This book was written by Heikki Toivanen. On LinkedIn I found that he is a partner of Finnish Tiimiakatemia Global. This book aims to show a new way to approach leadership, that can help us “flourish” in todays society. It is very close to coaching. It’s a relatively small book, mostly made by pictures. But it also gives many examples on another books that we can turn to, to enhance the knowledge from this one.
I chose this book, because it is one of the recommendations to enhance knowledge about the “Tiimi ways.” A lot of people already finished it, and since I need a book about team learning, thanks to my learning contract, I chose this one.
The Friend leadership works in an environment where: “performing tasks, responsibility and initiative comes in balance between the organization and its members.” Where there is a shared vision, “us” spirit and members are a close friends, not necessarily like live together friends, but closer that some simple colleagues friends.
LEAD YOURSELF (EARTH)
You cannot lead others if you cannot even lead yourself. You need to understand what drives you. So, get in that little rusty car of yours and DRIVE it. But even a rusty car need all 4 wheels to drive (no you cannot use a bike, I know, what a shame). When you know what you want to achieve, where you wanna go to, you can make sure all wheels get you there, if you use them the right way.
FORM A MEANINGFUL TEAM (WATER)
The same way you have some place you wanna drive to, your team should have some. Together we can form leading thoughts that will lead us forward together in an action-oriented way. We need to build trust and thought our team roles make sure, we can set sail on our way.
IGNITE YOUR TEAM (FIRE)
Fire is where the Friend leadership takes the place. You´ll need to model the way for others and enable them to act, but also you need to be sensitive and remember that we are all just humans. You need to be setting an example (again, if you cannot lead yourself, you cannot lead others). Friend leader needs to make sure there is always positive thinking in the team. Friend leader uses SMART method for setting goals, provides feedback and pushes the team on.
STUDY YOUR ENVIROMENT AND BRING TO IT (WIND)
Into wind comes the customer relationships, strategies, taking care of brand, but for me the mostly new concept: “The hedgehog concept.” I don’t really understand the name, but I like the idea. It´s a concept where you build on your biggest passion, expertise, and business logics. You focus on these questions: Where can you be the best, where can you make money, what inspires you. By these you can try to understand what can drive the team, and what skills do they require to make a use of it.
BE MINDFUL (VOID)
Our presence. What is known, what is not. We are all playing a certain game in out life, lets play a game where everyone gets the benefit. I really didn’t understand this part. I understood the next part about setting our own rules for this game though. This part connects heavily with dialogue and its practices: Respect, suspend, listen, and voice. This is also a place where we measure the road we took here. Again, with the example of driving a car, after arriving to a target or just making a pause somewhere, you will need to check how far still ahead of us, how fast did we get to this checkpoint, was it efficient, and so on… The same way you look back at this journey with your team goals.
We are the ones where it all starts. We need to realize where we even want to head to. Then we need to find out where others want to go and make a collective target. Then we set everyone on fire to get there, enable others to act and step on that gas pedal. When we know the best way to reach our target, we need to make a maximum use of it. And when we arrive, we reflect.
