Petri Kettunen: How To Build A Winning Team With Nordic Leadership
Article by Petri S. Toivanen
How to build a winning team? Let's ask someone who has plenty of proven experience on an international level.
We are not only experts in international executive search and Nordic Leadership – but we are also interested in floorball, which is why we’re sponsoring the German men's national floorball team. In three consecutive blog posts, Nordic Minds partner Petri S. Toivanen interviews internationally renowned floorball coach Petri Kettunen.
This third and last part looks at Kettunen's tried and tested leadership principles and his advice on how to build a winning team!
Petri S. Toivanen: Can you define your leadership principles? How do you build a winning team?
Petri Kettunen: That’s the only simple question you’re asking me! I’m quite clear about this. Honesty is the first thing. It’s the main aspect of my leadership when I’m building a team. In the beginning, especially in different cultures like Switzerland or Czechia, it was a bit weird for the players that I was so honest – in a positive and a negative way. When we have something to improve, I tell them. When we are doing something great, I will give positive feedback. Honesty is always behind my philosophy for building a winning team.
Then there’s openness, which goes hand in hand with honesty. We must be really open about things. It’s not just important for me as a coach or for us as staff. No, for all of us. For example: when there's a tactical issue, that means we all have a problem. I don’t blame that problem only on the players or the coaches: it’s our problem that we have to solve together. We have to deal openly with issues that are challenging and maybe not that easy to solve. Because that creates the atmosphere which is really, really important for building success. It’s impossible without a good atmosphere and team spirit.
The third point is interaction. Going from interaction to dialogue, that's my goal. Building up a real dialogue between two persons – me and every individual we have there – is in my eyes the most important thing within a team. We need interaction between all parts and then real dialogue. So that a player, when he's speaking with me, doesn't feel like he is talking to the head coach – but that he’s speaking with a person. Many topics are easier to solve on eye level.
Toivanen: Does this dialogue you’re looking for mean flat hierarchies?
Kettunen: Yes. When I went to the Czech Republic in 2017, the players were calling me coach. Just coach. The previous head coach had told them that this would be the way to address him. When I got there, up to that point in my entire life, I had always been just Petri. Without any titles. I’m just Petri. That was strange for the players. And this brings me to my fourth and last key point about leadership. I have a more or less philosophical approach where I want to go from "leading" to "facing". I really want to face every single person on our crew. I’m not leading them – I’m facing them. This makes a huge difference.
Here’s a great example: during the last world championship, I had a deal with the players. Whenever they had something to ask, they could just call me or knock on my door. Even at three o’clock in the morning. Before the opening match, our youngest player – he was 18 at that time – knocked on my door and asked: "Can I come in?" He started the conversation with "Petri, I’m scared, I can’t play tomorrow". We spoke for 45 minutes about fear, why he was on the team, and what we expected of him. And when I hugged him – it was about two in the morning – I knew: this guy is not letting us down in this tournament. He played excellently during the whole thing. But without this facing, without the possibility of coming to me, without honesty, without openness, without this dialogue – he wouldn't have been doing that.
And you know what happened the next day? The second youngest guy called me. "Petri, can I also come to you today?" I said: "Yes, of course!" It was 30 minutes with that guy and he made one goal in that Bronze game. Without those four aspects, it would have been impossible that they would have had the courage to do that, to talk to me. If I would have been just "coach" for them, it wouldn't have happened.
Toivanen: So the most important things in your leadership experience are honesty, openness, dialogue, and facing?
Kettunen: Yes, and facing means not just face-to-face. It also says "I want to be close to you and you can come to me" – to make it easy to have these conversations. To show that I have an interest and the other person knows that I have this interest. Then they are ready to come and speak to me. Facing means more to me than face-to-face.
Toivanen: That requires trust. In Scandinavia, we have a trust-based society. This is different from German society, which is a bit more skeptical. Let’s talk about feedback culture. How do you give feedback and what’s the role of that for you?
Kettunen: Feedback is really important. Comparing the experiences I had with Finnish, Suisse, and Czech people, it was different in each case. The Finns are not good at taking feedback – but in sports, they will accept it. That’s fine. The biggest difference between Finns, Suisse, and Czechs was: in Finland, they understood that the feedback had nothing to do with their personality, but with their performance. In Switzerland and in the Czech Republic, people took it personally more often. It was hard to get them to understand that I wasn't attacking anyone personally, I was just trying to improve their skills or tactical knowledge.
Toivanen: There is this directness and openness, we do mean what we say.
Kettunen: Exactly! This links back to Nordic leadership and equal opportunities. In Finland, if you’re good enough, you have a chance to play on the men’s national team – no matter how young you are. In Czechia and Switzerland, they were more interested in the background or history and less in the performance. However, I’m not interested in the name on the back. I’m interested in the performance today, not the previous ten or 15 years. Leadership generally, in my eyes, if it's performance-based then that’s fair for everyone. You have to give equal opportunities to everyone. That’s true for both business and team sports like floorball. Then you get loyalty.
Toivanen: Loyalty is a word that is not often used. If you read about leadership, there’s little discussion about loyalty.
Kettunen: True. But I feel that it’s absolutely crucial. I always try to build an atmosphere in a team in which everybody feels that they are not loyal to me, but to all of the team. When I see that, I’m happy. Because then they’re playing for themselves, not for the coaches. They are playing for all of us, they are loyal to everyone. And if you can foster this kind of environment in business, it works like a rock… it's a powerful force!
Toivanen: I was just thinking of where I had the most successful team. I didn’t use the word loyalty at the time, but looking back now I can see the loyalty.
Kettunen: Yes, and one more thing about loyalty in my eyes: it doesn’t matter whether I’m the head coach, the manager, or the team leader – the people in my charge also have to feel that I’m loyal to them. It’s not only loyalty from the team to the leader, but also from the leader to the team. It’s both ways. Then it works and you have amazing results in all aspects and scales of life.
Toivanen: Thanks, Petri. It has been a fantastic discussion!
Kettunen: Thank you. Vielen Dank und mach’s gut!
Here and here you can read part I and part II of our interview series with floorball coach Petri Kettunen about teamsport and Nordic Leadership.
We are not only experts in international executive search and Nordic Leadership – but we are also interested in floorball, which is why we’re sponsoring the German men's national floorball team. In three consecutive blog posts, Nordic Minds partner Petri S. Toivanen interviews internationally renowned floorball coach Petri Kettunen.
This third and last part looks at Kettunen's tried and tested leadership principles and his advice on how to build a winning team!
Part III
Petri S. Toivanen: Can you define your leadership principles? How do you build a winning team?
Petri Kettunen: That’s the only simple question you’re asking me! I’m quite clear about this. Honesty is the first thing. It’s the main aspect of my leadership when I’m building a team. In the beginning, especially in different cultures like Switzerland or Czechia, it was a bit weird for the players that I was so honest – in a positive and a negative way. When we have something to improve, I tell them. When we are doing something great, I will give positive feedback. Honesty is always behind my philosophy for building a winning team.
Then there’s openness, which goes hand in hand with honesty. We must be really open about things. It’s not just important for me as a coach or for us as staff. No, for all of us. For example: when there's a tactical issue, that means we all have a problem. I don’t blame that problem only on the players or the coaches: it’s our problem that we have to solve together. We have to deal openly with issues that are challenging and maybe not that easy to solve. Because that creates the atmosphere which is really, really important for building success. It’s impossible without a good atmosphere and team spirit.
The third point is interaction. Going from interaction to dialogue, that's my goal. Building up a real dialogue between two persons – me and every individual we have there – is in my eyes the most important thing within a team. We need interaction between all parts and then real dialogue. So that a player, when he's speaking with me, doesn't feel like he is talking to the head coach – but that he’s speaking with a person. Many topics are easier to solve on eye level.
Toivanen: Does this dialogue you’re looking for mean flat hierarchies?
Kettunen: Yes. When I went to the Czech Republic in 2017, the players were calling me coach. Just coach. The previous head coach had told them that this would be the way to address him. When I got there, up to that point in my entire life, I had always been just Petri. Without any titles. I’m just Petri. That was strange for the players. And this brings me to my fourth and last key point about leadership. I have a more or less philosophical approach where I want to go from "leading" to "facing". I really want to face every single person on our crew. I’m not leading them – I’m facing them. This makes a huge difference.
Here’s a great example: during the last world championship, I had a deal with the players. Whenever they had something to ask, they could just call me or knock on my door. Even at three o’clock in the morning. Before the opening match, our youngest player – he was 18 at that time – knocked on my door and asked: "Can I come in?" He started the conversation with "Petri, I’m scared, I can’t play tomorrow". We spoke for 45 minutes about fear, why he was on the team, and what we expected of him. And when I hugged him – it was about two in the morning – I knew: this guy is not letting us down in this tournament. He played excellently during the whole thing. But without this facing, without the possibility of coming to me, without honesty, without openness, without this dialogue – he wouldn't have been doing that.
And you know what happened the next day? The second youngest guy called me. "Petri, can I also come to you today?" I said: "Yes, of course!" It was 30 minutes with that guy and he made one goal in that Bronze game. Without those four aspects, it would have been impossible that they would have had the courage to do that, to talk to me. If I would have been just "coach" for them, it wouldn't have happened.
Toivanen: So the most important things in your leadership experience are honesty, openness, dialogue, and facing?
Kettunen: Yes, and facing means not just face-to-face. It also says "I want to be close to you and you can come to me" – to make it easy to have these conversations. To show that I have an interest and the other person knows that I have this interest. Then they are ready to come and speak to me. Facing means more to me than face-to-face.
Toivanen: That requires trust. In Scandinavia, we have a trust-based society. This is different from German society, which is a bit more skeptical. Let’s talk about feedback culture. How do you give feedback and what’s the role of that for you?
Kettunen: Feedback is really important. Comparing the experiences I had with Finnish, Suisse, and Czech people, it was different in each case. The Finns are not good at taking feedback – but in sports, they will accept it. That’s fine. The biggest difference between Finns, Suisse, and Czechs was: in Finland, they understood that the feedback had nothing to do with their personality, but with their performance. In Switzerland and in the Czech Republic, people took it personally more often. It was hard to get them to understand that I wasn't attacking anyone personally, I was just trying to improve their skills or tactical knowledge.
Toivanen: There is this directness and openness, we do mean what we say.
Kettunen: Exactly! This links back to Nordic leadership and equal opportunities. In Finland, if you’re good enough, you have a chance to play on the men’s national team – no matter how young you are. In Czechia and Switzerland, they were more interested in the background or history and less in the performance. However, I’m not interested in the name on the back. I’m interested in the performance today, not the previous ten or 15 years. Leadership generally, in my eyes, if it's performance-based then that’s fair for everyone. You have to give equal opportunities to everyone. That’s true for both business and team sports like floorball. Then you get loyalty.
Toivanen: Loyalty is a word that is not often used. If you read about leadership, there’s little discussion about loyalty.
Kettunen: True. But I feel that it’s absolutely crucial. I always try to build an atmosphere in a team in which everybody feels that they are not loyal to me, but to all of the team. When I see that, I’m happy. Because then they’re playing for themselves, not for the coaches. They are playing for all of us, they are loyal to everyone. And if you can foster this kind of environment in business, it works like a rock… it's a powerful force!
Toivanen: I was just thinking of where I had the most successful team. I didn’t use the word loyalty at the time, but looking back now I can see the loyalty.
Kettunen: Yes, and one more thing about loyalty in my eyes: it doesn’t matter whether I’m the head coach, the manager, or the team leader – the people in my charge also have to feel that I’m loyal to them. It’s not only loyalty from the team to the leader, but also from the leader to the team. It’s both ways. Then it works and you have amazing results in all aspects and scales of life.
Toivanen: Thanks, Petri. It has been a fantastic discussion!
Kettunen: Thank you. Vielen Dank und mach’s gut!
Here and here you can read part I and part II of our interview series with floorball coach Petri Kettunen about teamsport and Nordic Leadership.
