Growth with a change: A handbook of strategic leadership

By Riikka Hackselius-Fonsén

There is a lot of pressure piled on the corporate management of today. Organisations are becoming increasingly diverse and the discussion taking place around management makes it look complicated and challenging. It should not be.

Good leadership makes operations clear and simple - and this book aims to guide you towards that. Growth with a change discusses the human contexts and principles related to the environment surrounding strategic leadership. In doing that it creates an idea of the structures that should be considered in good management.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brand Agency Punda Oy
• Release date: Oct 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9789529408573

Riikka Hackselius-Fonsén

The author of this book, Riikka Hackselius-Fonsén, has participated in hundreds of strategy projects for her clients in the international markets. As a partner in their brand management, she has also followed how these companies have advanced. This knowledge along with 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur are crystallised on these pages. Growth with a change picks up the straight-forward and socially relevenat perspective of Hackselius-Fonsén´s two previous books. This third book assembles the contexts and principles, which anyone aspiring to be a though leader should consider when setting their goals.

Book preview

Growth with a change

Growth with a change

Introduction: A change in market thinking

The Future is expected

What makes change management important?

Building a plan for change

Adapting takes time

The role of the leader

The structure of change

Remember all of your clients

The stages of change and different motivators

Inspired by precedents

12 perspectives to the journey of a change leader

Me = a leader

1. Conceiving the idea

2. From resistance to excitement – the path to learning

3. Trust in the leader

Managing market change

4. The market is mirrored from the outside

5. Trends and the schedule for change

6. Messengers and a complete story 

Internal change management

7. Business activities in the storms of change management

8. Individuals as a part of a new kind of group

9. Verify the change with numbers and examples 

With the strength of culture

10. The power of networks 

11. Shared quality

12. Building a brand

Final words

Author presentation

Copyright

Growth with a change

The journey up to this moment has taken hundreds of bold clients and openings made with them, plenty of my own mistakes, and analytical growth as a leader.

Time has not changed people’s behaviour as individuals or groups even though the ways and channels of sharing information have changed.

This book travels along individuals as leaders and as people who are led, and attempts to build an understanding of why our goals differ from each other or combine in ways that sometimes even surprise us.

In November 2017

Riikka Hackselius-Fonsén

Introduction: A change in market thinking

Leading change means changing awareness. Charting the background of different issues and creating new connections are among the most important tools used to shape people’s thinking. Each experience changes the thoughts of a recipient. A person’s ideas may not be based on facts, but rather on the experience of reliable information or the generality of a given subject. This is what I explored in my previous book, Sokaisevat trendit (Blinding Trends, 2012).

Managing the way people think is based on building a logic which enables small things to find their natural place as a part of a larger entity. Breaking down large structures must be accompanied by another, even more logical one, which can poimt out a weakness in the earlier way of thinking. This is the foundation on which our western society has largely been built and preserved, from the time of Napoleon to this day.

In this book, we will focus on change management which aims to challenge status quo within the direction of the organization, or to change the structures of the market. We will approach the subject from the perspective of the management of group thinking. Sokaisevat trendit discussed current illusions, while my first book, Visio2025 – Me teemme sen (Vision2025 – Let’s Do It, 2010) charted the way new generations’ values and logic challenges the markets. This book, on the other hand, aims to shed light on the mechanisms with which we are able to follow and develop the thinking in our operational environment. In my own work in the field of brand management, I emphasise the clarity of a joint vision. In the core of the company’s activity is the common understanding of the strategy shared across the management, personnel, and clients. The visualization of this culture is often called a brand. Unique operations should be based on the company vision and culture. In this process, communication that reaches the target groups plays an important role. The content of this book runs through the stages and rhythm of change management, introduces the reader to a process of the acceptance of change, and the steps to successful growth during the strategy execution.

The Future is expected

Leadership means painting a picture of future possibilities to stakeholders, and enabling the realisation of this vision. The more people commit to the leader’s idea of the future, the more significant the change will turn out to be. When people commit to a given set of goals, it creates the power that enables to build new logic and change people’s thinking.

What makes change management important?

Our operational environment is in a constant state of flux. If change does not occur in an organised manner and through the leading actors in the field, it happens as a result of the target groups’ thinking development and constant desire for change. Managing the way of thinking is not a negative thing when it remains within the limits set by ethical scrutiny. Most people are willing to be led. It creates a sense of safety.

Without a shared direction created by the community, individuals may build expectations typical to each of them. This may lead to some very conflicting situations, where the internal social hierarchy of the group rises above the goal which ties the community together. The communal sense of togetherness disappears as the pack disperses into smaller groups. Simultaneously, the expectations we have set for the activity are lowered, and scrutiny turns into the mere assessment of technically observable details.

Many of us have certainly observed markets in which product development has not significantly advanced. Functional new products have not entered the market and, instead, the actors in the field have concentrated on perfecting the existing properties of the products. In the meantime, the field has pushed the value of the market into a downward trajectory, and subjected development to price competition. A price competition initiated by one company takes the others down with it. In the end, change is even more difficult when the resources available for product development have disappeared as a result of diminishing margins. 

This type of development is a part of the natural lifespan of different industries. It also entails the goals met by anchor companies operating in the field and the maturing of markets. Typically, at this stage, satiating the hunger of the companies that led and built the field provides an excellent opportunity for new challengers. This shows how important it is that an organisation’s hunger and desire to move forward remain among its most important values.

A battle between companies is waged within the organisation in a situation where the shared direction is not clear or ambitious enough. As the activities grow, individuals find it difficult to understand the bigger picture, while responsibilities are concentrated to increasingly small areas.

As the common goal disappears, social consciousness forms at random led by individual ambitions rather than following the common direction. Management has the important task of ensuring that both the clients and personnel constantly recognise their goals and the perpetually challenging need for change without having to spend time collecting new information and possible solutions