Sitowise Group Oyj is a Nordic-built environmental expert and digital company that enables more responsible and smarter urban development and smoother mobility.
Sitowise has grown rapidly in recent years. When the company was created in 2017 through the merger of Sito Oy and Wise Group Finland, it had around 800 experts working in-house. There are now around 2,100 experts.
Sitowise's strategy for 2023–2025 focuses on innovation, sustainability and efficiency. It gave birth to the idea of creating a Sitowise Leadership Academy to strengthen the strategic leadership capabilities of Sitowise's business management.
“Sitowise's management team has a very clear vision of what we want the company to look like in five years' time – and a clear strategy for how to get there. With the Leadership Academy, we wanted to spread these ideas throughout our organization, especially to the business management,” says Kirsikka Sarkeala, Human Resources Development Manager.
For the first time, Sitowise's strategy defines the importance of the company's activities: Empowering passionate experts to solve complex challenges . It served as a guideline when senior management considered the objectives of the Sitowise Leadership Academy.
“Value-based leadership is one of our definite strengths. Creating a psychologically safe atmosphere is an essential part of this: making sure that everyone can come to work at Sitowise exactly as they are,” notes CEO Heikki Haasmaa.
“We wanted empowering training that would help us to create an open and good working environment, to work more strongly as a team and to implement our strategy,” Heikki Haasmaa sums up.
The objective of the Leadership Academy was to strengthen the strategic leadership capabilities of the business management and to implement the best lessons of training leadership.
“At the same time, we wanted new tools, policies and operating models for merchandising: how we understand customer needs today and tomorrow and deliver customer value,” explains Heikki Haasmaa.
Aalto EE was an easy choice
Sitowise sent out a call for tenders for tailored training to five universities. Aalto EE stood out from the start.
The high quality, richness of ideas and Aalto EE's enthusiasm to develop a training program that is exactly what we want stood out throughout the process."
“We had put together our initial ideas in the call for tenders and mentioned that ideas were welcome. The offer from Aalto EE was in a class of its own. They had great ideas that took into account our thoughts and brought them to a whole new level,” remarks Kirsikka Sarkeala.
Negotiations were continued with a few other players, but Aalto EE was the easy choice in the end.
“The high quality, richness of ideas and Aalto EE's enthusiasm to develop a training program that is exactly what we want stood out throughout the process. I was very impressed by the fact that they genuinely wanted to get to know us as people and an organization and understand our needs,” Kirsikka Sarkeala points out.
The Sitowise Leadership Academy, created by Sitowise and Aalto EE together, consists of four modules: Leading Strategy and Culture, Sales Excellence and Commercial Mindset, Leading Tomorrow’s Business and Coaching Leadership.
“The first module focuses on implementing Sitowise's strategy, strengthening the strategic thinking of business management and the desired organizational culture,” explains Kirsikka Sarkeala.
“Next, participants will develop their sales thinking and ways to add value for our customers. The third module looks at the future of business and megatrends, and in the final module, we delve into coaching, communication and fostering a psychologically safe working environment,” Sarkeala continues.
The training offered a number of eureka moments. Among other things, it resonates strongly that in a volatile environment, building organizational resilience is one of the most important tasks of a leader."
The current business cases developed by the Sitowise management team play a major role in the training program.
“During the Leadership Academy, participants solve several concrete practical challenges in small groups. Finally, the results will be presented to the management team in a Lion's Den-type of event,” shares Kirsikka Sarkeala.
An excellent training experience
The first Sitowise Leadership Academy took place in 2023–2024. Service Director Anne Mikkola, who participated in the training program, describes the training as excellent.
“You could see that Aalto EE has a huge amount of know-how and repetition behind it. The quality of the training had been polished and perfected. Each trainer was genuinely enthusiastic in their own personal way and that enthusiasm rubbed off on us,” recalls Anne Mikkola.
“The training offered a number of eureka moments. Among other things, it resonates strongly that in a volatile environment, building organizational resilience is one of the most important tasks of a leader. I have been thinking a lot about how to build resilience in an employee-friendly way,” Mikkola highlights.
For Mikkola personally, the most impressive experience was to focus on different topics for two days at a time, which allowed for larger trajectories and observations to be made and mulled over.
“The content of the training was put together from the pieces defined by the management team, and Aalto EE had built a nice dramatic arc from the modules. For example, the strategy game was implemented at just the right time: we had first dived into the theory, Sitowise's business development, strengths, weaknesses and opportunities – and then we were able to use gameplay to think about these things from the perspective of our own business areas,” Mikkola recounts.
“The strategy game was a commitment to a larger development and served as a good continuation of the strategy work. We got a good grasp of what implementing Sitowise's strategy means in day-to-day business management,” Anne Mikkola continues.
Heikki Haasmaa has participated in each module of the Leadership Academy.
“It was extremely rewarding to see how enthusiastic people were to get involved, and a pleasure to watch their personal development. The Leadership Academy gave our business leaders great opportunities to think strategically, to practice coaching leadership and to deliver customer value,” Heikki Haasmaa summarizes.
The strong commitment of senior management to the Leadership Academy was important to the participants.
Echo teams came up with great feedback. They allowed us to immediately share the benefits of the training more widely within our organization. The discussions in the teams were really fruitful and created a great new buzz."
“It was great to see Sitowise's management team actively participating in the training as sponsors. It showed that training is important for Sitowise as a whole, and the discussions at the Leadership Academy have a strong business development function,” Mikkola emphasizes.
“And yes, there were discussions!” Anne Mikkola laughs. “The topics were so interesting and we were so excited that we could have continued the dialogue even longer, despite the fact that there was already plenty of time for discussion.
Unified management across business boundaries
The insights gained in the Leadership Academy were actively shared by the participants during the training. Between each module, participants reflected what they learned in the echo teams they formed.
“Echo teams came up with great feedback. They allowed us to immediately share the benefits of the training more widely within our organization. The discussions in the teams were really fruitful and created a great new buzz: they have made many people think about things from a new perspective,” highlights Kirsikka Sarkeala.
Anne Mikkola notes that, for her own echo team, she selected people with whom she works regularly to ensure that the lessons learned from the training are immediately available for use in Sitowise's Digital Services.
“I shared with my echo team the issues raised in the training and gave them a lot of freedom to discuss and share how they resonated with them. It was great to have colleagues challenge my views and to have a sounding board for the ideas that came out of the training,” Mikkola recounts.
Participants in the Leadership Academy gave only positive feedback on the training program. The practical approach and the trainers at Aalto EE were particularly praised, as were the concrete business cases.
“Many participants also praised the fact that during the training program, they got to know colleagues from all over Sitowise. We have three business areas in Finland, operations in Sweden, and centers of excellence in Estonia and Latvia. The Leadership Academy reduced silos and lowered the threshold to reach out across business boundaries,” recalls Sarkeala.
The first Leadership Academy with Aalto EE was so well received at Sitowise that it was decided to launch the next one quickly.
“The Leadership Academy will help us create a unified way to lead Sitowise into a new era, execute our strategy and deliver outstanding results. The program will also help us identify the future leadership candidates with the most potential and support them in their personal leadership paths,” stresses Heikki Haasmaa.
“As a specialist company, people are our only asset. We have a lot of highly educated people with enormous potential and talent. I believe that developing strategic leadership through the Leadership Academy is the best way to harness it,” asserts Heikki Haasmaa.
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