Prof­itabil­i­ty and human­i­ty can go hand in hand

After the wel­come drink the event starts with a brief look at the his­to­ry. I am inter­est­ed to hear the sto­ry of the com­pa­ny, but still back in my mind flash­es a thought of a manda­to­ry, per­haps even of a bor­ing part of the evening.

But to my sur­prise I got emo­tion­al when the pre­sen­ta­tion went on. I even want­ed to be iden­ti­fied with the company.

“Soon we saw in each peo­ple who feel good when they are being appreciated”

Instead of a project pre­sen­ta­tion or a his­to­ry line the cur­rent direc­tor duo showed on the screen pic­tures of peo­ple. Not smartened-up pho­tos, but nat­ur­al ones, the kind of pho­tos you took in a dig­i­tal cam­era when Face­book land­ed to Fin­land in 2007. The peo­ple were intro­duced with their first names. In some cas­es, some back­ground infor­ma­tion was giv­en. Often some­thing fun. Espe­cial­ly was men­tioned, if the ex-employ­ees or part­ners had also found each oth­er lat­er in their pri­vate lives. Soon we saw in each peo­ple with sto­ries and peo­ple who want to be appre­ci­at­ed by oth­ers, no more just peo­ple dressed to the occasion.

The lights are switched off. In around us lanterns are being car­ried across the room. Peo­ple are flood­ing to the room in yel­low, red and light-blue rain coats. Every­body is wear­ing a red beanie. In a video pro­ject­ed on the wall an all-weath­er shoe steps on a small islet. In hand is one of the lanterns. On the islet the very same line of rain­coats with red bean­ies is walk­ing. They lean to each oth­er and help each oth­er to walk smooth­ly on the islet. Throw­ing one­self and being togeth­er. After the video the new name of the com­pa­ny is shown: ISLET i.e. a small island. We han­dle all con­di­tions. That explains the rain­coats and the bean­ies. The sur­name of the direc­tor duo Luo­to (islet) is no coin­ci­dence either.

The com­pa­ny has now a new brand and a new sto­ry. Most of all, they have a sto­ry, in which we all feel to be part of it and want to be part of it. Not because the sto­ry was good, but because we felt to be part of it and felt being appre­ci­at­ed, we knew and saw these peo­ple the com­pa­ny is made of. And because they are hav­ing fun. After a while a pho­to is tak­en each of us wear­ing a rain­coat and a beanie. In a com­pa­ny par­ty I have very sel­dom seen sim­i­lar gen­uine, readi­ness to throw in and appre­ci­a­tion of togeth­er­ness that extends to cus­tomers and partners

“What about if build­ing warmth is crit­i­cal to a suc­cess­ful performance?”

I feel warmth. In this sense warmth means a play to me, gen­uine­ness and expe­ri­ence of being cared for and accept­ed with all my joy and pain. Dif­fi­cult and often dimin­ished in busi­ness. But could it be crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant and prof­itable? Based on stud­ies this seems to be the case. Expe­ri­ence of warmth opens the gate to the trust. Only, when we feel the warmth and the trust, we see com­pe­tence as pos­i­tive. Com­pe­tence is with­out doubt impor­tant, but with­out warmth we can feel it as manip­u­la­tive or unap­peal­ing. On a lone­ly island of com­pe­tence, we can­not cope, instead, just like ISLET we need a team and a spir­it of doing togeth­er on our islet.

The work of the future and our phys­i­ol­o­gy would also speak for the warmth. We have moved to a ser­vice and IT soci­ety where a task requires a spe­cial skill to meet a human, will­ing­ness to work in a team and an abil­i­ty to use your cre­ativ­i­ty. This requires a skill to build and to main­tain warmth. While algo­rithms do part of the brain work, the most human skills such as capa­bil­i­ty to coop­er­ate, to cre­ate and to show empa­thy are more impor­tant than ever. Build­ing up warmth helps, because it cre­ates a feel­ing of psy­cho­log­i­cal safe­ty i.e. a state of body and mind where we are not afraid, instead we trust and feel togeth­er­ness. We are being heard. This is the only point, when our brains work opti­mal, they are capa­ble of being cre­ative, being empa­thet­ic and to reflect. For exam­ple, our mem­o­ry works at best, we pro­mote the health of our heart and we pre­vent stress. Prac­tis­ing warmth in a busi­ness life is not only fun, it is also respon­si­ble and sen­si­ble in order to cre­ate con­di­tions to a prof­itable and wel­fare sup­port­ing activity.

Or: The goal to have fun at work is not only a feel­ing, it is also sen­si­ble and intelligent.

Since the 90’s the stud­ies of psy­cho­log­i­cal safe­ty have shown that this is what extin­guish­es the top teams. When Amy Edmond­son stud­ied top sur­geons and their teams in her the­sis at the Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty, the result was baf­fling. The best teams made the most errors. It can­not be like that. A clos­er look explained the mat­ter: the best teams feel psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly safe in their teams, which allows them to be vul­ner­a­ble and tell of their mis­takes. Only this way the teams are capa­ble of learn­ing from their mis­takes, togeth­er. As a result, their team was more suc­cess­ful. The same result was con­firmed at Google two years ago. For two years Google kept the sleeves wrapped up and stud­ied its 180 teams from every pos­si­ble angle. Final­ly, the recipe was ready with the help of the Researcher Rozovsky. The most crit­i­cal fac­tor that dif­fer­en­ti­ates Google’s top team is the psy­cho­log­i­cal safe­ty they feel.

In prac­tice the psy­cho­log­i­cal safe­ty means that we dare to ask a sil­ly ques­tion or to tell what we feel with­out hav­ing a fear of becom­ing a laugh­ing stock or being stamped. To build up the warmth and the psy­cho­log­i­cal safe­ty means in prac­tice a gen­uine con­struc­tive inter­ac­tion i.e. will­ing­ness to be emphat­ic and a skill to lead emo­tions suc­cess­ful­ly. It is not always easy and asks for effort, but as the stud­ies showed also the feed-back I have got from dif­fer­ent com­pa­nies con­firms this. At the end this is prof­itable, also it in the long run.

Also in ISLET’s case the warmth seems to walk hand in hand with the result. As a fam­i­ly com­pa­ny ISLET has an unex­cep­tion­al long his­to­ry at ICT-field and dur­ing the new lead­er­ship duo the rev­enue and the team has grown dou­ble in the past three years and at the same the office has been renewed, exist­ing cus­tomers have been looked after well and a sub­stan­tial part of the rev­enue has been invest­ed in new tech­nol­o­gy projects.

After the event I read the arti­cle regard­ing ISLET’s brand renew­al and I paid atten­tion to CEO Jan­i­na Luoto’s descrip­tion of ISLET: “We chal­lenge the busi­ness prac­tice in this field and as a fam­i­ly com­pa­ny we stand out from our com­peti­tors – also in a way how the per­son­al­i­ty can be seen in our projects.” (Throw your­self) And: “A fresh island and hard­ened by the expe­ri­enced islanders – Islet­ters who form a com­mu­ni­ty not only of cur­rent ISLET employ­ees but also of cus­tomers and part­ners.” (togeth­er­ness)

An expert shares infor­ma­tion at best, when she/​he feels that she/​he is being cared as a human being.

My expe­ri­ence of warmth is not only a coin­ci­dence, ISLET seems to have under­stood some­thing that few com­pa­nies have so far under­stood: an expert is ded­i­cat­ed to her/​his work and is gen­er­ous­ly giv­ing answers to prob­lem solv­ing based on her/​his knowl­edge at best when she/​he believes and feels that she/​he is being cared for as a human being.

Now a week lat­er, I can still remem­ber how the lady next to me moved to tears as she was addressed with thanks after her long career in the com­pa­ny. After retire­ment she had returned to the com­pa­ny, this tells some­thing of both sides. I also remem­ber well how fol­low­ing the CEO’s exam­ple I dared and felt instant free­dom to join the cir­cle on the dance floor. Very sel­dom I have enjoyed myself so much in a busi­ness par­ty and gen­uine­ly being my spon­ta­neous myself. Warm and psy­cho­log­i­cal safe­ty! Fun and play!

A com­pa­ny can leave a mark like this. Whether hav­ing the expe­ri­ence of the field or not, I would con­sid­er apply­ing at ISLET if I were look­ing for a new job.

Thank you ISLET for being an exam­ple and for shar­ing the warmth, I wish you all the suc­cess in your every step!

With warmest regards,
Isletter,
Miia Paakkanen

As a researcher and a train­er Miia Paakka­nen looks for a ”com­pas­sion­ate mind­set” i.e. atti­tude and way to be and lead through com­pas­sion. Miia has majored in busi­ness and she is inter­est­ed in the con­nec­tion between com­pas­sion, love and peo­ple in orga­ni­za­tions, in lead­er­ship and in group dynam­ics. Miia’s exper­tise is based on sci­ences of the pos­i­tive psy­chol­o­gy and the study of the pos­i­tive orga­ni­za­tion. Accord­ing to Miia every­one should think about the ques­tion: “Can I see in peo­ple and in teams the pos­si­bil­i­ty to blos­som. More about Miia’s work:  miia​paakka​nen​.com | Helsin­gin yliopis­to | Keynote | LinkedIn  | Twit­ter