Working in Community with Menon Dwarka

TRANSCRIPT:

“When you go to events and when you're chatting with your colleagues, you know, maybe it's not such a Canadian thing to do, but I would tell them about the great work that you're doing because oftentimes not only would inspire other people to do great work, but they may need that very thing that you've been successful at. And who knows, maybe there could be an opening in the future to working with somebody else.”

In today's High Five for arts leaders and cultural entrepreneurs, my dear friend, Menon Dwarka is with us to talk about working in community. Now Menon is principal and founder of MPD Culture Consultants, and he's here with us today to share with us some key points related to working in community. Thank you for being here and welcome.

It's my pleasure, Heather.

So what would you advise arts leaders and cultural entrepreneurs related to working in community?

Well, I think the first thing I'd ask people to do is to think about consideration equals kindness, equals belonging.

All of us work, with our fellow artists and arts creators, and we need to understand where they're coming from. And oftentimes they come from different places than we do and different points of view. And so being considerate of those points of view is important. But also when we have those points of differentiation, a bit of kindness goes a long way to be gracious to someone else and hear them out. And when we create that space where we can hear and feel somebody else's point of view, we create belonging between the two of us. And I think without belonging, we can't really do much.

Yeah. Consideration, kindness and love. Absolutely. What would your second point?

Well, my second point would be to make sure that our job descriptions are actually used as our performance evaluations.

Because I think it's really important that when we feel like we're successful, we need a goal to reach. And the best way to do this, to kind of sketch out the landing space before we get there. And that should be your job description. And if you have an old one, you can work on a new one with your supervisor. But sketching out where you're supposed to land is a great way to ensure that you and the company land in the same place. And then over the next year, you just keep working and keep driving towards ticking off all the things you're responsible for. It's clarity will make everybody happier. It's such a great way to put it. Sketching out the landing places as a job description.

Very cool concept. Okay. Keep going….

The next point is networking your success.

And this might seem obvious, but you know, so many of us do great work and it's great to have your supervisor acknowledge it. But, the whole community can really benefit by knowing the incredible work that you're doing. So I would say when you go to events and when you're chatting with your colleagues, you know, maybe it's not such a Canadian thing to do, but I would tell them about the great work that you're doing, because oftentimes, not only will inspire other people to do great work, but they may need that very thing that you've been successful at. And who knows, maybe there could be an opening in the future to working with somebody else. So telling people how great you are is is definitely something that we should all do and more of for sure. Yeah, nobody's going to know the great things that you're doing if you don't tell them.

The next point would be that. And this may seem obvious, but everything is collaboration.

Even those of us that are solo entrepreneurs, we rely on coaches and software and vendors and clients. Everything we do is part of a community. And I think having that mindset that you don't have to do everything by yourself, but also that we need other people to even just uplift us. And when we're isolated to say, hey, you know, keep moving. We're doing great work together. So just keeping in mind that that we can often run into problems when we don't communicate and we take too much on our shoulders. And it's okay to be a collaborator and part of a community.

The last thing that I'll say is that that we all need to remember that we're professional learners. We're all resources for our coworkers and more importantly, for our supervisors. And that, in engaging with new technology and new ways of working, we can often help other people by sharing those things. I often comment to, brand new people in the workforce that their best attribute is the fact that at a coming out of school, they spent all this time learning, and now they can apply that into the workforce and teach people about new software, new methodologies, new ways of behaving in the community. So sharing what we've learned is really important. And it's true that at all levels, as you're pointing out to, and that seems to me that it goes back to your earlier points of creating community and belonging and points of connection with other people.

Thank you so much for all of these. Where can people find you online? They can find me on LinkedIn. And when just look for Menon Dwarka or at MPD Culture Consultants, if you look that up, you'll see my website and you can learn more about our services and what we do.

Amazing. That's fantastic. Thank you so much for being here with me today. And stay tuned for another episode of High Five coming to you next week.