Читать книгу Digital Government Excellence - Siim Sikkut - Страница 87

I tried to bring in the “yes, we can” culture. I wanted people to think that we could achieve all that we wanted to achieve.

Also, I wanted us to have the customer focus. I started to talk about customers, and the team told me that we did not have customers, because we were the Ministry of Finance! It took some hard talks with the team, but then the 2015 Prime Minister Sipilä's government came in and talked the same way. And nobody spoke against it anymore.

It was important to me that everybody in the team would have their opinion, and that everyone could challenge each other for delivery—until you are not arguing against the person, but on the substance. That was something that the team was not used to. They were even a bit afraid of me or thinking that everything the boss said had to be the truth. I told my team that I expected them to challenge me, too. I dislike if people just say “yes” and “yes” and do not really think so. People did pick it up nicely. I even received some emails that started by the line “Since you asked us to challenge you… .”

I also always said that it was important to have fun at work. We started doing the team's own strategy meetings as overnight stays or retreats so that we would also have fun and dance or party a bit. Because people had so much fun after a day of hard working, they were always waiting for the next time.