25 minute read
Karin VoloEmpowering Businesses with Cultural Transformation
Karin Volo
CEO and Chief Joy Bringer
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Evoloshen
Karin Volo
usinesses thrive on proven leadership hacks! And, Bone of the most promising corporate practices is creating the happiest and motivated workforce, which ultimately leads to happy customers.
Organizations that emphasize on revitalizing the work culture with leadership skills receive exponential growth. Today, employee engagement is not an option anymore; rather it has become a necessity to drive growth for companies, business leaders, and employees!
This was very well understood by CEO and Chief Joy Bringer of Evoloshen, Karin Volo. She has been empowering organizations with her unique cultural transformation model, which involves educating employees and top management professionals. She has expertise with conversational intelligence, masterminding, and one-on-one leadership coaching.
By imparting caring cultures at workplaces, Karin aims to create a productive environment for companies and their employees.
We at Insights Success caught up with Karin to learn more about her exciting journey of mentoring business leaders with Evolvoshen.
Let us look into the interview highlights below:
Brief our audience about your journey as a business leader until your current position at Evoloshen? What challenges did you have to overcome to reach where you are today?
My early career was in Executive Search, headhunting, coaching, and mentoring both in the United States and in Europe. After a major life crisis that lasted four years, my work pivoted. I was drawn to teaching a lot of the tools I’d learned to manage during the most difficult time in my life. This led to writing books, inspirational speaking, and corporate training. The book Engage! was the catalyst in creating my current company, Evoloshen, where we help transform business through culture. I believe in empowering people in their work so that they feel passionate, engaged, and are highly productive. It’s a winwin for both employees and companies.
Tell us something more about Evoloshen, its mission and vision.
Evoloshen’s purpose is bringing joy to the workplace. We do this through inspiration and teaching empowering tools. There are three main pillars we focus on under the umbrella of culture: engagement, purpose, and trust. We have programs and strategies for companies and leaders that help to bring out the best of an organization.
“I believe that the majority of the 7.2+ billion people on this planet want four things in their lives: love, peace, joy, and abundance.” “
Enlighten us on how you have made an impact in the mentoring niche through your expertise in the market.
Evoloshen has a big impact on several levels. We support, mentor, and coach top management to create a high trust and caring culture. We offer proven companywide training and certification programs that teach employees with empowering skills and hands-on tools they can use immediately. We also facilitate team leadership learning and masterminding. Evoloshen has a team of incredible trustbased leadership coaches that can work one-on-one with leaders and employees to support them as well. The combination of these programs and services has a direct positive impact on the well-being of the people and the bottom line of an organization.
Undeniably, technology is playing a significant role in almost every sector. How are you leveraging technological advancements to make your solutions resourceful?
Evoloshen had already offered online training and programs globally, prior to 2020. We were able to pivot quickly to 100% virtual trainings in 2020 and simply scaled up our work during that time, supporting many companies during some challenging times. We are looking forward to offering live training again but the last couple of years have proven that it is possible and cost-efficient to invest in all the employees and do training together. It helps to have everyone learning and growing together and what we’ve seen is that it “super boosts” the culture and connection of the employees. It’s like putting the culture on steroids! So, we will continue with using technologies for our online work. One other aspect of Evoloshen is that we are creating a microlearning platform offering to both private clients with customized training and individuals who are interested in topics around culture, engagement, trust, conversational intelligence, resilience, self-leadership. and have much more to come!
If given a chance, what change would you like to bring in the employee engagement industry?
I’d love leaders to understand the value of investing in their employees and the positive impact this has on the bottom line. It becomes an easy step to take when CEO’s and CHRO’s can see the impact and results. I do believe we’ll get to a point in the future where we won’t need to talk about employee engagement because it will become the norm. But we have a LOT of work to do before! According to Gallup, only 20% of the global workforce is engaged and 80% are not. The solution is proactively working on creating high trust caring cultures where people feel valued. This drives the high-performance team that leaders want to see.
What, according to you, could be the next big change in cultural transformation? How is Evoloshen preparing to be a part of that change?
We are currently dealing with the Great Resignation. The future of businesses will depend on creating a culture and a company that both employees and customers love because of its bigger purpose. We are seeing a great divide between purpose-driven companies and toxic organizations. Purpose-driven companies with caring cultures will more easily attract top talent and have an obvious competitive edge. Toxic companies that are damaging the planet and their people are simply not sustainable and will not survive. Plus, we are about to experience 100 years in change with technologies from 2022 to 2026. We need to have an agile, fast-moving mindset in companies. This is the wakeup call for leaders to pay attention, right now because nothing can stop this movement. We are going into a few chaotic years until the dust settles. Evoloshen can be a great support to leaders, their employees, and their organizations for all these emerging trends and changes!
What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the organizational development sector?
It is vital for any entrepreneur to have clarity in their purpose and have passion for their work. That is what will get you through tough times. If you only start a business for money or to make an exit, you may succeed, but your life may feel very empty in the end. I’ve coached so many leaders in mid-life who have experienced what looks like success on the outside, but inside they are miserable. Having a bigger purpose will give you meaning and keep you going no matter what. When you have that for yourself, do the same with the company you want to build. So, my advice is to start with the purpose and passion, first and foremost! The rest will follow.
W“ e must know the market well, identify our competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. Build rapport with customers, find out what matters to customers, provide solutions, and solve their matters,” says May Yap. She is the , and Managing Director CEO of LHT Holdings Limtedand accountable for strategic IT management and smooth day to day operations across operating sites in Asia and US.
May has Extensive Management Consulting Experience advising clients on business transformation initiatives; familiar with operations in Manufacturing, Government, pharmaceutical, Bank and Insurance, Telco, FMCG, Airlines and Logistics sectors.
In an interview with Insights Success, May Yap highlights the importance of customer service and understanding the market one wants to grow in.
Below are the highlights of the interview:
Kindly take us through your journey on becoming a young and proficient shepreneur.
It all started in December 1977, after completed my secondary school, I joined former Lian Hup Timber Trading Co before it was retitled to LHT Holdings Limited as a multi-tasking clerk which handles accounts, administration, operations, and housekeeping. At that time, the firm had around 20 employees and on leasing land size of less than 1000 sqm situated in a remote area in the north region of Singapore.
During my 40 years of services at LHT, I have climbed the corporate ladder through rank-and-file from an admin clerk to a chairwoman. I have witnessed the changing landscape from a traditional company to an environmentally friendly company.
As time went by, wood pallets became prominent as many foreign MNCs invested massively in Singapore that required these pallets as export goods. And inevitably, LHT followed the same wind too. At that time, Singapore was on its journey toward development and the firm grew so tremendously that we had to pursue bigger land in Sungei Kadut. Moving the factory two times, in 1988, the firm acquired a 35,680 sqm land, and the company staff strength went up to 168 employees, and with the right timing, the group renamed to LHT Holdings Limited when listed in the mainboard in 1999.
During this time, I was Sales Director-in charge of all sales and marketing functions. Perceiving the opportunity to be an Executive Director, I became one of the major shareholders during the company’s reconstruction.
I was appointed as the acting Managing Director in 2016 due to my MD had health issues. In 2017, followed by the retirement of my founder MD, I was re-designation as the chairwoman, Managing Director, and CEO.
How do you diversify your organization’s offerings to entice the target audience?
Wood pallets have been traditional for more than 60 years since world war two, to entice our target audience we need to provide a competitive one-stop solution. Besides selling wood and plastic pallets, we have technology pallets known as system pallets that cooperate with the RFID system. We also manufacture
environmentally-friendly pallets that make from recycling wood waste. By 2013 we took over a big plant at Johor, Malaysia for Green innovative Gpac moulded pallet production, and became a multi diversity of wide ranges of ECO Green pallet leadership to distribute all kinds of Wood packaging and Champion the green journey and made company with more effective business model and longevity sustainable for success.
What are the vital traits that every businesswoman should possess?
A successful entrepreneur is focused on the business and its goals. At this digital transformation era, and Covid-19 had changed the way we do business. Creativity and flexibility, we need to embrace that changed and go back to the drawing board and restart, reorganize, relook on what is the better ways at the current situation, brainstorm, and amend accordingly. As a businesswoman, she shall have a charismatic character that possesses good knowledge in that field, a high level of confidence and trust to be built over the team or management working with.
As per your opinion, what roadblocks or challenges were faced by you in a corporate business? And how did you overcome them?
Nobody knows that the Covid-19 will hit and disrupt that hard in all kinds of business and make changes to the way we do business. As a pallet manufacturer, we are lucky to be considered as essential services as we provide logistic support to the supply chain. Without pallets, goods cannot be transported and stored in the warehouses. As for us, we remain status quo, except the reshuffle of our workforce to cope with the high demand from some sectors due to customers’ stop work.
Have you in any way contributed towards the cause of women empowerment?
In Singapore, I do not see any gender discrimination as long as you can do the job. This day, I do see many women are leaving their home as a housewife to join the society and many women are now holding the high ranking post. I could only post and set an example that a female clerk that it is possible comes one day she can be the top management.
How do you cope up with capricious technological trends to boost your personal growth?
Yes, we need to embrace the change and adapt the appropriate one. Firstly, we must understand the purpose of adopting the technology, which is to provide convenience or to make things simpler and not complicated and should be users friendly too.
What are your future endeavors/objectives and where do you see yourself in the near future?
The Covid-19 pandemic is a testament that proof the company is sustainable over the majority of companies that were shut down due to the lockdown period and we were the few companies that provide the essential service to the community as well as the society.
It is easy to come from a great business background to continue that legacy, but it is distinctive, coming from a challenging background to thrive in the business world. Such business leaders have to build everything from scratch. They overcome all odds, attaining success with their determination. Mohammed Mubin Mallick comes from a remote place, where the only language people speak in their native tongue: Bengali. While growing up, he had difficulty communicating with people in other languages in his school, mostly English. However, Mohammed managed to get a good grasp of the language when he moved into an urban area, resulting in him pursuing his MBA at Cardiff University (UK).
After Mohammed completed his MBA, he went to Kuwait to land his first job, but instead, he ventured to set up his own startup company following his childhood passion for Robotics. He is the Founder and CEO of Kiran Smart, providing solutions and services locally and globally. It has the vast experience and technological know-how of robotic solutions dealing with multiple robotic manufacturers and companies worldwide to deliver the right solution to its customers.
Overcoming Challenges
Today, Mohammed sees himself in a position to create a difference with his passion. He constantly faced challenges personally and professionally, overcoming them to get ahead of his competitive peers, gaining customers' trust, loyal employees, a smart team, and reliable manufacturers.
Providing Innovative, Reliable, and High-Quality Services
Mohammed's persistent approach towards his passion helps him research different products and innovative solutions for its customers. So, he spreads his suppliers from different regions not to be cut down due to any natural disaster or geopolitical issues. Kiran Smart's main focus is robotics, digital transformation, Artificial Intelligence, and FinTech as the world is demanding it. Kiran Smart's Mission is "To provide innovative, reliable and high-quality services to clients throughout GCC and globally." Its Vision is "To achieve global brand recognition as a finest solutions and services provider where customers find the optimal business solutions to their needs."
Sorting Out Problems of Customers
Kiran Smart's impact was hard regarding its services and solutions in the market. In the beginning, when it came to the market as a new brand, it concentrated on those customers who did not get the services and solutions they were looking for.
Kiran Smart started targeting those difficult customers. Then Kiran Smart entered to sort out the problems of its customers with its solutions and services. It started building its trust like this in the market locally. Now customers give it the first call if they have any issues, and its prices are unbeatable because its solutions are very innovative. It keeps its expertise as technical support on top, and solutions are the combination of different products to make it more innovative.
Tapping Potential of Robotics, AI and Fintech
Every solution and service must be available easily, whether it is an urban area or a rural area. So, Mohammed will put much effort into making it easy access to everyone as the world moves towards an advanced level in Robotics, AI, and Fintech. Therefore, one of the major changes that Mohammed will look into is bringing the robots to do the job ASAP when humans are not available in the technological industry.
Transformation of Humans in the Digital World
Mohammed states that the next big change in digital transformation would be the human body. The human body
Kiran Smart effectively combines technical expertise and domain knowledge to offer customized Computer Networking Solution and System Integration solution to its customers.
Mohammed Mubin Mallick CEO and Founder Kiran Smart
parts would be the communication mode with digital interaction whether one talks about payment, access, or travel. He believes that it is not the digital transformation, but there will be a big change in the human transformation in the digital world. There would be more, and the mobile device would be everything for a single person in the future. Smart mobile will become daily life ID and transaction for humans. This is just a start but more to be seen.
Kiran Smart is focusing on these trends and changes too. At the same time, it is also building some solution that a person can have everything in one single app. This will be one of the digital suitcase revolutions. In the world, from a baby to an adult can have this.
Solving Personal and Professional Problems of People
In the long run, Mohammed wants to help people around the globe solve their issues in their business and personal life. Kiran Smart always talks about business development and money, but it never discusses people's problems. Mohammed's objectives are solving people's problems related to their personal life and professional life while Kiran Smart is doing business worldwide.
Kiran Smart's main future goal is to expand globally to resolve problems by offering its best solutions and services.
Forecasting Technology in terms of Technology World
Mohammed mentions that the technology sector is a vast industry. Therefore, he advises aspiring entrepreneurs to choose a field they are experts in. He advises them to watch what is going on in the world regarding the latest technology development and develop the capabilities to forecast the future in terms of the technology world.
Enroute to Success
The greatness of a person or leader has to be estimated by his or her ability to thrive even in the most provoking or challenging situations. It is in the tough times that one’s mettle is tested. And it is at the same time one has the opportunity to prove one’s mettle. It is said that patience is bitter, but its fruits are sweet. The more one is able to hold one’s nerves even in the challenging times and continue to fight for success, the more one will be able to crossover even the toughest challenges. Life rewards those who put in sincere hard work and strive for achievements. “As we sow, so shall we reap.” Success is not the cakewalk, but it is about repeated efforts day in and day out.
There is no free lunch in this business-minded world. One has to be prepared to make the necessary sacrifices for accomplishing something worthwhile in this world, especially in the world of business. One has to accomplish something in this world to earn the trust of people and thereby to be the well-wisher of people. One can contribute a lot to others when he or she has gained worthwhile accomplishments to create his or her credibility. The reliability of leaders increases in great proportion when they deliver results more than expected by others. The reliability or credibility of leaders is directly proportional to the expansion of the businesses.
Morality is the Foundation forVictory
Great business leaders are aware that it is important to lead with morality. They consider it is very important to keep the morale of everyone in their organization very high. High morale helps in taking the most courageous decisions. They understand that it is essential to deliver what is expected by clients or even beyond thinking well ahead of the clients. This is where the innovativeness in leaders plays a big role. That is the reason they keep it on high priority to be well updated with the latest technologies and they are keen to implement those technologies in their businesses.
Determination, Dedication, and Discipline
Determination, Dedication, and Discipline form a big part of success. There is a huge significance of resolute determination to succeed in the world of business. The world is filled with cut-throat competition. To sustain one’s competency in the business world, one has to keep on improving oneself and everyone in the organization to create massive success. The journey sometimes can be filled with a lot of challenges, but if one has a determination to persist then one can achieve one’s goals in due course of time. Dedication gives life to one’s purpose and goals. It is very much synonymous with leading with purposefulness. The stronger the purpose the greater can be the dedication to achieve it. And Discipline is the bridge between success and failure. Without discipline, nothing substantial can ever be accomplished in life. One has to pay the price of resolute determination, absolute dedication, and high discipline to be successful in the world of business.
What Not to Do?
As much as it is important to know what to do, it is also equally important to know what not to do. Doing what is favorable for success and avoiding what is harmful for success should be avoided at any cost. For business leaders to succeed in the business world, they should be well aware not to waste their precious resources after bad money or bad deals. They should not throw their good money behind bad money via negative deals. They should be calculative and should take calculative decisions related to where to invest and where not to.
Having a Right Mentor is the Key
Having a good mentor goes a long way in making highvalue decisions. One should choose that person as one’s mentor who has demonstrated one’s character and competence in one’s chosen field. Great leaders are not just interested in being great leader themselves only, but they would like to create more great leaders. By choosing a capable leader as one’s mentor, one will be able to attain great heights in life in a short span of time. One good mentor is worth more than all the books in the library.
Books also play a huge role in the lives of great leaders, but the help of a mentor is priceless as one will be able to develop oneself more quickly with the help of a good mentor and avoid the mistakes that previous leaders have done. Great leaders become great because they don’t shy at accepting good mentors in life. They are open to learning from all. They know that they don’t have all the time in the world to commit all mistakes and then learn and then apply. Therefore, they prefer to avoid mistakes on the journey by having a good mentor in life.
It is a mark of great leaders to do justice to their roles, routines, relationships, and responsibilities. They also build such a type of culture in their fellow teammates and employees and staff in the organization. This helps them to achieve greatness in their business by building an organization with responsible and competent people. They lead by example and with resolute determination and with a goal to deliver more than needed. They thrive on their purpose and necessary actions. They do what needs to be done with due diligence and they set the standards for everyone else to follow and that is the reason they become admirable.
Ran Rachlin
The 10 Most Innovative Business Leaders to Follow in 2022
he growing significance of Crowdsourced is Tbecoming more reliable to get constructive feedback and insights to develop an utterly bug-free product before launch. The amount of flexibility that these tests provide is helpful in numerous applications, permutating various scenarios as a part of quality improvement. To contribute to making digital products bugfree, RanRachlin co-founded Ubertesters. He leads the company as the CEO implying his extensive global experience in various industries to offer unmatched crowd testing services.
Ubertesters is a crowd-based, complete mobile apps/web testing solution provider. The company offers a crowd of global, professional testers for hire with devices that can test any digital product and provide feedback to clients.
The Lead-Up
Ran trained himself to become an effective leader from a very young age having a global view. When he took his first job in sales in a Hi-Tech Israeli Company that sold products globally, his goal was to gain cross-cultural experience. Later, he moved to the USA to complete his MBA and make a living in the center of where things happen. He advanced in his roles, climbing up the ladder, holding several high-profile management positions, conducting business across six continents in different industries. Ran decided to leave the safety of corporate life in 2013 to cofound Ubertesters - a startup in the field of software testing.
Crowdsourced testing is the most flexible, fast, easy, and cost-effective way to scale your QA testing just when needed. Anytime! Anywhere!
One of Ran's main challenges is how to keep the team inspired and motivated. He firmly believes that success should come from teamwork, allowing team members to speak their minds to provide or suggest how to improve things. He understands that when an employee feels valued, the motivation level is significantly increased. He also tries to provide clear goals to avoid micromanagement by completely trusting his team and asking them to be responsible and accountable for their actions. He says, "When they make a mistake or fail, I don't punish them. I use this as a trigger to learn a valuable lesson and what to do next time to avoid this mistake. I believe that these guidelines allow me to keep my team motivated and inspired."
The Testing Excellence
Ran mentions that he was excited when companies such as 'Uber,' 'AirBNB,' 'Lime,' and Zipcar came to the world. "The "sharing economy" (or gig economy) term blew my mind. It allows companies to use available resources to benefit clients while allowing the resources to earn money. I helped implement this within the software testing segment."
One of the significant changes Ubertesters does is providing the opportunity for young, inexperienced QA people who completed their QA education to gain experience in the QA and testing world. It works with many QA schools worldwide and allows recent graduates to get their first testing experience by working for us as freelance testers. It enables them to earn money during their free time. More importantly, it allows them to gain the needed testing experience and put this job experience in their resume while looking for their first job opportunity in the IT world.
A Reliable Partner
Ubertesters offers a complete software testing solution for digital products to help organizations beta test their digital products before launching. It provides two complementary services:
1) A crowd testing service of global, professional freelance testers for hire with devices (part of the "sharing economy"
Ran Rachlin
Co-founder & CEO
model) for the most flexible and cost-effective global testing under real-life conditions. 2) Offshore outsourcing services of remote QA experts on a full-time basis based in the company's East European facilities.
Ran notes that Ubertesters has a clear vision "to provide cost-effective, innovative, and quality testing services that exceed the expectations of its esteemed customers." Its mission statement can be summarized as "help digital organizations launch better, well-tested, bug-free products by enhancing natural best testing practices while providing exceptional customer services."
Ubertester aims to help digital consumers (the end-user) get a tremendous bug-free product from its business customers for a better, faster, simpler, and no-frustration digital experience.
A Fast Paced Platform
Ran understands that technology and human touch are the main values Ubertester provides. It had to develop its proprietary QA management platform to allow easy bug reporting. The platform enables the testers to easily submit bugs and issues (including video recordings and screenshots) while providing the client with an easy-to-use and precise tool to review the bugs/crashes. Technology allowed us to simplify the bug reproduction process for the client. Thus, allowing the client a much faster 'time-tomarket.'
What the Future Holds
Ran states that Ubertesters aspires to become the #1 global player in the field of crowdsourced testing within the next three years period. It will achieve this by growing through creativity, invention, and innovation.
According to Ran, the following significant change in the professional app testing industry is Mobile Test Automation. The trend of mobile app development continues to grow as mobile devices are increasingly more intelligent and capable.
Mobile test automation must be a part of the software development life cycle to fully support 'time-to-market' and the fact that mobile apps are becoming more complicated. However, the current utilization of mobile test automation is very low, partly due to the lack of methods and tools and the multitude of devices, and the fragmentation of operating systems. He strongly believes that automated testing for the mobile app will continue to increase. This trend is driven by the need to shorten time-to-market and more advanced methods and tools for mobile test automation.
Ubertesters is working hard to be part of the future alternatives for mobile test automation. Its development roadmap includes a solution to allow its clients to use the Ubertesters platform to perform mobile test automation.
Personally, Ran sees himself developing Ubertester, ensuring it continues to grow in the next few years. He hopes to build a new company to find a product that will help humanity by improving the quality of life and life longevity.
Empathetic Approach
"Take Care of Your Team" is the most valuable advice Ran implies in his work. He says, "Trust your team and let them shine but also be prepared to accept responsibility when things don't go as planned. Help your employees advance their careers and always respect them. As a leader, maintain the 'personal touch and often speak to your team. Lastly, stay humble. Humility is not a weakness; it's a strength.”
