Second Crack – The Leadership Podcast (Episode 39)

This transcript is AI-generated and may contain typos and errors.

[00:11] Gerrit: Dear listeners, a warm welcome to a brand new episode of Second Crack, The Leadership Podcast. If you are new to the show, this is where we explore everyday leadership dilemmas and paradoxes and where we invite you to self reflect. I am Gerrit Pelzer. I work as an executive coach and I bring to my coaching a combination of Western science and Asian wisdom. Joining me today, as always, is my dear friend and business partner, Martin Aldergard. Martin specializes in driving change and transformation within organizations. And what we both have in common is that we always put people at the heart of our work. Hi, Martin. 

[00:53] Martin: Hi Gerrit. As always, good to talk to you again and have this monthly conversation. And today it's one of my most liked topics, talking about change and transformation, and especially how we can involve more people in change. To help change in organizations to go smoother, to have happier employees, to get faster results.  We know the benefits of including people, we need to have every employee involved and included in a change effort to make it happen. And still, we see many, even large, transformation projects having very questionable outcomes because they are driven very much top down. And this is the question for today's episode: if we as leaders know what is the best way of driving change, why do we still sometimes fail to do it in what is in theory the best way?

[01:57] To help us explore this topic, we have our dear guest Ilkka Mäkitalo joining us, and Ilkka has so many years of experience in change management and he's also the founder of a company named Howspace, that is a digital platform to help organizations change. And I know Ilkka has so diverse background, even from education, he's also the the conductor and musical leader of a very famous jazz big band. So Ilkka, welcome to Second Crack.

[02:31] Ilkka: Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.

[02:34] Martin: Thank you for joining, and to add a little bit of context for our listeners, can you share a little bit about your story? What has brought you to where you are today and working with leadership and transformation?

[02:48] Ilkka: Yes. So personally, I'm addicted to learning and change. So I'm always seeing things that need some development around me. And then I'm I'm deeply willing to change the things that needs to be changed. And, uh, when I started my career, I started from an educational science background, started in the classroom teacher, primary school teacher. And there I started to do a methodological and theoretical revolution, how children are learning. And then I started to study more in order to understand what is happening. And when you try to change your own practices, then other parts of the school are starting to react that, hey, what is this guy doing, and they are not following the normal rules. And why are they here and there and go to the library and use computers and all that stuff? That was like early nineties when I was doing that. And then I started to think that, hmm, there's something in this way of working. And, and in order to understand the dynamics of the work community, the school and the teachers and the leadership there, I started to study more like psychology and communication sciences and counseling and leadership issues, just to like understand the dynamics of the chains.

[04:11] And then that led to a adult education and training other teachers, principals, authorities. And suddenly I, I noticed that I left the school, I was, doing research in the university, I was doing job as a trainer, then learned some facilitation methods and, and started to train the trainers in large enterprises and so on. And at, at certain point, I realize that whatever I do with my colleagues and however good we are, it's still like, like limited impact that we, that we can make. So how could we bring in technology in a way that connects people between the training sessions and, and connects their daily work to, to the learning process and so on. So that's like the journey that has now, it started like late 80s and then there has been several stages and for last, almost 30 years, I've been working with technology from the human perspective. So how can we support both learning and organization change.

[05:23] And I always think that, it's not enough what the training does, so the learning is way more important than the training. So, where I think that we should look at in learning and change is cultural level changes, where there's permanent things happening, not just temporary changes. And then behavioral changes in individual level, so that it, it really has impact. And that's what is motivating me.And then you mentioned the music side. So I've been working as a conductor in professional theaters, in symphony orchestras, I've been playing clarinet. And then I've been playing saxophone in jazz orchestras and for almost 40 years already, I've been conducting big bands. And I've been lucky to, to have like professional musicians in my bands, playing as amateurs, the music they like. So professionals having their profession as a hobby in my band. So really high level, high motivation, and, and it's a great leadership challenge for me that how to motivate professionals to do, it, like amateurs do. 

[06:40] Martin: Wow, this is really multifaceted background and I also like how you're weaving together technology and the human side. 

[06:50] For, context also, I got to know Ilkka and, and Howspace back in 2019, looking for digital facilitation tools. So I am a user of the Howspace tool, um, but also very much from creating learning journeys and transformation journeys. But we are not going to talk primarily about the tool today. I think we want to talk about the, the leadership behind, and the processes behind.

[07:16] Ilkka: Exactly.

[07:18] Gerrit: I think Ilkka, Martin and I, we have had a number of previous episodes where we talked a lot about the involvement of people in transformation and change. And by the way, maybe later we can go back to the question, is there actually a difference between change and transformation?

[07:37] But let's park that for a moment. Um, I read your guidebook, it's called Organizational Transformation Guidebook by Howspace. And I found something very interesting, maybe you can help us here. So you talk about that "involvement doesn't automatically mean everyone's voice is heard. Simply including people in decisions or processes isn't enough". And now comes the, for me, super interesting sentence. "To achieve meaningful participation, we need to engage with each other thoughtfully and intentionally". And I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit what you mean by 'engaging with each other thoughtfully and intentionally.'

[08:29] Ilkka: Yes, I think it all starts from what I call as collaboration design. So that you are mapping out the process who are involved, who is heard and who is listening, and what is that leading to. So I think quite often involvement is thought in a way that, okay, let's make a survey and collect some input and then someone makes analysis. Everyone is happy and let's move on. But that's, that's like just one way of communicating without any responses between the participants and, and different, different roles. So when I think about transformation and involvement, I think that you need to have like several phases. You need to have responses to people's ideas. So it's, it's more like a dialogue rather than one way communication.

[09:24] Martin: Why is it so important? How does it help?

[09:29] Ilkka: I think it's, it's like, going back to the basic human needs, everyone's needs to be heard. We would like to belong to the things and to, to other people. So the relations are important, we are relational beings. And, if we are forced to do something if we are just told to do something, we all know that it's not very motivating.

[09:55] And I think there's so much wisdom, so much intelligence in organizations that is highly unused. So the people who are in the customer facing roles know so much more than the people in high leadership positions. And there's a big gap and the knowledge that is in the front line is not communicated through reports to the top management.

[10:21] Martin: So how can we like flatten the organization and find ways to understand everything that we know in organizations. And for that, we need like the help of technology and help of AI so that that there's no limits, like there used to be. Like traveling, and organizing things, and how big groups, how how big spaces do we need. That's all gone, technology is changing the whole game today. So so how are we organizing things in a way that that we can participate in in a meaningful way and we know that it's affecting to something. So what I'm hearing here is, of course, it's on one side is the personal motivation, and we can relate to that as human beings, right? We don't like to be told what to do. And, and on the other side, another benefit is more from the organizational point of view to really tap into the collective intelligence and, and really see the potential in that. And I know, Gerrit, you talk a lot about also to tap into the collective intelligence of the organization. 

[11:31] Gerrit: Yes, that's that's right. And, also while I was listening, I had a number of different thoughts and Martin, I would actually argue with you, um, about that in theory, it's so clear that this is helping because I think it's not clear to everybody. still today, I encounter actually very good leaders, and well intended leaders, who think the most effective and efficient way is if the management board goes on an off site and decides about the strategy for the next, let's say, five years. Because they have all the insights and it's, it's the management jobs, right, it's the board's job to decide about the strategy. And so they have all the knowledge and information and expertise they need. And so, you know, they, they come back from the retreat, and then they tell the organization what needs to be done. And they, again, they do this with best intentions, and they think this is the fastest way to go forward. On the one hand, I think I think there are two tracks here that we need to look at. One is, we may be missing certain information. Um, we are not tapping into the collective intelligence and even the smartest C level executives, they can't know all the details of what's going on, for instance, on the shop floor.

[12:58] And the second is then what, Ilkka mentioned, the, I would refer to it perhaps as the not invented here syndrome. So if, if the bosses tell us what we need to do, and then, then it goes wrong. So what, it's, it's not my fault. It's my boss's fault. And people like to be heard. And at the same time, I think then we are already entering this dilemma or paradox that even when people then see the need to involve more people, they think, oh my God, how can we do this in a time efficient manner? Because, you know, if I have now an organization with a couple of thousand of employees, my goodness, how can I make every voice heard? And I don't know if you have any insights what can be done in an organization with, I don't know, somewhere between five or even a hundred thousand employees.

[13:49] Ilkka: Yeah, one thing how I normally start the discussion with enterprise organizations is that: how can we embed this transformation into the current structures of the organization? So without organizing anything extra. And one of my favorite methods have always been that, that we can start involving teams instead of individuals. Because if you are inviting individuals, it's often like on a voluntary basis so that you are, you are welcome. But then people think that maybe I'm not that important and I have so much to do and so on. But if you invite teams and your message is that within the next two weeks, when you have your next regular team meeting, it's already in your calendars, and we have a topic that you need to discuss about. It's related to this transformation, and you will discuss with your team leader about these two, three questions, and then you will either record or write it down in a transparent way for the whole organization. Then, no extra time is needed. 

[15:01] And if someone of the team leaders is forgetting this thing, people are demanding it that, hey, hey, hey, we need to do this, this was an opportunity for us. When they have the discussion, and if the questions are well designed, they can be empowering and they can be like,using the language that is familiar for people, so it's not too strategic language and, and so on. And when people are then documenting what they hear, they are already filtering down things. They would like to be seen when it's public and transparent as a great team, so some comments might be that, okay, it's good that we heard that in team level, okay guys, let's not write that down. And, and let's be clever how we are communicating and that is helping then the leadership to respond and see that, oh, so constructive comments here and, and so great teams. So, it's about designing this kind of emotional balance as well with the right selection of methods. 

[16:05] And then later on, I think that, according to my experience, I'm not sure if there's like exact research results for this, but when you talk about change or transformation, I think that people need some kind of involvement every second or third week, so that they feel that they are still on board. Someone is not stealing the process and doing it on behalf of you. And it can be something that can be really tiny, like taking one minute of your time here and there. It can be a poll, it can be like, check out this summary of AI and do you agree? So that you feel that you are in the loop and, and it's not gone. So this kind of granularity and frequency and rhythm are important, like in the music.

[16:53] Martin: I interpret this as one example of designing a dialogue with organization that is really intentional. You do not throw out a one poll or one question and then it dies. It's a structured approach over time, but each intervention doesn't take very long time. 

[17:14] And the second thing I heard from you that I thought was really interesting is, is to do this as a team. And I'm thinking about the, the social learning aspect. If I can discuss with my colleagues in my own team, it's a more safe place, than answering something as an individual, when I don't know, am I the only one thinking like this? Who will read this? But if I can work on it in my own team a little bit before we need to show it, it's a much safer learning space.

[17:45] Ilkka: Exactly.

[17:47] Martin: One thing that might be blocking leaders from doing this is linking back to what Gerrit said. Typically, leaders, we feel more comfortable, we go to the retreat, we meet for two days, we can discuss and, and we don't need to show our thinking before we have made conclusions and, and then we decide on a strategy and we communicate to everybody. This is a very open and scary I assume, for many leaders because you, you throw out the question that has to do about strategy, for instance, or where we are going, or what is the input to this transformation. And you don't know what people are going to think about it? What if they don't like it? What if you get questions back that you can't answer? So perhaps it is easier to control it, to control the thinking, because there is no surprises. How, how should I deal with this as a leader, this fear of asking the organization quite open questions?

[18:48] Ilkka: Yeah. I'm coming from systemic organizational background. So systemic thinking and, and one important idea in systemic thinking is positioning theory. And one core learning from there is what is called as "not knowing position". And for consultants, theory says that in order to be helpful for others, you need to keep yourself in "not knowing position" so that you can ask questions that are raising from your curiosity. And quite often leaders are thinking that their power, their position is based on their knowledge and being in "knowing position". Andit feels like horrible to say that I don't know, and I'm curious and I would like to learn something. And I think that's maybe one of the key things in this: are the leaders brave enough to find themselves in a "not knowing position"? And I think it's, it's a piece of art. The older you get, the more experienced you are, it's, easier and easier to think that I've seen this, I've experienced this, I know, don't tell me. And so I think it's an important skill, to slow down, step back, wait for a moment, not take the first thought from your mind, just listening, ask more and learn that kind of curiosity, and find your place in "not knowing position".

[20:28] And still you can have a lot of knowledge and understanding, but finding the places where you can learn from others and where you can be truly curious, not faking for the organization. And another important angle is that, that when we think about leaders and who are working with strategy or transformation or change, they are spending a lot of time individually reading books, going to the trainings, thinking, reflecting together with their colleagues. And then they are starting to understand these things. And then people think that, okay, now we know, now we tell others, and they do the things that we think that are important. Without having the reflections, the reading, the trainings, the social context for creating the understanding that what are we doing, why are we doing. So a lot of what I believe in is about enabling the dialogue, enabling the space so that the dialogue that is needed in order to transform things needs to have space for it. It cannot be that leaders have that advantage of spending the time and talking with each other and realizing things. Everyone needs to have their own insights and, and  connect the dots, connect the messaging and new understanding to their current experiential knowledge about their business.

[22:03] And I think in terms of also leadership transformation, I think what we need to see in the future more is stepping away from the leader needs to know everything, needs to be able to provide all the answers, to this more of an engaging style of leadership.. And I think, leadership quality associated with this is then actually humility, and humility as a strength, showing up confidently, saying, I don't know. But I wanted to come back to a question related to what Martin said. So on the one hand, leaders may be a bit concerned about being unable to answer certain questions. I have encountered another potential fear. And that is now that I'm involving all the people, and I get all the ideas and all the requests, in most cases I can't pick up all the ideas and put them into reality. So, there is also, I think, a certain risk, and maybe you can tell me if it is a real risk or just a perception of a risk, that now people have contributed, I have involved them, now they see that I don't follow what they're suggesting, aren't they then even more frustrated.As I mentioned, involvement can happen in several rounds. So it's like a continuity and a journey that we are doing together. And what we provide with Howspace platform, for example, is that you can use AI and prompting to analyze the dialogue of people. And then let's say that if you ask AI to analyze a discussion of 1, 000 people or 10, 000 people by asking, for example, that: what are the 10 things that would benefit our business, what are the next tasks to do? And then you'll get an analysis, then you can ask people that: do you agree? Is there something missing? And so on. And if it's all right, or it can be changed, then you can ask people to prioritize those things. And then when you are using the collective intelligence again, so it's not up on you, that you make the decisions, and you say no to some and yes to others, but, but getting their involvement also to, this like more detailed phases of the process design, then it's like no one is judging alone the ideas and killing your darlings. It's, it's like based on common understanding of what we need.

[24:48] Gerrit: Which, which prompts another question, um, which I also have from your guidebook, where you said there is often an underlying concern that decisions must align with the majority's opinion. And it's, I think, a basic democratic principle, but I think we also often say that the majority is not always right or does not always have the best ideas. Sohow do we decide as an organization what we do? And once again, how do we deal then with a situation where maybe there's a 60/40 split? How can we possibly then decide to go for the minority vote?

[25:31] Martin: I think it's a lot about design. So in certain cases I would avoid having this kind of voting where you can have that 60/40 kind of results because it might be harmful for the process. Sometimes it might be that, someone or a team or division is responsible of the thing that we are developing. And then others are not making decisions on behalf of them, but they are giving advice. And still the responsibility of the decisions is on that individual or division or team. So that they collect the information, but still they have to run the business in that area, so they are the final decision makers. And sometimes there can be different kind of approaches and you need to understand different kind of processes. So is it like advising process, is it democratic process, is it something that we use a lot in our own organization, and what we guide our customers is what we call as sociocratic decision making. And it's a certain method that you have several phases and you go through the phases, and it's not democratic, but still, everyone is, is heard. And in, in my experience, when the more transparent we are about the process, how the process is going to look like, let's say the next two months or three months. And when we talk about these expectations, then people are okay to to join, even if it means they are not going to make decision by voting. And there is a bigger risk if we make like a very traditional, you know, with some surveys or an idea box in the lobby, there is a much bigger risk that we get into frustration because people don't see the process. They are answering a survey, The survey disappears up into the cloud and they don't see anything back from it. But if we have a more continuous process, if I'm as an employee I participate, I share my ideas, I know what will happen next. And even if I know it goes to management team, I, at least I've been part of the process. So transparency in how it looks like, I think is also one of the key aspects to make this process work.

[28:01] Ilkka: Yes. And when you realize when the process is transparent, as you mentioned, then you can see the variation. And then you, you can understand the dynamics and then you might make a decision that is not like, fully, applied to everyone, but it's more like a tolerance decision that, okay, here's the frames, here are the boundaries, feel free to anything inside these boundaries. So it's not like exact decision that, it's not like a rule that everything, everyone needs to follow.

[28:39] Martin: To me now the word context, or big picture view, pops up.Senior management, they typically have a much better big picture view. They understand why one direction is better than the different direction. So it is also a matter of trying to communicate in the best possible way so people understand a little bit of the bigger picture view. When, when people have the context, then their ideas are also more in the right place. It's very difficult to have a dialogue between two people with different knowledge, it's unfair. Even if we cannot educate every employee to think and see what the CEO sees, we need to help the organization to see the bigger picture view as best as we can and, and introduce a common language.

[29:27] That's a really great point. So I think the big picture needs to be understood by, by everyone in organizations. And personally, I think that the best way to understand it is to connect it to my own work and our team's work. So what does this big picture mean for us? What stays the same, what is changing and how are we going to apply the change? It can be decided elsewhere by the leadership, but it's not becoming into a new practice without the dialogue, what does it mean for us? When thinking about how, technology can help us, in the past we had to do everything face to face and bring people into meetings and off sites and workshops and, endless amount of PowerPoints. With technology today, how can we make it more transparent? How can we make it faster? How can we make it more efficient?

[30:28] Ilkka: Yeah, that's what I've been trying to do for last 30 years. So it's, it's a good question and still I'm pretty humble in trying to find out that what are the right ways to do it. When I work with technology we have certain principles that we are following. So our software development is not like technical process from the foundation, it's more like human process. What are we willing to enable and how to do it? And for example, there's a lot of systemic thinking behind what we do with the technology and, and you mentioned context and it's highly important for us. So once you are running a process, you need the context, the place where you are going to do this transformation, this strategy process, this leadership training process. And when you come there, you know that, aha, this is what the process looked like. These are the people, this is the timing and so on. So that you know that, okay, I'm in this context and everything here is related to that. Compared to like our daily work, let's take emails. Every email is setting a new context and your work with email is switching the context all the time. And it's really demanding for our brains. And if you try to combine 150 emails about transformation that are here and there in your inbox, it's an impossible job. And if there's more than one page information in email and attachments and so on, who have time to do it and follow the process. That's why I think building the context where all the possible technological support that is about visualization and, and framing the things and, and all that needs to be in place and all the interaction can be connected to the content of the process and so on. So that, that's important.

[32:35] And other thing is like easiness that I quite often connect to noiseless experience. So that when we are designing a process and the platform for that, everything that you do can be simplified and cleaned up so that there's no extra button, there's nothing that is disturbing your concentration when you are working in there. And then it has to be like one click away that, okay, you are invited somewhere, you click. And you land to the certain phase of the process where the context is ready for you to join. So these are just examples of the principles.

[33:16] Martin: And, and I think these principles are also so important because I can see them also working in a typical, in a meeting room. When we can focus on one topic, everybody understands exactly what is the discussion, where did we left last time, and where are we aiming, the efficiency of that dialogue can be great. Compared to, to other meetings where everything is just flying around, there's a million things on the agenda, and nobody know where we left off last time and nobody clear on where we need to go. So bringing this very human, the human needs of having an efficient, intentional and meaningful dialogue, is like the design of the, of the platform. Hmm.

[34:00] Ilkka: And one really tangible example, I was participating in one AI seminar before Christmas. It was a book release event about a book about AI and there was around 70 people in the room. I was having a presentation about transformation, and then we had a small workshop, it was in the afternoon and it was a whole day event. So there has been like 6, 7, 8 different kind of presentations before that. And then in the workshop, what we normally do is that, okay, we organize the room, then people are talking, then they are writing down things, then they are presenting, people are walking around, there's debriefs of different groups, then, then blah, blah, blah, you know. It takes a lot of time, and with technology, we used our platform in that event, and I asked that, okay, now you are sitting in tables in groups of three or four, click here, done, put recording on. And what have been the most meaningful learning experiences for you during this day? And it was three or five minutes discussion. Okay, save it. And then it's transcribed, analyzed by AI, summarized, and then I did some prompting for it. And it It all took six, seven minutes, and we got a huge amount of shared learning, and it was all available for everyone to later on to check out those things. 

[35:37] So with the technology, it's not like adding something and spending more time. It can be a really powerful and effective way of working. And one of the most uneffective way of working is meetings where one person has time to speak at a time, and then others are waiting for their turns. Then the quality of the dialogue is horrible. And with technology we can all speak at the same time and that can be analysed by AI or write, write down things. So that's one way to get everyone heard without spending any extra time. So changing the way of working, thinking in a different way.

[36:18] Martin: Giving everyone the time to be heard without spending the time. If we want to listen to 10, 000 people in an organization, we cannot take 10, 000 times five minutes. We need to use five minutes for all 10, 000 to speak at the same time. And then we use AI to synthesize what everybody has said.

[36:41] Gerrit, it starts to be time to wrap up a little bit. 

[36:46] Ilkka: First of all, I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. I think we could go on easily for another hour. I was wondering if I as a senior leader we need to look into the future and how we might need to transform our organization, our way of working. Do you have any, a few quick tips, what a leader should bear in mind? I could start with a dream that I saw in December and quite often my mind is working when I'm sleeping and trying to like, solve the puzzle of different things. And, the dream I saw was about meeting some really talented, bright young people and, and talking about what we are doing in our business. And then one lady said to me that, have you been thinking about the logic of activism compared to business logic. And then I woke up and started to think about activism logic. What does it mean? And then I spent like two hours with Chat GPT, asking that, what is the difference between commercial approach and activism and so on.

[38:06] I think that, I'm trying to balance in my own work that what is the commercial side, what is the activism. So, willingness to have a strong mission, to change the world, to support individuals, make organizations better places for the individuals. And the connection between individuals and organizations is quite often broken. And there's a lot of things happening between those parties. And when, when thinking about involvement, I think it needs to have some to have some kind of amateuer spirit so that people are brave, they, they are giving their heart and soul to the process. And it comes pretty close to the positive activism so that people love being able to have impact, into the frames and boundaries of their own work.

[39:02] And it's not something that they are doing for money. It's something that they really would like to make impact for. And I think this is something that we all need to think about that, that, okay, we are living in reality and there's business facts that needs to be followed. But when can we use this kind of amateur kind of thinking and activism and how can we create that kind of spirit within our groups, whether as consultants or leaders, and we need to be truly involved by ourselves. And to show example that could be done. Maybe this dream can be a summary of my thinking. 

[39:44] Gerrit: Ilkka, that's absolutely wonderful. Yes, Martin.

[39:48] Martin: I also think this is such an, such a nice wrap to the whole thing. And we can, involve all our people in the organization to also to dream about the future and be amateurs in term of strategy. We don't need to be professional CEO. In, in this role, I can be an amateur and we can all play and contribute to creating the future. And then we can go back to being professional in our everyday role,Gerrit, we always end with reflection questions as well. 

[40:21] Gerrit:  I'm happy to start.

[40:24] It's maybe not so much related to the actual transformation, but through the episode, one thought remained on my mind, and that is the humble leader who does not have all the answers. And I imagine maybe somebody's listening to us and says, yeah, I see what they're saying. I want to do something like this, but I'm still a bit concerned about letting others know that I don't know. And I'm imagining this person, well, what's, what's the first step here? And what came to mind is: think about your other qualities as a leader. Why do other people admire you as a leader, just besides your knowledge?

[41:09] Who's next?

[41:11] Ilkka: I can, I can continue from that. So I have two points, I hope I will remember both.

[41:19] So one being that as human beings, we need to have a feeling of management. And I'm coming from the school world. And there, I think it can be, this is too black and white, but it can be thought that your feeling of management is coming from understanding the context, being an expert, let's say in mathematics, or it can come from the management of the group. So having the methodologies and, the pedagogical understanding that is not directly related to the content of your teaching. But, When I think about primary school teachers, they are mostly focusing on this, this second one, so that they are pedagogical experts, not that perfect in, maths and so on, because they have to teach so many different subjects. And then later on that the teachers are more coming from the certain scientific background, and maybe not feeling the management of the classroom and knowing how to deal with the, with the teenagers and so on. So, as leaders, we also need to have this feeling of management. And where is it coming from us? Is it about from knowing things? Or what other areas could be that, could it be that I'm getting the feeling of management by being a great listener, or giving appreciation to others. And that's my strength. And I don't have to have that perfect understanding about everything, what we are doing in this organization.

[43:00] And, and then, the other aspect is for organizations to think that when you think about change strategies, even meeting practices, how are those orchestrated and, who actually owns those processes? Who is designing the collaboration, and is it something that is just self-evident, we do, do as we have always done? Or is it something that could really create a new culture and, thinking about how are we designing the collaboration processes?

[43:38] Gerrit: Nice. 

[43:39] Martin: Well, I'm, I'm thinking back to this idea of having the courage to open up as a leader, to letting go of control. My question is more, how can I rephrase the transformation, from being perhaps a decision making process, and rather see it instead as a learning process so that I don't have such a defined end point. How would it help me if I have this more open mindset by looking at this process as a, as a learning experience for myself to learn, for my teams to learn, from the organization to learn, and then see where we end up.

[44:21] Gerrit: Yes. I'm glad Martin, that you brought this emphasis on learning again. That was really, I think is very important, very critical to this podcast today. Ilkka, thank you so, so much. It was wonderful having you on the show. If people have listened today and they would like to know more from you, who should reach out to you and, and how can they reach out to you?

[44:48] Yes, so, um, I prefer using LinkedIn, so please visit my LinkedIn profile, there's a link provided somewhere. And, and let's connect and let's do some direct messaging in there. If you are working as a Transformation Leader, we are running a Transformation Leaders Community, an international one, and I can guide you forward if you are interested. We just started the Learning and Development Leaders Community, in the end of last year, that's an opportunity as well to meet your colleagues and, and learn more about the practicalities of others and, and so on. And then, if you are following Howspace.com website, there's free trainings for digital facilitation and, leading transformation, facilitating transformation that we are running, if you are interested in learning more about this kind of thinking. We'll make sure we put some links in the session notes. Martin, any final words?

[45:54] Martin: No, I have a lot to think about. As always with these conversations, I'm getting more questions than answers, so I'm still confused, but on a higher level. Thank you so much, Ilkka, thank you so much, Gerrit.

[46:08] Ilkka: Thank you.

[46:09] Gerrit: Thank you, as well. And this concludes today's episode. If you like what we do, please make sure you subscribe to Second Crack on your favorite podcast platform. It would also be wonderful if you could recommend our podcast to a friend. And of course, we would love it if you could leave a positive comment or rating.

[46:29] For more insights about Martin's and my work, visit our website at secondcrackleadership. com, that's all in one word. And we are also curious to receive your feedback, your questions and comments. Please feel free to reach out to us at hello at secondcrackleadership. com. That's all for today. Bye for now.