Ep 39 // How to Build a Remote Career as a Global Citizen with Hawa Kombian

NOTE: Please excuse any errors in this transcript; it was created using an AI tool. Akua Nyame-Mensah 0:07 Welcome to the open door podcast. My name is Akua Nyame-Mensah. I also respond to Aqua and I'm a certified executive and leadership coach recognised facilitator and former sort of leader that loves supporting reluctant buyer fighting and overwhelmed leaders. I've worked with them to help them clarify where they should focus their time, and energy each and every day so that they can love themselves, love their work, and ultimately love their life. If you're looking to learn leadership information and hear different perspectives, you are in the right place. My aim in this podcast is to help you see that one of the most productive and profitable things you can do is deeply understand yourself. Understand how you show up, understand how you thrive, and allow yourself to align everything in your work in your life, and in your business to support that think of this podcast as your weekly opportunity to receive leadership support. And remember, there is no one right way to lead yourself or others. Thank you so much for taking the time to join me today. Let's get started. This was such a fun podcast episode to record. So today we are going towards a more of a career focused conversation. And I'm talking to a global citizen that is building an amazing remote career. So if you want to learn about how to go remote, right, and how to maybe even convince your boss or your supervisor or investors that it makes sense, you definitely want to listen to this episode, we also get into how to create time and space and also honour that time and space for your varied interests and hobbies. So without further ado, let's get into the episode. All right, today I am joined by how a combi en to talk about being a global citizen and building a remote career. Hello, welcome to the show. Speaker 1 2:17 Hey, Akua. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be on your show. Akua Nyame-Mensah 2:22 Yes. So for folks who were meeting you for just the first time, could you share a bit about who you are and what you do? Speaker 1 2:30 Yeah, sure. So as you mentioned, my name is Howard combin. And I'm into all things about supporting organisations to grow bigger, be stronger with a focus and an emphasis on people first. So really supporting leaders, whether that be at the CEO level, or whether you're a leader, running a department or you're a leader as a new member to a team, helping people focus on strategy execution, as well as bringing social impact based on values connection and leadership to the work that they do, the people that they work with and the communities that they serve. Akua Nyame-Mensah 3:06 Yes, I absolutely love it. And I think one thing that would be really interesting for the audience to get a better understanding of is your unique background. And also maybe tell us a little bit about where you are physically currently as well. Speaker 1 3:22 All right, so physically, right now I am in Northern Ghana, in the beautiful town of Tamil lay I suppose I've had a pretty diverse background growing up that has taken me kind of 360, from from Ghana, and then back to this point. So I was actually born in Western Canada, I grew up in Canada and the US, in small part and then spent about 10 years in the Middle East. Again, living with my family growing up going to high school, I graduated high school from that place and then went back to university in Canada bopped back and forth between Ghana and Canada during that period I had of doing my masters at some stage which took me around Europe. And then at the point where I had finished studying and I really had to ask myself, Where do you want to be? Where do you want to live? I really felt that pull towards home. And so as we speak, I sit in Northern Ghana where it's a hot 35 plus degrees centigrade. Just sitting here casually sweating, but enjoying the sunshine, enjoying all the good things. Akua Nyame-Mensah 4:33 Oh, I absolutely love it. And that's one of the things I mean, when we first met, I thought was so cool, because you've had the opportunity to live and work in so many different places. And that really resonated with me because I lived in so many places and didn't actually spend that much time in Ghana until my first real job. So tell us a little bit about some of the work that you've done. And sort of Yeah, what do Speaker 1 4:57 you do? Yeah, so Oh, that's a great question. I would say that my my passion first and foremost is communications. As the day is long, I love talking to people. I love digesting information, collecting information, synthesising information. And so I started out my career working for the Canadian federal government and health research funding. So, in short story, really trying to find ways to give Canadian researchers money to discover new ways to bring technology into the healthcare system. And so when I was doing that work in Canada, I was exposed to eHealth, and digital health. And just learning how, using our smartphones using data, we're just able to better share health information, which allows us to give people access to health care faster. And I was fascinated by this in Canada, and then had to ask myself, what would it look like if this was possible in West Africa, and that's what really encouraged me to get going and say, Cool, let's go do our masters. And let's go get a little bit more educated meet some more people have some more experiences, where we can apply this thinking around digital health in emerging economies in countries like Ghana. And so during that period, I had the opportunity to do an internship in Sierra Leone, with a health technology NGO, which was fantastic. And thankfully, upon graduation, they asked me to stay on. And so that was really what allowed me to really set my foot down in the continent with gainful employment, to get myself started. And that's kind of how it all began. So starting kind of from communications in the health space, to realising that social impact is something that's really important to me, and finding ways to do that closer to home and closer to my family and communities that I feel really connected to. Akua Nyame-Mensah 6:51 Yes, yes, yes. And I think for so many people that are looking to even come back to the African continent, right, finding an opportunity that really resonates, and then allows them to be here, I think is, is something that a lot of people are looking for. Can you tell us a little bit about how, you know, you ended up in Tamale and like, you know, what sort of things did you have to do or put into place to allow you to work from there? Speaker 1 7:17 Yeah, this is a great question. Akua. So in that first year of working with the NGO, and Sierra Leone, I was really fortunate to be working for an NGO that had presence in multiple countries. And at that time, it was because of the Ebola outbreak that had really seen this massive response across West Africa. So my NGO had presence in Sierra Leone and Nigeria. And for those of us that, you know, need the map to help us out a little bit, Ghana is actually pretty much smack in between Sierra Leone and Nigeria. And so knowing that my family was in Ghana, and knowing that I was working with a fabulous group of people that were already incredibly digitally savvy, they were working in the health tech space, we were already having meetings on Google meats using Google Docs. And this was back in 2017. So knowing that my team already had that capacity, and our organisation already collaborated in that kind of way. I basically asked the question, what would it look like if I could move home and be closer to my family, and still be having an impact and supporting this organisation? So I basically pitched my superior at the time, who was the co founder of the organisation as well. And I asked her what she thought about this idea, and she decided to give it a shot. And it was wildly successful. And I had been working remotely ever since. So I started working remotely from Northern Ghana in 2018. Wow, Akua Nyame-Mensah 8:50 that's way before it became cool, or actually not cool the way before everyone else was mandated to, can you give us some some tips or some thoughts that people should maybe keep in mind, especially now, as some organisations are really thinking about? Should they let people stay remote? Do they need to have people come into the office? What What would you share with them based on your experience, having done this for so many years already? Speaker 1 9:15 Sure. So I think there were probably three key things that factored into how this all ended up playing out in my favour, I might add. So the first thing I would start with is trust and relationships. So there was there was no way that I would have been able to even bring this topic up if I didn't have such a great relationship with the co founder of the NGO at that time. And we were working very closely together. And that was really the focus of my role at the time. And I think it's incredibly important. whatever position you're in whoever you work with, relationships are key, right? Because we had a level of trust that enabled my co founder at the time to have an open mind when I was bringing up a risky proposition, right when I was bringing up an idea to try something new that hadn't really been tested all that much, right. And so for me, the the way that I personally imbibed trust was by focusing on being reliable and being communicative, which are things that are very inherent to me. And there, it's a way that I consistently show up in many of the key relationships that I do have, right. So by being able to show that from day one from when I was an intern, and I didn't really have a long term stake in the organisation to when I was asked to come on full time, those trust building behaviours are probably what got me to the point of getting a full time job in the first place. And then being consistent in that really created a foundation to allow someone to say, You know what, I'm willing to take a chance on you, because I think I know what I can expect in that situation. And that makes me feel that much more comfortable. So that was number one. Shall I go on? Go on? Yes, please let us know. Yeah, great. So number two, I would say is really being able to pitch the business case for why you want to do what you're doing. And that is something that most managers, most directors, most CEOs in so much as they're, they're thinking about the human angle, and you know, wanting to give people space and grace to be themselves. They're also thinking, How is this change going to impact the bottom line of the organisation? Right, so thinking about what are some of the advantages to the organisation, if this person is able to move. So in my particular case, because our organisation had presence across West Africa, I also made the case that, you know, if I'm in Ghana, I'm actually closer to Nigeria. And that gives me more opportunity to more quickly and more cost effectively travelled to Nigeria to go to head office and actually be around more people. And especially at the time, where I was in an executive role and working with the executive, I would argue, and I did argue at the time, that actually having a presence or a greater presence than I had, at the time in these different countries where we had staff and had teams was important. And that actually became a foundational piece of my remote experience working for that organisation. Once it was approved, I made several trips throughout the year to Nigeria, I got to see my team in person got to participate in really important in person events. And yeah, that was that was key. And another thing for me was that being remote actually made the business case for structuring my time, and being able to have boundaries around what I focus on, and ensuring that those things were explicitly the CEOs priorities, as opposed to being in the office getting pulled into one thing or another, which is great from the perspective of learning about and understanding the needs of your team. And some of the things that are top line priorities. At the same time, from a Strategic Sustainability, long term perspective, it can be incredibly important to be able to effectively support those at the top in their decision making in their strategic planning in their execution. And being remote enabled us to do that in a much better way than when I was in in country. So definitely think about your business case, ask yourself, What are your reasons and motivations for wanting to do it and ask yourself why it would help and support the leaders that you work alongside. And then the third and final, I guess, insight that I'd like to share, is to actually really have a conversation and create a plan of what your transition is going to look like. You know, they always say that it's it's a healthy habit to speak what you want into existence. And I would say, talk about it like it's happening, right? Go to your to your team lead, who whomever it is that you need to convince, and show them that you've really thought about this, like it's an internal project. These are the dates that I'm going to leave. These are the expectations that I'm going to me, this is the cadence of communication that I'm going to set. These are the hours that I will work, especially if there are time differences, right. And in my situation, Nigeria, is an hour ahead of Ghana and Sierra Leone. So even factoring and things like that, right. These are my mitigation strategies. If I if I have internet issues, this is what I'm going to do as a backup to make sure that I can consistently be online, think through some of these things and also create the parameters for evaluation, right? Just like with any project, you wouldn't invest all of your resources and say, Yeah, I'm just going to do this blindly and hope for the best. You would invest a little bit and then pause to reflect and say, How well is this working? Am I happy with these results? What can be improved? So what I did specifically with my team Once I said, let's, let's give this a shot, let's try it for three months, one quarter. And if by the end of one quarter, I'm miserable, you're miserable, we will reassess. And yes, we may need to make some hard choices at that point is at the end of one quarter, it's rainbows and butterflies, we're all feeling great, then we know that we can soar off into the sunset and keep it going. So you know, at the end of the day, for me, we we sorted off into the sunset, there weren't there almost wasn't even a discussion of is this not working. I mean, it works so beautifully, just based off of the foundation we had started from and the roadway that we had developed to move into this kind of working arrangement together. And I will say, even when I would go to Nigeria, many people still thought that I was a permanent fixture in the Sierra Leone office, because they said, the way that you interact and the way that you're just a regular part of everything we do, like you're engaged, you're there for everything, we thought that you had to be in the office, we didn't realise that you're in Ghana, sitting in your house by yourself, somehow making all of these dots connect and seeing things come together. So I definitely want to say it's possible to make it happen. It takes some intention and some planning upfront, and some dedication and discipline when you're in in motion actually working remotely. And it's definitely possible. So I would encourage people to reflect on how well this could work for you based on your personality as well, because remote is not remote full time is not for everyone based on their personality. But yeah, if you can build in some structure, building opportunities to get face time with people adequate face time, it can be, it can be life changing. Akua Nyame-Mensah 16:42 Oh my gosh, I absolutely loved all that. Thank you so much for sharing those three elements and being so like clear and specific about things that people could do. And I also think that this what you've just shared was also very helpful, maybe for leaders or executives that are thinking to themselves like, Okay, should I let my team do this? Are there people who are good at this, and I think this is going to give them a lot to really think about, I'd love for you to maybe elaborate a little bit more on boundaries, right? And even before we jumped on this podcast and started recording, we were talking a bit about boundaries. Can you tell us? What are some of the things that you've learned throughout your career, and especially now that you work remote that you need to keep in mind or that you feel like have been essential to being able to show up and to make sure you feel productive and feel really good? About yourself? Speaker 1 17:32 Yeah, this is a great question Akua. And, you know, I hope this is a conversation I can keep having 2030 4050 years from now, because I think boundaries are such an essential part of understanding who we are, and even defining who we are at particular points in time, right. And that's the beauty. It's fluid, just like we're fluid, it's changeable, just like we change, and I think it's probably something that I would have really appreciated, having awareness of and having had cultivated earlier, when I was in my 20s Even because in a lot of ways, I think my introduction to boundaries was a bit of a rude awakening. And I'll speak from my own experience as someone who is very organised and likes to plan and really appreciates order and structure. When you work with people that are different, and who don't necessarily achieve results in that same way. It can often and again, I'll speak for myself, I found that in those situations that it would make me feel really uncomfortable, or if I was being asked to do things in a way that I wasn't necessarily used to, in a way that I didn't feel would necessarily guarantee me the results I wanted to achieve in my career. So I think when it comes to boundaries, that self awareness is number one, you got to know yourself first. And often the moments to reflect and understand who you are come during times of difficulty, right? It's it's hard to sit back on a sunny day and say yes, I think I may be able to grow more in this area, versus being challenged in one way or another and saying, Wow, how did I show up? In that experience? Is that the way I want it to show up? Ideally, how would I like to show up in the future, right and actually giving ourselves some concrete points of reflection and points of growth? Right. So I think number one is take the time to get to learn yourself better and ask yourself what am I good at? What do I want to get better at when have been times that people that I have trusted have given me feedback about ways that I could have done better? When were times that people that I've trusted have given me feedback about times that I did a really amazing job and that I maybe wasn't even recognising it myself. Right. And I think once we start to get a sense of of our strengths and who we are, it helps to understand our back boundaries and what we're comfortable with what we're not comfortable with, and where we want to be able to grow to push some of those boundaries. So I'll pause there. Akua Nyame-Mensah 20:10 Would you be open to sharing? Maybe, you know, just recently, maybe something that you've recognised in yourself? Something that's come up for you recently? Speaker 1 20:18 Yeah, I would say it is the power of No. And I think it's something I've been thinking about recently. And it's also something I had been grappling with for the last year and a bit, and really understanding what is my aversion to know, and I was working with a fabulous coach. And she walked me through this exercise called resistance to change, right? And it was really delving down to ask ourselves, you know, when we say we want to do something, but then we don't do it? Why is that? What is really underlying what is the foundational belief that we hold on to that gets in the way of us doing the things that we actually genuinely really want to achieve? Right, the risks we really want to take, like, I could talk your ear off about certain things that I want to do a cooler and then in six months, you could follow up? And I would say to you, I've done nothing, right? It's like, what is what is there? What is happening? And it for me, it was really delving down to recognise that you know, I have I have issues when it comes to validation. I have issues when it comes to self blame, I have issues when it comes to acceptance and belonging. And I know I'm not the only one, right? And these are many of the things that when I'm in a situation, and it's okay, how was your time to respond? Now, somebody has put an offer on the table, or asked you to do something or given you a choice? What is the narrative that is running through your head? That is going to factor into the decision you make? And are you making that decision from your inner voice? And what it is you actually want? And who you actually are and who you actually want to be? Or are you making that decision from the perspective of I want these people to like me, I don't want to have to face conflict. I don't want to have to make a decision and then later come back and question whether it was the right decision and realise that I'm responsible for it. And these are things that I've really had to grapple with and question my, my self worth, and ask myself if my self worth is only defined by how other people see me, right? And trying to understand, where's the balance? What does balance look like? Where's the balance in working hard giving my best doing everything that I committed to doing? And where's the balance in giving to others? Right, where's the balance and supporting others? What does supporting other people look like? Right? Does that look like giving offers of suggestions of things that others can do? Or does it mean saying, okay, just let me do it. And then later being burnt out, and resentful about the fact that I'm burnt out? When the truth is, I had a choice about how to show up, I had a choice about how much of myself to offer, you know, so I think those can be helpful points for all of us to reflect on. And it's hard, because it means that you need to be conscious in all of these interactions. And I mean, how many interactions do we experience a day? Right? How many negotiations are we in? Right? Like I'm negotiating with my family member that I'm going to do the dishes, I'm negotiating with my boss, that I'm gonna get this thing done in the next hour, right? I'm negotiating with my friends that yeah, I'll meet you out for dinner at seven and not six, right? Whatever the case may be all day, every day, as we're navigating this world, and we're navigating relationships, and we're navigating, trying to grow it to the best versions of ourselves. It's about understanding how to find that balance, using our boundaries to understand how far to move, and also a sense of our values. What do we care about? What dictates how flexible we are with our boundaries or not, right? So that was a lot. That was That is Akua Nyame-Mensah 24:05 amazing. Like I was, you guys can't see us. But I'm just nodding my head. And I'm just like, so grateful that you were open really to share that because I think that's really something that so many of us really struggle with. And recently, so I do these hashtag remarkable sessions. And recently, one of the things I wrote down was, I'm remarkable, because I can say no, and I share that I remember earlier on in my career, and when I was younger, I thought I always had to say yes. And I'm just so grateful that at some point in time, I just started saying no, and now I say no a lot. And then sometimes I backtrack, but I'm like nope, not doing it. So thank you so much for sharing that and sort of talking through a bit of your thought process. And I think that's going to be incredibly helpful for a lot of people who are trying to find that balance recognise that they do want to serve others, but they also need to recognise that they certainly need to serve themselves first, right? You can't What is it? I think you can't pour from an empty cup because And and it's so important that we take care of ourselves so that we can have an impact on others. Really, that's that's really where it comes from. Absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I think that's a really good segue to talk about sort of my last question, Who are you outside of, you know, your work? I think one thing that I've seen with the little bit of time that we know, we've known each other is that you do so many amazing things outside of like, regular sort of professional work. Can you tell us a little bit about that? And how do you honour that time? For those things? Speaker 1 25:35 Sure. Great question Akua. And I guess the easiest answer is how you and I even met, so Akua and I met through serving as volunteer coaches for the she leads Africa high growth coaching programme, where we each worked with two female founders from Nigeria, who were in the stages of bossing up and scaling up their businesses, and Akua. And I happened to be the only two Canadian coaches. And so by virtue of that, we said, well, we have to be friends by default. And thankfully, we were able to meet up in person in our crowd and just had like a fabulous day together, hanging out and getting to know each other. So I mean, volunteering is definitely something that I'm into, and I care about, and especially when it comes to entrepreneurship. And I mean, you're an entrepreneur, who is so you feel me, but I just especially in Africa, entrepreneurship is really going to be I believe it is really going to be one of the ways that we move the needle in terms of economic development in terms of providing people alternative routes to livelihood, and providing for their families and achieving what it is they want to achieve right outside of some of the traditional external development models that have come and gone. So I get really excited about working with entrepreneurs and talking to people about their businesses and how they want to grow. And then an offshoot from that is that my older brother, who lives in Canada and a group of his friends are leading a revolution, I want to call it in men's mental health and conversations about masculinity across gender lines. And they have this NGO, this organisation called kings of hearts. And when they were getting it set up, my brother just came to me and said, I'm gonna need your help. I'm just gonna need you as a sounding board from an organisational perspective, from a communications perspective, from a people management perspective. And I was extremely honoured early in 2021, when they asked me to join their board. So I feel incredibly blessed and humbled to, you know, be a queen among kings, as I say, hanging out with the King of Hearts, and just really getting an opportunity to support not only to support them organizationally, but to also be a member of the team who is sitting in West Africa and supporting and advocating the work that they do around having conscious conversations about gender, and gender across all lines. So it men women, however, people identify However, people self identify, to just talk about what gender roles how gender roles are being manifested, and whether or not we're comfortable with that, and what else it could look like in different spheres of our life, from sports, from education from the professional world from all angles, so I'm really passionate about that. And again, the the family connection just makes it really beautiful, to be able to focus on these kinds of topics and have that kind of shared common interest with my own brother. So that's really special to me. And then kind of from a more fun perspective, like I'm really into music, and I like to sing and play guitar. And honestly, I, I kind of picked it up a little bit more during COVID Actually, because it became a way to share a bit of myself and share something that I really enjoy with all of the friends and family and people I love who we were blocked from seeing each other and travelling and, you know, leaving into the new normal and saying, Okay, well, this is a way that I can share and communicate through music and just feel a little bit closer to people at a time when, you know, physical distancing is the is the order of the day. So those are the some of the things that I like to spend my time doing. Akua Nyame-Mensah 29:44 Yes. And I love that, you know, we could speak and I know talk forever, but you know, this has absolutely been Yeah, this has been so much fun. So thank you. Thank you so much. Where can people find out more about you online? Speaker 1 29:57 Yeah, thanks. Cool. I really appreciate the time. too. I'm active on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. So I'm sure those will be included in the show notes, but on Twitter and Instagram at h Combi, and Akua Nyame-Mensah 30:12 we'll definitely get those in the show notes. So thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. And yeah, I'm so excited to get to share this with my audience. Unknown Speaker 30:22 Thanks. Looking forward to the next one. Akua Nyame-Mensah 30:24 Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to today's episode. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please share it with your friends. We can continue this conversation on social media the links to my socials so that is LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter. You can find them in the show notes. If you tagged me in a story and include the hashtag hashtag ask Akua I will share a special little gift with you. Thank you so much once again for your time and I cannot wait to share my next episode with you stay safe and sane.