Artikkelit

Julkaistu

Team coaching & football with few AHA moments

Earlier this year I was considering between executive and team coaching, and in ended up to starting the team coaching studies with Henley.

When comparing several coaching programs and providers, all of which were good and useful, I got an AHA moment. Why only study individuals and their coaching, as in most places we work, play & practice in teams?


Aha moment
: a moment of sudden realization, inspiration, insight, recognition, or comprehension

Leaders has his/her team to lead and executives lead the whole organization as one team towards commonly shared goals. Therefore of course the team coaching studies for me, please and ended up choosing these studies https://henleynordic.com/coaching-programmes/team-coaching

In the football team there are always several players and supporting organization, that needs to work well together in order to get the targets and victories done. In May I was able to see my first football match in England, which was a truly nice experience seeing Liverpool in Anfield, its home areena.

In the match I got AHA moment as well seeing goalie tossing the ball to a team mate. At football as in many team sports, team is the core. Even great individuals and their performance is nothing without well-planned tactics and game plans. So well-functioning team is the only way to succeed whether in business or sports.

”I am constantly being asked about individuals. The only way to win is as a team.”

– Pelé

I am heading to the last face-to-face module on team coaching in June and learning all the time something new. I did have also got AHA moments in my studies on topics like.

  • My interest appreciative inquiry do have link in team coaching and have made it easier for me to learn team coaching
  • Change management may be easier with team coaching supporting teams resilience and adaptation to change
  • Constellations are interesting methods to drive team further
  • Team leader may drive his/her way towards to being a team coach in all business context
  • Performance is crucial in today’s business world and what a tool team coaching is to ensure execution of the team

Julkaistu

Football areena – a place, where there is also a boardroom

This photo with boardroom sign in it is from Anfield, the home areena of Liverpool F.C, which is a season 2024-2025 champion. Football as a sport with teams, managers, coaches and scouts is a business on its own. Decisions on game plans, players, tactics and so on is constact, same as in business life.

Don’t we also see similar signs of a existing boardroom in business live? Sure you have seen the sign, or the meeting room board utilize for its meetings. Perhaps you have also either being in that room as a board member or being eagerly waiting to present your presentation to the board for their decision-making.

Do you remember that feeling in the boardroom? The M&A case, that a big team of people has been doing for long time, got approval, or you had approval for your business lines investment or something similar. A big decision that changes everything in the company and sets a new direction to the actions and targets.

We tend to connect feelings to places and surely boardroom is such a place, where most people remember visiting. Perhaps for your next visit to boardroom you need some tips or as a board chair you want to drive the performance of your fellow board members? To learn more on the decision-making, growth and innovation in the boardroom, I recommend to read the following book.

“I have always been fascinated by the intricate dance of power, strategy, and decision-making that unfolds within the boardroom. It is a microcosm of human interaction, where the fate of companies, communities, and sometimes even nations, is shaped.”


― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. Board Room Blitz: Mastering the Art of Corporate Governance

Are you ready to transform your boardroom into a powerhouse of strategic decision-making, innovation, and sustainable growth? In ”Board Room Blitz,” you’ll discover the proven strategies and tactics that exceptional boards use to navigate the complexities of the modern business landscape. This isn’t just another corporate governance manual – it’s your playbook for achieving peak performance in the boardroom.

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Board Room Blitz: Mastering the Art of Corporate Governance

Julkaistu

CSRD – the new thing in 2025 sustainability reporting and my journey on the sustainability topics in the last 20 years

I have had the priviledge to work related to sustainability topics in the past nearly 20 years. In the beginning I was working in Investor Relations, and sustainability of the raw materials as the topic to be discussed. All the presentations we did had comprehensive information about raw materials sustainability and CO2 emissions of the raw material transportations. After that we needed to ensure that raw materials used to biofuels where as important as the other potential use to the same raw material, palm oil, which was junk food, like cookies, candy and ice cream. The palm oil by the way is not good at all to be used to anything intended for consumption.

Then we discussed about human rights in plantations and in-direct land use. After this topic, I was taking part of auditions to raw material providers or to customer audits to the company. Alongside these work related discussions, information gatherings, info updates to websites and to various materials, such as capital markets or annual general meeting materials, I started to get enthusiastic about the topic. My communication master thesis was coming topical at that time. As I had done the first master thesis on public image, I thought that social responsibility was the new black and did my communication master thesis on employee responsibility of the listed companies reporting. That was a rather new topic at that time! In the past years, I had been involved in sustainability communication, audits, planning on strategic sustainability roadmap and agenda, discussed with stakeholders and reported on sustainability topics, being responsible for employee compliance in multi-cultural and global surroundings, as well as reported those as a part of the upcoming IPO with my previous employer.

In my work as HR executive, it has been vital to know sustainability topics and reporting very well. HR / People & Culture is actually is the function, where the sustainability directive or triple bottom line social part is in all the companies owned, defined and implemented. HR / People & Culture also drives the own and external workforce and compliance related initiatives together with Communications.

What is CSRD?

EU law starting from financial year 2024 required companies above a certain size to disclose information on what they see as the risks and opportunities arising from social and environmental issues, and on the impact of their activities on people and the environment. This helps investors, civil society organisations, consumers and other stakeholders to evaluate the sustainability performance of companies.

What is this S1 of CSRD then?

S1 in this case is the part, where Own workforce is reported and its one of the four social standards focusing on the impacts of business activities on employees. It mandates organizations to disclose their effects on their own workforce, including both positive and negative impacts as well as financial risks and opportunities and reports the key own workforce figures, such as headcount and turnover.

I had the opportunity to take part to VR’s project team on the CSRD reporting and to be responsible for S1 part of the directive implementation to the reporting alongside with my 2 safety and people & culture colleague. This reporting practice was a nice project, as it was the first time companies reported according to the CSRD and a great update to my already rather comprehensive knowledge on especially social sustainability topics.

If you wish to learn more about these topics:

Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is working to transform the palm oil industry and to make it sustainable: https://rspo.org/

In-direct land use directive: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/memo_12_787

CSRD directive: https://finance.ec.europa.eu/capital-markets-union-and-financial-markets/company-reporting-and-auditing/company-reporting/corporate-sustainability-reporting_en

VR’s first sustainability report done according to CSRD directive: https://2024.vrgroupraportti.fi/en/pdf/VR-BoD-Report-Financial-statements-2024.pdf

Julkaistu

Learning team coaching at Henley Business School

Around a month ago I started my learning journey at Henley Business School. In the module 1 we had in Copenhagen we got to know each other and learn basics from the team coaching and it differenciates from facilitation and other methods used to increase team cooperation and team’s performance.

Today at 27th April I am writing this text at Henley Business School super nice environment by the river and enjoying after the first day of the module 2. Today we learned more about the team coaching methods and practices and get to do multiple exercises with our team of future team coaches. Thank you all group members for the enjoyable day and looking forward for the following days!

What is team coaching?

There are multiple ways to define team coaching, but I really liked the one below. It defines very well that team coaching is not only for the team, but also for the company, aims to change things for the better, and increased the performance and future potential. Rather comprehensive definition!

“Team Coaching helps teams work
together, with others and within
their wider environment, to create
lasting change by developing safe
and trusting relationships, better
ways of working and new thinking,
so that they maximise their collective
potential, purpose and performance
goals”

Widdowson & Barbour, 2019

There is one rather good question related to team coaching and that would be why to develop high-performing teams?

According to the studies we learned, it increases the economic return by 23% (Source: Price and Toye, 2017) and the increase in financial return when a team has a clear purpose and line of sight of company goals is 29% (McKinsey). It seems that more and more companies should utilize team coaching to support high-performance of their teams.

Wageman et al, 2008 have defined 6 conditions of highly effective leadership team The Essentials and The Enablers, that should be in place.

The Essentials:
• Real Team
• Right People
• Compelling Direction

The Enablers:
• Solid Structure
• Supportive Context
• Team Coaching

We will now 2 more days to study and in addition the third module in Helsinki in June. Our learning will continue until the end of the year and I will write more about about the upcoming study days and team coaching practice sessions with customers.

In case you are interested, you may learn more about the school and the program via this website https://www.henley.ac.uk/

Julkaistu

Appreciative Leadership- topic to my second masters thesis

As a leadership enthusiastic I have been familiarizing to multiple leadership styles, methods and ways to lead people. All the leaderships styles may have their times or environments where they work. Each company and it’s targets may also require different leadership style. And also each leader has their unique way of leading even they might have selected some style that works best for them.

Appreciative leadership has become my favorite over the years. It has also not been applied that much in Finland. There are multiple ways to define appreciative leadership, but there are the one’s I find most comprehensive.

Whitney & Trosten-Bloom (2010) defines appreciative leadership being capability to encourage creative potential and transform it positive power by increasing confidence, energy, performance and enthusiasm to do make a positive difference in the world.

Appreciative leadership are defined as being relational. Appreciative leadership is based on transformational leadership. Appreciative leadership is positive and having potential to turn as positive power. It also has tripling effects.

Appreciative leadership can be defined also as:

providing support, valuing professionalism, moral leadership, rewarding, good personal relationships, leadership style and working conditions and working environment.

My thesis interviews

I am currently doing my second master thesis on the appreciative leadership between CEO and Chairman of the Board. In the anonymous thesis interviews, it came quite clear that the appreciation in that context is merely towards the results, not the individual CEO.

As the leadership style is generally coming from top down, it might some times be difficult for the CEO to implement appreciative leaderships tyle if that is not done towards to him/her.

Also the board now aways at least in smaller firms is more in contact with other persons than the CEO and reflection of their way of working can be seen. As we are moving towards tighter candidate markets with smaller generations and more family moving abroad, the way Board is working comes more meaningful.

Appreciative leadership is formed in a way that if in place, it can be seen in the ways of working, organizational policies, structures and in leadership style. However, also the absence of appreciation can also be seen, as said below.

”It would be nice to hear the words Thank you even once. It has now been over a year and yet nobody hasn’t thanked me for any work or results I have done for the business and our people”

unnamed CEO on the appreciative leadership interviews