Developing strategic leader communication at Ensto

Abstract

Developing strategic leader communication at Ensto is the topic of this thesis, and the focus is on communicating about Ensto’s strategy, targets and implementation. When talking about leaders during the thesis, what is meant is a person with a team or subordinates. Leader is the term they use for that kind of work position at Ensto.

In the name of transparency, strategic communication wasn’t the best term for this thesis (it is too broad of a term), but it had already been used during research and was in all the materials. However, it can work as a term when paired with the specific focus on Ensto’s strategy, targets and implementation. The best term to use would have been strategy communication. This problem is explored during the thesis.

Throughout the thesis, the most important thing was to hear the leaders’ opinions. The most important aspect was to find concrete tools and actions that could be utilized to help with development. The topic of this thesis was timely for Ensto – their theme for 2024 is enhancing internal communication.

Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to conduct the research. The leaders at Ensto were sent an anonymous survey that was open for two weeks, and additionally, five interviews were held with leaders that were from Finland, France, India and Estonia. All the leaders remain anonymous. The survey was translated to English and French, and the interviews were held in Finnish and English. Both methods (quantitative and qualitative) were used to obtain as much information as possible, especially in the short time frame that this research was conducted in. In hindsight, two months is too short of a time to conduct this type of research – the thesis was done approximately from mid-September to mid-November.

The research revealed that while improvements have already been made in general, leaders still have needs and wishes for additional measures. These wishes include, for example, increasing materials related to strategic communication (/strategy communication), continuous communication about Ensto’s strategy, clarifying the communication channels, clarifying everyone’s roles and responsibilities, considering cultural differences, and building relationships between leaders.

The final product of this thesis is a guide – or a guidebook, however you wish to call it – for Ensto. The guidebook is meant to be a summarization of research, and more so of the tools and methods for development.