“I’ve had a professional relationship with Ashridge Consulting for 20 years. The key word that comes to mind is partnership. They are also leading edge, very easy to work with and proactive.” (Bruno Dalbiez, Member of Nokia’s Organisation Development and Change Team)
Nokia at a glance
Finland-based Nokia, was established as a wood pulp mill in 1865. By 1994 it was in the technology and mobile communications business and by 2000 it had just under 60,000 employees in over 50 countries with sales of 31 billion Euros. Responding to such extraordinary growth, Nokia’s Group Executive Board identified a need to refresh the corporate values and to bring them to life for the thousands of new employees around the world.
An Appreciative Inquiry (AI)
Using a high participation approach called Appreciative Inquiry, Ashridge worked in partnership with Nokia’s Organisation Development & Change Team to find out where the values were already most alive and help them grow from there.
Appreciative Inquiry is the art of discovering and valuing the factors that ‘give life’ to an organisation, group, individual or relationship. Best examples of the past and the present are recalled and rigorously understood to set the stage for well-grounded visualisation of what could be possible in the future.
Sowing the seeds – how to reach 60,000 employees?
The first step was a leadership workshop for 20 Nokia managers, including 4 members of the Executive Board, using the AI approach. This core group then led an inquiry process which culminated in a three and a half day Global Culture and Values Summit for 200 Nokia employees, in Helsinki.
The inquiry process included interviewing other Nokia employees to gather stories and examples of how the values were currently alive in peoples’ work. Quotes and stories from these interviews were turned into posters which covered the walls of the Summit venue. The aim was to move away from rhetoric and intellectualisation and towards a practical understanding of the values in real action for real people.
The aim of the Summit was to turn the 200 attendees into the ‘seeds’ who, when back in their own regions and offices, would champion events and processes of their own to revitalise the values.
Making it happen
The event was co-facilitated by Ashridge Consultant Caryn Vanstone, Frank Barrett (one of the originators of AI) and Bruno Dalbiez of Nokia. One of the biggest challenges faced by Caryn was the fact that this high profile investment by Nokia triggered high anxiety, leading to wanting to predetermine outcomes. This could have acted against the nature of the work itself, as it was important that people at the event felt engaged and discovered their own ways forward.
“We needed to find a way of helping the Executives make decisions that only they could make, including issues of direction and choice – but do it in a way that kept the engagement high for everyone else”
Caryn suggested a ‘fishbowl’ approach to give participants an insight into the thinking of the Executive Team – this is a process whereby the Executives sit in a circle in the centre of the room and have a focused dialogue in public view.
“Caryn’s quick thinking managed to unlock the dynamic – it was a breakthrough moment.”
By the end of the Summit, a number of volunteer project teams had been created, including one called ‘relight the fire’ whose mission was to finalise the work of refreshing the corporate values based on the insight from the Summit.
Two years on
The ‘relight the fire’ team presented the revitalised values to the Board which were approved and communicated to the entire organisation via a punchy brochure. The ‘seed’ people from the Summit itself have also been proactively running dialogue sessions, events and spin-off Summits to bring the values alive.
“Values have always been very high on Nokia’s agenda. Ashridge, via the Summit, helped us give them new importance and the overriding feeling now is one of an energetic connection with the new values.”
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