Workplaces: Mikhail Slobodin, CEO of Beeline

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Mikhail Slobodin does not correspond to the usual image of a "big boss": no offices behind heavy doors, strict suits and stacks of papers on the table. Instead - mobile gadgets, new technologies and instant response to any changes. Read about how to turn social media into a working tool, work in a team and become a good leader in this interview.

Mikhail, thank you for the time and attention you have given to Lifehacker. The first traditional question is: what does your workplace look like?

Very simple. I have a large office, but I use 15-20% of the area in it. Everything else is an entourage from the previous scope. The office has glass walls and constantly open doors.

I have a MacBook Pro 17 on my desk, which I take with me when I need it. I have no other computer. The general concept is that I do 95% of all work from my phone. The computer plays a different role: it is more convenient to write posts than on a mobile, because, unfortunately, LiveJournal has a completely inoperative mobile application. Everything else I do from the iPhone 6. It so happened historically that I started using Apple products before the big fashion for this brand, and the technology of this company has been with me for over 15 years.

I also have a vintage rotary dial phone on my desk that doesn't work, and an office phone, but I rarely use it. And video communication equipment.

What place do papers take in work?

There is one paper on the desktop - an A3 sheet with a plan for the week. And that's all. People come to me without papers, they show everything on the screen. Because the person who comes with Apple technology can show everything they need with the Apple TV, either from their phone, or from their iPad, or from their computer. There is also an interface for Android devices.

What software do you use?

I don't use anything special or unusual. I make presentations with Keynote, I use Pages for writing. For business needs I use Word and Excel. I actively use iPhoto and Final Cut when I need to compose videos, because I do a lot of things for the blog myself: I'm interested in trying everything.

In terms of communications, I use WhatsApp with a certain number of people who love to use WhatsApp. With people who love Telegram (for example, Megafon CEO Ivan Tavrin), I use Telegram.

Internally, we use Slack to connect top management and teams. This is one of the leaders in group work, we have about 80 employees using it. It is convenient to discuss team things with him online.

I use many other applications depending on the situation. If I go to take pictures, I use an application that helps to download photos from the camera via Wi-Fi (and I have a Canon EOS 6D) without making any manipulations with the memory card. If I take a copter with me, as I recently did in Georgia, then I have the dji-Vision application, which allows me to control the copter from a mobile phone.

How do you find out the news?

I do not read newspapers at all and do not experience any problems from it. I use MediaMetrics - this is a well-known news aggregator, quite fast and interesting. For IT and telecom news, I use Siliconrus. Of course, I watch RBC's feed through a browser. Plus, the company has a non-standard implementation of press monitoring. Not as a newsletter in Word or HTML, we did it on the basis of the Flipboard mobile app. Thus, what the media writes about us can be seen in the form of a single stream not only by us, but in general by anyone who wishes. And a purely telecom business product - the Medallia application, which allows us to watch online the Net Promoter Score, service level, and receive relevant analytics online.

You are a very active user of social networks. How do you work with them?

From the social media point of view, I have all the necessary mobile applications installed. is one of my favorites. I have 8, 5 thousand subscribers there. This network is characterized by a high level of positivity, because there are more women on Instagram, and the female audience generates more positive content. In LiveJournal, in which there is a significant preponderance among users in the direction of men, moreover, they are already of considerable age, sometimes it is just a trash. Nevertheless, it is an interesting platform that allows you to express your thoughts. Obviously, I use the applications "" and, Twitter works mainly on reception: there people often raise interesting problems and cases on the work of "Beeline". I use Snapchat to communicate with my eldest daughter.

How often do you see new posts?

Some of the information that comes through social media is work. Through the networks, I receive feedback from customers: what is not working well for us, what is worth paying attention to. Such responses give a lot, because we have a service business and you always need to understand what is happening in relations with customers. Therefore, I regularly check what and how every two hours. If there is a problem, I forward it to those in charge of this sector, please give a report. The fact is that such a process goes beyond solving a specific problem for one client. From each such case, a large number of meaningful conclusions can be drawn about what is going wrong in the entire system. It is the system that needs to be corrected.

We have a social media group in Slack where guys report important signals. Actually, Slack is a working tool that is checked much more often than social media accounts. Therefore, if something requires my quick reaction, then I react - it is not difficult.

Of course, I don’t constantly sit on social networks and I don’t always look at updates every two hours, because events and meetings do not allow this. I sort out most of the messages when I go to work, from seven to eight in the morning, and when I return home: I look at the press monitoring, create a magazine on FlipBoard, forward messages and tasks. Travel time I spend doing deep screening of what happened and analyzing feedback.

A blog on LiveJournal is, in a sense, a form of self-expression, but it is clear that it appeared exclusively for business purposes. I would gladly spend the free time more interesting for myself and my family. But this is part of what we are doing at Beeline, with Beeline and around Beeline.

How do you plan your schedule?

Of course, I have a waiting room that draws up a schedule. And a fairly large number of events take place as planned, because a large organization has its own rhythm of life. I use the standard Mail.ru calendar, in it I look at the events that the assistants have planned, and I set up some meetings myself.

Do you always want to go to work in the morning?

Of course not. I flew in from Georgia last month. It's warm there, good, beautiful. And then - a blizzard, snow, get up early. I am an ordinary person, I really want to sleep, but the job must be done. Therefore, I almost always arrive at work by eight in the morning. A large team and a bunch of tasks is a big responsibility, and then you come to work, get involved, forget about all the morning difficulties. You know, as a joke: the hedgehogs cried, injected, but continued to eat the cactus. And then it turned out that the cactus tasted very good.

What is the place on the schedule for sports?

I do sports two to three times a week with a personal trainer. I do fitness or boxing, I want to increase the number of classes to four a week, I'll see if I can carry out my plan.

You have worked in many high-tech industries. When do you have time to study?

The knowledge from the university was of no use to me. The most basic thing I learned at university is the mechanism for acquiring knowledge. When I came to study, they were still teaching political economy, but after two years it became meaningless. The only subject that was interesting was economic mathematics, where we studied using Western textbooks. And I was certainly not taught what was happening in business in the 90s. All luggage is learning by doing. But 5-7 years ago I started reading books. When read correctly, they become a colossal source of information to look at yourself and around you.

Learning through books is hard. You can go to the MBA, where teachers will teach everything. But it is much more expensive, more time-consuming, and 80% of all work is useless. If you yourself choose what to teach you, then you spend a penny, allocate as much time as you can. But this is a difficult plan to implement.

What books do you recommend reading?

I mainly read business literature in English. I can recommend from the most interesting books:

• John Maxwell, Five Levels of Leadership;
• Patrick Lencioni, Five Vices of the Team;
• Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged. I highly recommend this book to everyone, because it is actually about management, about the system, and about how not to do it.

You started to occupy leadership positions early enough. Should a leader be born or can one become?

It depends on what to call "early". In the nineties, when the old principals and their socialist methods stopped working, those who had just graduated from university and who represented something of themselves quickly became bosses. And I believe that leadership is a learned skill. An ordinary person can become a leader by rethinking himself and changing himself. Perhaps not perfect. There is an analogy with sports: at first you can not do anything, but if you train hard, monitor your progress, pay attention to mistakes and correct them, then you will definitely improve your performance. We can say that leaders are born and the rest did not have a chance. But almost everyone can be a leader at a very good level.

What is stopping you at work?

Nothing really bothers me. There are problems, of course, and everything takes time. The company operates in an interesting and competitive industry. There are external factors, but a lot of problems are inherent in the company itself, we interfere with ourselves, but we consistently fight against it. And I really want to move from solving problems to creating something new and breakthrough. Even if it is not as innovative as Jobs's, our industry is still more traditional, but I think in three years we will not be what we represent today. I hope to see a different level of work and services, and most importantly, customer service.

If you were asked to use some magic to perfectly master one skill without training, which would you choose?

I dream of singing well, but I have a big problem with my hearing. He can also be trained, but I am a person who likes to do everything well. Even if I spend a lot of energy on training, I will become an extremely mediocre singer. So I would ask to be taught to sing.

Life hacking from Mikhail Slobodin

First. Always try to do more than you should. Always try to raise the bar for yourself, otherwise you will quickly find yourself in a normal but mediocre zone.

Second. Learn constantly. Few remember the slogan “Study, study and study again”, but in vain: life is too changeable. Those specialties in which you can work in five years, today do not even exist yet. Therefore, you need to look around and draw the right conclusions from everything that you saw.

Third. You have to believe in yourself. Not in the mode of stupid self-confidence, but it is imperative to try hard to do the job and weigh all the possibilities. Many barriers are eventually overcome.

Fourth. Compare costs with results. Sometimes it happens that a person has decided: I want to become someone. He worked, became. And then it turned out to be completely incomprehensible why he needed it. So set yourself the right goals.