From understanding business to following in the footsteps of Einari and Pekka - this is how successful leaders take control of the whole

Harri Takala
Jun 9, 2025
4 min read

What do Einari and the "Koneen Ruhtinas" (The Lord of Kone) have in common? For many, these are familiar stories of Finnish business success and the strong personalities behind them. There are likely many commonalities—starting with an enormous amount of work and risk-taking, a strong belief and vision in their organization's capabilities, and, of course, the immense legacy they have left in Finnish industry.

For me, the most striking aspect of the life stories of Pekka Herlin, the long-time chairman of the board of Kone Oyj, and Einari Vidgrén, the founder of the forest machinery company Ponsse Oyj, was their deep understanding of their companies' business operations. Both knew and understood the strengths and weaknesses of their core business and knew how to leverage and improve them.

How well do you know your own business—big picture or chaos?

How well do you know your company's business? The processes and business areas you work with most are probably crystal clear. But what about those whose outputs your processes rely on, or the processes that continue after your area of responsibility?

Due to your role and the many different hats you wear, the whole picture may appear multifaceted. Sometimes you are fully in control, and other times you are just trying to keep up. If your business card title starts with a "C," you might face even greater challenges. Because of your role, you can't know every detail, but that doesn't remove the responsibility to understand the whole and take the right development steps forward.

Business architecture opens a window into complexity

Modeling business architecture and processes is a key part of managing the operational environment. It is also a tool for understanding complex and extensive business operations and defining common practices and methods. Most organizations' businesses are highly multidimensional, full of details, and combinations of work by internal and external actors. When you add the themes of technology and data utilization and the roles of applications in different work and process stages, things get quite complicated.

At the outset, many organizations share the difficulty of getting started and the seemingly endless amount of work required to get a grip on the situation. However, the old wisdom applies here: take it one step at a time.

One step at a time toward understanding—four steps to success

Step 1: Identifying operations and processes

The whole is often modeled by breaking down the work areas of people, units, and functions and identifying the processes related to them. This approach allows focusing on the responsibilities and work of your own unit, covering the actual content of what is being done.

Step 2: Forming and understanding value chains

The second step is to focus on the value chains formed by the processes. These are essentially different internal and external services or main processes. When individual processes are linked in a chain, the significance of your area of responsibility and its connections to others' work become clearer. This is usually also the first point where you really have to think about the whole. Value chains typically consist of processes from multiple functions, and if process modeling is not the organization's clearest content, this is also a comprehensive learning journey.

Step 3: Stakeholders and technology clarify the whole

The third step is identifying the actors and tools involved in the processes. Which stakeholders participate in the process and in what roles? What applications and technical tools are used in process management and related tasks? This phase truly clarifies the organization's understanding of processes and catalyzes development. It is particularly fruitful to examine the whole from the perspective of value chains.

Step 4: Activity chains share tacit knowledge

The fourth step delves into individual processes and clarifies the activity chains related to them, helping to understand how things are actually done in the organization. Modeling activity diagrams of processes is about sharing knowledge. Even if these have not been modeled, someone or some people in the organization know them. Sometimes, however, it may happen that this knowledge walks out the door in the fall, with a new logo in the email signature. At this point, the concept of "knowledge as an asset of the organization" becomes crystal clear.

A leader's responsibility is to see the whole—not just the details

Pekka and Einari did not collect process diagrams and related connection information in their time as you can today, but they still knew the operations well. Today, the requirements and complexity related to processes, especially in highly automated value chains, are significantly more intricate, and AI-related exercises are not making the situation easier.

Future success is built on understanding

The cornerstone of successful management and development is understanding business architecture. If the waters are not yet clear in this regard, it is worth investing in it. The savings and added value will reward you many times over in the future, and in the best case, we will get to read a biography about you after a few chapters.