Emotional Intelligence at Work

For female founders in particular, the research doesn't lie. Very, very small percentage, a minor, minor, tiny percentage of money raised goes to female founded companies. Part of that is we run really efficient and we run great companies. We actually female founded companies do better across the research, but they're not the ones that are funded. So maybe that scarcity mentality means that we just get on and do it because, you know, we're tenacious and we do want to change the world.

Welcome to the ReLaunch podcast where we spotlight transformative journeys and pioneering leaders. And I have to say, the woman that I have coming on, I think that there's a lot of her in so many of us, but we don't give ourselves the opportunity to make it happen. And so today, you're going to hear from a true pioneer, Renata Sguario, CEO of Maxme, a visionary leader dedicated to advancing human skills through technology. Renata's work is reshaping personal and professional growth, positioning her as a key innovator in a skill building and development cycle. Here, her leadership not only drives progress, but also empowers women entrepreneurs around the globe. So let's go ahead and dive into Renata story, exploring the impact of her work and the inspiration behind her remarkable relaunch journey. Renata so good to have you here. Wow.

Listen to you describe me. I've got a blush on my face just listening to you. Wow. Fantastic. You all day. Hilary, thank you so much for having me on.

Well, it's such a pleasure because I I can appreciate your background so much. I got out of kind of the the corporate role after about 10 years, and your relaunch journey and where you are today. And that most significant one really has a lot to do with the journey through corporate and where you are today. So let's dive in, because it is, it is a relaunch roller coaster, as I like to say. So we'd love to, we'd love to hear you kind of take us through that.

Thanks so much. Hilary, so look, I guess for me, I'm defined by a number of things. And the first thing is that I've always been a risk taker. So personality wise, I've always looked out for opportunity, for personal growth, and then also growth of others. I'm also really, yeah, motivated by seeing growth in others. And so my relaunch story is very much one of always being open to opportunity. I was really lucky to start my career really strongly at Accenture. And, you know, I worked really, really hard to get to that role. I, you know, I finally pulled my socks up when I got to university school, not as much, but, you know, when I got to uni, I was really focused on the career that I wanted to launch for myself. And I was, you know, lucky enough to find myself at Accenture, and I had amazing grounding there as a company, really second to none. And I then, you know, transitioned over to the dark side, to the corporate side, because I decided that I wanted to get my hands dirty and really get involved in business transformation. And that kind of defines my career journey, my career story, through technology, through project delivery, through operations, through risk. I love fixing business problems and I loved working with people. They're the two things that really stand out for me, but I got to a stage 30 years into my career, where I decided that it was time to redefine myself, and it was for a few reasons. First of all, because I've been passionate about people, I really started to get frustrated, even at my my own whinging about how people didn't have the skills that they needed at work to actually be really successful, these human skills, or soft skills, as they're known sometimes. And, you know, rather than continuing to whinge, I thought, I'm an action oriented person. I got to do something about this, but to contrast everyone that I knew, and, you know, I was on an executive track, and I'd worked pretty hard to be there everyone I knew that I told I was going to start a startup that just looked at me as if I was some sort of really, like, deranged individual. Of,

what do you I still get that Renata, so don't worry about it. It's like,

are you serious? Like, what did you just say? And anyway, so I just was compelled, like, like, some really pivotal points in my career where I decided to take a road that probably others wouldn't. This was another one of those examples where I felt like I needed to bring what I knew, what I was passionate about, to the world globally, and I couldn't do that in any one organization. I could only do that through my own organization and bringing to bear. Thing that I'd learned over 30 years and bringing those gifts out to others. And I had to do it. I couldn't not do it, and so I did, and I started Max me. We're now into our fifth year, and, you know, we've bootstrapped pretty much all the way along, and it's been a roller coaster within a roller coaster. Hillary. I say to people, I'm a workaholic. I've I've always worked really hard. I've got, you know, migrant parents. I myself am a migrant. Wasn't born in Australia. I was born in the Ukraine. And, you know, I've always had that strong work ethic drummed into me, and so I've always been that way, but I've never worked harder in my life than I have in the last five years.

Isn't that the truth? But let's go back as you did 30 years in corporate, yeah. And what you noticed, and the reason that you knew that you had to start this max me startup, you mentioned human skills, those soft skills. Can you go into more about what exactly are you referring to?

Yes. So for us, it all anchors to this concept of emotional intelligence. So emotionally intelligent people are actually just more successfully, successful. I should say that's what the research says. And I think what we've all had in the lift experience, right? People who are self aware and manage themselves well, and then can, you know, connect in groups, build trust and work through teams. They're just more successful. They get, you know, better outcomes. I guess they're not always the ones that are paid the top dollar. I will admit, you know, I don't want to paint a, you know, a beautiful unicorn picture of the cool people always get the great jobs, and they're always the ones that shine. You know, that's not reality, but research will tell you that emotionally intelligent people are more successful on a number of measures, but and these human skills, I guess, you know, come together to make you more emotionally intelligent. So first and foremost, that self awareness, knowing what my strengths and derailers are, being able to manage them really effectively and maximize them, I guess, things like communication, empathy, creative, problem solving, you know this mindset around growth, and you know, really harnessing diversity and difference to grow yourself and others, that suite of skills. And then, of course, there's, you know, time management skills and knowing how to have difficult conversations. All of those things come together in this suite of human skills that can be learned, but are not taught.

So it's interesting, because I came out of Oracle high tech company Silicon Valley, and I was there almost 10 years, and I worked in the financial manufacturing, selling these products, and I dealt a lot with men, a lot with men. And from the logical side of things. They just wanted the answers. They were not interested in hearing how I was doing. It would be a very quick start the second the meeting. It was none of the the niceties. And through that, I started to realize that we do have these IQ people that are really focused in the processes, procedures, systems, and then you have the EQ, the people who you know kind of go all in on that area. I like to say there's a fine line of bringing both together. And I call it three. HQ, it's kind of the next generation. It's the headquarters of you, the head, the heart, the highest self. How are you seeing? IQ? When you go in with Max me to help coach these organizations in the you know, human skills, as you said, self awareness, resilience, these things that we really need to have. How do you incorporate and feed into different learning styles of people, different you know, men versus women, gender intelligence. How do you how do you take all of that into consideration?

Yeah, it's a brilliant question, and one that typically isn't well understood. So it's true that people appear at first glance as IQ people or analytical people or particular type of people. But we know that humans decide emotionally, we're actually emotional machines, and so it really is about getting to know who a person is, and you can only really do that through understanding them. I find through their character and, and who, you know, we do this piece around unlocking people's character strengths. Who am I when nobody's in the room? And, you know, what am I looking at like at my best, you know, and, and perhaps not so good. And then, you know, there's the middle strengths that we always talk about, the gold that's there to be mine. So really, the first thing is to understand a person more deeply through who they are, not just on surface level, but it takes, it actually takes a person's own strengths and own kind of self awareness and resolve to go beyond what you see immediately, and to really connect and empathize. And you know, I love a. Obsessed about Stephen Covey's book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It was actually on the reading Well, it was on the reading list. I'm not a reader Hillary. I'm actually not a big reader and, and I'll declare that, right, I'm much more visual learner. But that book was on the reading list at Accenture. You know, one of the things that Accenture, well, many extensive, many things to my career. One of them was to introduce me to the book, seven habits are Highly Effective People. And in there, my favorite habit is seek, first to understand and then to be understood. And so whilst it's really difficult to do that, because often people are hurtful in the way they behave towards us, if we can find a way, through our own resolve and through our own ability to kind of have that mindfulness, to then work out where's that person coming from, why are they appearing in the way that they do? And then the next thing we do, and what we teach to do, is to not react, because emotionally intelligent people, they sense and before reacting, they understand, and then they take effective action. So it's, how do I ask a series of questions to really get under the covers. Of, why is this person coming across? I had an example of this just yesterday. I'm doing a series of, I guess, getting to know people, interviews at the moment for a client, because we're trying to assess and profile them. And one of the things that came out, this guy came on the call, and he was as gruff as anything. He was like, one word answers, really not wanting to be there. And I just threw a series of questions and really genuinely being curious about where he's coming from, why he's behaving that way, I was able to uncover a number of really important things about him, and by the end of the conversation, it was a half an hour conversation, we got to a really great place, and I felt like we had connection, and that connection is what builds Trust and what builds human relationships. So I'm not saying it works for everyone, but in general, my experience, and of it is, if you upskid yourself in certain ways of dealing with other humans, and you keep practicing these things, you're just going to get better at those human connections. And in the age of AI Hillary, the stuff that those bosses wanted us to produce, that stuff's going to get produced by robots. So the only true thing that we have remaining for us as humans is our ability to work through complexity and solve problems with innovation and creativity and empathy and produce things that customers want to buy and are going to delight customers. Robots really can't do that yet, but we need a set of skills that we don't have right now to be able to navigate that world. So

it's super fascinating. I was doing research on you, and you said in one of the things that I listened to, 58% EQ is responsible for job performance. 58% I mean, that's like, you gotta have EQ, yeah, and you know what's

Well, you know what scary Hillary is? Yes, you do. But none of our education pathways think that those skills are important enough to teach, right? We teach technical skills that we use of and a very small percentage of that is used when we start work, versus the skills that actually make or break our impact, our success. They're not taught that make up such a huge percentage of that.

So how do you help in First off, who is your program primarily for? Is this for the corporate is this more for smaller businesses, solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, what? Who do you really focus in on

our products? I'm really excited and proud to say our products in market are in market for all of those groups. And also I'd like to extend that for schools as well. So I'm really passionate about getting to young people well and Troy before they finish school, or even into uni, so or university further education, whatever your you know your pathway of choice is, or you go straight to work, doesn't matter, but before I even get to that point, I've started to think about these work readiness EQ skills. And so we run school programs, and you know, we're getting really great traction with young people, and we do it in a fun way, so it's enjoyable, right? It doesn't feel like learning. It's not heavy. But we also service, you know, small business, what I call the small and medium enterprises, you know, companies between 200 and 1000 people, and we also work with corporates. And why? Because these skills are needed across all of those demographics, and pretty much in the same way. I mean, I wish that I could say, oh, you have to be more sophisticated in corporate than you do in a 10 person company. But actually, the rub the make or break, we're going to perform really well together in a high performance normal we're not actually comes down to humans and the way they show up, regardless of the environment they're in, and sometimes in small businesses, it's even more acute because there's no place to hide, like, you know, you're kind of a one, one man band or one person band. You're doing everything, right? There's, you know, there are 10 people, so everything needs to get done. Versus corporate, there's a bit more room to to hide, actually. But you still need these skills, because even in your mini teams, you still need to be successful and. And deliver results. So we actually have programs across all of those demographics. Of course, we tailor the program and the approach to the demographic and what they need. We use very practical case studies to make it real. There's a lot of stuff out there in the market. It's very theoretical. It's not engaging, and it really doesn't give sustainable results. And the last thing I was ever going to be known for is a product that you get ever gets described as all of the things I've just said, right? We work very hard to get a great, tangible, you know, really impactful product out into market. So

let's talk, because a lot of people can't see their own blind spots. And when you start talking about the things that you're really helping them, self awareness, resilience, there's a lot of people out there that are like, Oh yeah, I'm I have self awareness, I'm resilient, I'm this, I'm that. Yet you might look at him and be like, blind spot, blind spot. What do you do in situations like that where people are like, You know what? I don't really need this. I've got it

look and it's interesting. Hillary, another statistic for you is between 80 to 85% of people think they're self aware and are not. That's the researched. And I think you and I probably agree we agree with that, or higher, right? That's defensible data. And so reality is, that's why we always start with a global assessment tool, which is all around a person's character there and their strengths. And I don't recall more than probably about five people in total the whole time I've been doing this that have ever said that's not me. And when they say that's not me, what they try and do is take the test another three times and try. Isn't that true? Right? Let's all the test into the outcome that they wanted. But guess what? That never happens anyway, and then they get just more and more frustrated. The reality is, most people got look at it and go, Yeah, that's me and and it's because the the framework that we use, it's, it's anchored to positive psychology and Martin, Martin seligmans work. It's produced by the via Institute, actually out of America. And it's all around telling giving a person a perspective on the way they show up. It's not about good or bad or whatever, and that's the way we like to sort of couch it with people. Is this is not about the right profile or the wrong profile, or good or bad. This is around the level of self awareness that you can then do something practical with. Because it's not about the what, which is the discovery. It's actually about the so what and the now what. And we just encourage people to embrace what it is and to use it to their use it as a powerful tool to help them to show up in a really impactful way. And when you can turn it to that positive psychology side of things and really help people understand how your obsession with your weaknesses and trying to turn your weaknesses into strengths is a wasteful pursuit. You're wasting your time. And we use a lot of case studies to really drum the point in. So we say to people like, kind of put that to the side, even though you've been conditioned for it. And we are right. Our systems condition us for that, by the way, but once we sort of help them to put that to the side, and this little bit of work that goes into that, I wish I could tell you it was really easy to convince people it's not, but we eventually get there with them, and then we ask them to embrace everything that they are and just use that to their advantage to get ahead. So what kind

of results are you seeing people go through your program, and what's the what's on the other side? Well,

there's certainly, you know, those epiphanies. And I say to people all the time, I'm really humbled by how people react to what we what we consider to be basic, like we think, Oh, that's a pretty basic thing. That's not really going to get anyone excited. And then you get this just level of excitement and leaning in in ways that, you know, we get, we ask for testimonials, good and bad, like we are really in market to help people. Therefore we've gotta be open to what's working and what's not. And you know that we get plenty of feedback. Oh, I'd love a bit more of this. So I, you know, I would have loved to have hit a bit more of that. So that's really important. And we try and incorporate everything that's practical. But certainly the overwhelming premise, particularly around this self awareness piece or the self discovery piece, is, gosh, I wish that I'd had this so much earlier, even when I was much younger, because it's going to help it helps people to just kind of let go of the things that they feel like they have to hold close to them, which is all their flaws and the crappy side of them, and they can just really go, You know what? It's okay to let my light shine and and this is how I'm going to do it, because we give them the practical tools. It's not just a concept of, oh my god, like, you've got to be so much more pumped and confident. Like, you know, that's all words and theories, and we all agree, but how am I going to do that? People are saying that they're really feeling a lot more practically energized, and they've got the insight around how they can actually bring this to their day to day, to their private life, to their working life, and just to kind of be better, but not enough. That way, not because you have to be better because you suck, but I want to be better because I know what I'm already good at, and I want to be even better.

So Renata, I've got to go to the point where you said you were, you were doing really well in corporate. You could have just stayed there 30 years. I mean, at that point, it's like you could have coasted till the end yet midlife. You're like, hey, let's mix things up. I want to, I want to do a startup. I mean, when you think about that and that relaunch of like, literally leaving the comfort zone going into this crazy new world of startup. How was that you said you've been doing it now five years? How was it at the beginning? Because I know there's a lot of women out there and men that are thinking, it's time. I want to relaunch into something else. There's something more in me. I'm not done yet. I'm not I don't want to get too comfortable right now and they want, they want to go do a crazy, crazy startup. What? What? What advice do you give them?

Look, Hilary, this is not for the faint hearted. So I'll say, I guess if I look back, I've been conditioned to this by my parents story, like they literally left everything behind and came with nothing to a new country, knowing no one, and they made it work. And I guess for me that I have it kind of in my inbuilt nurture DNA, that that's possible. And so when I started to think about what I wanted to do, I guess I had the security or the knowledge that with sacrifice you can achieve amazing things, and that's what I wanted to do. I actually want, wanted that kind of next 10 to 15 years of my career story to be defined by a different story. And I knew that I felt that really internally, but I was ready, and I probably didn't even realize just how much I had to sacrifice to make that a reality, like I conceptually got it, but, you know, I was a high income earner and and I had comforts of life, and I really thought that the things that I had in my life at that time were the things that were really important. But I realized over time, and COVID kind of helped a lot of people do this as well the pandemic, and kind of all the realizations that we went through around freedoms and what was really important, and all that sort of stuff is, you know, we only need really a very few things in our life, really tangibly to make us happy, a beautiful family, to love you, connections. You know, that feeling for me personally, that I can bring that servant leadership that drives me to life, really truly to life. That's what I've realized I need the material things. And I have given up a lot of material things. You know, this is, you know, as I said, You are bootstrapped. We are still, we became definitely revenue positive. But, you know, profitability is still the thing that we you know, some years were more profitable than others, that's for sure. And so for me, material things, that the financial aspects of what I was used to, I definitely have had to give up. But I don't know how to explain this to you, like I'm just happier, I'm more fulfilled. I feel like I'm doing what I've been put on this planet to do. And those feelings I like I said, you, I've worked hard. I've loved the work that I've done in my 30 years in corporate. I mean, amazing people. I learned amazing things, but I never, ever felt as fulfilled as I feel right now. So for me, it was the right decision. But I I've watched a lot of other people burn out in startup land, not be ready for the realities of startup land. I mean, again, I was not more ready than anyone else, and I'm not any more resilient than anyone else, I guess I've just made it work, and I've been really, really lucky to be surrounded by incredible humans in my life, in my personal life, my husband and how he's really stood up and made this all possible, the people that work in my teams, our customers, our stakeholders, they've all made it possible. I'm so blessed with all of that.

You know, I'm sitting here and I'm listening to you, and I'm thinking, our our journeys are similar, in the sense that this company relaunch is was started about just over four and a half years ago, and then all of a sudden, COVID hits. And, you know this idea of of trying to impact be out there. But, you know, I go back to three HQ, we talked about earlier, head, heart, highest self and that highest self, and I hear what you're saying. It is, you know, running a business, having the, you know, the buck stops with you. This is, you know, you've got people that are counting on you in your company, your team, and then you've also got the people that you want to impact. And sometimes we have those, those starry eyes where, like, you want to do something, and you're like, oh, how am I going to make this happen? I want to go down this path. How do you you know, there's a there's a couple different concepts out there and ideas around you need to have the money and then you can spend the money. Or you need to be able to spend money so that you can get the money, grow the money. All this your philosophy. What do you think? Do you think you have to have the money first, or do you have to be looking ahead and rolling the dice? I mean, what's what's kind of your approach on startup?

If you don't have the money, then you have to get really lucky around having customers that want to come on board straight away and give you some form of money that you can keep going. I mean, you know, we all know how financials work and and so the reality is, everyone I speak to, and you know, the for female founders in particular, you know, the research doesn't lie. Very, very small percentage of minor, minor, tiny percentage of money raised goes to female founded companies, and such

a small, small amount. Last I heard, it was actually, I mean, it really started land. Can't say if it's a US based or global. It was like 4%

Yeah, I think on average around the world, it's about 3% so you're right, it's in that ballpark. But, you know, female founded companies, and I think it's probably part of that is we run really efficient and we run great companies. We actually female founded companies do better across the research, but they're not the ones that are funded. So maybe that scarcity mentality means that we just get on and do it because, you know, we're tenacious, and we do want to change the world. And, you know, and that's why people say bootstrap as long as you can, or forever if you can, try not to raise. As someone who tried to raise, and you know, it was a relentless, full time job that took me away from the business, and I didn't end up raising all that much, although those that I raised from, they're our believers. They're so involved in the business, they love what we're doing, so that that's been amazing, right? So you gather your your believers and your family along the way, through various things that you choose to do, not just selling things into customers, but I certainly, my experience of it, and those that I speak to, particularly if you're a female founder, is you, you gotta have some money to back you up for a while, to give you that bad you know, that space to really be able to innovate and create, and you have to hustle, hustle, hustle. You've got to run things lean. And that's why I worry sometimes about people that go into startups, about any business experience like, I know it's sort of like, got nothing to lose, and I've got social ideas, and, you know, I'll take risks, and, you know, that kind of stuff. And I agree with that. That's this an element of that for sure. But if you haven't run a business before, and if you don't have business acumen, it's very difficult to run a business like a startup, like any business, right? You've gotta go and have those skills and know what you're doing and know what good looks like, or have some of those battle scars to know how to grow great teams and motivate people and get great outcomes. It's really difficult to do that if you don't have experience. So I've got a strong point of view of I think it's best when, if you want to start a company that's got longevity, it's probably better to go out get experience first and get some money behind you that that's my view and my experience,

or you better have really great people standing next to you as advisors and coaches to really help you along the way, because you're right. You can go down the rabbit hole. You can, you know, think that something is so important you gotta focus on it, and it is the worst thing for you to be focusing on at a certain level, and you

spend so much time and money, and it's hard to come back from that. And I'm with you, and 100% want to double down on that you surround yourself with people that are smarter than you and that you're going to learn from. It's pointless to put advisors, coaches, people, whatever, around you if you're not going to listen to them and real but, but also, you have to, because there's a there's that fine line between I don't know what to do because everyone's giving me different advice, and I don't have the experience to be myself? Many,

yes, huge problem, right? There is a lot of people willing to give you advice.

Yeah, and if you don't know yourself and you're not a decision like a person that makes decisions or takes risks, you can really get in a vortex, that's for sure. Renata,

this has been so good, and I look at you and I am, I love that you went ahead and you decided, You know what, I'm not willing to settle. I am going for something that is, you know, all part of three. HQ, I am going to make this into something. And you have, and this is so great. Where can people find out more about you and about your program. Thanks

so much. Hilary, well, you will find us@www.maximi.com.au and you know, we are a global company. We're in 30 countries in terms of our tech. And then we run programs in Australia, in India and in the Philip. Teams. So what I'm really excited about Hilary is that we're also able to bridge the gap between Australian companies and the captives that they have in India or the Philippines. So we're actually working across geography, but under the one umbrella for companies, and being able to bring humans together in this human skill dimension, across time zones and different, you know, geography. So that's really exciting.

I think that this is such an important conversation, because too many times we don't put enough emphasis. And as we talked about with, you know, 58% EQ is responsible for job performance, how well you're going to do, how much you're going to get paid, how much you're going to end up, you know, liking what you're doing as well. So thank you for being on the relaunch podcast today, for bringing this important topic to all of us who are leaders out there in our companies, and understanding we really need to be thinking about how we're incorporating the soft skills into our leadership roles. So again. Renata, thank you. Thank you for sharing your journey. Thank you for stepping up and midlife and knowing that anything is possible. Thank

you so much for having me. Hillary, it's been a wonderful conversation. Really appreciate it. I agree.

And everyone as you know, live now, love now, relaunch now. What are you going to do? What's the next big thing for you? And do not let age be a distractor. Do not let age get in the way of what you know ultimately you're supposed to be doing. As Renata said, it is, and I like to say it's go time. It is. You know, there's nothing better than right now to make those dreams come true, and you have the wisdom you've had all these years of doing what you're doing. Think about where could that lead you to today? All right, everyone, we'll see you next week, and look forward to hearing your insights, your comments on today's show. Are you leveraging some of these, some of these human skills in your business, or are these things that you haven't really thought about and you need to All right? Well, take care everyone, and we'll be back again next week.