Inclusivity in Action: Transforming Organisational Culture

“Instead of asking what the individual has to do or what I think they should do, I think it’s moreso what cultural shift within an organisation has to take place for individuals to eventually be their fullest selves.”
Killian Poolmans

In this episode you’ll hear about

• Digital strategies for inclusivity and engagement: Killian’s unique approach for creative inclusive and productive online team spaces.
• Facilitating change as an outsider: How to effectively facilitate change by coming into an organisation as a co-designer rather than an outsider.
• Challenges of implementing change: The blockers and barriers that organisations face when transitioning to change, and tips to overcome them.
• Creating longevity in change initiatives: Strategies for ensuring the lasting impact of change initiatives, including ongoing measurement and support.
• Balancing perspectives and identities: Acknowledging the value of diverse perspectives and lived experiences within organisations and making space for all voices.

Key links

PINKHAMMER
Pippi Longstocking
Trojan Horse 
Lufthansa
Rutgers
PwC

About our guest
Killian Poolmans is the Founder of PINKHAMMER, which facilitates interactive training programs that boost creativity and inclusion with organisations. With a background in engineering and systems design, Killian has worked with over 500 teams from startups to global organisations across Berlin, Melbourne and Singapore, to enhance their innovation capabilities and help them embrace inclusivity in their product development.

About our host

Our host, Chris Hudson, is a Teacher, Experience Designer and Founder of business transformation coaching and consultancy Company Road.

Company Road was founded by Chris Hudson, who saw over-niching and specialisation within corporates as a significant barrier to change.

Every team approaches transformation in their own way, also bringing in their own partners to help. And while they’re working towards the same organisational goal, it’s this over-fragmentation that stunts rapid progress at a company-wide level.

Having worked as a marketer, transformation leader, teacher and practitioner of design thinking for over 20 years, both here in Australia and internationally, Chris brings a unique, deep and ‘blended’ skillset that will cohere and enable your teams to deliver ambitious and complex change programs.

Transcript

Hello again and welcome to the Company Road podcast and allow me to introduce our next wonderful guest Killian Poolmans. Killian is on a redesigning the workforce mission by helping teams to embrace creativity and inclusivity in their product development. He uses his engineering and systems design background, and he’s been able to use those to enhance the innovation capabilities of over 500 teams ranging from startups to global organisations across Berlin, Melbourne, Singapore.

He’s the founder of Pink Hammer. Pink Hammer because he believes we need a different view on innovation to tackle today’s societal challenges. So they offer interactive training programs created and facilitated by a diverse group of designers, engineers, neuropsychologists, artists, and activists. They specialise in creating virtual and collaborative environments for your team.

With expert facilitators guiding you every step of the way. And the goal is to build an inclusive and creative workforce that creates products and services for the full spectrum of society. As you’ll see, we went into quite a few different areas in this chat around diversity, inclusivity LGBTQI, and anything relating to the catalysts and barriers that are seen in relation to those areas.

So, really hope you enjoy the chat. It was a really good one, and enjoy. So, hey, Killian. So good to see you again. And thank you very much for agreeing to come on the show. And I’m really glad to see that you’re still using that super fancy signature microphone that just has a warm glow to it. And, maybe that’s another story, but want to talk a bit about you. And, you know, when we first started working together, I’d been working in the innovation space for a few years.

[00:01:44] Chris Hudson: I think it’s fair to say that often you and I, we see the same old strategic design and governance frameworks and the techniques and they all get rolled out. But yet somehow, when I was observing you in action, I was thinking actually you were able to make it all feel very energising, very fresh for the 40 or so enterprise level insurance clients that we were working with at the time.

And upon reflection, I think you can be super proud of the fact that a lot of it comes down to you. In my view, you know, your personal touch, the energy that you bring and just your, your approach to facilitation. So, let’s start the conversation with you and tell us a bit about some of the things that really energise you and we can reference the microphone if you want to as well.

[00:02:21] Killian Poolmans: I love that. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. And then for that nice introduction. Yes, I think it was for me like, that was a really cool project as well. I think we did that as a yearly project where we took 40 people from this insurance enterprise and guide them through the whole design process.

And I think what for me is coolest about projects like that is creating some light of a space where people can really be creative and kind of themselves. Like I think, facilitation for me, number one is creating that safe space for others. So that is what I always try to do whenever I host these kind of workshops. I started doing that in the beginning of my career in real life, like in organisations within rooms, actual real life rooms, we still worked in those back then and that was kind of an easy way because you walk into a room, you could change this atmosphere of a room, you can really kind of present yourself.

And I think what I tried to do as soon as I built my own business and do everything online, as I try to create this atmosphere. Also, that’s where the microphone kind of comes in, but it’s creating this atmosphere where you’re still the facilitator, but you can kind of play around with the energy and with the energy within Zoom or within Google Meets or wherever you host it.

So that’s one of the reasons why I love facilitating and why I love facilitating this creative process so much is to really allow people to be themselves, be creative, mostly take them out of the context of the way that they work day to day normally. And play around a little bit with it.

[00:03:47] Chris Hudson: So let’s break, break that down a little bit. I mean, you’re staging it, it sounds like. It’s almost like a production of Killian’s that you’re putting this thing together. You’ve got the background, you’ve got the campfire you know, represented in your microphone and then everyone gathers around it, is it that kind of thing?

[00:04:01] Killian Poolmans: Well, it’s more, there’s a lot of like a lot of tips and tricks to it. I think number one is I learned a lot from really great facilitators in the beginning of my career in person. So there was a lot of people in organisations that I worked with that had acting backgrounds, and they taught me how to own a space.

Like I said, there’s real life space and I try to adapt some of those things in a virtual setting as well. I think it has to do a lot with little rules in the beginning of when people come together. Making sure that people feel like they are the first ones to speak. Making sure that they, at the beginning, are allowed to share something about themselves.

I also always introduce people in the forms of avatars. I love this digital space because I think, actually, this digital space, if you look at it from also like a gaming context, I feel like you can take on this new character within a digital space a lot. And I think a lot of people said that creative work and innovation work within a digital space is sometimes hard.

I agree. It can be hard, but I also agree there’s a lot to say about the anonymity that comes with this kind of or not necessarily anonymity, but almost like this new kind of role that you can take on within this digital space. So if I host these kind of workshops where people have to be creative and they come from an organisation where they’re not that creative necessarily, I almost invite them to take on this new identity as like this avatar that they can pick, and kind of like what you do within a game as well, and that way you can fully express yourself in different ways.

So, I mean, that’s a bit of a side note, but I think that’s what I try to do. So I try to bring in elements of gaming, elements of real life facilitation to somehow build this world where people can explore a little bit more.

[00:05:36] Chris Hudson: So does the avatar, stepping into the avatar start from right at the beginning? How does it work?

[00:05:41] Killian Poolmans: Most of the time I introduce myself as an avatar, which is sometimes people find it a bit weird. So I show my avatar that I oftentimes introduce myself with is Pippi Longstocking. The Ginger girl. She was basically my childhood hero when I was growing up, so I always want to challenge her within these digital spaces.

So I think she is she’s fearlessly creative in a way. She’s always challenging the status quo. She never takes the real life world for granted, but she’s always looking for ways to shift it or to shift people’s perceptions. She lives by herself in this huge house as this little girl.

So she’s kind of like this feminist icon in a way as well. So I always try to channel her in a way. So I introduce myself with her and I show a picture of her and then I have this huge list of different people from different cultures, different movies, and people can then pick one of those avatars and introduce themselves as that avatar.

And that’s kind of the opening of some of the sessions that I do.

[00:06:35] Chris Hudson: Oh, wow. Amazing. I mean, that’s so good. The fact that just from the start, you’re in a different world and you know you’re in a

different world because you’re taking on a character, you’re taking on an avatar and you’re actually thinking about the characteristics that you represent in a way that you wouldn’t usually use to describe yourself.

Right?

[00:06:51] Killian Poolmans: For sure. I think you have to do it. Also, I should have said that you have to step into that. You have to kind of be vulnerable from the beginning from the first moment on and share that for other people to do that as well. But yeah, that’s how I introduce myself. And then people, some people get it.

Some people love it. Some people are very hesitant and it kind of takes them a bit by surprise, but I think that’s part of it.

[00:07:10] Chris Hudson: What have you found to be most surprising about running the exercise in the response that you’ve had from it?

[00:07:15] Killian Poolmans: I think I can, I can start seeing when people come in who they’ll go- so I have I think like a 100 different avatars. I can start to slowly already see what avatars people are going to pick when they come in. I feel like women have more freedom in their mind to go outside of gender in picking avatars.

Like they can pick whoever and it doesn’t matter. I think men are very rigid in the few male characters that the avatars that I have on the board. They always pick those. So I feel like that’s a very interesting thing when I see that. They put limitations on themselves of picking avatars, whereas some women can kind of go all over the board.

So that’s one interesting thing that I saw happening a lot.

[00:07:52] Chris Hudson: Yeah, I mean, is there a macro point of view here that we need to kind of look at, which is around how men represent themselves in the workplace or in front of their team members? Is there something to think about there?

[00:08:02] Killian Poolmans: No, I think it’s, it’s a lot to do with masculinity on a pedestal. I mean we can go very deep in that already, but I feel like society puts masculinity a little bit on a pedestal, and I feel like vulnerability within these spaces is often times seen as a little bit of a thing that you have to stay away from, whereas I think it’s one of the most powerful things. But so you can see that already happening within this, without going too deep into that, you can see that already happening within this avatar selection. And it’s oftentimes also a thing that I point out within the workshops already.

Because it’s the first time that you can make fun of it a little bit without coming across too serious. But yeah, and there’s obviously everything that you do within the workshops, just this zoom in lens of the micro things that are happening within the organisation for sure.

[00:08:40] Chris Hudson: Yeah, it’s amazing how when you introduce those exercises, even if it’s a drawing exercise or it was something that’s just a little bit, a little bit more left field, a little bit more creative, and that is something that people take out. They spend a lot of brain power, just getting their heads around it to begin with, as you were saying.

But actually it’s something that they really remember the project or the engagement by. It’s something that they, they feel, it’s almost like a bonding exercise to help understand each other and through a way that is more impartial, probably, than just introducing yourself. And, you know, we’ve all been in these meetings, right?

The most important highest paid person stands up or wants to do the intros and they go last and then they everyone just says i’m so and so and this is my job title. It goes all the way around the room all the way around the room and then the person who you know feels like they’re the most important basically stands up and says but they don’t they talk for eight minutes or something about the things they’ve done through their whole life and you know it’s just a justification right so so that is very different.

[00:09:37] Killian Poolmans: I love this room too, that’s why that’s also what I love within this digital setting is being able to time those things, like I try to, I try to blend, take hierarchies out of the equation as much as possible. I think digital ways of working really allow you to do that because like you can’t put a timer in a meeting with a sound when someone is introducing themselves.

But you can like in the white bar, it’s not rude to be okay, you have one minute and then introduce yourself. So it’s those little things that I feel that actually really eliminate a lot of the hierarchies within this way of working, which I really enjoy playing with, but you’re right I think by giving it a template you can eliminate some of the awkward moments where some people feel like they can take up more space than others, which is a common occurrence, unfortunately, within a lot of teams.

[00:10:18] Chris Hudson: Yeah, I mean the gamification aspect is a really interesting one, isn’t it? And what you just described in not only creating your character, but then taking that through a project or program of work and coming back to it and reflecting on it and seeing how people act, against their avatars is also interesting.

The fact that you’re, you’re maybe going from one thing to the next, you’re coming across challenges, you’re going through levels, you know, there’s, there’s a whole language that you could apply to it, I’m sure.

[00:10:42] Killian Poolmans: Were you part of the last session I did with the reflection there as well last time? I’m not sure whether you were there because I do- I let them pick the avatar in the beginning. So this is I think there’s like a five month process. So a lot of them have already forgotten the after they picked in the beginning.

And then as like a reflection in the end, I kind of try to, sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn’t, weave through their journey within a program related to the avatar they picked and some of the learnings. So for sure like these storytelling elements are an amazing way to, to get people to reflect on the journey as well.

[00:11:13] Chris Hudson: Yeah, yeah, I mean, It’s just, just very interesting, very engaging, and yeah, I appreciate you sharing, sharing your perspective on it. I’m, I’m still thinking about the broader, the broader things that it might represent, actually, and, and just thinking about, I guess what? Knowing what you do in your line of work, it’s not just facilitation, but it’s in a particular area.

I was wondering if you could maybe just introduce the type of area that you’re particularly focused on and tell us a bit about how you observe the world of work today in that regard.

[00:11:41] Killian Poolmans: So I, I have a background within design. So I come as a designer, creative facilitator. And I’m a founder of Pink Hammer. And with Pink Hammer, we try to build inclusive and creative teams and products, and we do so fully remote. So the goal is really to create this new workforce where Inclusivity and creativity are at the forefront of some of the tools that we use and where we create products and services that represent a full spectrum of society.

So not necessarily built out of one perspective. And I do sit through research projects but also training programs and these training programs to really look at the innovation capabilities of organisations and through a lens of inclusivity. And that more purposeful innovation practices within teams on I do that.

Not just me. I do that with a collective. So what I really saw was interesting is that a lot of the people that I work with are not from corporate backgrounds are not from big organisations, but are more so artists, activists, writers. And I bring those voices into the training programs and into the workshops that I facilitate, just to make sure that we break out of those stereotypical corporate environments.

So inclusivity is a big part of it. From my background as a queer person, I bring a lot of queer perspectives in there as well. Gender identity plays a big part in it. But there’s also a lot of more cultural differences that other people within the collective bring into this workshop. So we all have our own different lens on how to look at the dynamics within a team.

So the whole goal is basically to shape hopefully the workforce in a different way that’s already kind of happening, but making sure that there’s place space within organisations for people that they think differently and especially looking at innovation practices.

[00:13:25] Chris Hudson: Yeah, that’s super interesting. And I think just as you were talking, we were thinking a little bit about I guess some of the constructs, the social constructs and the stereotypes that exist. Unconscious bias is obviously prevalent in a lot of And a lot of walks of life, you know, you, you can’t, you can’t avoid it.

Right. And I’m wondering whether in some of the techniques that you’re introducing and by bringing in a fresh perspective, a lot of that can get neutralised. What’s, what’s your experience there?

[00:13:48] Killian Poolmans: Well, I think especially if I look at design and the practice that the way that that’s being implemented within organisations right now. I mean, if you think about design thinking, for instance, or or that whole process, which obviously started through at least people like to say it started through an idea and them bringing in this way of thinking, which already is kind of questionable.

So I’m going already way back, but I feel like this whole creative process, obviously idea has coined like the different steps of, as like kind of put their own flag in it. But if you look at cultures and systems years before that, research, then experimenting, making prototypes and pivoting along the way is not necessarily.

Something that is being thought of in a lab by designers. It’s something that culturally has already been in place for a longer time and will be also, later on. So I think it’s already really important to think about these processes more so in a human way of organic way of doing things instead of a company coming up with a process like that.

But one of the things, if you look at these different processes, I think in an interesting part is if you look at conducting research, for instance, I feel, innovation practice has always taught us that we have to go out into the field and talk with our customers and then come back and make a write down insights and then pivot or create our products a certain way.

What I think the next step is really not just going out as a team to a specific context and then coming back, but it’s really bringing different people on board within the organisation. And I think that’s a thing that as we, I think the very first thing that we thought of as designers is we’re in this ivory tower and we think of new products and services.

We create them and we just push them out. The second part was, oh we are in this ivory tower, but we actually go out and harness insights and then change it. And I think the next step is that whole ivory tower is broken and we create it together. I mean, with co design systems, you already have that, but it’s, that’s still kind of going out into context and bringing back insights.

I really believe in completely dismantling that and making sure that people are on board for the whole process. While you create some of the innovations on the products that that designers are making. So that’s one aspect of the inclusive design process that we bring in. It has to do with research.

It has to do with persona building, looking at different aspects of people’s gender identity and people’s privileges within society, taking that into account when you create personas, for instance. So it’s all those different steps within the process that were being thought off in innovation practices that I feel we can really shift and change.

And I think Hammer were working slowly through a lot of those steps and kind of redesigning them along the way. We’re not at all done yet, but all of those steps in between we’re taking on a different lens and trying to educate ourselves to change those and then bring that back to organisations.

[00:16:37] Chris Hudson: It’s definitely a transformation of sorts, isn’t it? Where you’re thinking about the broader ambition and the longer term ambition, and not only where it has been, but how it needs to take shape moving forward and what you’re aiming at and and actually setting a lofty goal around it can be totally intimidating for a lot of people involved.

How do you take them along that journey? And where do you start?

[00:16:57] Killian Poolmans: It can be very intimidating. I think the intimidating part brings me back to one of the, when I first started out doing this kind of work I was working in Berlin at the time and there was this organisation that was in a nutshell, kind of bringing these big organisations from Germany.

And you can imagine Germany is a very like conservative country. The corporate system is very hierarchical. And they brought a lot of these organisations to Berlin, which is obviously has this very creative atmosphere, into the startup scene there, which is where I was working as a coach and was trying to teach them how to practice innovation in a more startup way.

And I needed to I was a coach for one of the, of one of the organisations, which is Lufthansa, which is the big airline. I mean, they’re an operator, but they also, are very engineering focused company. And we were doing this talk about failure and how they should embrace failure and how failure should be, celebrated within organisations.

It was one of the first talks I was doing. I was very happy about my amazing insight in how failure should be embraced. And then people basically stood up and they were like, you do realise that we are, we’re building. Aircrafts, like I understand that if you make an app failure should be embraced, but this is our line of work.

We can’t embrace failure because it will cause the death of 3 other people. I think that was the first time where I realised that this theory of that we’re presenting from this innovation and creative perspective can really crash when you bring it obviously within a more engineering or those fields.

So I think one of the things that I try to do is always you have all the theory in your back pocket about how these transformational processes should go. But it’s really firstly about going into the context of the organisation and building this process together with them together, fleshing out what the objectives are.

And then creating, in my case, then workshops or sessions around their ways of working around their ideas and then slowly like a Trojan Horse bringing in these ideas of failure and stuff, but it’s just if you would design a product, you also get input from the users. This way if you engage with organisations in such a process, you first have to do a lot of research into the organisation and then craft your services around that specific organisation for it to land.

So that’s one of the ways that I try to do it now. It’s building it together with that we’re building these processes together with the clients.

[00:19:12] Chris Hudson: Okay, and you tell them it’s a Trojan Horse type strategy Do they know that more things are coming in

[00:19:17] Killian Poolmans: It depends on who you talk to. The person who talked to, I mean, obviously the Georgia North thinks there’s a few little. I think some organisations don’t really know what is part of, for instance, all the sessions but they do at the end of, for instance, a project, and they do at the end, they see the feedback, so I think that’s a good thing.

So sometimes it’s good to not tell everything, I think.

[00:19:36] Chris Hudson: What was the fast forwarding on that Lufthansa story? What was the most ambitious thing you were able to achieve?

[00:19:41] Killian Poolmans: And Lufthansa, there wasn’t really a big ambitious thing decided to achieve there, to be honest. In my time in Germany. I learned a lot. I worked within the startup ecosystem a lot. Not just in Berlin, but all over Europe. So I learned how to build design teams and to build these processes in tinier teams.

And I also learned how to work with these more hierarchical organisations. So in that sense, I learned how to create transformation in an organisation. But I think the biggest things that I’ve started to see changing is actually lately when building my own, when starting my own company. I think one of the bigger projects that we’re doing right now is within the Caribbean.

So we’re working with PWC. It’s been a year already, and that’s a project where you start to build a LGBTQ community within a big organisation. It’s linked to innovation process in the sense that it’s about this transformation aspect of an organisation. But it’s a little bit different because it’s really about creating more of a safe space for a certain group of people within an organisation.

And the biggest thing in this or in this project is that we’re trying to build that within the Caribbean and I’m not from the Caribbean. So that’s a big thing that I try to bring in people from the local region, bring in activists, all that stuff, but it’s really about how to create that in, again, a digital space, facilitate that and try to create a safe space digitally and make people feel like they can express themselves and they can be themselves and how that feeds back into the organisation as a whole as well so

[00:21:07] Chris Hudson: Hmm.

[00:21:07] Killian Poolmans: that’s one of the places where I’m making more impact now than I did at Lufthansa when I told them to embrace failure when building airplanes.

[00:21:16] Chris Hudson: As soon as you said the Caribbean and we’ve spoken about this before, but it just kind of strikes me as a missed opportunity. I want to say that, that you’re not running it face to face and you have to do it digitally from where you’re

[00:21:28] Killian Poolmans: True.

[00:21:28] Chris Hudson: but it’s a lovely place, you know.

[00:21:29] Killian Poolmans: Actually I was thinking about that as well but actually the Caribbean is really, because it’s so many territories, so that way of working now, and I know that I would have loved to be in one of the territories, but that way of working is a really interesting one because there was no way for them to always come together initially as- like pre COVID for instance, so they always worked in this kind of way.

So it is very interesting to see a organisation that is so used to this type of work because everybody is on literally on their own little islands, like not just physically, but I agree with you, it would have been nice to actually be there. Maybe one day.

[00:22:01] Chris Hudson: Yeah, if you, I mean, it sounds like you’re quite used to running this international work, I think that actually, and in my experience too, you’re connecting people from around the world and there’s a time zone difference and there’s something else happening in the background or there’s a perspective that you pick up on straight away, even if you’re on a zoom call and you’ve got people in five or six different countries.

You just feel that energy and it just feels like there’s a connection point even though it’s digital and even though everyone’s moaning about it a couple years ago, it’s still a connection point.

What’s your take on it?

[00:22:28] Killian Poolmans: I always say like I wake up in Australia and then I have like breakfast in Berlin and then I have my after work drinks in the Caribbean, for instance, like in one day. And it’s always really, I really enjoy it. I mean, I enjoy traveling and different cultures in general. I enjoy seeing how all of these different cultures fit within ways of working as well.

Another project that I’m working right now is an organisation that has grown from 20 people to now 80 people with a lot of different cultural background and people with different cultural backgrounds and seeing how all of that fits within the rules and rhythms of working.

And I think this way of working actually really increases the types of people that meet and the types of other ways of working that we are constructing. And I think you, it has something very vulnerable on the way. Like you invite people into your house, literally, which I think also people are more themselves, more, they are in the actual context.

You don’t strip them away from some of their identity when they go into an office. So I think it has a lot of amazing opportunities and it allows me personally to live my own life in a way that you can design it yourself in a way. And I think for a lot of, if I look at the new workforce that’s coming, I think for a lot of people, that’s going to be the, one of the biggest advantages of this type of work.

So it’s not just within an organisation, but also from the people themselves who are doing this type of work.

[00:23:47] Chris Hudson: So tell us about your, I guess your geographical journey from starting in an office somewhere and ending up where you are now and what was deliberate about some of those choices that you made and where have you ended up?

[00:23:57] Killian Poolmans: I am from the Netherlands. I studied in Amsterdam and Delft and then worked in Korea for a while in Seoul. That was more so because I had the opportunity to work for a few different organisations and I chose the one that was, in my opinion, the furthest away and the craziest just because I wanted to get out.

So that was not really strategic. So I went to Korea, loved Korea, and then I moved to Berlin very shortly after that to do my graduation and then I started working there for three, four years in different design agencies. That’s why I started to work within the startup scene as well. I started to develop coaching capabilities, facilitation capabilities, really love that part.

I worked in Singapore for a little bit during my studies as well. And that was a very design heavy design agency where I worked in, I liked that, but I really enjoyed more so the setting of processes and the coaching part of it than the actual nitty gritty design work.

So I decided to move away from that a little bit. And then after three years in Berlin, you have to move out of Berlin after three years- you can’t stay in Berlin too long. So then my partner moved to Melbourne and I decided to join him and that’s when I came to Melbourne. So that was really not a strategic choice.

And Melbourne stayed for one year, worked in an amazing agency as well, learned a lot there. And then COVID happened and I decided to start my own company and move to a place that I fell in love with when I was traveling, which is Georgia. So I’m currently in Tbilisi, Georgia. And basically one night, me and my partner just decided to pack our bags and leave because I think in COVID we were all in this mindset of everything can happen.

We love this country, but we could never work in the beginning because there was not a lot of jobs. But now through COVID, we could work remote. And that was three years ago. So never left. So for now, this is still a good place. But so there’s a few geographical locations, some by really deliberate choice, a lot also just by happy accidents.

[00:25:53] Chris Hudson: But in terms of, I guess, setting up for your business, setting up for the lifestyle that you wanted, what was driving that and what are you enjoying about what you have now?

[00:26:01] Killian Poolmans: I think what one of the biggest realisations during the whole COVID situation, I think was that I think as people we try to create some sort of stability for ourselves. And that’s oftentimes find found within systems like bigger systems that we feel that we’re a part of. And therefore we create a stability of the centre of security.

And by all those systems kind of collapsing during COVID, I realised that that is a false sense of security in a way. The only security that you can create is to build that for yourself. So that was one of the reasons, and I think Georgia, although I didn’t know it back then, if you think about the, and I can go on for a long time about this and I won’t, but if you think about the history of Georgia and the way that it’s not reliant on systems and structures, but really reliant on individuals and their own way of working.

I think it’s a good place to be if you’re trying to set up your design your own life, create your own systems that you yourself can only depend on because people are just used to that here. They’re not used to big organisations succeeding or big corporations succeeding. They’re used to doing shit by themselves.

So I think that’s why I like being here because that’s what I’ve been doing for the past three years as well.

[00:27:10] Chris Hudson: That’s great. I mean, it’s so interesting to hear and actually just thinking about what it means for an individual when all of those, supporting mechanisms and foundations and infrastructure and all of that is taken away. You’re just left with yourself. And what drives yourself?

And how do you, I guess this is maybe more of a personal question, but what’s motivating you in the absence of some of that infrastructure to just keep going? And I’m actually surprised because you do work with creatively orientated organisations, but also ones that are fairly traditional in their outlook and in their approach.

So how do you balance all of that and how do you keep yourself as a bit of a creative soul driving through that?

[00:27:47] Killian Poolmans: Great point. I think it, number one thing, it’s always a balance. Like I think with the work that I’m doing, there’s obviously organisations that need more of this inclusive and creative mindset. So those who need my services and those are oftentimes organisations that may be you would think aren’t the funnest to go work with, whereas there’s other organisations that have amazing projects going, but they already know a few of the tools that I’m using as well.

So it depends. Some organisations are really focused on the capability uplift. And I’m really focusing on taking people on that journey of learning and other organisations for instance, one of the organisations that I work for is Rutgers, which is a Dutch organisation. They have expertise on sexual orientation within the workplace.

And I’m doing a lot of research projects for them around how, for instance, educators want to talk about sexual orientation with their pupils or how doctors want to have conversations about sexual orientations with our patients. And we create products that then help them have those conversations.

So those are also organisations that I work with, but they have a lot of the practices that I teach to organisations that don’t have that, they have that already established. So I really go into a more of a research or design kind of role there. But I like the other part most, although I love working with those organisations, I kind of like creating these spaces for organisations that don’t have that necessarily.

Cause I believe a lot of people in the organisations that don’t have this established yet really crave this and want this. And I guess that’s kind of what keeps me going so to say is I think one of the most powerful things that you can do in life is being a person that you need it when you were younger.

I think that’s a very much of a cliche, but that’s kind of what I still think is an amazing way or thing to strive for is what wasn’t there when you were younger. And what would you have needed to be there? And can you become that person that creates that for others? And that is, I think what I’m trying to do with PinkHammer is I think once I was studying and graduated.

I saw a lot of opportunities, but I never saw myself really being reflected within a lot of different organisations, and I always had to feeling that when I was working somewhere that I had to take on a certain role to fit within that organisation. And I think that loses a lot when you have to do that.

You lose a lot of your, the things that make you special and the superpowers that you have as a person. And so for me with PinkHammer, I tried to create these spaces within organisations that people can show up as themselves and therefore practice creativity or innovation in a way, in at least a way that’s more real to them. And by seeing that, by seeing people actually experience that, by seeing people being able to show up, like you also mentioned in that one project where people at the end really are happy that they were part of such a process and they could really be themselves.

That’s the thing that I love most and that I love seeing most. So those little, every time I see that, that’s what keeps me going. I also just love it. Like I say, that keeps me going in a way that it’s like a thing that I have to really, but I love what I do, so I don’t need that much to keep me going, but those things make me even happier.

[00:30:45] Chris Hudson: It just goes to show what, you know, what a bit of focus and what what ambition can actually deliver for you at a deeper level, it’s not just about, where you get to in terms of title or money or badge or anything like that, but actually if it’s tying into something that you felt like you were missing when you were younger.

And it’s building that version of yourself effectively, through helping others. I mean, you’re, you’re just hitting all the bases, right?

[00:31:08] Killian Poolmans: I mean, it’s, it’s very healing in a way. It’s kind of like going through a healing process within organisations that you also go through in your own life. But it’s also, I feel we are, we are on this trend as a society where we, everybody’s looking for their one passion and trying to find that one mission statement for themselves.

And I think I was on that trend a few years ago, a little bit as well, where it was this Oprah moment where it was, what is the thing that you, and I also feel like we can, we can sometimes kind of got lost in that and try to define that too clearly for ourselves because I feel sometimes, you don’t have to necessarily, I mean this is very against what I just said about being the, showing up as the person that you need when you’re younger.

I also believe that sometimes it doesn’t have to be that deep. Like it can be you working and you’ll find that one day. But I feel like it’s also as a society, we’ve tried to really become, everybody has to be their own like saviour and stuff. And I also don’t necessarily subscribe to that idea. But if you find those nuggets where it can be healing for you, your younger self, and you feel like you can make that change, then definitely that’s amazing.

But also don’t try to craft that in such a purpose statement way. I think because we can kind of get lost in that as well.

[00:32:15] Chris Hudson: Yeah. I think it has an interesting implication for working within teams and leading teams, from a point of view of empathy, but also if you’re on the one hand hearing about, like you say, and maybe it’s, this is kind of, three years ago or whatever, but people are still doing it.

It’s around self reflection, self awareness and, and really looking within, being quite introspective to try and find what your place in the world is and where you think you should be going versus those that would actually be quite comfortable being led. They love being part of something very community orientated and it’s not as simple as that and there are lots of different variants obviously between, between those two opposites.

But actually there’s comfort in both ways. You can find yourself through belonging in a group. And that’s why a lot of people choose to work within an enterprise level organisation, or choose to work within local government, or wherever it is. But there are those that would more, be more inclined to, I guess, try and figure out who they are and who they stand for, to then bring that to other people as well.

[00:33:09] Killian Poolmans: For sure. Yeah.

And I think as organisations, I think it’s very important, especially if you’re talking about new work and creating that a little shifting that I think the newer generation that’s going to, that’s coming up, very much so focused on finding some part of their identity attached to work or some part of their vision of the world attached to work.

So I think organisations should really also create space for that to exist or for that to happen. Space where the mission of the company is something that’s being crafted within or within with the full team, or at least there’s a moment where people can new people can reflect on that, add to it and together create the vision impact that they want to create.

I feel that’s also, for instance, part of some of the projects that we’re doing. It’s not just, I take BWC again as an example. It’s not just creating this safe space for queer people, but it’s also looking at, okay, how does my role, how is that attached to the overall role within BWC, within this territory?

And then how can this specific thing that I want to create impact in, how can that be part of my role as well? So I think you’ve hit on something that I think is very important for organisation to move forward is creating that space where people can identify themselves with that mission within transformational project as well.

But yeah, there’s also people that really fall outside of the organisation and do that by themselves. But I think organisations should definitely create space for that.

[00:34:34] Chris Hudson: Yeah, I want to try out an analogy and tell me if it’s right or wrong, because you’ll be much much more equipped to answer this in a way. But often, when it comes to introducing a progressive initiative of some sort within an organisation, and it could be one that’s set in its ways, or it could be, you know, fairly forward thinking in itself and fairly manoeuvrable, but I’m just thinking about how change is actually facilitated within some of those organisations and thinking about the fact that, in some cases to get something started, you set up a bit of a side project or a side group, and I’m just thinking about the kind of implications for inclusion or exclusion when over here there’s something happening in innovation, or here there’s, like you’re describing, there’s a queer community initiative or something happening over here, and you know people are part of it, but you’re not always part of it.

How do you get around some of those obstacles of perceived exclusivity and lack of inclusivity?

[00:35:27] Killian Poolmans: I think that’s a great point. I think, what a lot of people think is that for instance this queer community building is done. If I talk with organisations that want to implement this, they see it as a thing for the queer community necessarily. And also where the queer community only shows up.

If we talk about innovation process- projects a lot of the times people nominate the most innovative person within the team to then go off and do that kind of work. So I feel like the work that we do or that I do as coming as an outsider into organisations, a lot of times people nominate the people that they feel fit most in the project.

And I always try to push against that. Also, for instance, with this PwC project, it’s very important for me that there are allies involved within this, creating this safe space as well. So it’s people that don’t necessarily know that much about the community, but do want to show up for them. And I also always advise people to bring people into some of the workshops or some of the sessions.

If the project is mostly focused on innovation practices, yes, the organisation has a say in who should be part of that project. I always, number one, try to make it as diverse as possible, different cultural backgrounds, different hierarchies, different sexual orientations, different gender identities.

So that should be a great representation, but different teams and departments. But once they’re in such a project, I also always make sure that it’s not this side thing that’s not necessarily part of that daily work. I always try to implement tools that they can then take with to their teams and try to create sessions where they bring their teams in.

So I think you can create, you can be hired in a space where it seems like it’s this side project, but you can really start to infiltrate more within the organisation. Once you’re actually facilitating these sessions and you do that through the participants, through making them your ambassadors and making sure that they bring other people in or talk about this to other people. So that’s, even though I’m one facilitator, making the participants your ambassadors is a way I feel to, to make sure that you can enact change in a bigger scale in an organisation.

[00:37:31] Chris Hudson: It depends on what you’ve got in mind. I think there’s a lot of initiatives, I’m gonna say going on in different walks of corporate life where it feels like they’re almost paying lip service to what is actually needs to be done or said.

With an initiative, it could be a once a year, you know, Where It Purple event, I’m just gonna kind of just gonna call it, you know, I think there, there are some things going on that kind of look as if on face value they’re all about inclusivity, but actually, it’s really just a bit of a staged presence of something, you know?

The same with allies. I get that it’s very important, but at the same time, I’m wondering whether people’s motivation for declaring, sometimes it’s self through self choice really that the people put themselves forward. You were saying that you’d be picking out from different parts of the business who would come in and you’d want it to be as diverse as possible.

But it’s not always the way is it? It’s sometimes very, very superficial. And in other cases a lot of people will be wondering, how does this relate to what I need to do or what the team needs to do at work?

And I think the notion of actually bringing one’s personal perspective into the work and personal preferences and being that open and that vulnerable would actually be very, very daunting and very intimidating for a lot of people as well. How do you unpack and get around some of those things?

[00:38:42] Killian Poolmans: I think in terms of some of the D9 initiatives that are happening. And I think in terms of also some of the queer initiative or LGBTQ or however you want to call it initiatives that are happening in the organisation. It’s about just conducting these initiative just on the basis that you can put a tick to it. It’s always a balance because oftentimes within big organisations, the first meetings or discussions that you have with people, it comes from some boardroom somewhere where they said, we have to do something about this and figure it out.

So oftentimes you do encounter people and the same with innovation practice. You do encounter people that don’t really know the full depth of these kinds of processes that want to hire you or want to set up such a project. And then it’s really about you not falling for for instance, for this PwC thing, it was really about us not falling for it

it’s slight change that they wanted to see, but really fight for the bigger project that you want to enact and that you want to create also the innovation process as well. It’s really about you can go in on a one off workshop or you can go in with just trying to teach them capabilities, but you really want to fight for the bigger project that you want to put on and I always try to do this by creating sessions that talk about this bigger picture with participants.

So even though within an organisation and the buy in, you might not have from the person that you were talking to. Once you have the participants within those sessions on board and create this bigger vision of the organisation and show the bigger picture, like I just said, also this investor type of people, those are the people that then tell that forward or that then go to the team leaders and try to bring in bigger projects.

So even though you don’t have it in the beginning, you can create the sessions in a way that paint a bigger picture for an organisation being the better or bigger future and also create a step by step plan on how to get there so that’s something I try to do but it’s a tricky balance It’s always a tricky balance between how much impact can you create within this first project or how much are you going to build into projects that are going to come next. And you never, although you want to fight for it, you never really know some projects I thought that we’re going to build in next projects that were bigger as well. So I said yes to smaller projects and that’s the only project that people are doing. That happens as well.

You have to balance that in a way, but it’s always a, within this space, it’s always a tricky thing. And then the third thing I think is the measurements that you can add to it. You know, although in this space it’s very much so about change and sometimes change also within innovation as well, it’s hard to measure in some certain way, but there are ways to measure the impact that you’re creating.

And I don’t necessarily like sometimes the fact that we have to measure all of, I think putting data to some of it, some of these more human changes within the organisation can be tricky, but there are some data points that you can definitely measure. And I always also embed data measurement within my sessions so that at least the uptake in certain capabilities or the change within mindsets and perspectives can be proven within the organisation.

And therefore you can start building bigger change projects with an organisation based on that data too. You can start building bigger change projects with an organisation based on that data too.

[00:41:47] Chris Hudson: Yeah, I was going to ask about measurement and impacts and how you manage that because it must come up, particularly if there’s investment required and a lot of discussions now around what investment, something would return, what it would lead to in a way.

I think the landscape of metrics is becoming quite interesting.

[00:42:03] Killian Poolmans: Yeah.

[00:42:03] Chris Hudson: The harder metrics are always going to be there. But obviously the softer ones and particularly when you overlay engagement data and all of the things that the people are using now to assess how people feel within themselves, within an organisation, within their role.

And they’re looking to understand that the employee and their team motivations at a much deeper level than they ever did before. It’s all becoming a lot more quantified and quantifiable. And yeah, I think you can interpret it, based on what you see back.

But I think having the ambition to set out some of that upfront is really, really key.

I was also wondering about how you actually set things up, how do you find the right match between yourself and the team that you work with and a company or organisation?

Organisation or a team that you wanna work with, and, you know, does that always go well? What are some of the things that come up in discussion there around where to focus first, how does it all get started?

[00:42:53] Killian Poolmans: I also quickly want to go back to the data or at least like the measurement part of it as well because I do think that’s a very interesting, I feel like we’re really in the beginning or we’re in this stages where we try to prove things with the data collection, things that are more so soft skills as well.

And I’ve been in board meetings where people to prove a certain project, they wanted to know the exact amount of people that were part of each of the sessions. And then also the time that they, for instance, dropped off. And it was these kind of weird metrics that they tried to use to, to prove within these board meetings of whether the engagement was high or not.

And I feel like I agree that we need to have some kind of measurement in place, but I do also believe that we need to step away from these kind of weird, amount of people in the session tactics because sometimes a session with two people can be a very, very deep, transformative session whereas a session with 100 people

half of them are not even listening. There are some practitioners in the field that are really changing this. That has a lot to do with doing interviews beforehand, showing an uptick in understanding of different concepts, but that takes its measured over a longer time. It’s measured over like a year or maybe even two years within teams of whether some of these concepts are actually being taken into account, whether there’s actually change being created within, for instance, asking new hires, how they felt within the first three months as compared to in two years, asking you how it’s all those different things that you can start measuring.

But this takes time and I feel the time is oftentimes not necessarily given within those spaces, but yeah, that’s all the say I think we’re in the children’s shoes when it comes to measuring these kinds of projects, but it is an interesting development that’s happening there in terms of matching with new clients and how to match my team with it, I always have in the beginning a meeting with teams or with organisations, and it’s just a very open meeting about what some of their goals are, whether if they look at the future of the organisation, whether they see themselves in so many years and what are the goals and what do they feel they need to change.

And then I look back into the collective of people that are part of PinkHammer collective, and it depends whether some people really want to focus on more on inclusivity, gender diversity. And then I have people within the collective that are experts on that, other people really want to focus more so on their creative problem solving skills.

And then I have other people to bring into those sessions and then I structure them together with the organisation, like I mentioned, so I have design sessions that you with people within the organisation that then with me and the person that I bring in from the collective structure these different sessions.

So I, I never see myself as an outsider coming in and try to match as I really see it as a co-design way of creating the programs and projects, and match it in that way. But it’s really based on the goals and objectives for organisation and the skill sets that the team has.

[00:45:39] Chris Hudson: Yeah, I mean that will provide your north star, even when you’re in flight and you’re running the program. You’re coming back to that, presumably, to kind of guide you through and guide the team through. I’m just trying to rack my brains, but what are some of the barriers and some of the blockers that come up, as you’re rolling things out in this area?

Is it unique to your area, or do you feel like it’s pretty standard stuff?

[00:46:00] Killian Poolmans: I think it’s always as an, as a outside facilitator going into an organisation and trying to enact change. I think the biggest blocker is always the space that you create with in the organisation and we just talked about making it making sure that it’s representative of the organisation, making sure that it fits within the rules and rhythms of working of the organisation, but it’s still a little bit of an outside space that you create and then people always go back into the organisation and then things always turn out a little bit differently than you want them to go in a utopian world, right?

So that’s one of the biggest blockers is always this transition period between understanding certain tools, understanding certain ways of working within the space that I create and then migrating that back into the overall structure of the organisation. What works mostly is if people within the organisation are willing to adapt certain rules and rhythms of working and change them based on what we’ve, what we are actually going through within some of the programs and a lot of times that is the case. But oftentimes it’s also not the case. Oftentimes people then go back into the organisation and they fall flat back to where they were before they joined some of the programs that I create. And I think that’s the biggest blocker.

And I think it has to do a lot with how the teams are set up. And that’s why I have so much on also why I think diversity such a big part of this is if you have an organisation that looks at certain ways of working in one perspective, then having a different perspective come in can be really hard to, for them to adapt to.

Whereas if you already have an organisation that is built up out of people with a lot of different perspectives and ways of working, adding a different perspective in that is a lot easier to digest for this organisation. Yes, it works by some of the projects that I’m doing, but it’s really also about the way that the organisation is set up and built up and the way that the teams are created as well.

[00:47:52] Chris Hudson: Mm yeah it’s a good point in there around longevity and actually the lasting effect of some of the change that you introduced, because as soon as you walk in the door it’s evident that something is gonna change and you run the program of work, but then as soon as you leave, it’s really about what the staying power is of the initiatives and the the frameworks, the things that you put in place.

And actually, I’m finding increasingly so anyway, that the, the expectation on. Particularly project based work is that you’re, you’re justifying a very short term commitment of resource and time and expertise, obviously, to a particular organisation. And the expected output from that is, is almost, we’re going to see it through that time, say it’s 3 months, 12 weeks, six weeks, I don’t know what it is, 6 months.

Or we’re going to see it straight afterwards, but actually the lasting effect of that. And coming back to that, it’s not really something that is often discussed up front because you can’t really predict it.

How do you go about setting up for longevity in a way?

[00:48:46] Killian Poolmans: I think it’s one of the things that I right away address within with potential clients, even that I start to engage with it’s, mentioning that it’s not going to be a one size fits all change overnight process, but also giving them the tools to measure this, like I just mentioned, like showing the, I already, even though it’s a three month project, I give the team that is overseeing this project, I give them the tools to them, measure in a half year and then in a year I set up like frameworks for them to measure these kinds of things.

I make sure that everything is in place that when I leave, it’s still being talked about and measured in a specific type of a way. And I always keep a line open. I think that’s another thing as well. I think with all the people that I work with and all the projects that I work with, I still have a lot of contact with the participants and with the clients too.

I do see it as a longer partnership there as well. So even though you’re in three months in a big process, it’s an updating thing where I also still provide them with different templates. I still provide them with different ways of thinking. I sometimes send them just a video of, of things that I think they should be changing or things that just popped into my head.

So I never see it as a three month commitment, although it oftentimes is, I see it as a longer term commitment, but that’s the thing that I addressed within the beginning as well. And some organisations see the value of that and those are the ones that I decide to also work with and some really don’t.

And I also honestly can then say that oftentimes those are not the clients that I initially then say yes to.

[00:50:08] Chris Hudson: That’s really worthwhile, isn’t it? And you’re going above and beyond and probably beyond a lot of what consultants are expected to do a lot of the time or would do because they’re off on to the next thing usually. But yeah, really, really good, good practice. And yeah, just really immersive.

You know, the fact that you’re treating it almost at a human level. And keeping in touch and interacting like you would do with friends and family, people that you know well. So, so that just

normalizes

[00:50:31] Killian Poolmans: also because I think a big part of that is also because I expect a lot of, you know, it’s deep. I expect a lot of vulnerability within some of the projects that I’m doing as well. I expect a lot of them being themselves, all that stuff. So. When you expect that it becomes a little bit deeper and I don’t want to, I, it’s almost fake if you expect that, but then step out and then create this connection, create the space where people can meet themselves and then feel like you can just leave and that’s it.

I feel if you expect that you also want to see that true and I, I think that, people resonate with that, but I think it’s your responsibility if you ask that of people to then also make sure that’s real and that there is a real connection that you see that true as well. Sometimes even though the organisations might have a different view on that, but yeah, so if you expect that from people, I feel like that’s what you have to put into.

[00:51:14] Chris Hudson: What strikes me as being particularly unique to this, this area is that it’s very much striking at the cords of what people stand for in themselves. So anything that you work with them on, for one it’s going to be quite different to what they’re going to be working on in their day to day roles

[00:51:32] Killian Poolmans: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:32] Chris Hudson: It’s going to take them away from that and it’s going to just go right to their core and actually connect them to something probably unexpected, I’m going to say, because it’s going to get them thinking about things in a new way both, you know, not only in finding themselves, but in defining their role in relation to the context in which they work as well.

So that, in a sense, feels quite unique. I’m trying to think of any other examples where that does happen. I’ve seen work places obviously introduce various well being initiatives and there’s obviously the usual yoga activities and so on, where people get to take time out of work to think and meditate and do other things for their own well being.

But actually, this one, it feels like it’s almost a character building exercise in itself for the people that would take part. So they give a lot to the process and they get almost as much or if not more back from participating with you. Is that a fair reflection?

[00:52:26] Killian Poolmans: It is. And that’s also sometimes also tricky because I’ve had participants that after going through the whole project quit, you know, or go to another organisation or, and that’s part of it too, which is maybe not the best selling point for clients to bring in some of the projects. But it’s the reality though.

And I feel like if that’s reality, then it’s also a good outcome. Although maybe eventually you want people in your organisation that align with those values. And if they through this process kind of see that that might not be the case or see something else in the future, then that should also be an option.

So that’s a fair assessment. I try to focus mostly on, not necessarily putting that part of some of the programs at the forefront. I think it’s a very esoteric way of looking at it, which I embrace that fully, but I think it’s also scary for a lot of people. So I focus mostly on the creative problem solving skills, the inclusion practices within product development, all that stuff.

Because I think those are things that people are less scared of, but again, maybe it’s a bit of a Trojan Horse way of then I use those templates and use those processes and use those systems to then go a little bit deeper. And I think for, if you want to get good results out of these processes, you have to go that bit deeper.

I think the best practices are the ones that people put the parts of themselves in the best projects are the ones where people really can identify with the impact and with the outcome. So, I’m not afraid of bringing that at the forefront, but I know that some clients don’t see that way, but you’re completely right when saying that it is- it’s transformative, not just for an organisation, but also for the individuals as well.

[00:53:52] Chris Hudson: I want to touch on one one other area just before we close, which is around the fact that sometimes consultants and initiatives are put in place to really act as a catalyst and to drive something that’s new, hasn’t been done before, but it’s very much, I guess, dictated. I want to think about more, maybe more broadly, which is what is the role of the individual or the collective or the community, you know, the person who is within an organisation they work for. What do you feel people should be taking on more of themselves to help in the areas that you describe?

[00:54:22] Killian Poolmans: Yeah. Good question. I think in the utopian world, I would like to see people being able to bring their lived experiences in there. The things that they’ve gone through to their work as well, whether that’s good or bad, I feel like we’re so stripped off from a lot of identities within big organisations.

Not necessarily because I think that’s just expected of us. Through just the way that way that corporate cultures kind of programs. And I do believe that no one benefits from that. So I don’t think that that’s a specific thing that’s being set up from a hierarchical stem from like above.

think when we talk about what the individual should bring, I think we most have to talk about what kind of cultural shift we want to create so that that is there. Because I think individuals will bring that already. They want to be themselves. They will bring these certain standpoints.

They will bring their certain ideas. They will bring they’re lived experiences. It’s about culture having to hold space for that. And I think that comes with, creating spaces where people can be themselves like that. Also, leaders showing up, expressing vulnerability, being able to share some of their personal stories as well.

So basically what I’m saying is I think… Instead of asking what the individual has to do or what I think they should do, I think it’s more so what a cultural shift within an organisation have to take place for individuals to eventually be their full self within the organisation. And that’s really, I think the biggest shift that we have to make.

As organisations, especially if we want to get a younger generation into a lot of these organisations, because if you look at it, a lot of people are doing project based work. A lot of younger people are actually shifting away from getting into these big organisations. So if you want to continue to build that work first, you’re going to have to create a culture where people can, show up as a full self and that has to do with embracing these diverse perspectives, creating space for critical thinking, creating space for vulnerability, practicing empathy, all those stuff that we kind of know about already, but embedding that within the DNA of an organisation.

[00:56:18] Chris Hudson: And how do you think that can be best made known or experienced for somebody who’s sitting outside of an organisation, but might be looking at other options and maybe wanting to work in a place that more closely aligns to their values and needs because employee experience and employee, you know, EVP and all the things that are now becoming much more focused upon.

They’re still in a way, quite internally focused. There’s not a lot that stretches out to the outside world. Sometimes you get a little sizzle reel with, you know, a grad talking about their experience of having started at this company or a CEO or you know somebody it feels like it’s a little bit staged But how do you get to that that nub of authenticity that you were describing?

[00:56:57] Killian Poolmans: Do you mean how the company would show that level of authenticity outside or how do you as an outsider know whether the company would practice that within the organisation?

[00:57:06] Chris Hudson: I think, how do you, how do you make that matchmaking work of the company saying we stand for this and the person saying, oh, I stand for that too and I’d love to come and work for you?

[00:57:15] Killian Poolmans: What I know, at least within the projects that I there’s always a point where the starting point is that the starting point is really, this is the objective of the organisation. This is the impact that the organisation wants to make or the team. And this is what you as a person want to see.

You as a person want to add and you want to create and how do you align that? And I think that’s how some of the teams that I’ve worked at also start. And that’s what I, how also, adapted some of those strategies. It’s about realising that you’re not going to be part of this family that you’re going to work with for 30 years and we’re all with this one big happy family that shows up for each other. That’s, I feel a little bit of more so elder millennial kind of mindset, where that was really the culture. I feel like we’ve all stepped away from that as it can be sometimes a little bit toxic if we still talk about that. But, it is about realising that, okay, you’re going to be here. You have a certain type of vision of what your work should be, what your skillset is, and what the impact is that you want to create, and also what the things that you want to learn. We as an organisation want to do this and this and this, how can we align that for a certain period of time, whether it’s a year, two years, three years, and how can we make sure that both of us benefit most from each other?

And let’s have an open conversation about that from the start. And I think that is the way to do it. Whether that’s on a project basis, really internally with teams. This is what we want to get out of this project. This is what we want, what you individually want to add. How can we benefit from each other or organisation-wide?

This is who you are as a person. This is what the organisation is. How can we benefit from each other? So having those conversations as an organisation early on is very important. But also kick starting those conversations as a new employee within a team, I think is also very important.

And it’s all about you not creating this illusion of family and 30 years of work working together, but getting much reality of, hey this is probably what’s going to happen. So let’s make the most of it.

[00:59:04] Chris Hudson: It’s a far cry, isn’t it? From, I guess, a more traditional interview process and you’ve got a job description and you might get asked five questions about five skill sets that sit within that JD and then they’re writing things down into a little checkbox based on your answers to really going a lot deeper than that.

[00:59:20] Killian Poolmans: And there’s two different schools of thought in that, because on the one that we see this process being more and more so optimised, especially with AI now, where there’s a lot of companies actually optimising this process or trying to optimise this using AI. And then as a way more human way of sometimes looking at it, where it’s really about having those conversations.

I don’t know which direction is going to go into, I know which direction I am more in favour of. But we’ll see, but it is a very interesting point within working culture that we’re at, where I think we’re more and more so realistic about what we want and organisations are more so authentic about what they want.

And I think that’s a good thing.

[00:59:55] Chris Hudson: Yeah, it’s actually going to be my final question, which is really around, if you see this playing out in the way that it’s starting to play out and in the work that you’re doing, what do you feel like the impact could look like and what could the change look like that would be made possible through some of these initiatives getting started?

[01:00:11] Killian Poolmans: It all started from when I was working in Berlin, going into these accelerator programs, these startup programs. Seeing predominantly, mostly straight white males coming up with these apps that would deliver food faster and would do this faster and would create it.

It was very much a certain type of demographic that were creating products for a certain type of demographic. And I think that’s really this, that was the moment where a lot of the things that I was doing, what I’m doing right now kind of fell into places where I realised, oh, wait a minute. I think if we can create, a culture where there’s different types of people with different types of backgrounds or different types of views of life, create systems and create products and create services.

We will also create systems, products and services that benefit a bigger spectrum of society. So that’s always the future vision is making sure that we equip a more diverse group of people with the tools to practice innovation, with the tools to come up with products, to come up with services, come up with systems, and also be able to put themselves in that process so that we can see that these people being reflected within the products and services and systems that we create within the innovation that we create.

So that’s always the end goal. It’s creating this new sort of workforce where that’s being reflected in the outcome of it as well. Whether that’s on a huge scale, whether that’s in a few organisations, but that’s, that’s always what I love to see and what I’m working towards.

[01:01:34] Chris Hudson: That sounds better. I mean, I’m coming up against this. white male thing a lot and, and I’m just wondering

[01:01:40] Killian Poolmans: I mean I’m a white male as well so

[01:01:42] Chris Hudson: But in terms of facilitating this representation, getting it going, what could people who are white males in positions of power who are under criticism now for, for just not acting, what can they do to take action and really support some of the things that you were describing?

[01:01:57] Killian Poolmans: Yeah, great point. I think number one, it’s not necessarily looking at it as they’re being criticised because I think it’s mostly just an opportunity to learn an opportunity to not get defensive about stuff, but actually, sit with some of the uncomfortableness. I think what happens mostly is if you get defensive about some things and I think that is what happens a lot within those in within these spaces is that when we bring up straight white males that can be a trigger and people kind of shut off, but shutting off and feeling a trigger always resonates with something deeper.

There’s something that you want to push away. There’s something uncomfortable there. So let’s first sit with this uncomfortable feeling and see what is that about? And oftentimes there’s nuggets of truth within that as well. So I think it’s number one, really self reflecting and unpacking some of the things that you’ve gone through.

And then I think it’s about realising that your vision of the world is not the default. And your experiences that you’ve created are not necessarily default and although you’ve been grown up in, you grew up in a system where we kind of see that as a default. So you have to almost unprogram yourself, unprogram your own mind to realise that wait a minute, I’m just one of this huge group and there’s so many different perspectives, so many different experiences, and if someone else comes up and shares their perspective or experience that is just as valid as my perspective of experience, I don’t have to have gone through a certain experience to validate it or to say that that’s a correct experience.

I don’t even have to understand that. I just have to create space for that. So once you’ve gone through, unpacking your own self defensiveness, and then once you’ve started to realise that you’re not the default, it’s about creating spaces for others to express their point of view and realising that sometimes it’s your to step out of the space and other people have to come up and create those shared points of views and lead some of those projects and embed some of the experiences within projects.

So I think it’s those three steps. And that’s the thing that I think we ought to do. It’s, for instance, also why within this collective, I realised that I shouldn’t be speaking for a lot of the things that I stand for just because I don’t necessarily have all the lived experiences to back that up.

So that’s why we create a organisation or collective of people that do have those lived experiences that can step forward. So I think that is, that’s a big part of it as well. It’s knowing when to lead and knowing when to lead from the back and knowing when to create space.

[01:04:20] Chris Hudson: And by the sounds of it, it’s about bringing your perspective but also appreciating the broader perspective and the system in which that could be useful in some way. So you’re not just in that trap of a self fulfilling prophecy where, because you’ve always associated this with, you know, certain status or an ambition or a goal, that that’s the only way to go.

I think that your experience more broadly and how it can be connected to somebody else’s experience and their need in that moment is probably where, you know, where empathy again comes in, where some of those connections can actually start to become more of a constructive building block than just a, you know, a divisive and polarising my perspective versus yours, for example. So I think collaboration is obviously at the heart of that, but how do we get people working better together in that respect and creating the open conversations that, that you’re working with all the time, but a lot of people find really hard to navigate.

[01:05:14] Killian Poolmans: For sure. Like, I also think it’s not about demonising what I feel like sometimes can happen is like demonising this like straight white male idea and we can go into that. I don’t think that’s necessarily what we’re looking for. It’s just about balancing the play, levelling the playing field and making sure that there’s room for all of that instead of this feeling that I feel that I get sometimes and that I feel a lot of people. Also this feels that it’s very much about bringing people down and silencing, but it’s more so about lifting a lot of people up.

And then from that collective playing field, start to create start to build together, basically.

[01:05:48] Chris Hudson: Yeah, fantastic. Well, thank you very much, Killian. I really appreciate your time today. You’ve left me with a feeling of hope and, you know, just encouraging to hear about all the amazing work that you’ve been doing. The fact that things can change, the perspectives, the constraints that we set for ourselves can obviously be broken down in some way or another.

And we can all be creative, we can all feel empowered, we can all feel like a version of our superhero. Childhood hero, whatever it is. We can do all of that stuff.

[01:06:14] Killian Poolmans: Exactly. Just look at it through the lens of Pippi. Like things can change because things, reality is there to bend and to twist and to make your own in a way. So it’s never set in stone.

[01:06:23] Chris Hudson: No, it’s brilliant. Thank you very much and

uh pink

[01:06:26] Killian Poolmans: Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed that.

[01:06:27] Chris Hudson: What was the reason for pink hammer? You could have chosen any weapon tool instrument anything. Why was it a hammer?

[01:06:33] Killian Poolmans: Actually, it was about, so a couple of things. It was during my time in Melbourne where I came up with this during some kind of meditation session and I felt like big hammer always stood for breaking down some sort of the old institutions, but then also building new things. And I think a hammer was a great analogy for breaking a tool to break things down, but also a tool to build things.

And then there was this like this kind of masculinity, femininity aspect of it, because I thought a hammer was such a masculine kind of thing. And then a play on it with pink, which is traditional feminine, bringing that in, but kind of playing with that, twisting it. That’s what it all came down to. And then it just kind of stuck.

So it’s, it’s all of those things combined.

[01:07:14] Chris Hudson: Yeah, it works. It’s brilliant. Thank you. We usually finish by asking our guests, how people can get in touch with you if they wanted to reach out, you know, I know we’ve always enjoyed our chats, but if they wanted to find you, connect to you, how would they find you?

[01:07:27] Killian Poolmans: They can find me on- I feel like I’m an influencer now. They can find me on LinkedIn at both PinkHammer, but also at Killian Poolmans, my name. You can go to pinkhammer.space where you can see all the updates. You can go to Instagram, @PinkHammer, where you can see updates and you can go to, no, that’s it. I think That’s

[01:07:47] Chris Hudson: That’s it? All right. Well, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time tonight. I’m sure our listeners are really going to enjoy this one. So yeah thank you so much again for your time.

[01:07:54] Killian Poolmans: Thank you so much too.

[01:07:55] Chris Hudson: Okay, so that’s it for this episode. If you’re hearing this message, you’ve listened all the way to the end. So thank you very much. We hope you enjoyed the show. We’d love to hear your feedback. So please leave us a review and

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