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The intellectual centers of the UCU Lviv Business School have prepared articles for you on top topics, which worry the entire world:

Everybody knows it is important for leaders to show confidence and competence. But only this is not enough. Why Vulnerability Leads to Great Leadership? Gerard Seijts, who is a Professor of Organizational Behaviour, a lecturer at Canada’s leading business school «Ivey Business School», guest lecturer at LvBS tells us about that.

What are the main mistakes that US startups make when they approach European market and what unprecedented opportunities have emerged as a result of the pandemic? You can read about it in «Stephen McIntyre» for «Harvard Business Review».

The crisis caused by COVID-19, like any other crisis, opens up many opportunities and possibilities, especially for education. Roksoliana Voronovska, CEO of LvBS Consulting, talks about online education, experience in creating distance learning courses and practical life hacks.

Simply put, followers want more than a strong leader. They also want to relate to the person in charge. So to be a good leader, you have to be okay with occasionally looking bad, or at least imperfect. You must be able to admit mistakes and accept help from others. As John Furlong, head of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, noted in my book “Good Leaders Learn,” pretty much every human being has experienced the feeling of “being in way over my head,” so the more willing any leader is to be vulnerable, the more willing people will be to accept he or she as a leader.

It looks like the worst COVID-19 crisis is over. Mankind has already outlived that unprecedented fear and uncertainty, the incertitude about the future. Unfortunately, many of us have experienced the pain of loss – the loss of a job, our own business, our health and our loved ones. What could be worse than that? 

We do not know yet the aftereffects of the pandemic. But gradually we begin to feel them. 36% of people say they have signs of depression (two years ago this number was 10%). The need of self-care is constantly growing – both at home and at work. Working with irritated and tired by the pandemic people is becoming an extremely difficult challenge for employers (whether it is business or government).

There is an obligatory for implementation task – to take responsibility for improving people’s mental health, to increase employees’ sense of well-being. Who should do it? First of all, it is a task for leaders. These are people who will understand how to manage organizations in a new, post-Covid era. 

True human leadership is the key to success. The ability to show that you [as a leader]  are like everyone else  and can be wrong, vulnerable, imperfect and willing to learn from your own failures is a sign of good leadership. On the one hand, a leader who is meek, accepts and admits his/her own mistakes, improves ethically and morally, and acquires competencies and skills. Such a leader is capable of utmost and his positive influence is greater. On the other hand, the ability to demonstrate weakness shows the followers that it is quite natural and that everyone has the right to make mistakes. In this case, the leader inspires and gives support (perhaps without even realizing it).

Being a meek and vulnerable leader and having authority over the followers at the same time is not easy. This is especially true for Ukrainians. After all, very often our society takes meekness as a demonstration of weakness and deficiency of character (many factors are the reason for that). Even a study conducted by the Center for Leadership of UCU found that, while evaluating leaders, meekness ranks last among all 11 virtues of the  Leadership based on character concept. So, it is a challenge to be ready for that and to prepare your team for such perception. Moreover, it is important to show this meеkness at the right time, in the right situation. To do this, leaders need to develop another virtue, critical judgment, which is central to the concept of leadership and “regulates” all the others. 

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 Center for Leadership of UCU  is a joint project Lviv Business School (LvBS) of UCU, Institute of Leadership and Management of UCU, and School of Public Management of UCU, brought into action in partnership and cooperation with Institute of Leadership at Ivey Business School.

HBR¹ 

“The New Republic”² 

 ³ Л́іга плюща́

⁴TD Bank Group 

Nataliia Popovych, founder of the group of companies One Philosophy

When do you think we will be able to return to the “new normalcy” after quarantine and what will it be like?

I believe that our understanding of “new normalcy” will be constantly changing, so it will not be a static phenomenon.  In the nearest two-three years we will live like in turbulence, connected with the availability of vaccines, the desire to be vaccinated, new strains of the virus possible emergence, new waves of quarantine or lockdown. We will just get used to it. We can see that in the last year companies and businesses have already been through some experience and become more resilient. The aspect of resilience needs to be put into management focus and often measured to see how much the companies are ready for the crises, whether they have a tried and tested plans for different life events. The focus on resilience helps us to learn how to react on different situations in future, foresee them and be ready for them.

For example, in our company, “One Philosophy”, following our first in Ukraine study of organization resilience, we have developed a tool for measuring resilience – Resilience Radar, which allows you to look at business on six criteria: values, mission, team vision, adaptability to changes, innovation, high-quality (or not) the client’s way of organization and the quality of customer relations and the brand or reputation strength, etc. All these components interact and help us to understand if the company is resilient or not. If, during such a study, organizations find a weaker link and work at it, they will be ready for any reality that comes.

Is the idea and philosophy of resilience inherent for our companies?

The organizations come to changes and understanding in a variety of ways.

It seems to me that over the past year, all organizations have realized that without employees and care for them business even can’t “move on”, not to speak about prosper.

Without people nobody can turn into reality his/her business dreams. The pandemic has made us realize that if we don’t take care of our workers today, who will work for us tomorrow?

Quarantine has a negative effect on people, they often feel tired and irritated. How to work with such people, what tools do you use?

Last year we all were tested on the limits of our personal resilience and mental health. The situation was also stirred up by the fact that the quarantine lasted during the religious holidays and we were limited in traveling during our days off. Many people reacted very negatively on the physical restrictions of their freedom and inability to travel. I am not speaking about violation of normal family life, when parents had to work and at the same time spend more time with their children than usual.

  At the end of last year, my team and I reflected. We discussed the questions such as: What would we like to let go? What irritated and tired us? We even gave these reflections in small groups some names: “What we want to leave in 2020″ and “What we want to enter 2021 with.” To do this, we divided the employees into teams of 8-9 people, in which they, even if it was online, but had the opportunity to share their pains. There were many consensus views, many dissenting opinions. This is the benefit of the reflections, which we all neglected before the pandemic.

We started a new year with boosting one of our values of self-awareness, because we understand that we will have to work in a hybrid format for a long time, and there will always be many challenges around. We read new books and mulled over them, started meditation classes, held every Monday morning. This helped to get relieved during the gray winter, because for many people Monday was a very difficult day. My colleagues and I also started a training program which is an interpretation of Bob Johansen’s meta-skills (Bob Johansen developed a strategy for effective response to company’s risks. – editor). A few years ago I began to research the skills of the future according to his concept, which explains the importance of being able to work with paradoxes, whipping into a fear, realizing how much my actions are harmonious with what the organization offers me. Regarding these topics, in the summer we will have 5-6 seminars, where the whole team will work on these meta-skills.

  
We also have “Wednesday learning session”. These are two-hour reflections or joint trainings, which take place every Wednesday. For many people the pandemic has become an impetus to reevaluate people’s knowledge and realize the need for constant development and learning. We all know that in the past people could study for 4 years for Bachelor’s degree and then work for 40 years in this profession, but now every four years it is necessary to pass a test after some advanced training and learning new skills at the same time.

Looking back and having business experience during the pandemic, what three tips would you have given yourself at the beginning of quarantine?
It is very important to stay calm while going through the changes. We didn’t panic. Looking back on those steps we made, I can see that we have acted in the right way just we shouldn’t have worried so much. I would also have taken much easier those policies which the organization should change while switching to remote work. We quickly said goodbye to the part of the office as far as we understood that it would be unnecessary for a long time because of social distance and safety issues. We also distributed our office furniture to employees so that people could work from home. Now it seems obvious, because people need to be provided with an office at home, but a year ago it seemed a bit strange, because you do not make such decisions every day when you need to create 60 smaller offices from one big office. Perhaps even faster thinking up of such small even logistical solutions could have reduced the stress and anxiety that workers felt.

From my previous experience during the crises I knew that crises always show and strengthen the team, although, a great appreciation and understanding of this would also have made some decisions easier.

Another important tip is communication. It is never too much, and the things that seem obvious to us, are never obvious to others. So we had daily leadership meetings, discussions with the heads of agencies about the changes and approval of new rules. I think that at the beginning of the pandemic the amount of communication with the wider One Philosophy team should have been increased even more, more frequently organize nonspontaneous spontaneous meetings, so then people might have had an easier time.

How do you think the “employer-employee” relationship will change in post-pandemic times?
For some businesses, this relationship will be an even more dramatic change than they think, especially if their relationship has been enshrined according to “employer-employee” cliché.

Now managers need a so-called “new humane agreement” with their employees, where they see more human beings in them and treat them as integral partners. It will work out because in the organizations that create big brands employees will become co-creators and influence further development.

Yes, these people will set certain rules of the game in the organization. It will be possible to monitor their decisions, to see who really cares about business common interests, and who in the team is only a freelancer or separate player. Instead, if the employer and employees have a productive relationship, organizations in this chaotic world will be able to be innovative, easily adapt and find new interesting services for customers, multiply new customers, which will be the key to success. I am glad that Gary Hemel and Michele Zanini’s book “Humanocracy” was published in Ukrainian this year. In this book Ukrainian managers can find many interesting recipes on how to unlock creativity in their organization, but in order to do that most of them will have to move away from the traditional Ukrainian management bureaucracy, from long distance between the manager and the ordinary worker, culture of control (instead of trust) and other unsuccessful practices. They should be left in the past.

What new quarantine habits would you like to take with you into the future?

I would like to continue to use such a new habit as “measuring the temperature” – to ask employees more often about what they lack, what they need, whether certain actions make sense.

This habit to ask and correct the strategy or practice, depending on the answers, is extremely important. The next skill, which, as I hope, will become a habit, will be the ability to regularly get rid of unnecessary things.

Last year we made a “cleaning”, we got rid of everything that is not used anymore. These could be unnecessary offices, procedures, products which are not relevant anymore. We will also cultivate a habit to communicate spontaneously, because our employees really need that.

I also believe that the pandemic strengthen the intended need to make experiments and create something new constantly: from the research “Resilient” to Resilience Radar, to newly created during the pandemic new practice of consulting on the quality of medical services in Ukraine, which is necessary habit for our future. 

What new values, traditions of corporate culture and work with people will we see in the world that defeated COVID-19?
We have recently conducted “Gradus” survey, where it was found out that 44% of Ukrainians lack humanity and almost 30% lack respect. The pandemic has shown how the lack of attention towards people in their companies is a counterproductive method. Every manager and every team should strive to change that. We must learn to say “thank you”, to give correct feedback, to hear each other and to respect personal boundaries.I am convinced that we cannot be a successful society if we are united by only one value of freedom, which is dominant for Ukraine. We need a mixture of different values for resilient culture. Until there is no combination of freedom, responsibility, humanity and equality in Ukraine, we will suffer, but if we balance our values, we will prosper. 

                                                                                            The speaker was Sofia Opatska

У прем’єрному епізоді спілкуємось про ментальне здоров’я з Ігором Заставним – керівником напрямку медичного менеджменту Львівської бізнес-школи УКУ, кандидатом медичних наук, сімейним лікарем. Ведуча: Ганна Гавриш.

Говоримо про піраміду ментального здоров’я. І місце у ній самодопомоги, освіти, громади, працедавця та колег. Чому своє ментальне здоров’я має бути на першому місці? Чому важливий графік? Що він дає? І як та для чого відкладати компи та смартфони за 2 години до сну?

«Якщо не приділиш увагу собі, постраждають усі навколо» (с) Ігор Заставний

Мультимедійний проект Insight Inside присвячений ментальному здоров’ю та життю після пандемії у постковідній реальності. Що змінилось у житті та бізнесі? І як перебудуватись, аби не втратити, а набути? Слухайте на SoundCloud, Google та Apple podcasts.

Спілкуємось про ментальне здоров’я з Олегом Романчуком – лікарем, психотерапевтом, психіатром, директором Інституту психічного здоров’я УКУ. Ведуча: Ганна Гавриш.

Говоримо про стан нашого ментального здоров’я як невидиму проблему. Яка, виявляється, є третьою причиною смертності в світі. Про психічну резилієнтність, корисну тривогу та надмірні деструктивні переживання. Яка між ними різниця та як давати з ними раду? Чому важливо плекати своє психічне здоров’я та що для цього треба?

«Пандемія стала викликом для нашого ментального здоров’я, бо ми зустрілись з втратами. Але, попри це, карантин не має бути втраченим часом. Просто іншим! Ми навіть маємо шанс стати ближчими, якщо близькі душею» (с) Олег Романчук

Мультимедійний проєкт Insight Inside присвячений метальному здоров’ю та життю після пандемії у постковідній реальності. Що змінилось у житті та бізнесі? І як перебудуватись, аби не втратити, а набути? Слухайте на SoundCloud, Google та Apple podcasts.

«He opened his last two restaurants while studying at LvBS»

Oleksandr Penkivskyi is the Key Executive MBA program of the Lviv Business School of UCU (LvBS) graduate, an owner of the “City Café” restaurant chain (Ternopil). In addition, he actively organizes tours. He has implemented a great deal of charity projects, but prefers not to talk about it, because he adheres to a principle that charity should be quiet. He reads about 30 books a year, loves to travel and change the world for the better.

«City cafe» consists of 5 restaurats: Pasta Fresca, Barbaresko, Le Rock, Piazza  (the town of Chortkiv) та INSHYY Prosecco Pub. Oleksandr opened his last two restaurants while studying at LvBS. During the pandemic any of the employees hasn’t been signed off. 

Oleksandr shared how he started his own business, what challenges he faced during the crisis, how his studying at LvBS has affected his business and what the restaurant industry will look like after the pandemic.

Оlexander, you are one of the most famous restaurateurs in Ternopil. Could you please tell us how did you start your business? Was it a restaurant industry since the beginning and why did you choose it?

It all started when I was 20 and I decided to get my feet wet abroad. Under the “Work and Travel USA” program I went to the United States and was bent to get into big money. And big money and America means construction. I am not endowed with special physical abilities, but I was hired.

The developer was an ethnic Pole and we got on well. After three months in America, I no longer worked physically, but had people under my control. But at that moment I realized that if it went on like that, “the glass ceiling would appear very quickly. That meant that my pathway was clear to me – what would happen in a year, five, ten, fifteen… Probably the biggest thing that motivated me to return to my country was the understanding that I would never blend in there.

After my returning to Ukraine, I thought: “what should I do next?” I studied in Ternopil and come from Zhytomyr. Then a semi-genius idea came up to me. I decided to establish a kind of a business for the installation of tombstones. But then I made two mistakes: I took business partners and did not look into all potential scenarios. Finally, the first season of this unjoyful activity ended up with a large number of unfinished orders and a total debt of $ 4,000 (the price of a one-room apartment at the time).

 After long and difficult thoughts and hesitations, I turned to my close friend Yurii Fyliuk (a businessman, restaurateur, one of the initiators of the “Warm City” environment and one of the idea authors of creating a public restaurant “Urban Space 100”. – Editor.) from Ivano-Frankivsk. He advised me to start organizing concerts. However, I had debts and no understanding of how to run such a business. But I decided to try.

This is probably fate – my first concert was for the “Ocean Elzy” band with their album “Gloria”. Yura preacquainted me with them, but they stipulated a condition, which was to give an advance in amount of 4 thousand dollars. I thought then that it was an epic number for me. Of course, I did not have such money, I barely dig up a thousand, but they gave me a chance. I was supposed to pay them back in two weeks. That’s how the cooperation began. The tickets were sold out “with a bang.” I have organized many concerts in my life, but I have never had such success as that first time. The end of the story is very positive as that project let me earn more than 4 thousand dollars, so I was able to clear all my debts.

At the same time, I met the famous showman Serhiy Prytula, and we both were dreaming of big business. We did something, we earned something give or take. And then the fertile time of elections in Ukraine started and organization of eight “Kvartal 95”’s concerts in eight cities came out of the blue. They supported one of the political parties at that time.  Serhiy worked in Kyiv at that time, so I organized everything. We made jack then and after that I realized that putting on concerts in only one city was not interesting for me anymore. So I started to expand my geography: Lutsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnytsky… It all ended sometime in 2010, when I consistently “covered” 12-15 cities, systematically and constantly. As the 2010 crises affected this industry deeply, I began to think again, “What’s next?” You are constantly dependent on something either the artist or the people. To understand people is like to get a handle of space. At such moments, I often remembered Hilton’s autobiographical book (Conrad Hilton, an American businessman, a founder of the Hilton hotel chain, and author of a book titled “Be My Guest”- editor). He said: “Until the age of 42, I invested in completely sure things. And I constantly lost. At the age of 42 I started to manage my first hotel. “That’s the phrase I go through my life with. Since I’m not 42 yet, I decided not to “be down”. I asked Yuriy again for advice. He boasted that he had opened a cafe. We spent a lot of time together and so the idea to open the first restaurant appeared.  

 How was everything developing?

I was supposed to open a restaurant with 35 seats, but it turned out that my first restaurant called “Fayne Misto Ternopil” had 160 seats and at that time (we speak about 2012. – Editor’s note) was really the largest restaurant in the downtown. It still works.

This is my first restaurant, built together with my wife from the scratch. But here again I had some tough time with my partners, so I always repeat: “if you ever have the idea to do business with politicians, government officials or anyone who has access to public funds, throw it out.”

I have already had several such attempts and each of them had a predictably sad demise. And that gave me the impetus to move on. I felt the need to do something, and so there was, in fact, a second, but my first “entirely mine” separate business – a restaurant of Italian cuisine “Pasta Fresca”. It also works successfully up to present.

Next… I often walked by one place in the central part of the city, it seems to me it was a second-hand shop, and I was thinking of how cool it would be to open a restaurant there. Then I found out who the owner of that place was, came to him and shared my idea. However, he took a critical look at it, even he arranged for consulting several times and they claimed that it was impossible. One day, with God’s help, I convinced him. It wasn’t easy, but that’s how my third restaurant, Barbaresko, saw a light of day. After that, a team of like-minded people and I opened a pub with our own brewery named “Le Rock”. Later I opened a restaurant in the city of Chortkiv called “Piazza”. By the way, I opened my last two restaurants while studying at the Business School.

What about scaling, what motivated you to open more and more new restaurants? How many are there now and how many jobs have you created?

  The chain now has five restaurants. There were some instantaneous seasonal objects. But seasonal business in Ternopil, probably, as well as in Lviv, for some reason doesn’t bring success for me. There are only three active months of summer work and nine months of upkeeping and constantly dealing with burning issues. There are 200 people in my staff today, but there are some changes seasonally.

 What motivated? My life philosophy: moving is living, to stop means to die. And the second is the need for self-fulfillment. I always dreamt not to take over the world, but at least to make a sizable contribution. 

What do you think unites your restaurants now, what is special about them?

As the person who runs this mini-chain of institutions, I would like us to be united by the moving spirit. I really don’t like to call it “my restaurants”, because first of all it’s a team that does all the work, and today it is quite large.

We work not only for profit. There is still a large part of the so-called psychic income. I would say that our business is socially oriented. 

We are involved in charity and not only this. Yet, we do not publicize it. But this is probably more my viewpoint than the company’s. I follow the principle that charity should be quiet.

To my mind, it is interesting that all five institutions are completely different. It means that we do not have two identical restaurants, each of them is special. Our last establishment is called ” Inshiy” (“a Different”). We wanted to send the message somehow; we “fought” for a long time about the name. People often ask why “a Different”. Because not like everyone else.

Speaking of the crisis, was there anything that had to be sacrificed, perhaps some of the institutions had to be closed?

All our restaurants have survived the crisis. It is clear that we had to forego certain tangible assets. Somewhere I read the phrase that everyone was waiting for a black swan, but a white elephant flied in. Until March 16, 2020 (according to the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers from March 17, 2020, the work of schools, restaurants, shopping centers, etc. was banned- editor’s note), life went on as usual and everything was absolutely normal. And we have a slightly specific business, because we do not produce the off the peg product. It is clear that money is made on deferrals; it means that we can take a product or manufactured article and pay for it, figuratively, in two weeks. Hence the money. And here, one day, you just stopped working – and that’s about it.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that we acted humanely. At that time we had about 200 people on the staff. When we realized that we were sending them on vacation not for a week or two, we paid in recompense, if I’m not mistaken, 4 thousand hryvnias to everyone. We also had a special fund. There was no sky-high money, but if someone needed money, he applied and we donated some money for it.

 In addition, when I realized that delivery is a problem, I thought it would be good to be useful to society at such a difficult time. I discussed this issue with the mayor and we decided to cater to two infectious diseases hospitals, children’s and adults’, hot lunches. Therefore, for three months, we provided food for 40 to 60 people a day. But then I got peeved at the mayor, because he posted everything on Facebook, and I didn’t want to publicize it.

Can we say that the quarantine still made some positive adjustments to the restaurant business?

Of course it did.  Churchill said that “success is the ability to walk from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” Without question, the quarantine has changed the world, the country and us both as people and as an industry. In general, we have learned to work much better with such things as savings, leftovers, purchases, as well as to predict how much goods are needed. For our structure, I think the biggest victory is that all the people we had before the quarantine stayed with us after the quarantine. That is, during the entire period of the pandemic, we did not lay off any workers, despite all the inconvenient moments.

In general, quarantine restrictions have significantly affected the running of the restaurant industry. What were the biggest challenges for you and how did you manage to adapt to the new conditions?

They had a dramatic effect. The biggest challenge is the complete lack of any stability. This is the first and most important thing, because nothing could be planned or predicted, because no one understood whether it would end in May or July, or in 10 years at all.

Our approach has not changed much; we treated our staff, as well as our guests, as honestly as possible. The restaurateurs thought that if the quarantine was announced tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow the number of deliveries would not just increase, but take off. However, in the first quarantine week, we realized that the delivery is the crutches that will help the restaurant business to crawl until the end of the quarantine. It not only yields to poor returns but it was a fight for breaking even. But at the same time, we tried to develop a model so that those people who worked for us could earn at least something. Wage rates were not crucially, but reduced. We equalized absolutely everyone, regardless of level or position, everyone worked at the same rate of UAH 500 per day – no more and no less (before quarantine, for example, a chef earned 700 UAH). Sometimes we managed to make money per day, and sometimes we didn’t, but in the end, I was proud that we shared everything honestly with the staff and managed to make flexible work schedules. We gave the staff a free hand. To those who had their own car, we offered to deliver food, so as not to pay intermediaries. We weaseled our way out.

 The most difficult, perhaps, was to communicate with landlords. Out of five restaurants, we are the owners of only one and the other four are leaseholds. I had different opinions about the people who lease space. And quarantine became a check for humanity.

Of course, I had to immolate my profit and I did it with my eyes open. I believe when business is lame in the left leg, the state should do everything possible to be useful. The government has talked a lot about business support, but in fact has not taken any remarkable measures. If we speak, for example about public-service utilities or taxation.

On a global scale, we can say that if we speak about telling tolls so those people who didn’t have assets to outlast this period, just failed. I read the statistics that at the beginning of May, after more than a year of quarantine, 20% of businesses in Ukraine closed. I think it’s 99% related to the relationship with the landlords.

In Lviv, when strict quarantine restrictions were introduced, restaurateurs united and joined some initiatives. I wonder to what extent in Ternopil restaurateurs communicate with each other and act on a “win-win” basis? Is it still a more competitive business game?

Ternopil is actually a bit of a specific city and not as big as Lviv. But such things happened. Sometime in April, when everyone realized that the quarantine would last long, they initiated a meeting of restaurateurs, where we all gathered and wrote an appeal to the authorities. It would be unfair to say that the local authorities fell in deaf ears. In 2020, the support was very high. From time to time we met, cried out for, created some associations, but it all ended in trite, and to my mind, unpleasant way, because the people who initiated these meetings, after some time started to break these deals. So everything fell into pieces. Some people refused to observe guideline not to work after 22:00. One man even renamed his restaurant into a church. To be honest, at that point, I left that association. After all, in my value-based outlook on life, that wasn’t any good. There are some red lines that cannot be crossed.

But in general, they tried to unite, even tried to do some cool things. Something worked and something didn’t.

How are you planning to recover after the Corona crises? What will you place greater emphasis on?

In general, our plan is very simple. We will try to do our work as efficiently and productively as possible. Today we can confidently say that despite the financial indicators (we have not recovered yet for over 60%), there are small advantages, in particular, in terms of optimization. I think that our recovery will be connected with the recovery of the whole economic situation in the country. After all, we understand that a restaurant for a person is like a luxury. We live in a city with only 220,000 people. And here are some nuances and limitations.

And we will focus on quality, and as always – on honesty, quality, work with staff… On such simple and trite things.

This business consists of little things. I set the tasks as follows: the more these little things we find and influence on them and change them, the better the results will be.

What are your expectations about restaurant business recovery in Ukraine in general? How long will it take to reach pre-quarantine rates?

I believe that everything here will depend on the epidemic situation in general and to what extent people’s lives will return to normal. Online will never replace live communication and this is the fact. It seems to me that if we are more or less vaccinated and some went through the illness, there will be a certain stabilization period lasting from six months to a year. But, again, this period may be shortened, as many businesses simply will not survive until then. We should understand that there are many companies which work with credit funds, and many which live here and now. And if there is no financial cushion – it is impossible to survive. This business may not die in a day, but in a month or two or three it doesn’t have money to pay salaries and rents – and that’s the end.

  I can say that the market of 2012-2015 and the market of 2018-2021 are incomparable. Everyone has already forgotten about the super profits. It means, if in 2012 the average profitability was about 30%, today, if you can manage to have from 12 to 15%, you can be considered as a super cool.

What are your basic rules / formulas for successful business?

The first and the crucial one is to work honestly. It doesn’t matter if we speak about staff, team, guests or suppliers. I believe that a hard-boiled appraisal of the situation and honest attitude to things and events are the first evaluation of success. And no matter how painful or difficult it is, we need to talk about it honestly.

Also, one of the key virtues that I always try to convey is human decency. I really like the analogy to the situations when people buy tickets for concerts; they always ask the organizer if there is a live sound. The same works with restaurants. For some reason, many people think that a restaurant is a place where everyone steals and cheats. In fact, this is not the case, but we will have to break the mold for many years to come.

     How to succeed? I can’t identify myself as a super successful person, but my winning formula is very simple: the more you work, the luckier you are. I don’t really believe in Bill Gates or Steve Jobs’ success stories in Ukrainian reality. But, apparently, they are possible. In general, try harder, work harder and sooner or later the result will come.

I remember while studying at the Business School we had a “Strategic Planning” module, and then the lecturer told me: “Olexander, remember once and for all, a dream is not a strategy.” You need to clearly understand what you want to do tomorrow or the day after, in a year’s time or in 10 years’ time. Today I have a vision for tomorrow – more or less by 2030 I know what to do and where to run to make it real. And then it’s a matter of effort – mine and my team’s.

How has studying in the Key Executive MBA program affected your business? Why did you choose this training and LvBS?

I really wanted to get better, to sharpen my own business, but I crucially was lacking skills and a global vision. It is clear that there is a concept of “I want”. I want a hundred restaurants, it’s cool, so what? Why this program? – I did not even consider others.

 I had a choice between two schools – Kmbs and LvBS. But when I first came here for an interview, I realized that there is no alternative, no offense meant to Kmbs. One more plus was that geographically it was convenient for me to get here.

What has changed in business? It became bigger. To be more precise, I have moved from some meager operational movements to strategic planning.  Besides, after finishing this business school I realized that the world is much bigger than I could imagine and there are much wider possibilities in it. Perhaps, I won’t be able to make all my ambitious plans fly, but even today I am very satisfied that even if we do not do super-global things, I believe, we are doing everything properly. 

What were your expectations from the program and how much valuable this studying was for you? 

I thought I would get information overload and be capable of everything. After the МВА my world has changed, but it became different in a fundamental and global outlook on life. I consider communication with all those involved – teachers, school management, and most of all – with my group (this is my love in general) to be a great achievement. I adore everyone, we still communicate today. People are very diverse, and this is a very cool community which exists even today and we are all happy to help each other.

If you ask “Is it any good doing it?” I will answer tritely: I had a choice: to buy a new car, which costs jaw-dropping price, or to study for MBA. I preferred the second one and I want to say that I don’t regret about it at all. I am just sad that this adventure is over. I am thinking about joining another program. The only thing a person has no right to stop doing is to study. It does not matter how.

The topic of your degree thesis was dedicated to the eating establishment chain to ensure an effective social component of the business. Tell us more about it. What did you manage to implement?

At the moment, my large-scale ambitious plans are paused. I do not hide it, but I think it is quite clear why.

What we managed to implement is the following: we actively support different charity projects, but as I previously mentioned, I don’t want to promote myself with that. I believe we influence the society in some way. If I was asked whether it would be possible to implement I would answer –yes, definitely. It is a matter of time. The last 1, 5 year of a kind of knock-out has taught us a lot. I want to repeat again that I am deeply convinced that the world will never switch to online life, despite different hypotheses. Moreover, in the Ukrainian realities in the next 100 years, this is, to put it mildly, difficult, if ever real.

My degree thesis vision was to launch 25 new objects and scale across Ukraine. Some work has already been done to reach it. The most positive thing is that people who visit our establishments from different parts of Ukraine call with offers to open a restaurant in their city on the terms of franchising. It inspires hope and faith that a glittering future is not far off.

Oleksandr, if it was not restaurant business, which one then?

What I do, I do not call the word “business”. I just live my life and get some kicks out of it. Now it is like that. Today, in addition to restaurants, I am still quite active in organizing tours. On average, I do about 30-40 events a year in the west of Ukraine, geographically, roughly speaking, from Zhytomyr to Uzhhorod.

 It is not so important for me what to do. As soon as you do something that you enjoy and you put your heart into it, it doesn’t matter whether you are a tailor, a carpenter or a successful businessman. For me, this is not essential, it is important to remain human.

 What is the concept of restaurant culture for you? And do you think the approaches to the hospitality industry in the world that has overcome the Corona crisis will change?

Long time ago I visited Prague and one restaurant there ,which is 120 years old. This is about culture. In Ukraine there are already some changes. I mean that you will not surprise anyone with French meat and cabbage salad anymore. We are really in trend, and to be honest, there is no such level of service abroad as we have. I have been to Norway with my children recently. I came, I ordered, bon appetite! Such a service as ours, where different flatware are given for different dishes, sparkling water, still water, warm or cold water – no one cares about that there. I feel we are also moving on this way. Power is in simplicity, because it is more comfortable for people. For example, no one builds fancy restaurant in Ternopil not because there is nobody who can do it, but because there is no demand for it.  Today we all are moving towards democracy and want to spend time with people and among people. There are no people willing to sit in a flashy establishment with sky-high prices. 

What do you think a return to “normal” will mean for this industry? What changes are irreversible?

I believe that “normal” means to be able to go out without masks, antiseptic, gloves and stop being terrified of other people. That situation that happened last year in Novy Sandzhary will remain with us forever and we will have to live with that. Will people become more careful and secure?  As I feel, it is more likely no than yes. I travel a lot around Ukraine and I see people’s behavior in the restaurants, at different events. To tell the truth, people are just tired. I believe as soon as the government wave the white flag and tells “you can live as you used to”, in two weeks we will forget about the quarantine. Man is a social being.

Looking back and having business experience during the pandemic, what three tips would you have given yourself at the beginning of quarantine?

The first tip. I would have implemented certain elements of lean-systems (the concept of management) much earlier. Its essence is to optimize business processes by maximizing focus on the customer’s (market’s) interests and needs and taking into account each employee’s motivation, so that all product orders occur exactly as needed. According to Toyota’s philosophy (the author of the concept is considered to be Taichi Ono, who developed a unique production system for Toyota Corporation).

The second tip. I would not have spent money so thoughtlessly, but would have formed a financial shield which would have helped me cope with the crisis more easily. 

And the third…  I would have thrown a supercool party for my employees so that we would have started the quarantine in a widely merry way. 

Rostyslav Kulyk, Key Executive MBA graduate of LvBS of UCU, CEO and founder of the ticket service “Gastroli.ua”.

He started his career at school. He is a cybernetic economist and worked for an IT company for three years. He completed his studies at LvBS at the beginning of the quarantine and the crisis. He is convinced that online in this business will never replace offline.

«Gastroli.ua» is a convenient and safe service for the sale of tickets to concerts, festivals, football, theaters, nightclubs and other events in Ukraine. The company works in two directions – organizing concerts and selling tickets. Starting in the spring of 2014, today “Gastroli.ua” is one of the most popular ticket services in Ukraine. The company is about to launch a powerful mobile application that should turn over the market.

Rostyslav Kulyk shared his own experience of doing business, the challenges he faced during the pandemic, told about the importance of training on the Key Executive MBA program and how the event industry will recover after the Corona crisis.

Rostyslav, could you please tell us about your business history starting from the concert organizer to opening of one of the most popular ticket services in Ukraine «Gastroli.ua»? How did you manage to refocus your favorite activity to your own business? 

This is a long story, lasting for 15 years. I started my career at school, holding discos, and continued at the institute. After that we worked on a big project at that time in “Romantic” club on Pohulianka: we delivered equipment from Poland (we didn’t have such equipment here yet), printed posters on a risograph and made tickets with our own hands. I remember that the entrance fee for such a big event cost about 2 UAH.

It was quite a long time ago, and gradually it was onward and upward from there, we started working with singers – from small underground groups to A-list celebrities, then with foreign stars working in electronic music, big festivals and so on. We are probably one of the first in Ukraine to start organizing concerts of electronic music world stars and later of foreign performers.

It means that we have been working as concert organizers for at least 15 years and as a ticket operator for 6 years. At that time, we paid fairly high commissions to existing ticket operators.

I had the illusion that I would be able to make my own ticket operator very quickly and I would spend 20-30 thousand dollars on it – that was only the first budget. As a result, the company increased to 50 people, dozens of programmers in a year and more than a million dollars was spent.

It took us one year to write software. At first I thought it would take us two-three months, but then we decided to launch high-quality product. We seem to have succeeded. We focused on producibility and user’s interface, which at that moment (I believe even now) is a showcase for our users, both clients and intelligent systems. It is necessary to realize that the customers who buy tickets are only 5% of our project, 95% are Promoter 2.0 intelligent systems, which is a flight control center for organizers who collect Big Data, analytics and it provides many convenient tools for managing your own ticket business. That is to say, it is a whole system, which from the start of the event to the scanning of tickets for this event gives the organizers a full cycle to comfortably work with their needs in ticket sales. It’s not just a transaction – these are much deeper tools.

«Gastroli.ua» is a Lviv startup, which has spread around the whole of Ukraine. What challenges have you faced at different stages of doing business?

There are many of them; I will single out a few quite complex ones. The first is that we developed very quickly; we grew twice a year for three years. This is a normal situation when a business does not keep up with its own development. And of course, there have been many different fuckups and troubles along the way, just a lot of them. But the main reason is not even that we developed too fast, we were simply not ready for it. And we rectified the mistakes and played by the ear.

 The second problem on the way to development was the issue of our large cash flow, which was very difficult to control, because of the company’s huge flows of money, we are speaking about hundreds of millions. And when you do not have time to calculate this prodigious amount, you do not have time to calculate the margin, you do not understand where you earn and where you spend, what you contribute – it turns out, that we grow all in all, and in capital position we also grow, but in terms of cash flow and business marginality we moved on the wrong way. That means that we have wasted too much of these resources.

And the third problem – for some reason we thought that the client means everything for us and that was a wrong thought. It means that we made any possible customization for any client, whatever he/she wanted. For example, “”I want my badge to be printed at the conference when my ticket is scanned, and my name, position, and everything else can be seen there.” And we did it all for free. And at some point, our software product was no longer stable, as it should have been, but became a product where many different feature sets were added, written chaotically, unsystematically, without proper checks, tests, and so on. Therefore, the system was very large and unstable. That is why, we concluded that we do not have to be led by the nose by every client, we better lose him/her, but we will have a stable service that will work and bring profit. Over time, we have rewrote all these services and made a more powerful and stable system. 

The event industry and show business have suffered the most from the Сorona crisis. What was the hardest and how did you initially respond to the challenges?

I’ve always said that I’m ready to change places with any of my friends who has, for example, a pizzeria or a jeans store. Our industry has suffered the most not only because of the total ban on mass events around the world – this is the first thing that has been banned and the last thing that will be “scraped” basically. Here the question is how cash flow is formed. The Cash flow for any event is formed so that we first “buy” the performing artist, then buy the location, then agree on an advertising campaign and launch the event. That is, the cycle of the event can last, for example, if it is a big festival, a year. If we speak about a big stadium concert it can take about 7-10 months. For the small concerts it works exactly in the same way. The problem is that the services we have already sold tickets for (and in the country, I think, there are already  “in the air” tickets which cost at least a billion hryvnia, which is hundreds of thousands of customers in general in the industry, and so around the world), could not be provided to customers. And it is impossible to give a refund. The money spent on advertising companies, a priori was lost. In numbers, in three days we stopped active projects (we went on radio stations and there was outdoor advertising – city lights, billboards. We had lost 100 thousand dollars, and then realized that nothing would be done. This happened on our small scale. On a nationwide scale, these are just epic proportions. To put it bluntly, if we make an analogy with a restaurant, it’s if we had known that we had invited a hundred guests and bought food for all of them, and all these products were spoiled. Besides, we still had to pay salaries to the chefs, pay for electricity and all the other expenses. Approximately, it is on this scale.

The second problem is that half of the artists cannot physically put on the rescheduled concerts. And if the concert is not postponed, then all tickets must be refunded. In fact, the organizer is responsible for each ticket, but he no longer had this money at the time of cancellation. It means that the organizer had invested money – had already spent it and had already lost, and in addition, he needed to refund all the tickets to the people.

And here, from both the organizer and the ticket operator’s sides there is a total struggle: customers who adored us, at one moment hated us.

Absolute hate, absolute abhorrence and in many cases absolute misunderstanding: “We don’t care what is going on, give us our money and we do not care a stitch.” Of course, there are a lot of loyal audiences, about 90% of them. But these 10% of “difficult” customers basically set the tone and make a fuss all the day long. All call centers in Ukraine closed in a month. Absolutely all. Just morally, not for all the money in the world, neither for 20 nor for 40 thousand UAH salaries, for any salary, we could not find a person who was ready to listen to the flow of hatred all day long in the call center.

  And then the standard problems began – lack of money, the signing off of dozens and hundreds of people. Because in March, as soon as the quarantine began, we postponed all the concerts to April, in April – to May, in May we thought that the maximum by mid-summer everything would end. This is when we talk about single concerts. If we talk about festivals, where 100-150 artists are announced, it is, roughly speaking, impossible. The borders are closed; foreign stars cannot fly at all.

That’s why we didn’t just suffer, because we were closed. Nobody covered all the investments that had been made. That is why we have suffered the most.

It is clear that for almost 1.5 years of the quarantine the industry has suffered appalling losses. What, perhaps, drastic actions did you have to take?

Of course, radical steps are the signing off of 95% of employees. We closed about 200 ticket offices, lost the entire IT department (now building it out again), back offices, accounts department, many offices, franchises… This is a huge number of people and appalling losses. Financially, it is millions of dollars.

In numbers, our finances have declined significantly according to the previous years’ turnover. In March 2020, it was 1% of the March 2019 turnover, 2% – in April, 3% – in May, and so far we have only about 5% of pre-quarantine turnover. This means that I paid extra for each ticket sold. Why? Because when there are a large number of transactions, you have a smaller number of costs (staff, taxes, offices, programmers) per ticket. As they became 95% less, each transaction is unprofitable.

The problem with the ticket business is that it is impossible to close it. It would be a great pleasure for me to take a drastic action, close the office and throw the key away if there were not a million of customers, who we had to postpone hundreds of concerts for and honour our commitments to them.  

I would change my business dimensions with great pleasure and I would do just fine in my life. 

This is probably one of the few industries where online is not an option. You have tried many formats: anti-concert, drive-in cinema. Have it come to the targeted results or is it still impossible to replace live entertainment?

It all doesn’t work. If such giants as “Netflix” or “YouTube” with billionth budgets have failed to do online gigs, how can anyone else do it? Of course, there is an example of the Korean group called BTS, which has broken the world record by selling a huge number of tickets (the size of 20 stadiums) for their online concert. And if we talk about the classic life event, it is not just something that can’t be replaced at all, it’s just a utopia. All the people who went there lost their money. Besides, the artists and social networks, and the whole modern world have lost the value of this product. Try to remember the time when during the quarantine we could open Instagram or Facebook in the morning and see Lady Gaga, The Rolling Stones or anyone else singing for us, because all the artists sang and talked to their fans. So, if I can come in and see it for free, then why do I have to pay money for a ticket?  But there is another factor called engagement with the concert. I watched Zucchero’s concert from his kitchen – I’m at home, started to cook, then someone called and I got distracted, no friends and so on. Going out to a concert is still a group event.

Therefore, it is clear that the online version does not work and will never work. We thought a lot about VR technology, augmented reality, etc. Today, I am putting this idea off for exactly five years or decades. I’m so disappointed by online that I don’t want to do it right now. Online has killed live communication, so we won’t think about it yet.

How do you recover after a Corona crisis? What do you draw your attention to?

We are lightening the burden more and more day by day when we manage to organize new dates for the delayed concerts. You can’t imagine how we breathe with a sign of relief and happiness when we hold an event which has already been put off three or four times. We pay extra for all those events. There is no profit for us, but we are shrugging off millionth obligations towards the audience. I believe (and I’m not talking about business now) that it gives a lot of inspiration at least to start thinking about how to recover. After all, it is impossible to think how to recover when you have a lot of problems. As an analogy to life, if there are problems in the relationship, deterioration of parents’ health or your child is neglecting schoolwork, you can’t make a breakthrough in business. And the same situation is here: if we do not repay all our obligations towards the organizers and the people who bought the tickets, we will not be able to regain our feet. This is the first moment.

  Secondly, we are planning very well-managed and powerful steps into the future. Now, for example, we are building a large summer concert hall at «!FESTrepublic» under a large awning for 1.5 thousand people. We will hold an “Underhill-festival». This has become possible. And we are already calmly planning the year of 2022 – today we are “buying” world artists to come to us to Ukraine. I’ve read an interesting article by Michael Rapino (the chairman of «Live Nation Entertainment» – the largest company in the world, in fact a monopolist, which has exclusive 10-year contracts worldwide on U2 or Madonna’s concerts, which means that all show business is concentrated in this company. – Editor’s note). In this article he says that according to their calculations, in 2022, compared to 2019, the number of events is five times exaggerated. In America, where the concert infrastructure is much larger than ours, they are already falling apart at the seams, because they do not have time to put in the dates for all willing artists.

That means that now we can get the Renaissance, as after every crisis. It all depends on the Planet global markets, whether the population will have money, how it will come out of recession and many other factors.

But our exit plan is to prepare as much as possible for 2022, and this year to discharge all the pendant obligations. That’s what we do, holding small occasional events. We will not be able to hold large, grand-scale and very large-scale events this year.

Speaking of your business enlarging, it seems that just before the crisis you started approaching other markets. Tell us more about it and what stage are you at now?

We had a clear vector of development, which was the export of software for similar ticket services in different countries. I have traveled to many countries and we have signed many contracts to have our Ukrainian software there. But for now we are not even trying to return to these dialogues, because they have the same situation as ours. They also stopped everything, so now this plan is put off until at least 2022. I understand them, as fellow tradesmen, that they do not have money now for any software updates. First they need to survive and then think about how to develop.

How has studying in the Key Executive MBA program at LvBs affected your business? 

I am glad that I found the time and energy to write my diploma thesis. It seemed to me that in my mental condition at the time of these lockdowns it was impossible, but the training put fresh heart into me. If to put it nicely, it is clear that I received great acquaintances, good knowledge, and an incredible business tour to Canada, training with lecturers, mentors, tutors and …classmates. I also received a lot of understanding of business processes in a new way, new visions, new missions, and new goals. And all this is true.

Speaking of facts, I believe that after this crisis, 90% of textbooks can be thrown in the trash. Everything we read about fundamental things is not true now; it is nothing more than erudition. For example, for the last 40 years we have been taught that the customer means everything. And it turns out that the client can hate you in a second, even if you have been everything for him for many years. I have already mentioned this.

It means that we are completely wrong when we speak about the customers’ loyalty, we are completely wrong about the employees’ loyalty, as they cannot be returned to work with any amount of salary, because they just became lazy. Nowadays, by the way, this is a problem in all developed countries such as: Canada, America and so on.

And the owners like me now, sit and think: “I borrowed money from all over the world to provide you with some income during the quarantine, and it’s so hard for you to get in shape again.” This is a great insult.

 The same can be said about the fight against peers; it seems to me that after the Corona crisis, business models in the world will change. In general, I think that in a year the world has changed dramatically, and we have seen that people and businesses are just people and businesses. I have already got a good education and business education, I believe that I‘ve got a very good business education; I began to take it with a grain of salt. I can name a dozen books which, if given to ten businessmen to read now, ten of them will have a smile from what they read. Because everything is different now. And these are world bestsellers. This will work differently now and this is my conclusion in the last year.

What were your expectations for the program and what motivated you to get a business education?

For about 5 years I had been planning to enroll for an MBA. I didn’t understand what it was.

I am convinced that 99.9% of people also do not understand what an MBA really is and how it transforms you.

I always found an excuse. But at some point I came there, got acquainted, listened to a demo lecture, then (not without a magic kick in the butt, of course) I passed an interview, passed exams – that was the point of no return. I remember coming out after the first lecture with all my classmates, by the time the evening came I felt absolutely comfortable, I realized that I was getting a charge out of the situation. What’s more, I enjoyed each module. It’s like a hobby – I was interested in learning. There were some subjects I did not understand, they were difficult for me, and I thought that I did not need them at all and they were uninteresting. But then it turned out that that was exactly what I used in my work, and that gave me the results. That means that you need to undertake some efforts and certain discipline. This is not easy, because the requirements are quite high and it is a shame not to meet these requirements. So you sit down at night and study.

It seems to me that it is necessary to come here as an adult and a conscientious person, after a 10-year path in business (otherwise they will not accept here). First of all, you communicate with everyone like you, with those who can give their expert opinion. Secondly, you already have your own opinion, no one will force ideas upon you, but you will listen, because you have already made mistakes and came here because you do not want to repeat those mistakes.

We know about your plans to create an innovative mobile application for buying tickets, this, in fact, was the focus of your diploma thesis. At what stage is this project now?

Due to the quarantine, we put the project on hold. We haven’t worked on the product for almost a year and have only resumed work on the mobile application in the last few months. This is an application with socialization that should provide a lot of new features and opportunities for both organizers and users. There is a very interesting marketing component. But we are still thinking about launching of the app. In fact, it should be launched by mid-summer. The only question is what will happen in the middle of the summer in the market taken as a whole, whether it will be a good time to launch it or not. If the period is successful, then we will run, if not, we will wait until better times. It means that operationally we are ready; just we are waiting for a proper market moment. I hope that this application will turn over the market.

Last year you received an award from the Lviv Business School, and the alumni community also noted you. What means the LvBS community and this award for you today?

It seems to me that the award was given to me out of pity, because my business has suffered the most… But the community for me is definitely a communication platform that I am not shy to apply to. Let’s say I have a lot of business contacts, but sometimes it’s embarrassing to run to them. And the LvBS community gives a feeling of easiness and unity. I can confidently call even a person I don’t know much and say, “We’re members of the same family, please meet with me” – and it’ll always be happy to meet me, because that’s the atmosphere. What I mean is that the business school community supports and helps. I think I am also useful for the community, I always return their lead, and that’s okay.

Imagine that the quarantine will end soon. How do you think companies will return to “normal pace of life”?

Here I would divide the companies into three types – mid-sized, small and large business. I think all small companies will survive, strangely enough just because they are small. All large companies are forced to survive. They will recover longer, for years, but they are forced to survive, because people have devoted their lives to these brands, to these corporations, so they can’t just leave the market. And the biggest problem, I think, is with medium-sized companies, which, as a rule, dominate as there are 70-80% of them. I think they will have a pretty serious liquidity problem, because if you imagine that tomorrow everyone will have been vaccinated and allowed absolutely everything, then I am not sure whether mid-sized business will be able to honour its commitments.

Looking back and having business experience during the pandemic, what three tips would you have given yourself at the beginning of quarantine? What would you, as a leader, do differently?

I have only one piece of advice. In the past I mistakenly thought, having read hundreds of books about business, that you need to save the brand and pay everyone – the organizers, customers and everyone who is necessary to be paid. As far as I would be the only one on the market who did it, tomorrow I would have millions of customers and organizers, because I was the most stable and I paid everyone. Yes, because of all these payments, we lost a million hryvnias a day. The money ran out pretty quickly and events did not resume. That means I should have saved that money for a rainy day and played “on credit”: if the event is postponed – to pay extra when it happens. Here’s this one but great tip.

There is another one, but it is immoral: to dismiss everyone immediately, to leave the employees without salaries, to close all the offices and to stay secure in the red. But even now, having had such an experience, I would not do it. From the business point of view this advice is correct, but ethically it is not.

The speaker was Natalia Fanok

Olena Sozanska is the Key Executive MBA program of the Lviv Business School of UCU (LvBS) graduate, is the founder of the «Smart Space» project. For seven years she managed «Taor Karpaty Resort & SPA» hotel complex from the construction stage to recognition as one of the best family resorts in Ukraine. She is Member of the LvBS Alumni Council. She is currently studying at Stanford University in the “Strategies for Sustainability” program.

«Smart Space» – is an innovative company that transforms any surface into a multifunctional space for effective work, learning or creativity. The project team transforms office walls and desks, meeting rooms, study and children’s rooms, and even entire offices and homes into a productive work area. On the surfaces offered by “Smart Space” you can write with markers and chalk, attach magnets and project images. The company is the exclusive distributor of the Irish company “Smarter Surfaces”, whose products are manufactured exclusively in Ireland.

The main «Smart Space» clients are such Ukrainian corporations as:, «SoftServe», Lviv Business School of UCU (LvBS), «Intellias», «Design Bureau Hochu Rayu», «Euristiq», «Keel», «Epam», Center for Societal Innovations and others. 

«Smart Space» is a family business, and the initiator of its creation is Olena Sozanska. She spoke about her experience of starting a business during a pandemic, the role of studying in the Key Executive MBA program in her life and shared her thoughts on how corporate culture will change in the post-Covid world.

Olena, it was during the quarantine period, when many businesses were closing down or experiencing a crisis, and you and your husband set up “Smart Space”. What prompted you to start your own business?

Perhaps the biggest impetus was the fact that I graduated from the MBA and I wanted it to culminate in some new step in my work. The idea for the company originated a long time ago, and I decided to shift my energy and drive that arose after the Key Executive MBA program completion into the right direction. I understood that at that point it made sense to create a company.

As for the quarantine, I think those who take such an important step in difficult times immediately have the immunity and greater strength inherent in the company’s DNA to adapt and transform their business over time.

Therefore, I was not afraid at all that it was the quarantine. Rather, on the contrary, it got the adrenaline going in order to do even faster and even better and come into the market at such a difficult time.

Tell us more about your company and why is it unique?

Our global mission is to transform workspaces, creative and learning spaces into places that inspire and promote teamwork. And on a practical level we turn the walls, and not only walls, into innovative surfaces which you can interact with. What I mean is that you can write on them, attach information, design images and videos, and so on. 

   It is not only about offices, but also about educational institutions that are ready to move beyond in terms of trend approaches to learning. The same applies to houses. As the quarantine period has shown, for many it has become important to properly organize their workspace at home. Spending a lot of time within the confines of four walls, people are looking for some interesting solutions. They need extra motivation; in most cases this is an extra decorated place to stay effective. We, in our company, also felt it when we made a home office using our surfaces. Since the beginning of quarantine, the demand for such a home office has grown significantly and continues to grow.

How did the idea for such a business appear?

I travel a lot and once I attended the exhibition in Milan, which was one of the largest in the field of design. There I accidentally noticed Irish company “Smarter Surfaces”, which we represent in Ukraine. It was something I saw for the first time in my life, at that time there was nothing like that on the Ukrainian market, and I “saved” this concept as a cool idea. Later, when I returned to Ukraine, I suggested that, perhaps, it could be interesting for businesses and educational institutions. So I discussed this idea with several acquaintances, by the way, from the Alumni LvBS community, and they confirmed its relevance and innovation, which added some confidence. I cherished this idea for about two years, and after studying I decided that it should become a reality.

Are you considering, perhaps, enlargement of your business?

Yes, and I even have a clear plan. We do not treat our business as a sale of individual goods or services, but as a “turnkey” solution – from an idea to full implementation. I believe that our client, like any other, now wants not a separate product, but a ready-made solution. That is why it is important for us to be present in the big cities of Ukraine.

It was a coincidence that last year, when there was the first wave of the pandemic, we launched a company in Lviv. And this year, when the third wave of the pandemic began, we entered the Kyiv market. Therefore, for us, these waves of the pandemic determine the next city we enter. Now we are represented in Lviv and Kyiv, next in line – Kharkiv and Odessa. We will move with small steps, because partnership relations are very important for us, so that the partner should be completely on a par with our vision and values. This path is not fast, but it guarantees stability and confidence in the future.

If we talk about the transition from a managerial position, because you held the position of head of “Taor Karpaty Resort & SPA” for many years, before starting your own business, what have you learn from it? What challenges have you faced?

I realized that no matter how big the company is, there is still a list of functions it cannot exist without. In a larger company like “Taor Karpaty”, it has between 100 and 150 employees. Here you can assign the functions and build a system. In your own business when the team is small, many functions, especially in the beginning, I performed with a very tiny number of people. But, on the other hand, it added a fire in a belly and speed for the plans implementation. After all, a large company is clumsy and some processes cannot be implemented immediately. This is the difference. It is impossible to say that something is less interesting or somewhere there are fewer challenges. I found what drives me in both cases.

What part did studying at the Key Executive MBA program of the UCU Lviv Business School play for you?

For me, this is watershed. When I am asked about this, I always say that before going to MBA, I was warned that it could lead to significant changes in life 

Some people joked that many people either divorce or change jobs after studying for an MBA. Because values change, and so do outlooks at life, at oneself and at one’s place in life.

But for me, these changes were extremely positive and breakthrough as I started a family, gave birth to a daughter and started my own business. At the same time, I remained in the management structure. It all happened during the two years of studying for an MBA.

Therefore, I believe that learning itself, in addition to knowledge and environment, encourages global changes in a person’s life, if he/she is ready for them. What these changes will be depends only on the person, but they will definitely be right. If you change, everything around you changes as well.

What were your expectations from the program and what encouraged you to receive business education? 

I started to study because I needed a jolt of fresh air as far as I realized that I had already hit a glass ceiling, so in order to move on I needed to break this ceiling.  I went there understanding intuitively that I need that to answer the question “what is next?” Those were my expectations. And that’s what happened. 

I couldn’t predict what would happen next, apparently no one would think of such a thing. However, if you have the courage and inner feeling that it’s time to break the ceiling, and then you should listen and dare! 

We know that you have not stopped and continue to support the principle of lifelong learning. Please tell us about your studies at Stanford University in the “Strategies for Sustainability” program.

Studying for an MBA and a maternity leave became for me a moment of reflection exercise and my managerial experience reinterpretation. I realized that my greatest passion was for corporate social responsibility, and later for sustainable development. I realized that this area needs to be developed and, of course, it is necessary to learn from those who are the best in this area. Having found that there was such a possibility – a hybrid program “Strategies for Sustainability” – I jumped at the chance. This is a unique opportunity, as universities such as Stanford or Oxford have not previously considered online learning or hybrid programs (partly online, partly offline). And this is what quarantine is to be thanked for.

This program aims to understand that these are the goals of sustainable development that should be the core of the company, they give the business a sense of new purpose and leads to both money and other resources savings, and to global impact on the world we all live in. This is a very interesting topic, because in Ukraine it is still in its infancy, so it is very nice that LvBS is also actively addressing this subject on various courses and webinars. This means that Lviv Business School keeps track of events, which is very inspiring.

I have already passed the online part of the training. Next is the offline part, so we are waiting for the quarantine restrictions to be raised.

So yes, lifelong learning is a part of my DNA. When I study, no matter what I study, I get insights and ideas. It is important for me to constantly look for original thoughts. This helps me to enter a flow state that allows me to be more efficient both at work and in life. That’s why learning is a source of energy for me.

You have recently become a member of the Business School Alumni Council How important is the LvBS community for you personally? What continues to drive you in this direction?

 I am really grateful that there was such an opportunity and I joined the Alumni Council and I can work in a more structured way and regularly on projects related to community development. For me, the Alumni Council is the right environment and inspiration I get after every meeting and every opportunity to talk to someone in the community. Because, first of all, these are extraordinary people you feel interested with and you can find areas of common interest with, regardless of the field these people work in. And secondly, it is a feeling that we have a common field of values, understanding and trust. In fact, it is very important, because the first question you ask yourself in the business environment is “what does this person need?” Here you understand that nobody needs anything, everyone is ready to help and support. It also gives me a breath of fresh air and excitement.

I had some ideas for projects and we have already started to implement them, in particular, the Book Club for the alumni community. Now, in the Alumni Council, I am planning to do this and many new projects, having already enlisted the other members of the Council and the school management’s support. They are very loyal and happy to accept any initiatives, even the craziest. That’s why I want to do something; I have someone to do with and someone for.

If to speak about post-Covid future, imagine that the quarantine will end soon. How do you think companies will return to “normal pace of life”?

I remember Valery Pekar’s words, who once said, “Why do you think there is any notion of normal?” As it was, it certainly will not be. We are already feeling this while cooperating with our regular customers, because they have already begun the process of realizing that the offices will not be exactly as they used to be, because the approach to work, study and everything else is changing. We probably do not realize what it will be like and where it will take us. You just have to be flexible and quick enough to be able to notice the signals and trends that are forming and will continue to form in the post-Covid world.

Keep your eyes wide open and be prepared to accept the inevitability of changes which have already begun. I think that the one who thinks and adapts fast will win.

Looking back and having business experience during the pandemic, what three tips would you have given yourself at the beginning of quarantine? What would you, as a leader, do differently?

First of all, I would have realized and made it clear to the team that the pandemic was not with us temporarily, but it would last for a long time. This would immediately have affected our planning-time frame. Based on this, I think the three tips would sound like this:

The first tip. To look at new trends and niches faster than we did. That means to understand that the home office trends are gaining momentum, etc. We have already begun to catch it part way through, rather than foreseen immediately.

The second one. I would have allocated my resources with the idea that that would take a long time. We are talking about financial, human resources and so on.

And the third one. I would rather started thinking about more sustainable solutions in terms of partnership and, in general, built a more sustainable foundation that would allow me to plan for a stable future for the company.

To your mind, don’t we find excuses for many of our own managerial mistakes because of the quarantine: procrastination, inability or unwillingness to make decisions, postponement of any strategic changes?

100 %. In general, I think the first thing people do is trying to find a cause-and-effect link, not just accept the challenge, especially when it comes to their responsibilities. We can talk a lot on that matter and Daniel Kahnemann writes eloquently about it (an American-Israeli psychologist known for his bestseller, “Thinking Fast and Slow”- editor’s note), but that’s the way we are. By the way, this book was the first one we discussed at the Book Club. So the easiest thing we can do is to admit the mistake. Only then will we be able to notice when we try to find excuses for some of our imperfections.

I sometimes also hold myself on the idea that I want to blame the quarantine or other circumstances for my delays. I will say a cliché, but when one door closes and something stops working, something else appears. The only question is whether we have enough knowledge, resources and openness to see these new opportunities.

What new habits will you take along with you after the pandemic?

Habits connected with online. First of all, it is not necessary to waste time for commuting, because many things can be solved online or by phone. Another useful habit, I repeat, is to catch trends and see new opportunities in this turbulent time.

And, of course, washing my hands and wearing a mask. We often laugh about “washing our hands”, but here it is worth mentioning an interesting point. While studying at Stanford, we looked at the case of “Unilever” (a huge corporation that includes “Dove”, “Lux”, and many other well-known brands) that has launched a campaign in India which teaches young children to wash their hands properly. It’s called “Help your child reach the age of 5” and it’s all about hand washing. After all, there is a very high mortality of children under 5. And this, by the way, is also about the sustainable development goals. We live in a country where only now, apparently, we have thought about how to wash our hands properly, but for some people it is a matter of life and death, especially for young children. Therefore, hand washing is also a good habit.

 How do you think the “company-employee” relationship will change in post-pandemic times? What, perhaps, new values in corporate culture will we observe in the world that has overcome COVID-19?

I think that those who have learned to build trusting relations on both sides before the pandemic will have the best chances. After all, the remote work mode, when the authoritarian regime no longer works, requires from a person to be self-motivated to achieve results. And it is very important to understand properly, to have common goals and motivation systems, so that companies can develop thanks to dedicated, loyal and result-oriented employees.

Therefore, I think that the issue of trust and shared vision will be key point for the leaders and their companies’ prosperity.

The speaker was Natalia Fanok

Правозахисник, проректор із призначення та місії Українського католицького університету Мирослав Маринович в інтерв’ю з Галиною Янишівською, директоркою з маркетингу та продажу Львівської бізнес-школи УКУ розповідає про актуальність вчення митрополита Андрея Шептицького для сучасних українців: цінності, культуру, освіту, підхід win-win. Запрошуємо до перегляду!

Шептицький-менеджер: чого ми можемо навчитися у цього Великого Українця? Культура і цінності: як вони впливають на розвиток громади, організації, нації? Чому успішну економіку не можна збудувати без цінностей? Освіта, просвіта, самоорганізація, самофінансування як складові економічного розвитку суспільства. Криза етики й партнерства: як сучасні управлінці можуть розв’язати цю кризу? Про цінність бізнес-школи в Католицькому університеті.

Що таке «Менеджмент любові за Шептицьким»? Чи бізнес – це любов? Чи можна навчитися довготермінового мислення та як нам може допомогти митрополит Андрей? Розповідає Ярослав Притула, декан факультету прикладних наук УКУ, кандидат фізико-математичних наук, професор із кількісних методів для прийняття бізнес-рішень та економіки. Розмовляла Софія Опацька – проректорка з науково-педагогічної роботи УКУ, деканка-засновниця Львівської бізнес-школи УКУ, викладачка УКУ та LvBS. 

Запис інтерв’ю відбувся спільно з Центром Шептицького УКУ в межах «Бієнале Шептицький» за підтримки Українського культурного фонду.