sharing. I’m just brought back to this number one question the whole time. How did you end up like this?
Kostas Nebis
I was I was, I was lucky when it comes to my wife; I chose the right partner in life. And I can tell you, this partner has made me a better person. She has made me a better father and has eventually made me a better leader. Still a long way to go. But as I said, I feel lucky. And it’s it is important that you have the right partner in life. Of course, the way you’re brought up, the values that are coming from your family are extremely significant. But as far as I’m concerned, my wife has been instrumental into making me a better person.
Hanne Lindbæk
What I think is also so modern about what you’re addressing there, apart from the fact that, yes, a powerful woman will take you the whole way. I think the idea of the private sphere influencing our work sphere, we were just talking about working hours before we started the podcast. Yeah, yeah. And so you’re saying the few hours that you do spend at home, they seem to be influencing your choices at work?
Kostas Nebis
For sure. And I can take it a step further. I mean, the fact that I am in Croatia is already a challenge on its own. So moving from Greece to Croatia, if my family would not be willing to join me and support me to spend time with me learning the language and to help me integrate into society, it would be impossible for me to understand creations better for me to be in a position to talk to the heart and bring up emotions. So as you said, when family and your partner are critical in the way you develop as a leader, as far as I’m concerned, that’s my point of view. Well, I love your point
Svitlana Bielushkina
You know, first of all, thank you so much for openness. And sincerity, of course, is really appreciated. And I’m thinking about your statements when you said that you should allow people, and we shall give them chances to take and then a blossom going forward. And I’m again, reflecting from the insights in perspective, that’s very often in the corporate environments. We all go for experience. Yeah. So it’s a safe space. So safe enough to hire somebody experienced enough who’s done it before being there, done that can take us forward. And it’s quite risky and uncertain, and maybe even new to hire somebody for potential. Somebody who has not done it before, but has the potential really to go forward? And maybe a potential to go two steps forward? What is your leadership? Not a formula but no experience? And how you judge potential? And how do you make this balance between experience have done it before? And then potential that you can do it in the future? But not yet?
Kostas Nebis
Yeah, great question. And I have to admit that window telecom have a lot of room for improvement when it comes to being daring enough to trust potential as compared to experience. But let me tell you, which are the things that I look for when I’m trying to identify talents, because this is a big challenge. And so what I’m looking for is for passion, number one, for me is passion. So passion to make an impact in the company to bring a change in the community or the society, as compared to just someone who is looking for how to step into the next level of the next role within the organization. That’s number one for me. Second thing that I look is for what we call growth mindset, growth mindset in a sense that there is a strong belief that is drive that is willingness to constantly learn, moving out of your comfort zone, which automatically goes with you not having enough experience, move out of your comfort zone, determination, perseverance that you will not stop, no matter what obstacle you come across. For me, these are the two symptoms that I look first passion and growth mindset. Then I started looking for other things like ability to inspire others. I don’t know work with diverse teams, which is also a demanding task or commitment to deliver on what you have promised. And the last thing, which as I said that my strong believer is about humbleness, especially when it comes to young talents. So talents that are stepping into a meeting or my room overconfident they know everything and I don’t know that then can turn the world around. makes me worry makes me worry when it comes to how humble they are. To build a strong team around them, how humble they are to listen and learn more and developing their career, how humble they are in order to grow and reach their full potential.
Hanne Lindbæk
I love what you’re saying this word humility, humbleness as actually a leadership skill. It sounds like the opposite of what a leader should have, right, because we’re so obsessed with the idea that leaders should have authority. But what you’re also taking us to now, which I find is very fascinating, and also something a lot of young people tell me when I talk to them about communication, the idea that, you know, you should stay humble in order to be innovative, and to create, because if you’re not humble, you’re not going to be willing to listen to other people’s ideas even. Exactly, exactly. So humility as an innovative tool, and as a leadership tool.
Kostas Nebis
Exactly. And as a tool that will allow you to constantly grow into something bigger, because she humility is what will allow you understand that no matter how far you have raised, probably what you have been doing is not going to be enough to take you to the next level. So there is more for you to learn, there are more things for you to develop in order to become better for me, it is a prerequisite for a number of things when it comes to leadership, and probably the single most important attribute that I would look into a future leader.
Hanne Lindbæk
That’s great, because that’s where we wanted to go next. God you’re creating like segues here. So we want to take you to the idea of like leadership skills, and even cultural traits, if you dare to go there needed in the future, Kostas. So take us there, what would be like a number one leadership skill that you would look for in a young leadership talent, in like five years from now?
Kostas Nebis
Authenticity, and empathy. These are the things that for me go without saying when it comes to leadership, curiosity, hunger, constantly wanting to reinvent yourself, which comes hand in hand with being ready that you will fail sometimes, but try to fail fast and try to make the most intense of learnings out of your failures. Stand up even faster, and carry on.
Hanne Lindbæk
I hear your wife has trained you. Well. Yes. Fantastic. I love what you’re saying. So authenticity, and empathy as as desirable skills for a leader in a telecom company five years from now. Yep. As the number one skills, super fascinating. And can we dare to say anything? I know, it’s so hard to discuss this topic of culture. I mean, like, who creates it? And when does it stop? And where does it even? How can we begin to? To quantify it? It’s such a difficult topic. But if we dare to say something about culture, Kostas, what are the traits needed? In a culture for a corporation moving forward from 2020?
Kostas Nebis
Culture? In what sense? Because as you said, it’s very broad.
Hanne Lindbæk
I’m thinking about like, we are talking about talent development here, aren’t we? So what kind of culture would foster like the culture in the workspace, the culture that meets you on a Monday morning, when you come in the stuff that you know you agree with your colleagues on is like the deal around here? How we do things around here? What are the stuff that we need to agree on in the workspace moving forward?
Kostas Nebis
Yeah, I can start by telling you what I believe we have to forget. And if you have not done already, we should do it sooner rather than later. And this is a result because we’re talking about young talents, we need to focus on the target audience what we are referring to, and it is a fact that a lot has changed Cigna in the society in the last year, I mean, with digitization, and the type of change accelerating like never before. So there is a new generation as a result of the demographic change and social movements in an increasingly connected world that has brought up a new characters, new personalities that are demonstrating, I would say, nomadic characteristics, changing jobs far more easily, for whom a secure workplace or the salary are no longer the most important deciding factors, and who are not particularly impressed with the hierarchical status. So in order for you to be in a position to bring these people keep these people and grow them into future talents, you have to forget about what we call command and control leadership style. So this is a thing of the past. And the sooner we get on with it, the more the chances that we’re going to keep and attract the future leaders that everybody is going to be hunting, in general, in particular in our industry.
Hanne Lindbæk
So you’re saying, in a way, you’re saying lower hierarchies?
Kostas Nebis
Yes, flatter organization, empowered individual, and if I could pick one thing that I believe this future talent will be more aspire to is us, instead of focusing on what to do, and on why to do speaking about culture, having a strong purpose, having a purpose that would move us beyond just delivering the next year’s financial results, but the purpose that will resonate with them, and will make them work wanting to work with us. I believe that we have the luxury of being in the telecom industry to work in an industry that can make a huge impact in people’s lives. So this is a huge privilege that we have as an industry, but also a responsibility, and we have to live up to it. We need to make the most out of it, both in order to keep our people for a higher purpose, but also to attract the talent that we are missing where we are missing it.
Hanne Lindbæk
Let me take you to I think it’s one final place because this because we need to start finishing off in a few minutes time, I think, but because when we were speaking earlier, you and I, we started discussing the idea of I met sounds a bit naughty In this connection, but going to like being competitive as a sense of something that also propels quality of deliverance and quality of end product. Are you competitive? Would you consider yourself to be competitive?
Kostas Nebis
Very. Yeah, I hate losing this is something that I don’t have to be arrested.
Hanne Lindbæk
But that makes two of us. And do you find there’s a place? Is there a positive version of competitiveness that we can use as leaders?
Kostas Nebis
Yeah, I believe that if you use competitiveness as a self reflection on okay, what I could have done differently, what I could have done better in order to improve yourself, which is a good manifestation of competitiveness, as long as it does not get into you and become a crazy perfectionist. So, which is a thin line and balance? Yes. But for me, competitiveness has helped me during my career not compromising not getting on with what I have achieved, but pushing myself to the limits.
Hanne Lindbæk
Oh, great. It’s one of those words, I find the right version of competitiveness to be incredibly inspiring. I also find the word ambition to be a very positive word, if you use it the right way. You know, I think you said something important about it not being competition against others. It can be just competing even with yourself, even just setting a new standard for yourself each day, without falling into the pitfall of perfectionism. That’s great.
Kostas Nebis
Yeah. And one of the things that I recently came across and I picked up I put it on my board is doing nothing at all versus small, consistent effort has a huge impact, a huge difference on the outcome. Oh, I’m
Hanne Lindbæk
celebrating up here in Oslo. This is amazing. So rather than actually thinking that the change is going to come in leaps and bounds and be like paradigm shifting when it happens, little changes every day.
Kostas Nebis
Yep. Little changes challenging constantly. The status quo challenging constantly, yourself. This is my definition of growth mindset. Let me put it this way.
Hanne Lindbæk
Fantastic. Well, to put it this way, because there’s I mean, you’re gonna be doing something right. When we look at the results you’ve achieved, we are so grateful that you chose to come on the show and spend time with us. So Svitlana, how do we want to take this one and round it off? Her? I’m so humbled
Svitlana Bielushkina
Hana, I think I’m by the conversation, Kostas, thank you so much. I think it would be really rich to listen to for your people in her basket Telecom in Croatia, for our external visitors who might want to join your company. And if you, you know, days, weeks, months, so thank you so very much. And from my side to share that we are on a hunt for talent inside Deutsche Telekom. We really want to uncover potential and find the people who could take us into the future of becoming digital and software driven telco. I check out talent hub on yum and find out more information. Thank you.
Hanne Lindbæk
I have a final comments. I am just flabbergasted here. Did you hear the word that Kostas has brought up? So I’m just saying this is we are like some episodes into our season on talent. And not for any one of the episodes did we plan for to discuss the word passion? And yet, here it came again? Just seems you know it is just like passion and talent. Never will it be a possible to put something between those two words.
Kostas Nebis
For sure. And thank you very much for the opportunity. We are looking forward to welcome more talents within T-Hrvatski Telekom. Our mission and our ambition is to become the best place to work in Croatian ICT industry, and we will not stop until we get there.
Hanne Lindbæk
We believe in you Kostas, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you very much.
