01Verbal explanations had to be repeated every time
Before Business Code, Ekaterina Zaloznaya worked on launching and operating children's centers. During construction and preparation of new sites, she repeatedly had to explain how everything should work.
If someone else visited instead, information was passed on differently. After a center opened, mistakes and conflicting understandings of what had been agreed would emerge.
Ekaterina had already tried documenting processes, but the team did not always see this as necessary work: immediate problems seemed more urgent. The program confirmed for her that written rules really were needed.
02A general question gave too little customer feedback
Reception staff reported calling customers to ask about service. Ekaterina had not previously doubted that this feedback was enough.
When she began calling herself, she saw the difference between asking whether everything was fine and having a specific conversation. She asked about details such as room temperature, whether the kitchen was on time and other circumstances of an event.
Detailed questions brought detailed answers. Ekaterina does not reduce this difference to employees deliberately hiding problems: the approach to the conversation itself produced different amounts of information.
03An instruction exercise showed the cost of a missing detail
Writing a job instruction provided another clear example. Ekaterina thought she had covered practically everything.
But a simple difficulty arose when someone followed it: they could not open a door, and the instruction did not explain how.
She found similar value in team assignments. Initially, dividing into groups and doing exercises irritated her. Later, she realized that someone else notices and interprets a task differently, helping test her explanations.
04Homework had to fit into the working week
Ekaterina considered herself very busy and initially saw extra assignments as an unnecessary burden.
Gradually, she established a routine: open the assignment on Monday and decide in advance when to do it. She set reminders for required posts.
A visit to a car dealership also stood out. Going alone frightened her, so she found someone to go with. The experience proved less intimidating than the anticipation.
She connects these episodes with completing a chosen task rather than endlessly postponing it because of busyness or anxiety.
05Online marketing became easier to discuss with the owner
Ekaterina found the basic explanations of advertising, social media marketing and specialists' work useful.
Previously, she struggled to justify advertising proposals. She did not fully understand the mechanisms herself, and the owner asked questions she could not answer.
The training helped change that conversation. She notes that the owner, who also attended, reconsidered his attitude to online advertising.
She gained a better understanding of why particular marketing roles were needed and how to match tasks to someone's workload. This was a change in approach, rather than numerical proof that one advertising channel was superior.
06Attending with her team made some questions harder to ask
Toward the end of the interview, Ekaterina identifies a drawback to attending with her team.
At first, she saw it as an advantage. Later, she noticed she was holding back questions because she did not want to appear weak or incompetent in front of employees.
If she repeated the program, she would prefer to attend without the owner and colleagues so she could discuss her difficulties more freely.
That is an important part of her assessment alongside the practical value. By the time of recording, she could see which processes needed documenting, how to obtain more detailed feedback and how to organize her assignment work.
«Business Code» is a program by Igor Graf. More member stories