What I learned from the chair of Finnair

One of the highlights of the Nordic Business Forum was having the chance to hear from Sanna Suvanto-Harsae. She is the chairperson of many boards, including Finnair, Posti, and BoConcept, so brought great experience to the table. 

She gave one talk on the main stage, and one smaller interview with Mårten Mickos of HackerOne, both of which were full of gems of wisdom.

From her main stage appearance, she spoke eloquently and passionately about the need to take young, energetic, & intelligent people, and turn them into the next generation of leaders.  To help this, she shared a simple framework of 3 + 3Fs for C-Suite teams.

• Self-leadership - Taking ownership of tasks, suggesting changes & modifications to what you are asked to do, and driving that mindset in your teams.

• Result oriented - Have a healthy sense of competitiveness, with numbers that back up your performance and value.

• Continuous development of the team - Always striving to learn, developing yourself, and, again, driving that in your teams.

• Forward orientation - Start by looking at a future result, and work backwards from that. Only look to the past to learn, not to give blame.

• Focus - Don’t prioritize by listing off 100 things in order. Take those 100 things, take the top few of those, and park the others. 

• Fun - A team that laughs at themselves is a sign of a high trust team.

I take fun as a visual sign of trust.

Sanna also spoke about the Finnish spirit of Sisu, which is variously translated as bloody-mindedness, grit, or stubbornness. She was very emphatic that she argued that sometimes the Finns need to be mindful that the correct action might be to stop stamping on the same spot.

There were also several good points made in the shorter interview, with a lot of interesting sentiments and agreement between the two participants.

• A statement of strategy and values needs to fit on one page. If you have more than three values, you will forget the fourth.

• Strategy is the art of saying no to something. Six strategic initiatives is too many, and three is too few.

• It’s not stupid to to make a mistake and admit it. It’s smart to realize you have made one and change.

• Silicon valley tends to move faster than the Nordics, but also burns through money more quickly.

We thought that would work, it didn’t, and we were smart enough to see that and change.

Sanna has a real knack for straight talking, and giving actionable frameworks. She was also able to hold her own bantering with Pep Rosenfeld, which is no mean feat. It’s so refreshing seeing someone of her level in business being so overt that having fun is so important.