Episode 3: Leadership Without Boundaries with Lisa Travella-Murawsky

In Episode 3 of Let's Talk Leadership, Matthew and Lisa discuss her work with Global Nomads World, sports and leadership.

About Lisa:

Lisa Travella-Murawsky is the co-founder of Global Nomads World, an International Sport Consultant and an International Educator. Lisa Travella-Murawsky has an M.A. in Human Kinetics from Ottawa University, Canada and a B.A.H in History from Queen’s University, Canada. She was born in Canada to a Polish immigrant mother and French Canadian/Italian father. She moved to Brussels, Belgium as a young adult following by India for two years. She speaks English and French. Lisa has worked professionally in the field of international sport management and international education. Her career started at the International University Sport Federation (FISU) working in the Sport Technical department.

She served as the Executive Director for the Brussels Sports Association (BSA). She is currently working as an International Sport Consultant for the Naandi Foundation in India. In addition, Lisa has and continues to coach sports teams for children aged 4 up to young adults in volleyball, basketball, lacrosse, swimming and soccer. Lisa was working as an International Educator at the International School in Hyderabad, India and as a Professor of Statistics and Business Math at the United Business Institute (UBI), the international branch of Middlesex University in London.

She continues to work with students in math. Lisa has three wonderful TCK children.

Links:

• Naandi Foundation: https://www.naandi.org/

• Global Nomad’s World: https://www.globalnomadsworld.com/

Transcript:

Matthew Hunter (00:01):

Right. There we go. So joining us with the conversation today is Lisa Travella Murawsky and Lisa runs an organization with a colleague called Global Nomads World. Lisa, great to see you tell us, tell us about the Global Nomads World is all about.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (00:22):

Sure. I'm happy to be here too, Matthew. So Global Nomads World, which we've abbreviated to GNW, was founded back in 2016 with myself and Daniella Tomer. It's quite an interesting story because we both come from very different professional backgrounds. Daniella is a clinical psychologist, and I specialize in international sport management and education.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (00:55):

We both had a chance to work together, living in Brussels many years ago, and we served on different boards together and we got to know each other and really appreciated the skills we both had, where we came from, our diverse backgrounds, our diverse languages, countries, different countries. And we just, there was a link there. We worked well together. We fed off each other's ideas and we're really learning from each other. So we thought, why don't we start an organization together?

Matthew Hunter (01:32):

Great. And so what does the organization do?

Lisa Travella Murawsky (01:36):

So, it's called Global Nomads World, because I think the both of us are global nomads. We are both living outside of our country of birth. We've lived in at least three different countries each and we've learned so much from the diversity of people that we've met in our different experiences. So, this is what bonded us together, what brought us together, is we had this commonality between our nomadic worlds.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (02:09):

And so this is what we thought linked the two of us together. So this is how we came up with this name. Now we both offer very different services though, hers are very much more in the field of psychology and coaching. And it services a lot of global nomads as well. People who move around and who it's beneficial for them to have a psychologist who they can always depend on. No matter where they're living in the world.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (02:38):

And for me, it was much more of an international sport and education side to it. So I offer my services to sport. Doesn't have to be sports organizations, but organizations interested in sports.

Matthew Hunter (02:53):

Great, and I know that in previous conversations we've had that for you there's something about the uniqueness of female leadership. You do a lot of work, particularly with young women in India. So, what is it that's unique from your perspective about female leadership or leadership for women?

Lisa Travella Murawsky (03:18):

Yeah, it's such a great question, Matthew and I would hesitate to suggest obviously that all women leaders are the same, correct? I think that there's... Everybody has their own unique style of leadership and that's developed from, let's say experiences. However, I think it's important to understand that there are general differences between women and men in their leadership styles. And part of it could be things that have not to do with work, but even your life, trying to balance your work, your family and your work life, for instance, is something that I think women seem to take on more in the professional life.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (04:05):

But something that I feel that is more often you see in women, is the idea that, and part of it could be like a confidence thing, so many men, if I can very much generalize, can be very confident in their ideas and their decisions and go forth with it.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (04:22):

I think at least my style what I see oftentimes with women is you want, you need the different views. You need to hear, you need to listen, you need to hear different perspectives before you have the confidence enough to go forward with your ideas. So at least for me, that's a leadership style that I use that perhaps is unique or more common with women leaders.

Matthew Hunter (04:47):

But that's really interesting because I was in the car yesterday and I was listening to Jenny Murray on Woman's Hour on the BBC, which is a very popular program that's on Radio 4 in the morning. And she was talking to two of her guests, Claire Wenham, I think, and Rosie Campbell from the LSC, and they were making this point about how interesting it's been that some of the world leaders that are women, in reacting and dealing with the pandemic have reacted in a very different way to male leaders and in some cases, and they weren't making the point that somehow women were that much better than men, but interestingly, the way they've approached it, at the moment, it looks as though they've been rather more successful.

Matthew Hunter (05:31):

And one of the things they brought up was the point you made about listening to different views, being quite decisive. So I would imagine, there are lots of things just in day-to-day life that women, particularly dealing with young people trying to make decisions between things that are going to have to be quite quick at making decisions on. And the fact that they just collaborated, there was an element of collaboration, whereas the men were all a bit macho and that was the point they were making. [inaudible 00:06:04] you see this and how does that play out then with the work that you do in India and with the young people that you work with?

Lisa Travella Murawsky (06:11):

So, I guess I can point to basically the beginning of this project and how I feel that this is unique in the sports world. And I really think it's the way forward for this field of sports. So I work in a field that's called sports for development. It's a newer sports field. It's perhaps maybe 10 years maximum that this idea of sport for development has begun.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (06:41):

And basically it's using sport as a vehicle for development. So, your aim could be many different things, some sort of development aim and you're using sports to get there. So for us very much, it's the idea of equity and women's empowerment that's what drives the program that we're building in India. And also I partner with this foundation, it's an NGO called Naandi foundation in India.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (07:17):

They are a development focused foundation. They have different verticals, one of them is farming, another one is upper education. And then they have one that focuses on girls. So, I found out through a colleague about this NGO, and I went on their website and I was reading the amazing work that they're doing with young girls and the focus is on education.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (07:47):

And for me, again, it was this moment where you always have to bridge different fields. I'm a big proponent of bridging different fields. And so I contacted them. They had nothing to do with sport. They had zero sports programs and I contacted the CEO and I just said, "I really love your educational program. It's amazing what you're doing for young girls. Have you ever thought of adding a sports component to your program?"

Matthew Hunter (08:15):

Interesting.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (08:16):

And I was thrilled that he answered very positively and said, Yeah, let's try this. Let's try and build something." And so this is how this project began. So can you imagine that the majority of work I do are not with sports specific people? Actually the majority of people I work with know very little about sports, but they're development experts. So it's this wonderful combination of the two fields that are helping to build this program.

Matthew Hunter (08:47):

But for me, what you've just described is that you mentioned a lot of these people actually aren't involved in sports, but they have the breadth of vision or understanding, they have the leadership if you like, to say, "Hey, this is something where you're partnering with someone like you and your organization could bring benefits to us that we haven't even considered."

Matthew Hunter (09:10):

I mean, I went on the Naandi website and particularly because of my background originally, way, way back was in farming. And I just saw they were heavily involved in farming projects, but I thought how does sport, young women in sport, fit with what they're doing? But obviously it does, it's a great connection.

Matthew Hunter (09:29):

And I think they also talked on their site about the fact that young women's mortality at childbirth was quite high and that young women generally tend to be poorly educated in that part of India that they were focusing on. And so the sport element, what's happened, how's that developed and who's involved and what sort of numbers and what feedback are you getting as to how it's working?

Lisa Travella Murawsky (09:55):

Yeah, it's quite exciting I think what we're building there. So the organization itself, as you know, when you talk about India and you talk about numbers, it always blows our mind the amount of people involved. So the girls' program that I work with includes 200,000 girls, aged six through 15 years old.

Matthew Hunter (10:21):

Gosh. When did you start?

Lisa Travella Murawsky (10:23):

So, that's a good question. And this is where I think the strength of the Naandi foundation and perhaps with my experience, is helping to make this a sustainable program. So we're very strategic in the way we're not just throwing out a bunch of balls and hoping that the girls are going to learn something in sports. We have our three year plan with our sport development. And there's so many challenges as you can imagine here, there's so many cultural challenges that we are trying to overcome when we're introducing these programs.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (11:04):

Girls in general, in India, they don't play sports. You go to any open spaces, you see many boys playing cricket and running around and you see no girls playing. So, we have to start this program. We've run it for now for a year and a half and slowly. And we want to make sure that we're building the right encouraging community around it. We didn't want to come in really strong and saying, we are going to make these wonderful female athletes, you have to come away from your house where you're supposed to do all the cleaning and all the cooking. And so many different responsibilities that these girls have, which are their priority.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (11:46):

We wanted to take them away for an hour and do sports with them. That's a hard thing for people to accept in India. So, the way we have to build it, the program is slowly and try and make sure that the people are involved, we want to gauge their interest and make sure we're not creating tensions in the community.

Matthew Hunter (12:07):

Yeah. Now a little bird tells me that as a result of all of this, that you won a pretty prestigious award just recently. Because it's great, you've done it, you've got this project going with Naandi in India and it's been recognized. So tell me a little bit about that.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (12:25):

Yes, this was quite exceptional and it was an award, there's a piece in sports foundation, it's based in Monaco and every year it has a number of exclusive awards for projects that focus on sport for development or what they would say more as peace in sport.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (12:49):

And again, I was very new to this field. I worked in sports my whole life, but for sports for development, it was only a year and a half ago that I started really getting into this field. And it was just online, I saw there was this award. But I am so incredibly motivated with the work I'm doing right now. I don't think there's a time in my career that I've been as motivated as I am now working with this group in India. And I very much believe so strongly in it.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (13:21):

And I saw that one of the awards was program of the year. And it took me about 30 seconds to decide I think we should apply for this. I contacted my colleague in Naandi, I said, "I think we should apply." And she was bit more like, "Whoa, these, I don't know. We're just starting this project. Don't you think we should wait a year and a half, see how it goes."

Lisa Travella Murawsky (13:46):

And I said, "We've already offered 37,000 girls, from very poor households, the possibility of playing sports for the first time in their life." This is an accomplishment. I feel a very strong accomplishment. So, through my encouragement, we put the...

Matthew Hunter (14:09):

Sorry. The mike's gone. Can you hear me?

Lisa Travella Murawsky (14:22):

Is it Okay?

Matthew Hunter (14:26):

Now it's back now, yeah.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (14:27):

Good. Sorry.

Matthew Hunter (14:28):

Don't worry about that, these things happen.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (14:31):

Yeah. So we found out months later, we were kind of three finalists for this award and the ceremony was in Monaco. So I was obviously... We were very excited to be the finalist and somebody from the organization is supposed to go to the ceremony no matter what. And so my colleague in India said, "Okay, Lisa, you go, we're a finalist. You're so close. You just go to the ceremony." And I said, "No." I said, "You have to come to this, we're going to win this award and you have to be there."

Lisa Travella Murawsky (15:09):

But the reason very much Matthew, I wanted her to come, is that it's very important to understand that this project is owned by them. It's owned by her. It's owned by all of the community activists in the field level, the thousands that work with the girls, it's owned by the girls in India.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (15:26):

It's an Indian project. So for me, it was very important that we show that this is not a project for me, going into India and organizing everything. This is, they're owning it. And we have to show that. So my colleague got on a plane, flew to Monaco for basically 48 hours. And we were so thrilled that it was a big ceremony, the winner is... There are Olympian there, there were diplomats, there were heads of state were there. It was far, far, far bigger than I ever anticipated. And it was a big, big ceremony in the opera house, in Monaco.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (16:05):

And we heard our name being called the winner is, and then we went up and she gave a speech of things. So it was quite, it was a moment in my mind, Matthew, that the world was shouting that they wanted more of our project, that this is good. This is needed and we want to support you. So it was a really exciting moment for us.

Matthew Hunter (16:30):

That's fantastic. Lisa, we've only got a couple more minutes really in this conversation and it's great, I could talk for hours and listen to you really, the talking about it all, but in terms of just, if you're thinking of one of those 37,000... Can you hear me?

Lisa Travella Murawsky (16:53):

I think you're back, Matthew. Sorry, I couldn't hear you.

Matthew Hunter (16:56):

That's okay. I'm thinking about just one of those 37,000 young women who've been introduced to sport. If you were introducing or talking to them about some of the challenges they might face as they get older, even if they remain in their own local community, but challenges in terms of leadership, what, from your experience, what might you say would be a couple of things that you're trying to encourage them to think about or to take on board?

Lisa Travella Murawsky (17:27):

So, for these girls, Matthew, as you can imagine, their whole life really revolves around servicing others, right? It's their raison d'etre, is that they're born into a family, they're helping with their family. Eventually they're getting married, they help with their new family. So much of their life is about others, which is wonderful in some respect, but on the other side, it's like, I want them to feel the worth of them that they could do stuff if they choose to.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (18:04):

So, having a sports, for instance, a sports' tournament, they traveled to come to one of our tournaments. So they have their own train ticket. They have their own hotel room, of course, with friends, but they have their own bed. They have their own race, they get the bib with their number on it.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (18:20):

It's the beginning of, you are important as well. You can do things for you. And I think if you're talking about developing leaders, if your whole life is spent servicing others, how are you going to grow with your own needs or your own characteristics or your own strength? So I think to some extent sport, I'm hoping, offers them that. You could grow through sports as an individual and as a leader as well.

Matthew Hunter (18:47):

Fantastic. Well Lisa, thank you for joining me in the conversation this morning on Let's talk Leadership. It's wonderful listening to you and we must continue this, okay? But it's great meeting you. Thank you so much.

Lisa Travella Murawsky (19:00):

My pleasure, Matthew. Nice to meet you also.